One Virgin Too Many Read Online Free Page A

my social equals and a nod from the gods, my future was settled: M. Didius Falco, former private informer, would have three children, no scandals, and a small statue put up in his honor in forty years' time. Suddenly that did not sound much fun.
    Helena Justina was stuck with permanent, boring, respectable mediocrity. As a source of scandal, I had definitely failed her.

III

    SO MY FIRST day back in Rome was trying enough. I spent the evening privately at home with Helena, adjusting to our new status and what it might mean for us.
    Next day I found Maia and broke her terrible news. Things were not improved by the fact that the trip which killed her husband had now brought special rewards for me. Of course I felt guilty. When Maia said I had no reason to reproach myself, I felt even worse.
    I stayed with my sister most of the day. After that harrowing experience, I came home to find I had to deal with the child-client, Gaia Laelia. Then all I wanted was to go in and close the door.
    The world, however, had now heard I was back. Indoors, there were no more clients, and for once neither creditors nor pathetic loan-seekers. Instead, members of my intimate circle were lounging at my plain board table, hoping I would cook for them. One friend; one relative. The friend was Petronius Longus, who might have been welcome had he not been chatting like a crony to the relative I could least tolerate: my father, Geminus.
    "I told them about Famia," said Helena in an undertone. She meant the cleaned-up version.
    We had agreed that only Maia herself was to know the full story. Famia had been sent overseas by the faction of charioteers for whom he had worked as a horse vet, looking for new stock in the Libyan stud farms. The remote locale enabled us to blur the details. Officially, he had been killed in an "accident" with a wild animal.
    It was up to Maia when, if ever, she let it be known that Famia, a loud and bigoted drunk, had raucously insulted the Tripolitanian gods and heroes in the Forum at Lepcis Magna, to the point where hospitality to strangers had faltered and the inhabitants had beaten him up, thrown him before a visiting magistrate, and charged him with blasphemy. The traditional Tripolitanian penalty was to be torn apart by wild beasts.
    The arena in Lepcis was awaiting a series of Games--normal in Africa, where blood sports to assuage the anger of insulted gods are regular even when the harsh Punic gods have not been insulted at all. The locals had a lion ready starved. Famia was dispatched the next day, before I even knew he had landed at Lepcis, before I realized what was happening or could attempt to prevent it. I had scrupulously told Maia the cause and manner of her husband's death, while advising her to protect her children from the full horror at this stage. But the one thing I was not telling even her was that the magistrate who had sanctioned the execution in order to keep the peace in Lepcis had been my Census colleague, the Emperor's senatorial envoy, Rutilius Gallicus. I had been staying in his house at the time. I was sitting alongside him when I found myself watching Famia die. Even without knowing that, Maia had blamed me.
    Petronius and my father both eyed me curiously as if they too somehow suspected I was implicated up to my neck.
    Helena relieved me of the gosling, which she placed in its basket alongside its squeaky sibling. Luckily our apartment was above the shop of a basket weaver, and Ennianus was always eager to sell us a new container. We had not told him I was fostering geese. I was already regarded as a clown in this neighborhood.
    "Where did you rustle the fledglings?" scoffed Pa. "Bit skinny for roasting. By the time they can go in the pot, they'll see you as their mother!"
    I grinned, gamely. Helena must have told him about my new rank and the fine job that came with it. He would waste days thinking up bad jokes.
    Petronius shoved Nux between his boots under the table. Julia was handed to her