Triferus, can't you see they know!" For the first time the financial procurator spoke in a voice stripped of all pretence. "British ingots have been found loose in Rome. Unless we arrest the plotters before they get to you, you can kiss goodbye to much more than your tender for the lead franchise in the Malvern Peaks. Vespasian's in for the duration, whatever you have been told. Save yourself, man, turn in whatever evidence you can to the state it's your only way to survive!"
Triferus took on a complexion like unpainted wall plaster.
He asked to speak to Gaius alone. He gave him two names.
Gaius wrote a letter to the Emperor, which I was to carry, though he refused to tell me what the two names were. I thought he was playing the pointless bureaucrat, though afterwards I understood why.
Gaius and I travelled coast wards to Durnovaria to his favourite villa, for me to ask his honourable niece Helena whether she was ready to travel home and if so, would she wish to be escorted through Europe by such as me. Gaius drove me down.
We tripped a hundred miles at a pace so sedate I longed to wrench the reins out of his hand.
I have to admit I hankered for Helena Justina's nippier driving style.
XXXII
Gaius came with me to his villa because he wanted to prune his vines. They were miserable specimens. He had lived in Britain so long he had forgotten what a vine was really like.
The procurator's villa was a rich farm in a small river valley with views of low green hills. The soft climate seemed well suited to a man with a pain in his ribs. The house was full of books and toys. His wife and children had retreated to Londinium after the Saturnalian holiday, but I could imagine what life was like in summer when they were here. It was a house where I could have languished for a long time, the sort I wanted one day for myself.
Gaius amused himself pottering into Durnovaria to officiate as local magistrate. His objectionable niece was at the villa, but she kept to herself. Had I liked Helena Justina better I might have thought her shy; as I didn't, I called her unsociable instead. Since she had not returned to the comforts of Londinium with Aelia Camilla, she presumably intended going back to Rome now, but plans for her journey remained happily vague.
I was enjoying myself in this hospitable house. By day I read, wrote letters, or limped around the farm. The staff were friendly and being pampered felt quite acceptable. Every evening I talked cheerfully with my host. Even in Britain this was an ideal Roman life. I did not want to find the energy to leave.
One day, when it was raining too dismally for Gaius to drive off and impose fines on Celtic cattle thieves, he approached me. "Rufrius Vitalis asked me to have a word with you. I gather you had arranged to fix him up with a passage to Rome, acting as Helena's baggage master?"
"Let me guess he doesn't want to go?"
"Well, it's partly my fault," Gaius grinned. "I was impressed with him. I've offered him a contract in the lead mine, clearing up the procedural abuses as my official auditor."
"Good choice. He'll do well for you. Besides which," I chortled, "I reckon he and a certain dumpling called Truforna cannot bear to part!"
The procurator smiled in his prim way, avoiding details of other people's personal lives. Then he pointed out that if Vitalis was absenting himself, someone else would have to shepherd Helena…
"Has she spoken to you, Falco?"
"We don't speak. She thinks I'm a rat."
He looked pained. "Oh I'm sure that's not right. Helena Justina appreciates all you have done. She was deeply shocked by your condition when she picked you up at the mines"
"Oh I can live with it!" I was lying on a couch, making good use of a bowl of winter pears which the villa steward had carefully selected for me from the farm store. I took the opportunity to probe. "Your niece seems, let's be polite about it, rather overwrought." Flavius Hilaris gave me a stern glance. I added in a reasonable tone, T'm not trying to gossip. If I do escort her, it will help if I know what the problem is."
That's fair." My new friend Gaius was also a reasonable man. "Well! When she came out to stay with us after her divorce, she seemed subdued and confused. I suspect she still is only she hides it better now."
"Can you tell me what went wrong?"
"Only hearsay. As far as I know, the couple were never close. Her uncle, my wife's brother Publius, had known the young man; it was Publius who proposed the match to her father. At the time Helena described her future husband to my wife in a letter as a senator of standing, without indecent habits."
"Pretty cool!"
"Quite. Aelia Camilla did not approve of it."
"Still, safer than starting starry-eyed."
"Perhaps. Anyway, Helena never expected a passionate meeting of minds, but eventually she found that for her a high position and good manners were not enough. She did confide in me recently. She would rather he had picked his nose and goosed the kitchen girls then at least talked to her!"
We both laughed at this, though sympathetically. If I had liked women with a sense of humour, a wench who could say that might have appealed to me.
"Have I got it wrong then, Gaius, did he divorce her?"
"No. Once she found they were incompatible, Helena Justina wrote the notice of divorce herself."
"Ah! She does not believe in pretence!"
"No. But she's sensitive so you've seen the results!"
By now it was obvious the procurator's conscience was prickling him for speaking so freely. So, I let the subject drop.
The next time Gaius was going into town I tagged along. I took the opportunity to acquire twenty assorted pewter beakers, local products made from an alloy of tin and lead.
"Souvenirs for my nephews and nieces! Plus a few "silver" porridge spoons for the new members of the family my sisters are bound to present to me proudly when I get home."
"The Gauls should hear you coming!" Gaius scoffed. (My twenty beakers were rattling well.)
It was still difficult to think sensibly of going home.
This being Britain, much of the time we were at Durnovaria Helena Justina had had a ferocious cold. While she stayed in her room with her head buried in a jug of steaming pine oil it was easy to forget she was there. When she emerged, and dashed off somewhere in a pony cart, I became curious. She was out all day. She could hardly have gone shopping -I knew from my own attempts there was nothing much to buy. When my friend the steward brought me some leeks in wine sauce to tempt my appetite (which was heartily improved, and I come from a market-gardening family so I love leeks), I asked where their young lady had gone. He didn't know, but chaffed me about my well-known reluctance to travel with her.
"She can't be as fearsome as all that!" he remonstrated.
The honourable Helena Justina," I stated callously, spooning away at the leeks like a true market gardener's grandson, "would make Medusa's snakes look as harmless as a pot of fishing worms!"
At that moment, Helena Justina whipped into the room.
She ignored me. That was normal. She looked deeply upset. That was not. I was certain she had heard.
The steward absconded rapidly, which was all I could expect. On my invalid couch, I sank into a nest of tasselled cushions. I waited for the tidal wave to break.
Helena had taken a ladylike chair. Her feet perched on a footstool, her hands lay in her lap. She was wearing a dull grey dress and an expensively tasteful necklace of tubular agate beads in a mixture of red and brown. For a moment she seemed lost in some grave, introspective mood. I noticed something: when she was not crackling at me, the senator's daughter could transform her face. To anyone else she might have appeared a calm, competent, thoughtful young woman, whose good birth made her go pink doing business with men, yet perfectly approachable.
She roused herself.
"Feeling better, Falco?" she demanded derisively. I lay on my couch and looked pale. "What are you writing?" Changing the subject with a cool look, she caught me off guard.
"Nothing."
"Don't be so
childish; I know you write poetry!"
With an exaggerated gesture I laid open my wax tablet. She jumped out of her chair and marched across to look. The tablet was blank. I did not write poetry any more. I felt no obligation to tell her why.
Disconcerted myself, I waded in: "Your uncle tells me you'll be leaving Britain soon?"
"No choice," she clipped tersely. "Uncle Gaius is insisting I take the Imperial post with you."
"Take the post by all means," I remarked.
"Are you saying you won't act for me?"
I smiled slightly. "Lady, you have not asked."
Helena bit her lip.
Ts this because of the mines?"
The face I was wearing belonged in a chain gang but I said, "No. Helena Justina, I am open to offers but don't assume you can dictate which I accept."
"Didius Falco, I assume nothing about you; not any more!" We were sparring, but without our usual relish; her concentration seemed to be painfully distracted. "Given your choice and acceptable pay will you consent to escort me home?"
I had intended to refuse. Helena Justina looked at me steadily, acknowledging that. She had clear, sensible, persuasive eyes in an intriguing shade of brown… I heard myself saying, "Given the choice, of course."
"Oh Falco! Tell me your rates."
"Your father is paying me."
"Let him. I'll pay you myself then if I want to end your contract I will."
Every contract should have an escape clause. I told her my rates.
She was evidently still angry. Ts anything the matter, ladyship?"
"I've been down to the coast," she told me, frowning. Trying to organize our crossing to Gaul."
"I would have done that!"
"Well, it's done." I watched her hesitate. She needed somebody to share some trouble; there was only me. "Done, but not without annoyance. I found a boat. But Falco, there was a ship at the shale yards that I hoped would have taken us the captain refused. The ship belongs to my ex-husband," she forced out. I said nothing. She went on brooding. "Petty!" she remarked. "Petty, unnecessary, bad-mannered, and vile!"
The hysterical edge in her tone had disturbed me. Still, I make it my rule, never to interfere between married couples even when they are not married any more.
When we went to the coast, Flavius Hilaris embraced me on the quay side like a friend.
Of all the men I met on this business I liked him the most. I never told him that. (I know he realized.) But I did tell him, no one but me could have found a case where only the civil servants were straight. We both laughed, as we grimaced with regret.
"Look after our young woman," Gaius commanded me, hugging Helena goodbye. Then to her, "And you look after him!"
I suppose he meant, if I was seasick. Which I was, though needless to say I looked after myself.
XXXIII
We had a long sea crossing, in a boat wallowing under a load of blue-grey British marble, to Gesoriacum in Gaul. Then overland to Durocortorum, where we turned off through Belgium into Germany and down the military corridor on the Rhine.
Use of the Imperial courier service is a dismal privilege. The special messengers on horseback cover fifty miles a day. We classed ourselves as a less urgent despatch and took an official carriage: four wheels on stout axles, high seats, change of mules every dozen miles, and after the double distance food and lodging all charged to the locals thanks to our pass. We were bitterly cold all the way.
We reached a professional understanding; we had to. It was too far to keep quarrelling. I was competent, she could see that; she could behave when she chose. Whenever we stopped she stayed within sight, and if she hardly ever talked to me, neither did she invite trouble from thieves, lechers, or tiresome inn landlords who tried to talk to her. Village idiots and beggars at bridges took one look at the set of her jaw, then slunk away.
All the couriers and drivers thought I slept with her, but I expected that. By her taut expression when she spoke to them I could tell she knew what they thought. She and I avoided the subject. Being viewed as the lover of Helena Justina was something I found difficult to pass off as a joke.
At the big military base of Argentoratum on the Rhine we met Helena's younger brother, who was stationed there. I got on well with him: those of us with ferocious sisters usually find common ground. Young Camillus organized a dinner that was the one bright spot on our appalling trip. Afterwards he took me aside and enquired anxiously whether anyone had thought to pay me for escorting her ladyship. I did admit I was already booking her twice. When he stopped laughing we rolled out to tour the nightlife of the town. He told me in confidence that his sister had had to endure a tragic life. I didn't laugh; he was a lad, he had a kind heart, and anyway the idiot was drunk.
She looked fond of her brother. That was fair enough. What tickled me was his affection for her.
At Lugdunum, where we picked up a boat down the Rhodanus, I narrowly escaped falling in. We had almost missed the boat altogether: it had already pulled in its gangplank and cast off, but the crew hooked the vessel to the river bank for us to leap across if we chose. I lobbed our baggage over the rail, then since none of the river men showed any sign of helping, parked myself with one foot on the deck and one on land to act as a human hand rope while her ladyship pulled herself aboard.
Helena was not a girl to betray doubts. I held out both my hands. While the boat bobbed almost out of reach, she grasped hold bravely and I passed her across. The boatmen lifted up their grappling hooks at once. I was left dangling. As the gap widened I braced myself for the shock of the icy Rhodanus until her ladyship glanced back, saw what was happening, then gripped my arm. For a second I hung spread-eagled; then she tightened her grip, I kicked off from land, and clapped down on the boat deck like a crab.
I was highly embarrassed. Most people would have exchanged a grin. But Helena Justina turned away without a word.
Fourteen hundred miles: long, bruising days, then nights in identical foreign rest houses full of what she rightly thought were quite appalling men. She never complained. Bad weather, spring tides, the couriers a contemptuous bunch, me: not a moan out of her. By Massilia I was mildly impressed.
I was also concerned. She looked tired; her voice sounded colourless. The inn was crammed and by now I knew how much she would hate the crush. I went to her room to collect her at dinnertime in case she felt nervous. She hung back, reluctant, pretending she was not hungry, but my cheery visage managed to lure her out.
"You all right?"
"Yes. Falco, don't fuss."
"Look a bit poorly."
"I'm all right." One of those days. She was human after all.
I tucked a shawl round her; I'd cos set a prickly porcupine if it was paying me twice.
Thank you."
"All part of the service," I said, and took her to dine. I was glad that she came. I did not want to eat alone. It was my birthday. No one knew. I was thirty years old.
We stayed at Massilia at an inn near the port. It was no worse and no better than the rest of Massilia; it was terrible. Too many strangers do a town no good. I was stiff from the road, and worried about my aching ribs. I felt a constant prickle as if we were being watched. I hated the food.
The acoustics in the dining hall were appalling. It was deafening. At one point I was called away by our ship's captain who wanted to make arrangements for embarkation. Quite straightforward: pay in advance, no frills, dawn start, bring your own baggage, find your own way to the docks or miss the boat. Thanks. What a wonderful town!
When I rejoined Helena she was driving off the innkeeper's lurcher who had his muzzle in my bowl. It being southern Gaul, where they know how to make strangers suffer, we were eating fish stew grainy stuff dyed red and full of broken bits of shell. I put my bowl on the floor for the dog. Few punishments match a birthday in Massilia, starving, and with a girl who regards you as if you had a niffy smell.
I persuaded Helena to sit out in the garden. That meant I went too, which was
why I bothered to ask: I wanted some air. It was dusk. We could hear distant sounds of the port, there was running water and a fishpond with plopping frogs. No one else was about. Although it was cold, we sat on a stone bench. We were both tired, both allowing ourselves to relax slightly now Rome was only another sailing trip away.
"This is more peaceful! Feeling better now?"
"Don't fidget me," she complained, so I reproached her with my birthday.
"Bad luck," was all she said.
"Well, Marcus!" I mused. "Celebrating your feast day five hundred miles from home: gritty fish stew, filthy Gallic wine, a pain in your side, a callous client…" As I rambled on amiably, Helena Justina finally smiled at me.
"Stop grumbling. It's your own fault. If I'd known it was your birthday I'd have bought you a tipsy cake. How old now?"
"Thirty. Downhill to the dark boat across the Styx. Probably be sick over the side in Charon's ferry too… So how old are you?" This was daring, but she sounded almost sorry to have missed the tipsy cake.
"Oh… Twenty-three."
I laughed. Time yet to rope in a new husband…" Then I ventured in a casual voice, "My ladies usually like to tell me about their divorces."
"It's your feast day," Helena Justina snorted.
"So treat me… Where did you go wrong?"
"Fornication at the horse barracks!"
"Liar!" I didn't like her, but that had to be untrue. She was strict as a brick. That was probably the reason why I thought I didn't like her. "His fault then. What did he do? Too mean with the opal earrings or too free with the Syrian flute girls?"
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