Three Hands In The Fountain

`Still, I expect she goes to Rome sometimes?' `Quite often really.'

Petronius had a finger, up his nose. Titus almost copied him, then fell shy of it. I looked up, and addressed Petronius: `Listen, our, Gaius look around and see if you can find me – a little stone or a bit of chipped tile from somewhere

Why do I always have to go?'

`You're the fetcher, that's why.'

Petro managed to look as if he had, no idea what I wanted,, wandering off aimlessly while I kept Titus trapped in tedious chat.

'Bit of a trip for your mistress, Rome? I don't mean to be rude, but she doesn't look in her prime.' To the lad she must have. seemed a real antique. -`Still, she, obviously has the

money to be comfortable. Now you and I, if we went, we'd be banging about on some old cart – but a lady now -'

`She goes in her own carriage.',

`Some charioteer takes her?'

'Damon.'

`That's a nice Greek name.'

`He drives her up and brings her back again. She stays with her sister; they make a family party up at festivals. It's regular.'

`That's nice.'

`Wonderful!' he chortled; obviously his idea of entertainment involved far more thrills than two sixty-year-old women were expected to devise. He was about fourteen, and yearning to make a disgrace of himself. `They go to the Games and natter all through it, and never have any idea who won the fights or the races. They just want to see who else is there in the audience.'

`Still -'I was poking at the jets with my wire. `The ladies like to go shopping. Plenty of that in Rome.'

`Oh, she brings stuff back. The coach is always full of it.'

`This Damon who does the driving, he has a nice job. I bet you'd like to take over from him.'

`No chance, mate! Damon would never let anybody else do that.'

`Keen is he?'

`He lives with the cook. He grabs every chance to get away from her.'

Petronius came strolling back, having apparently forgotten what I sent him for.

In the course of pretending to hack dirt and vegetation off the fountain, 'I had discovered what I was looking for. Aurelia Maesia's villa had a domestic water pipe from the Tibur aqueduct and her fountain was supplied by a secondary pipe, though its water could be cut off with a tap. (This was a rarity since most people want spare water, to sluice out the latrine) I guessed someone had turned off the tap and forgotten they had done so. The tap was the usual big cast bronze affair, with a square loop on top which would be worked by a special removable key.

`Do me a favour, Titus: run and ask whoever keeps it to give us a lend of the key. Then I'll show you something.'

While the lad scampered off, Petro said quietly, `There's a stable containing the carriage. It's a raeda. Damned great four-wheeled effort, covered in bronze flashings. The fellow who must be the driver was lying asleep on a bale: ginger, hair, filthy beard, twisted leg and he's only half my height.'

`Easy to spot.';

`Proverbial.'

'Damon's his name,' I said.

`Sounds like a bloody Greek shepherd.'

`A real Arcadian. I wonder if he owns a dirty; great sheep-shearing knife?'

Young Titus rushed back to us, to say nobody had the key for the tap. I shrugged. In our bag was a length of iron bar I could use, taking care not to bend it. I hate to have to leave an iron bar behind. Apart from the fact you can use them to break heads, what do you do the next time you want to operate some inept householder's tap for them?

The tap was stiff and hard to turn, as I knew it would be. I could feel the water-hammer setting up immediately. It was banging all the way back through the house; that was probably why they had turned off the tap in the first place. A pity, because just as soon as it was turned back on the fountain glugged into life. It was attractive and musical, though not, very level.

`Coo!' said Titus. `That's it then!'

`Give us a chance, boy. `Perfectionist,' Petro told the lad, nodding sagely.

`See, it's all slopping to one side. Give us that stone you found, our Gaius' 'I was wedging the upper tier, so the water flowed more evenly. `Now young Titus, this is our Gaius and me: we use a stone to set you right. Other people poke in a bit of stick, and that's deliberate. Eventually wood rots away, so they have to be called in again. But Gaius and me, when, we mend a fountain, that's the last you ever see of us.''

Titus nodded, easily impressed by trade secrets. He was a bright lad. I could see him thinking he could make use of this expertise himself.

I was packing up our toolbag. `So why's this Damon so fond of going up to Rome then?'

The lad looked round in all directions to make sure he wasn't overheard.

`After the women, isn't he?' replied Titus, showing off with special knowledge of his own.

FIFTY THREE