Three Hands In The Fountain

`Up I marched, full of self-righteousness for reporting promptly, and my estimate of my worth was disbelieved. I had reckoned my story was foolproof too.'

I sucked my, teeth. I thought him an honest man, for a senator. Besides, after, the business with his treasonous brother, Camillus Verus had to prove his loyalty every time he stepped into the Forum. It was unjust, since-he was that political rarity: a selfless public man. The condition was so rare, nobody believed in it. `That's hard. Do you have any right of appeal?'

`Officially, there's no audit. The Censors can overrule anybody on the spot. Then they impose their own tax calculation.'

Helena's dry sense of humour was inherited from her father. She laughed' and said: 'Vespasian declared he needed four hundred million sesterces to refill the Treasury after Nero's excesses. This is how he intends to do it.' `Squeezing me?'

`You're good-natured and you love Rome.' `What an appalling responsibility.'

'So did you accept the Censors' ruling?' I asked, chuckling slightly.

`Not entirely. The first option was to protest which meant I would have to put in a lot of effort and expense producing receipts and leases for the Censors to laugh at. The second option was to pay up quietly; then they would meet me halfway.'

`A bribe!' cried Helena.

`She is,' confirmed Helena, finding, the energy to kiss her papa as he squashed informally on to our seat. `Then when the flatterers finish, she's good at being sick on them.'

`Sounds like someone I knew once,' the senator mused.

Helena, his eldest child, was his favourite; and unless I had lost my intuitive powers, Julia would be next in line. Beaming, he leaned' across Helena' and clapped me on the arm. He ought to view me as an interloper; instead I was an, ally. I had taken a difficult daughter off his hands, and proved I intended to stick with her. I had no money myself,

Her father looked shocked; anyway, he made a pretence of it. `Helena justina, nobody bribes the Emperor.' `Oh, a compromise,' she snorted angrily.

Feeling cramped with three on the bench, I stood up and went to investigate the garden fountain on a nearby wall: a spluttery drunken Silenus pouring feebly from a wineskin. The poor old god had never been up to much; today his flow was being additionally obstructed by a fig which had dropped from a tree trained to grow against the sunny wall. I fished out the fruit. The gurgle resumed slightly more strongly.

`Thanks.' The senator tended to put up with things that failed to work. I strolled to a fancy border, where last year's pot lilies had been planted out. They were struggling against beetle their leaves bitten and badly stained with rust. They weren't flowering, and would be seriously ailing next season. Lily beetles are bright red and easily outwitted, so I was able to knock some off on to the palm of my hand, then drop them on to the paving where I flattened them under my boot.

Checking the result of my work on the fountain, I told the senator about the dismembered hand. I knew he had paid for private access to one of the aqueducts. `Our supply seems pretty clean,' he said. `It comes from the Aqua Appia.'

`Same as the Aventine fountains,' I warned.

`I know. They receive priority. I pay a huge premium, but the rules are strict for private householders.'

`The water board regulates your quantity?'

`The board gives me an officially approved calix let into the base of a water tower.'

`Can't you bend it a bit and increase the flow?'

`All private access pipes are made from bronze to prevent

their being illegally enlarged – though I believe people do try.'

`How big is your pipe?'

`Only a quinaria.' Just over a digit in diameter. The smallest, but given an uninterrupted flow day and night sufficient for a reasonable household. Camillus had no spare cash. He was the kind of millionaire who seriously needed to economise.

Too small for objects to come floating down, Helena commented.

`Yes, thank goodness. We get a lot of sand, but the thought of receiving body parts is decidedly unpleasant.' He warmed to his theme. 'If there were loose debris in the aqueduct my calix could become blocked inside the water tower. I might not complain immediately; private houses are always the first to be cut off if there's a problem. I suppose that's fair.' Camillus was always tolerant._ `I can't see the water' board admitting that they'd found something unhygienic inside the castellum. I imagine I'm being supplied with sparkling water straight from the Caerulean Spring – but is the stuff from the aqueducts really safe to drink?'

`Stick to wine,' I advised him. Which reminded us to go' indoors to dine.