Far away at the water's edge I could hear Petro's three young daughters shrieking with delight as they chased each other fearlessly in and out of the dreadful sea.
'Anyway!' Petronius chaffed Larius. 'How come you're always extricating this fool when disaster strikes?'
Larius blew his nose. He took his time answering but when he did I could tell he was enjoying it.
'I promised his mother I'd look after him,' he said.
XXXVIII
Next day my friends decided I must be taught to swim.
It was probably a bad idea for them to try giving lessons to someone who still went rigid at any possibility of going under with seawater filling his lungs. Still, they all took it seriously so I attempted to co-operate.
It was hopeless. Petronius could hardly hold me up by the back of my tunic as he did with his children, and when Larius tried making water wings from inflated wineskins he just wore himself out blowing them up.
Nobody laughed, however. And nobody condemned me when I climbed back out of the water, walked up the beach, and sat down alone.
I stayed by myself, morosely flipping pebbles at a hermit crab. I skimined them to miss, since I was not in the mood for outright cruelty; the crab found a shell of his own and started to build an extension to his house.
IXL
We were eating when Helena came.
We had left Ollia with the children, apart from Tadia who had been badly stung by a jellyfish so we brought her with us, still flushed and miserable (the poor mite had sat on it). Larius stayed with Ollia; I overheard the two of them discussing lyric poetry.
We ate at an open-air winery where they also served seafood. Petronius had inspected the kitchen at Silvia's behest; I won't pretend the proprietors welcoined him, but he had the knack of getting into places wiser men would have left alone, then being treated for ever as a friend of the management.
Helena had seen us and was out of her sedan chair by the time I came up. I heard her instruct the servants to amuse themselves with a flagon and come back for her later. They stared at me, but I had little Tadia half-asleep in my arms so I looked harmless.
'Personal delivery, ladyship?'
'Yes- I'm having a mad burst of energy -' Helena Justina sounded breathless, but that may have been the effort of extracting herself and my mother's new bucket from the sedan chair. 'If I were at home I'd be tackling those jobs everyone avoids, like spring-cleaning the pantry where we keep the fish-pickle jars. In someone else's house it seems impolite to suggest their kitchen amphorae may leak… She was dressed plainly in grey though her eyes were very bright. ‘So I may as well deal with you-'
'Oh thanks! Like a nasty sticky ring on a floor slab, waiting to be scrubbed away?' She smiled. I muttered grittily, 'When you smile you have beautiful eyes!'
She stopped smiling. But she still had beautiful eyes.
I looked away. Out to sea. Round the Bay. Up at Vesuvius – anywhere. I had to look back. Those eyes of hers finally met mine directly.
‘Hello, Marcus,' she said carefully, like someone humouring a down.
And I answered, 'Hello, Helena.' So sensibly she blushed.
When I introduced the Senator's daughter I tried to spare her embarrassment, but she was carrying a bucket and my friends were not the type to miss an eccentricity like that.
‘Brought your own feeding pail, young lady?' Petronius has a typically Aventine line in ribaldry. I caught his eye as he watched his curious wife inspecting Helena.
Arria Silvia had already twitched her whiskers at the prospect that my stately guest might be more than a business acquaintance. 'I'm very fond of Falco's mother!' Silvia stated regally when the bucket was explained (establishing that she and Petro knew me first).
‘Lots of people are,' I breezed. ‘So am I sometimes!' Helena gave Silvia a pale, commiserating smile.
Helena Justina became withdrawn in noisy public places, so she sat down at our table with hardly a word. We had been devouring shellfish; I had once come all across Europe with her ladyship, one Hades of a journey where we had had nothing to do but swap complaints about the food. I knew she liked to eat so I skipped asking and ordered her a crayfish bowl. I gave her my napkin and the way she accepted without comment may have been one of the clues Silvia sniffed out.
'What happened to your ear, Falco?' Helena could be pretty curious too.
'Got too friendly with a jetty.'
Petronius, looking relaxed as he winkled the legs off his prawns, related how I had tried to drown myself; Silvia added a few humorous details of my failure to get afloat today.
Helena frowned 'Why can't you swim?'
'When I ought to have been learning, I had been confined to barracks.'
'Why?'
I preferred to leave this open but Petronius helpfully passed on the tale he had spun Larius, 'We had a tribune who thought Marcus had been playing around with his girl.' 'True?' she grilled, adding scornfully, 'I suppose so!'
'Of course!' Petro gladly confirmed for her.
'Thanks!' I remarked.
Then Petronius Longus, being basically good-natured, swigged the juice from his bowl, stuffed a bread roll in his mouth, poured wine for us, left some money for the meal, gathered up his weary daughter, winked at Helena – and took himself off with his wife.
After this performance I cleaned my bowl slowly while Helena was finishing hers. She had turned up her hair the way I liked, parted in the centre then twisted back above her ears.
'Falco, what are you staring at?' I gave her a look that confessed I was wondering if I dared nuzzle her nearest ear lobe – so she shot one back which said I had better not try.
An uncontrollable grin took possession of my face. Helena's expression informed me that being flirted at by a love-them-and-leave-them gigolo was not her idea of a holiday treat.
I lifted my cup, gently saluting her; she sipped hers. She had taken more water than wine when I first served her, and had drunk very little when Petro refilled her cup. 'Had your ration up at the villa Rustica?' She looked surprised. 'Is your father-in-law a heavy drinker?'
'A glass or two at mealtimes to help him digest. Why?'
'That day I came, the flask he collected would have done duty at a gladiators' victory thrash.'
Helena considered it. 'Perhaps he likes to leave some on the table for the slaves who wait on him?'
'Perhaps!' Neither of us believed it, as both of us knew. Time to talk business, since flirting had been ruled out.
'If you've already been to Nola and back, you've had a busy day. So what's so urgent?'
She flashed a tired, rueful smile. 'Falco, I owe you an apology.'
'I expect I can bear it. What have you done?'
'I told you Aufidius Crispus had never been to the villa – then the infuriating man arrived as soon as you left.'
I gloomily used my thumbnail as a toothpick. 'In a litter with a fancy gold prong on top, and slaves in saffron livery?'
‘You passed him!'
‘Not your fault.' She ought to have known by now that if I was ever annoyed she had only to expose me to that grave, apologetic look. I was not annoyed but she did know, judging by her expression, which was having a tricky effect on me. 'Tell me about it?'
'It appeared to be a sympathy call. I was told, he had come to talk to Marcellus about his son.'
‘Prior arrangement?'
'Looked like it. I think my father-in-law rushed his lunch with me so the men would be able to talk in private when Crispus arrived.' Modest women expect to be excluded from male get-togethers; Helena was openly annoyed.
'They took the flagon,' she acknowledged. 'You never miss much!'
I grinned, enjoying the flattery. I also enjoyed her secret glint as I let her manipulate me – then her swift, sweet, honest laugh when she noticed I knew. 'Don't suppose old Marcellus told you what they discussed?'
‘No. I tried to hide my interest. He passed the visit off with a comment about Crispus making himself agreea
ble… Ask me why I went to Nola with Marcellus?'
I leant closer with my chin on my hands and requested obediently, 'Helena Justina, why did you go to Nola?'
'To buy you a bucket, Falco – and you've never even looked at it.
XL
It was a highly desirable bucket – a handsome shape, good capacity, the bronze gleaming like sunshine on Lake Volsinii, its rivets secure, and a ring-moulded handle to give a firm grip.
'Superb. How much do I owe?'
'You could pay a lot more, for much less-' She told me and I paid up, pleased with the bargain she had got for me.
'Very few people can buy a good bucket. I told Larius I could rely on you.'
'Talking of him ' She dived under her stole, which she was keeping in the bucket while the evening stayed mild. 'I bought this to help you cheer him up.'
It was a miniature stag, also in bronze, small enough to sit in the palm of my hand and beautifully modelled. I made the right noises, but Helena Justina could spot insincerity at a stadium's length: 'Is something wrong-are you offended?'
'Jealous,' I confessed.
'Fool!' Laughing, she dived in again. 'Your mother asked me to look out for these for you.' Next she gave me a parcel about six inches long, heavy, and wrapped in cloth.
It was a set of spoons. Ten. Bronze. I tried the balance: beautiful. They had pleasing egg-shaped bowls, slightly elongated in the length. The hexagonal handles were straight, then turned down and curved into a rat-tail fixture on the bowl; they had moulded knops by the elbow joints, picked up by a complementary finial…
'Well, my cold gruel should taste a lot better out of these!'
'Wipe them with a cloth when you wash them, so they won't mark – do you like them?'
They were superb. I told her that. Whatever they cost must be more than my mother could possibly afford; I was reaching for my funds again, with a sharp pain in the purse area, when she muttered, 'Those are from me.' It was just like her. No one in the Didius family had ever possessed a full set of matching spoons. I was overcome.
'Helena-'
‘Just enjoy your gruel.'
She was playing with a finger bowl. I lifted her free hand – the left – kissed her palm, then gave back the hand. A bracelet of spindle-shaped blue firence beads shivered on her wrist. Nothing else. No silver ring.
So that was it.
I held my ten spoons tenderly, though I felt like a noblewoman's plaything who had been bought off. I made no attempt to control my face. I should have done. Because as I sat in resentful silence the Senator's daughter turned to look at me. And she immediately realized what I thought about the reason for her gift.
I had made a mistake.
One of those moments. Two seconds, to destroy an entire relationship.
One stupid, wrong expression that shatters your life.
XLI
In the following few minutes I watched more doors close against me than I had ever even noticed were ajar.
'I have two pieces of information, Falco.' Her flat tone confirmed that assisting me had withered to a distasteful public duty. 'First, my father-in-law went to Nola because Aufidius Crispus had invited him as his personal guest at the Nola Games.' She looked as if she had just wasted an hour on a manicure for an important dinner party, then broken a nail against the doorlatch on her way out. 'Crispus was the host all round; he paid for the Games.
'A good show?' I asked carefully. It was not the first time I had insulted a friend – or a woman – but I normally liked to minimize the damage this did to myself.
‘Athletes, chariot races, thirty pairs of gladiators, a bullfight-'
‘So can I expect to find Crispus at Nola?
'No; it was a one-day spectacle.'
‘Ah! Is he very public spirited – or standing as a magistrate?'
‘Neither.'
'But he was courting support?
Teasing information from Helena had never been harder. Luckily the chance of putting me in my place made her slightly more talkative: 'It's obvious, Falco. Campania, at the height of the holiday season. What better opportunity for an ambitious man to approach influential Romans – quite privately? Half the Senate will be here at some time this summer-'
'So Crispus can entertain, coerce, manipulate- all without attracting suspicion! In Rome if he gave public entertainments half the Forum would be taking bets on what he wanted-'
'Exactly.'
‘Yet here he only looks like a great-hearted, gregarious type enjoying his holiday!' This time she merely nodded. ‘Well! That explains why Crispus won't ingratiate himself with the new Emperor, the man is planning regal moves himself. Vespasian may not be the only voter in Rome who does not go along with it-'
'Oh, I wish I believed that -' Overcoming her reticence, Helena Justina beat one hand on the table. 'Why must people have so little faith in the Flavians?'
‘Vespasian and Titus are a credit to Rome. There's no scandal; and that's no fun.'
'Don't be so fatuous!' She rounded on me bitterly. 'The only decent Emperor in our lifetime! But Vespasian will be pushed out of office won't he? Before he has started, before anyone even gives him a chance to show what he can do-'
'Don't despair yet.' By nature Helena was a fighter and an optimist; I dropped my hand over the one she had smacked down. 'This is not like you!'
She broke away restlessly. 'Aufidius Crispus is wickedly powerful. He has far too many well-placed friends. Falco, you must stop him!'
'Helena, I can't even find him!'
'Because you're not trying.'
'Thanks for the flattery!'
'I don't need to boost your confidence; you have a high enough opinion of yourself!'
'Thanks again!'
‘What have you achieved chasing Crispus? You're pottering in the sunshine on this lead-selling lark – you aft, pretending to be an entrepreneur! I suppose you've been showing off to all the women who run wayside wineshops -'
'A man needs some pleasure!'
'Oh shut up, Falco! You must find out what Crispus intends and prevent it-'
'I' I said briefly, but she went storming on.
'If you won't do it for the Emperor, at least think of your own career-'
'That stinks! I'll do it for you.'
Too late I saw her flinch. ‘I'm not your tribune's girlfriend making herself available to the new intake of recruits; Falco, spare me the cheap dialogue!'
'Cool down. I'm doing my best. What you call 'pottering' is a methodical search-'
'Well have you found anything?'
'Aufidius Crispus goes nowhere and sees no one – according to them. There's a conspiracy of silence among the well-heeled seekers of sea air -' I watched her anxiously; women of her rank were well taken care of, yet her eyes had a heaviness which even discreet cosmetic had failed to disguise. Paint can be a cruel friend. I risked seizing her hand again. 'What's bothering you, treasure?' She escaped from me angrily. 'Helena – what's de matter?'
‘Nothing.'
'Oh, cobnuts! Well, what was the other thing you had to say?'
‘Never mind.'
'Nice girls don't quarrel with men who buy them langoustines!'
'There was no need for that!' Her face set, hating me for what she saw as false concern. 'You and your friends had shrimps; I don't expect special treatment-'
'If you did, you wouldn't get to eat with my friends-' ‘I like shrimps-'
‘That's why you like me… Lady, I thought we were talking about the peace of the Empire – tell me your story!'
She took a deep breath and abandoned our spat. 'When Aufidius Crispus left the villa Rustica after seeing Marcellus, I happened to walk through the room where they had been, before it was cleared. The flagon was empty. And on the tray were three wine cups.'
'All used?'
‘All used.'
I considered it. 'Maybe Crispus brought someone with him; his litter was closed-'
'I was on our roof garden when he left; he was alone
.'
Sweet thought: a senator's daughter spying over balustrades and discreetly counting cups! 'Could this mean Barnabas?'
'I doubt it, Falco. My father-in-law never allowed Barnabas the run of his house. While I was married, staying with Marcellus was the only time I enjoyed normal family life; he excluded the freedman and allowed me my proper place – in fact he still does. He might grant Barnabas shelter, but he would never include him at a private meeting with a senator.'
‘Don't discount the possibility,' I warned. 'Could Marcellus be entertaining some secretive house guest?'
She shook her head. 'Helena Justina, I need access to explore the villa Rustica-'
'First find Aufidius Crispus!' she interrupted fiercely. 'Find Crispus – do what Vespasian is paying you for!'
Scowling, I paid up; then we left the restaurant. '
We walked slowly on the road by the shore while we waited for her bearers to reappear. The hard note remained in her voice: ‘Do you want me to introduce you to Aemilius Rufus in Herculaneum?'
‘No thanks.'
‘So you won't go!'
'I'll go if I find I need to.' She exclaimed with annoyance as I tried to rally her. 'Look, let's not fight… Here are your chair men. Come on, fruit-'
'Fruit? That got her, bursting into her rare, sweet, unexpected laugh.
'Did Pertinax have a pet name for you?'
'No.' Her laughter subsided instantly. No comment seemed necessary. Then she turned to me with a deliberate look. 'Will you tell me something? Was it when you were working at my ex-husband's house that you changed your mind about us?'
My face must have answered her.
I remembered the comfortable stylishness of that house on the Quirinal, which I knew had been a wedding gift from Marcellus to Helena and Pertinax. Only the gods could say what other sumptuous luxuries had been showered on the young couple by their relations and friends. Geminus and I must have catalogued some of it. Tortoiseshell bedheads. Mosaic glass serving bowls. Gold filigree plates. Exotic embroidered coverlets Queen Dido might have slept under. Polished maple table tops. Ivory chairs. Lampstands and candelabra. Camphorwood chests… and innumerable perfect sets of spoons.
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