Aemilia Fausta was a woman of few ideas but when she got one she recognized a treasure she might never possess again and she stuck to it. As she weighed in I felt seriously impressed. Tonight she was trussed up in mauve muslin, with her small white bosoms like two cellar-grown mushrooms arrayed in a greengrocer's trug. A castellated diadem sat rock steady on her pillar of pale hair. Bright spots of colour, some of it real, fired her cheeks. Determination to see Crispus made her as sleek and as wicked as a shark on the scent; the chamberlain was soon thrashing with the breathless desperation of a shipwrecked sailor who had spotted an inky fin.
'What host,' sneered Aemilia Fausta (who was a small woman, fairly bouncing on her heels), 'draws up a steward's dining list which includes himself or his hostess? Lucius Aufidius Crispus would expect you to know: I' announced the noble Fausta with unspeakable gall, 'am his fiancee!'
The only thing that diminished this defiant gambit in my eyes was that for the lady it was simply the truth.
Beaten, the hapless flunkey led us in. I raised a fist to Petro, accepted a coronet from an extremely pretty flower girl, and then as the magistrate's sister whirled ahead I padded along behind, carrying her cithara. A clean-cut master of ceremonies weighed up the situation fast, then settled Fausta with a bowl of Bithynian almonds while he glided off to consult Sir. Surprisingly quickly he slid back. He assured Aemilia Fausta that her place was waiting in the private dining room, the elegant triclinium where Crispus himself would be presiding over the premier guests.
I don't know what I had expected, but the speed and good manners with which his castoff was made welcome provided an early hint that Aufidius Crispus possessed dangerous social expertise.
XLIX
The master of ceremonies started to apologize.
‘Forget it. I'm just her harp teacher; no need to fiddle with your seating plans again-'
He promised to squeeze me in, but I told him when I was ready for any squeezing I would do it myself.
It was almost eating time, but I slipped out through the late-corners to scrutinize the flotilla of fabulous barges which had clustered against the spacious platform on the villa's seaward side. The Isis Africans took only a moment to find; she had been moored aloof from this nautical scrimmage, on her own, slightly out in the Bay. She was lying dark, as if everyone had already disembarked.
It was hardly a function where the host hovered on the doorstep in his best boots, waiting to shake hands; some of the hands he had invited were too clammy to touch. But Crispus must be in the house by now. I re-entered from the terrace to sneak an early look at him if I could.
I walked through the atrium. It was mainly red, painted with a mock colonnade of fluted yellow columns, through which massive double doors appeared, decorated with emblematic figures and set with azure studs, among distant perspectives of fanciful scenery, religious objects and triumphal shields. A connecting room brought me into a peaceful enclosed garden – live plants plus horticultural landscapes on the inner walls. Beyond that lay the grand saloon, which opened through two majestic pillars straight into the main gardens – a wonderful, typically Campanian effect. Most of the couches for visitors of quality had been set up in the saloon, so when I looked in, noise and warmth and the perfume from scores of fresh garlands were spilling out into the summer night. Smaller reception rooms contained table space for the lower sort. None of this was what I wanted. Fighting back through the scrum, by a lucky guess I found the lavish kitchen suite; with, as I expected, the master dining room stationed alongside.
The triclinium at the Villa Poppaea was approached through two pillars where winged centaurs crouched on guard. It was a small room, painted in the ethereal architectural style which characterized the villa, and included a fine mural of a mock courtyard gate with winged sea horses writhing on its architrave below a shrine to some patron god. On the back wall a particularly vivid painting of a bowl of figs caught my eye.
Tonight the room was piquant with fine, scented oils. The standard nine places, in couches of three, lay under graceful swags of embroidered cloth, beneath peacock feathers arcing over tall floral displays; peacocks in full display were also a motif in the decor of the house. I made a few mental notes of these gracious touches, in case I ever gave a dinner party at home.
I had arrived too early; Crispus was not there yet. The place of honour on the central couch still lay unoccupied.
I did see Aemilia Fausta, looking pleased with herself though tense, tearing at grapes on the left-hand couch – not quite the most exalted place. Two senators I failed to recognize were positioned more prominently, on either side of their host's empty place. A couple of women were flashing heavy jewellery, and there were two younger men fashionably arrayed in circular cheesecloth dinner gowns. One was our blond god Rufus, standing at the top of the room, talking to one of the senators. He had dumped the famous floozie on her own at the end of the table, just in front of me.
I knew her the minute I saw her. I gulped in a good eyeful before she turned and realized: long, pale feet, kicking each other fretfully as she was ignored by the magistrate; then a body that was slender and full at the same time, sheathed in some fine silvered cloth which looked as if it would slide wonderfully under a man's hands if he risked taking hold of her. Half a fortune in lapis lazuli beads circled her throat. Dark shining hair, curled at the front, then its heavy mass battened under a round gold net. That neat, deep-blue necklace and the close, golden cap made her look younger and sweeter; compared to the unashamed flamboyance all around, she had a compact, understated elegance. Tonight she was the best-looking woman in Campania, but people in Campania have garish taste and I was probably the only man who knew.
A slave tidied her sandals at the foot of her couch so she twisted round to thank him and saw me. I was lolling in the doorway with Fausta's instrument under my left arm and my right hand in her abandoned almond bowl. Until Helena looked back I had been munching my way methodically through the nuts.
Eyebrows I would have recognized across the width of the Circus Maximus shot up as the magistrate's escort glued her bonny brown eyes on me. I mouthed a silent, admiring whistle. The Senator's golden-capped daughter turned away (supplying an overhead view of a gorgeously haughty shoulder), with what she meant to be an expression of utter disdain.
She ruined the effect by preceding it with a distinctly sultry wink.
There was a flurry which heralded Crispus' approach, then I was hustled out. I shed the harp onto a slave as I went, ordering him to stow it at the back of Fausta's couch. (I had no intention of carting round someone else's cithara all night.) Accepting the situation, I let myself be pushed off to the public rooms. I would have liked to identify Crispus, but good timing is a crucial part of my work. Now, with his favoured guests chomping at the manger, was not the time to draw the big man's attention to my Emperor's communique.
I glanced into the saloon again but the appetizer course was already proceeding formally and although there were one or two free places they were beside men who looked unfriendly or women with fat fingers and false hair. I ducked round a file of waiters shouldering trays of dressed endive, then foraged among the lower orders until I flopped down with relief between Silvia and Petronius.
‘Avoid the mussel dumplings!' Silvia advised, hardly bothering to greet me. ‘Lucius saw them half an hour ago, congealing well.' She shared my mother's views on serving food. And I was not surprised to find she had sent our lad into the kitchen even here. 'The top table are having ostrich but there won't be enough for us-'
‘What's it going to be then, Lucius?' I asked in some hilarity. I did know his name was Lucius, though I only called him that if we were sensationally drunk. 'One of those doss where a clever chef makes a ton of rock salmon look like forty different cuts of meat?'
Petro chuckled, before opening his mouth and dropping in Colymbadian olives; they were superb – huge fruits from Ancona, swum in amphorae Ion and herbs until they became infused with a fragrance you neve
r find in the small, hard, brine-soaked Halmadian sort people normally eat.
Petronius assured me they had caught so many sea bass and lobster for this evening, the water level had sunk two inches in the Bay. Two annoying Campanian revellers were boasting about Baian oysters; we watched in silence, both of us remembering the oysters they dredge up in Britain from the cold, murky channel between Rutupiae and Thanet, and their dusky brothers from the north banks of the Tamesis Estuary… Petro tucked into the dinner wine with a wry face. It seemed fine to me, though I could tell he despised it. He had been tasting local vintages while I was away from Oplontis and enthused educationally about sparkling whites and robust young reds while I tackled the hors-d'oeuvres, feeling jealous of having given up his company.
I was really missing Petro. This morose pang reminded me I had work to do. The sooner I did it, the sooner I could escape from Herculaneum back to my friends.,.
If the hired waiters were hoping to get ready, they hoped wrong. The invitees were planning on a long night. The plebs displayed cautious manners but the senators and knights and their ladies were piling into the viands, all eating twice as much as they would at home since this was free. The noise and the scents of sizzling wine sauces must have blown on the breeze to Pompeii, three miles away. The liquor slaves were skidding on the wet soles of their bare feet as they rushed round with refills, barely bothering to show the charcoal to the hot wine scuttles or measure the spice. There was no doubt Crispus was achieving what he wanted. It was the sort of ghastly communal occasion that everyone would remember later as a wonderful time.
After a couple of hours the Spanish dancing troupe arrived. Those of us around the bottom table redoubled the cheer we were just putting up as our main course dishes hove in sight. The waiters were doing their best, with gristly good temper, but it was a job and a half feeding such a throng, and there were the usual aggravating women who ordered up veal medallions in fennel sauce – without the fennel, please!
I guessed that the entertainers were timed to suit the nobs in the triclinium, who had their own swift fleet of carvers and carriers under supervision of a wily major-domo. Sure enough, when I went to ask the winged centaurs how matters were progressing, a great silver platter with one forlorn cinnamon pear was just coming out after the dessert course as a table tray of finger bowls swept in. I could hear the furious clack of Hispanic castanets, while one of those singers with no voice but a great deal of bravado was expressing anguish loudly in ferocious Spanish style. Through the portals I glimpsed a fiery girl with floor-length blue-black hair and not much in her clothes coffer striking attitudes which demonstrated her nakedness most attractively. I was so busy admiring her formidable fandango I forgot to look out for Crispus. Lackeys staggered past me under cornucopiae of fresh fruits, some so exotic I was unsure what their names were, then the doors slamined, and I was shooed away again.
I rushed back and in an undertone told Petro about the dancer, he whistled enviously at this bonus of my job.
Silvia had organized a main course for me. I managed to cram in a gingered duck wing, a potted salad, and a few mouthfuls of roast pork in plums, then I nipped back to the triclinium hastily. Things had moved on faster than I wanted. The host and most of his private party had dispersed. The two women with the jewellery were talking about their children, ignoring one of the younger men, before whom a different dancer with hypnotic stomach muscles was spiralling majestically.
Judging by the care with which the catering had been ordered, I reckoned my man had emerged now for some heavy social mingling. Making himself agreeable, as Helena Justina called it. Once they had eaten his dinner, people would feel even better about him if they saw him putting himself out to compliment them on their dress sense and enquire after their elder sons' careers. He would be moving round doing good work for himself; Aufidius Crispus was an operator on a determined scale.
I ducked out and started searching through the reception rooms, asking flushed waiters to point out Crispus if he was in sight. A perfume-sprinkler sent me to look for him in an inner peristyle garden, but no luck.
No one was there – except a quiet, solitary woman on a stone seat, looking as if she was waiting for someone. A young woman, in a stint dress and not much jewellery, with fine, dark hair fastened under a round gold net…
It was her own business if she had managed to fix up a treat for herself. I was not about to interfere and spoil her assignation. They only reason I hung around was that a man appeared. He clearly thought she was waiting there for him, and I thought the same. So I stopped, to see who he was.
I didn't know him. But after I had decided that, I stayed there anyway because Helena Justina was giving the impression that neither did she.
L
He emerged from a group of hibiscus bushes as if he had been up to something a well-brought-up young woman would rather not know. He was drunk enough to greet Helena as a marvellous discovery, yet not enough to be deflected by her frosty attitude. I assumed she could handle it; this swaying lecher was no worse a social menace than M. Didius Falco, droolingly affectionate – and a few brisk insults usually handled me.
This garden was decorated in a simple rustic style. I stood tight against a pillar which was painted with dark diagonal stripes; it was dusk now, so neither of them noticed I was there. He said something which I could not catch, but I gathered her reply: 'No; I'm sitting alone because that's how I want to be!'
The man swung nearer, puffing himself up tipsily. Helena ought to have slipped off straight into the crowd but she was obstinate, and perhaps the fellow she really had planned to meet in the garden seemed worth a few risks. He spoke again, and she insisted, 'No. I'd like you to go!'
He laughed. I knew he would.
Then she did get up. The pale, supple cloth of her gown swung from her shoulder brooches, trying to drape itself straight – emphasizing where the lady beneath it was not.
'For heavens' sake!' Her bitter exasperation struck me at once – but he was far too fluthered with drink. 'My head aches,' Helena raged, 'my heart aches; the noise is making me dizzy and the food is making me queasy! I was sitting by myself because there is nobody I want to be with – especially not you!'
She tried to sweep by, but misjudged it. I was already moving when he caught her arm. Drunk or not, he was quick; his other hand was grappling brutally under her gown as I leapt the low wall which connected the rustic columns and covered the ground between us with a roar. Then I seized him by both shoulders and dragged him off.
There was a crack of heads, one of them mine. He was fairly athletic, and his energy surged unexpectedly, so he landed some punches. Root ginger repeated on me faintly, though I was far too angry to feel much else. Once his accuracy started fading I squared him up and demonstrated my disapproval with a series of unrelenting blows in the parts of his body which my trainer had always advised me never to hit. After that I screwed his head under one elbow and hauled him to a sturdy well when I let a torrent from its fountain spew straight into his lungs.
While he was still on the healthy side of drowning, Helena's low voice warned, 'Stop it, Falco; you're killing the man!' So I plunged him under a couple more times then stopped.
I propelled him through the colonnade to a corridor, where I sped him on his way with my party sandal in the small of his back. He sprawled headlong. I waited until I saw him starting to struggle upright, then strode back to Helena.
'Why were you skulking?' she accused by way of thanks. 'Coincidence.'
'Don't spy on me!'
'And don't expect me to let you be attacked!'
She was sitting on the rim of the well, hugging herself defensively. I put out my hand to her cheek but she drew back from another male assault; I flinched myself. After a moment she stopped shaking.
'If you still want to sit in the garden I'll stand guard.' 'Did he hurt you?' she asked, ignoring that.
'Not as much as I hurt him.' She frowned. 'He's upset you; you ought to have compa
ny.' She exclaimed; I bit my lip. 'Sorry; that was crass. I heard what you said-'
Then Helena Justina let out a whisper which sounded like my private name, snatched the hand she had recoiled from, and buried her face in my palm. 'Marcus, Marcus, I just wanted to be somewhere quiet so I could think.'
'What about?'
'Everything I ever do seems to turn out wrong. Everything I ever want becomes impossible…
As I struggled to react to this, she suddenly looked up at me. 'I beg your pardon -' Still gripping my hand so I could not escape, she demanded in her normal purposeful voice as if nothing else had happened, 'How are you getting on with Crispus? Have you talked to him yet?
I confessed I had still not found him. So the noble young lady jumped from her wellhead and decided she had best come and help. I did mention about being sharp, and tough, and good at my job (etcetera). Before I got to the part about how I loathed being supervised, she had hurried me out of the garden and was coming with me whether I wanted her or not.
LI
I should never have allowed this. Her father would disapprove of his flower rushing about, and my sort of work is best done alone.
On the other hand, Helena Justina always did seem to find a plausible reason to ignore social conventions, and as we combed through the great reception rooms I certainly saved time having somebody who could identify the man I was looking for. Or not, in fact; because Crispus was never there.
‘Is he a family friend? '
‘No; my father hardly knows him. But Pertinax did. When I was married he came to dinner several times…' Turbot in Caraway, no doubt.
As we went out into the spacious formal gardens which extended beyond the central features of the house, she slipped her hand through my arm. I had seen her like this before. Helena hated crowds. The bigger they were, the more her own sense of isolation grew. That was why she was clinging to me; I was still a menace, but I had a friendly face.
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