‘Aaah! What is she doing?’
‘She will dance with the snake, Albia.’ Helena murmured faintly. ’All the men will think it very rude, while the women just hope they are not asked to volunteer to go and touch her snake. He is called Jason, by the way. Her name is Thalia.’
‘You know them?’
To prove it, the snake-dancer recognised us. She favoured Helena with a huge, lascivious wink. This was not bad, given that when she did it, our friend Thalia was lying on her back with her legs around her neck, while the snake - who was, in my opinion, not entirely to be trusted - coiled himself three times around the tender parts of her person and stared up her loincloth. Assuming she was wearing one.
I never gamble, since it is of course illegal for a good Roman - but if I had, then from what I knew of Thalia’s racing form, I would have placed a large bet that underwear was absent.
XXII
Due to the late hour, much remained unsaid. After the performance ended, to wild applause, we signed to Thalia that we had to take young Albia home. Thalia waved gaily, mouthing back that she and I would talk soon - a mixed thrill, given my unease at the possibility that this wild woman had shared a ship to Egypt with my father. I could see that they knew each other; the timing of their arrivals might not be coincidence.
Nothing daunted Thalia. She turned up at our house for breakfast, her daywear only slightly less amazing and her manner only marginally less loud. Thank the gods she did not bring the snake.
‘He is tired. But he would love to see you, Falco. You must drop by - we have our tents by the Museion. Thalia was one of the Muses,’ she said educationally to Albia. I filled in for her that Thalia was an extremely successful businesswoman, who traded in animals, snakes and stage people.
‘Isn’t that dangerous?” wondered Albia, owl-eyed.
‘Well, the people can bite.’
‘I am surprised they dare.’
‘Only when invited to, Falco!’
‘Not in front of the children, please . . . Thalia was the Muse of Comedy and rustic poetry,’ I spelled out. ‘The “blooming” one! How appropriate. Thalia, blossom, I can’t believe they let you pitch a circus tent in the Museion complex. The Director’s a pontificating bastard; he’ll go nuts.’
Thalia let out a feral laugh. ‘So you know Philetus!’ She did not elucidate. ‘So - Flavia Albia, was it? - how do you come to be with these dear old friends of mine, my poppet?’ Albia was not yet aware she was being eyed up skilfully as a potential acrobat, actress or musician.
‘Compared with your exotic charms,’ I told Thalia, ’for Albia merely to have been orphaned as a baby during the Boudiccan Rebellion in Britain - as we think she was - seems a tame start. Don’t get ideas. Even in those hot-headed moments when she hates us for not understanding her, my foster-daughter is never going to run away to the circus. Albia has already had enough adventure. She wants to learn secretarial Greek and book-keeping.’
‘I could use a bent accountant,’ Thalia joked back. She must be doing well. ‘You’d have to be versatile and tickle up the python when he’s bored.’
Albia looked interested but I cut in firmly. ’Is Jason still a handful?’
‘Worse than a man, Falco. Talking of being a menace, your father is a right case.’
I breathed carefully. ‘So how did you hook up with Pa?’
Thalia grinned - a wide, rascally grin that she shared with Helena. ‘He heard I was coming out here and fixed a berth on my ship. Of course, your name swung it.’
‘I suppose he paid no fare? Well, you’ll know next time.’
‘Oh Geminus is all right . . .’
Had I not been sure that Thalia had a full-time old flame called Davos, I might have worried. Pa had a past. Even the bits I knew about were lurid. He had always been up for barmaids, but now Flora, his girlfriend of thirty years was dead, he seemed to think he had extra freedom. Yes, my mother was alive. No, they had never divorced. Since she and Pa had not spoken or been in one room together since I was about seven, she did not inhibit him. In fact Ma reckoned she had not counted for much when they lived together either. According to Pa, that was vindictive and unjust. So probably true, then.
‘How is the trusty Davos?’ I asked. He was a traditional actor-manager, with some talent. I had found him congenial.
Thalia shrugged. ‘Touring tragedy in Tarentum. I opted out. I like that play with the bloody axe murders, but you can have too much gloom thrown at you by a chorus of black-robed women. Besides, there are never good parts for my animals.’
‘I thought Davos was a good thing.’
‘Love of my life,’ Thalia assured me. ’I can’t get enough of his thundering virility or the way he picks his teeth. I’ve known him for years, which is cosy and familiar . . . But good things are best kept in a fancy box for festivals. You don’t want them to go stale, do you?’
‘What brings you to Alexandria?’ Helena then asked Thalia, smiling.
‘The future lies in lions. That monstrous new amphitheatre creeping up in Rome. It’s almost up to roof level and they are planning a grand opening.’
‘Plenty of wild beast importers will make fortunes,’ I said, picking up her lion reference. It was a trade I had investigated once. I was working on the Census at the time, so I knew all about the fabulous sums involved. ’But I never saw you as selling meat for slaughter, Thalia.’
‘A girl has to earn a living. It’s a damn good living or I would opt out. I don’t really agree with going to all the trouble of capturing and keeping complicated wild animals if you just want them to die. It’s hard enough to keep them alive in captivity in any case. But I’m no sentimentalist. The money’s too good to ignore.”
‘So now you’re in Egypt, are you travelling south where the beasts live?’ Helena asked.
‘Not me. I like the easy life. Why struggle, when there are men daft enough to hunt them for you? I have special contacts, some of them at the zoo.’
I wondered if ’special contacts’ were as exotic as ‘special dancing’.
‘Not Philadelphion?’ queried Helena.
‘Him? He’s a dry stick.’ From what I knew of Thalia that meant the handsome Zoo Keeper had rejected her advances. ‘No; mostly I come to see Chaereas and Chaeteas. When the dealers are bringing them specimens, they organise extras for me.’
Did Thalia’s specimens appear in the Museion ledgers? ‘I’m looking for fiddles at the Museion.’ I decided Thalia and I were good enough friends to be frank. ‘I won’t land you in it, you know that - but who pays for these extras, if I may ask?’
‘I pay - the going rate!’ snapped Thalia. ‘And it’s damned expensive. The lads just put dealers in contact. And if the dealers come up with some beast I’m not familiar with, Chaereas and Chaeteas advise me how to handle it. There’s no fiddle, Falco.’
‘Sorry; I’m just working on a problem. You know me. A case makes me suspicious of everybody.’
Helena waded in. ’You can help Marcus, Thalia. What do you know-about finances at the Museion? Do they have any money troubles?’
Mollified immediately, Thalia sniffed. She had saved Helena’s life once after a scorpion bite, so they shared a special fondness. ‘The zoo always seems flush. They don’t get privileges, mind you - it may have been different in the pharaohs’ day, when everything belonged to the man on the throne, but now the man on the throne is a tight-arsed tax collector’s son back in Rome. When they buy a new animal, they have to pay the going rate! They moan - but they still get whatever they need.’
I grinned. ‘The same going rate as you pay?’
‘No fear. I have to beat the dealers down, so I can afford to pay Chaereas and Chaeteas for their kind assistance.’
‘So would you say -’ Helena posed the critical question - ‘the way the zoo is run is straight?’
‘Ooh, I should think so, darling! After all, this is the one city in the world that’s stuffed with geometrists who know how to draw a straight line . . . Mind you,’ said Thalia darkly, ‘it a group of us went out for a fish supper, I wouldn’t trust a geometrist to work out the bill.’
At this point Uncle Fulvius appeared with Cassius and Pa. Pa had introduced the others to Thalia last night. She was just the kind of colourful element that Fulvius and Cassius liked. Pa took all the credit for bringing her into their orbit; Helena and I, who had known her for years, were sidelined.
In this gathering of entrepreneurs, I felt an outsider. I picked up my notebooks and after arranging to meet Helena later for a visit to the Serapeion, I went out.
At the Museion I tidied up unfinished business.