Queen of the Night

the protector of Uncle Polybius, about whose night-time meetings with shadowy figures in the garden she was growing increasingly suspicious.
    Lost in her own thoughts, one hand holding her parasol, the other grasping Murranus', Claudia was startled from her reverie when they reached the Flavian Gate. She glanced up and stared around at the outhouses, barracks and fences, as well as the makeshift market which had grown up there. Guards in half-armour lounged in the shade gambling, whilst their officer, a German clad in tawdry finery, stood surveying the crowd. Claudia wondered idly if the officer was from Burrus' cohort. She knew the real watchers were hidden away. The Ethiopian with his braided hair selling bruised fruit from his wheelbarrow; the scrawny girl offering sulphur matches; the priest of some minor deity clad in dirty saffron robes, chanting over a pot of flame: perhaps they were spies. Or was it the sharp-faced, balding pimp, with three of his ladies, all bewigged, painted and clinking with cheap jewellery, looking for custom, yelling that he had set up an awning in a shady corner just inside the city walls? Any of these could be the 'surveyors' of the Empress Helena, looking for faces, studying those flocking into the city, recalling descriptions and searching for anything untoward.
    The entire crowd fell silent as military horns wailed a fanfare. An execution party came marching out, sixteen men under their decurion, divided into squads of four. Each squad guarded a prisoner, a beam across his shoulder, being dragged out to be crucified at the Palace of Bones. Once these had passed, Claudia and Murranus joined the rest of the crowds as they surged through the gateway on to the thoroughfare, which immediately radiated out into narrow runnels, alleyways and side streets.
    Claudia heaved a sigh of relief, as she always did whenever she returned to this quarter. It might be stinking, noisy and colourful, but this was her home, a safe place where she could recognise people and knew who they really were, a bustling rabbit warren of narrow lanes cluttered with open-air stalls. The traders set up their makeshift shops in the crumbling loggia and peristyles or at the mouths of alleyways, selling everything from pots to cakes. On the walls around them garishly daubed notices proclaimed the price of certain goods and where these could be bought, as well as the names of candidates for the next election to some municipal office. Claudia and Murranus were well known here and were greeted with good-natured teasing and salutations.
    Torquatus the Tonsor, a seller-of-potions-cum-barber-cum-leech, had, as usual, procured the best position under a giant gnarled sycamore tree in the square near the She Asses tavern. Torquatus spent his days shaving people, cutting their hair, listening avidly to their medical ailments and, as he put it, offering his 'best advice', which, he solemnly assured his customers, came from leading imperial physicians. He greeted Claudia and asked if she'd seen the 'Great Miracle' at the She Asses tavern? Claudia stared back in puzzlement. But even before she and Murranus reached the small square fronting the inn, she sensed something was wrong.
    The She Asses was one of the most comfortable taverns in the Suburra. It boasted a restaurant, eating hall, small chambers upstairs and a very well-endowed kitchen, as well as Polybius' 'crowning glory', a graceful, spacious garden to the rear. The tavern occupied most of the ground floor and first storey of an insula or apartment block situated between the Flavian Gate and the crumbling Temple of the Crown of Venus. The windows were covered with stiffened papyrus and wooden shutters. It had two main doors, an outer one and, just behind that, a folding door. Above the entrance was a lovely statue of Minerva holding her pet owl. On either side of the doorway, fixed in niches, stood a grinning Hermes or Mercury, whilst the door-knocker was shaped like a huge phallus. The male clientele regarded this as a token of good luck in matters venereal and always asked their girlfriends to stroke it. Petronius the Pimp had boasted how the obscene object was modelled on his own penis, to which Poppaoe had retorted that she personally knew the carver was a very short-sighted man! A large placard to the right of the door advertised the dish of the day, usually sausages and mushrooms grilled in garlic. Little wonder Uncle Polybius was growing increasingly concerned that