She just said, "No."
"Beat you?" I risked. By now I was insatiably curious.
"No. If you really need to know," Helena declared, with an effort, "he was not sufficiently interested in anything about me to bother. We were married for four years. We had no children.
Neither of us was unfaithful She paused. Probably knew, you can never be sure. "I enjoyed running my own household but what was it for? So I divorced him."
She was a secretive person; I felt sorry I asked. Usually around this point they cry; not her.
"Want to talk about it? Did you quarrel?"
"Once."
"What about?"
"Oh… Politics."
It was the last thing I expected, yet utterly typical. I burst out laughing. "Look, I'm sorry! But you can't stop there do tell!"
I was glimpsing now what all the matter was. Helena Justina was brave enough not only to have brought her restlessness upon herself, but also to see how badly her present sense of despair affected her soul. Quite possibly the better life she was striving for did not even exist.
I wanted to reach out to squeeze her hand, but she was not that sort of woman. Perhaps that was how her husband had felt about her too.
She decided to tell me. I waited to be startled, for nothing she ever said was conventional. She began to speak, in a cautious tone; I listened gravely. Helena explained what had led to her divorce.
And as she told me, my mind returned in stunned disbelief to the silver pigs.
XXXIV
"In the Year of the Four Emperors," Helena began, "my family father, Uncle Gaius, me supported Vespasian. Uncle Gaius had known him for years. We all admired the man. My husband had no strong views. He was a trader Arabian spices, ivory, Indian porphyry, pearls. One day, some people at our house were talking about Vespasian's second son, Domitian. It was when he tried to involve himself in the German revolt, just before Vespasian came home. They convinced themselves this callow youth would make an ideal Emperor attractive enough to be popular, yet easy for them to manipulate. I was furious! When they left, I tackled my husband She hesitated. I squinted at her sideways, deciding it was best not to interrupt. In the twilight her eyes had become the colour of old honey the last dark scrape that lurks just out of reach of your finger in the bottom corners of the pot so you cannot bear to throw it away.
"Oh, Didius Falco, what can I say? This quarrel was not the end of our marriage, but it made me see the distance between us. He would not admit me to his confidence; I could not support him as I should. Worst of all, he would never even listen to my point of view!" A wild Cretan bull would not have made me declare the man feared she was right.
"On spices and porphyry he must have been well set up," I suggested. "You could have led a quiet life, no interference"
"So I could!" she agreed angrily. Some women would have thought themselves fortunate, taken a lover, taken several, complained to their mothers while they spent their husbands' cash. Reluctantly, I admired her single-mindedness.
"Why did he marry you?"
"Public life a wife was compulsory. And choosing me tied him to Uncle Publius."
"Did your father approve of him?"
"You know families. The undertow of pressure, built up over years. My father has a habit of doing what his brother wants. Anyway, my husband looked a perfectly normal man: overdeveloped sense of self-interest, undernourished sense of fun"
Not a lot a man could say! To calm her I asked a practical question: "I thought senators were not allowed to engage in trade?"
That was why he went into partnership with Uncle Publius. He provided the investment, all the documents were in my uncle's name."
"So your man was rich?"
"His father was. Though they suffered in the Year of the Four Emperors"
"What happened then?"
Ts this an interrogation, Falco?" Quite suddenly she laughed. It was the first time I heard that twist of private amusement, an unexpectedly appealing note that made me inadvertently giggle in return. "Oh well! When Vespasian announced his claim and blockaded the corn supplies at Alexandria to put pressure on the senate to support him, there were difficulties trading east. My husband and my uncle tried to explore new European markets Uncle Publius even visited Britain to investigate tribal exports from the Celts! Uncle Gaius was not altogether pleased," Helena added.
"Why not?"
They don't get on."
"Why not?"
"Different types."
"What does Aelia Camilla think? Did she side with her husband or her brother Publius?"
"Oh, she has a very soft spot for Uncle Publius for the same reasons he irritates Uncle Gaius."
Her ladyship was still amused. She had the kind of laugh I wanted to hear again. I nudged at it: "What's so funny? What reasons?"
"I won't say. Well, don't mock… Years ago when they lived in Bithynia, when my aunt was a child, Uncle Publius taught her to drive his racing chariot!" I could not imagine it. Aelia Camilla had appeared so dignified. "You know Uncle Gaius the nicest kind of man, often adventurous, but he can be rather staid." I had guessed. "Uncle Gaius complains that Aunt Aelia drives too fasti I'm afraid she taught me," Helena confessed.
I leaned back my head and sombrely tutted at the sky. "My good friend your uncle is quite right!"
"Didius Falco, don't be ungrateful. You were so desperately ill I had to hurry you were perfectly safe!"
Out of character, she raised her arm and pretended to box me round the ears. I blocked the movement, casually catching her wrist. Then I stopped.
I turned Helena Justina's hand palm upwards and wrinkled my nose, breathing in the perfume I had noticed. She had a firm wrist, bare of jewellery tonight. Her hands were cold, like mine, but the scent hummed something like cinnamon but much more deeply resonant. Made me think of Parthian kings.
"Now there's an exotic attar!"
"Malabathron," she told me, wriggling, but not much. "From India. An immensely expensive relic of my husband"
"Generous!"
"Waste of money. The fool never noticed it."
"Perhaps," I teased, "he had a cold he couldn't shift."
"For four years?"
We were both laughing. I would have to let her go. No opportunity appearing, I bent my head and enjoyed another sniff.
"Malabathron! Lovely. My favourite! Does it come from the gods?"
"No, it comes from a tree." I could feel her growing anxious, but she was too proud to tell me to let go.
"Four years, so you were a bride at what nineteen?"
"Eighteen. Quite old. Like my husband's cold difficult to shift!"
"Oh I doubt that!" I commented gallantly.
When they favour me with their stories, I always give them my advice. "You should laugh at him more."
"Perhaps I should laugh at myself."
Only a maniac would have tried to kiss her hand. I replaced it like a gentleman in Helena Justina's lap.
Thank you," I said quietly, in a changed voice.
"What's that for?"
"Something you once did."
We sat quietly. I leaned back, stretching my leg and folding one hand over my sorely aching ribs. I wondered what she was like, before the rich fool with the snuffle made Helena so venomous to other people and so wretched with herself.
While I was wondering, the evening star materialized among high rags of racing cloud. The noises from the inn behind us had become more subdued as the clientele told dirty stories in twelve languages during the lull between simple gluttony and drinking themselves sick. Carp in the pond broke surface with a greater urgency. It was a good time for thinking, here at the end of a long journey with nothing to do but wait for our boat. Here in a garden. Here, speaking to a sensible woman with whom a man who took a little trouble could so easily exchange thoughts.
"Mars Ultor, I came so close… I just wish I had managed to find how those ingots are shipped out!"
Fretting aloud. Hardly expecting answe
rs.
"Falco," Helena began carefully. "You know I went to the coast. The day I came back angry"
I chuckled. "A day, like any other day!"
"Listen! There was something I never told you. They were loading shale. Lopsided pantry goods -beakers, bowls, candlesticks, smirking sea lion table legs. It's hideous stuff. Goodness knows who would ever buy it. It needs to be oiled or it crumbles away…"
I squirmed guiltily, remembering the tray I had given to my mother. "Oh lady! Something like that could be their cover. Did you think to ask"
"Of course. Falco, the man with this gimcrack export market is Atius Pertinax."
Pcrtinax! His was the last name I expected to encounter here. Pertinax, trading in poor quality kitchenware! Atius Pertinax: that pointy-nosed aedile who had me arrested when he was looking for Sosia, then beat me up and broke my furniture! I spat out a short word used by slaves in lead mines which I hoped Helena would not understand.
"There's no need to be disgusting," she replied in a still voice.
There's every need, lady! Do you know that twitchy tick?"
Helena Justina the senator's daughter, who constantly caused me such astonishment, recited in a voice which became uncharacteristically subdued, "Didius Falco, you're not very bright. Yes I know him. Of course I know him; I was married to the man."
Too much travelling finally overwhelmed me. I felt squashed and sick.
XXXV
"Now you think it's me."
"What?"
You spend months stalking a problem that constantly escapes. Then cover more ground in half a second than your brain can comprehend.
This was why Decimus had spoken of Pertinax in such a reluctant tone: Pertinax was his misery of a son-in-law. Atius Pertinax! Now I knew. I knew how the silver pigs were carried to Italy, by whom, and how concealed: under a cargo so dull the customs force at Ostia who operate the luxury tax and have perfect artistic taste glanced once inside the hold, groaned at the ghastly shale, then never stooped to search his boat. Poor Helena had innocently tried to arrange our passage on a ship weighed down to the gunnels with silver pigs!
More. At the start of all this Atius Pertinax, as aedile in the Capena Gate Sector, would have been the snoop in the praetor's office who heard where his praetor's friend Decimus had hidden the lost ingot in the Forum probably he arranged to have Sosia Camillina snatched from home. After I spoiled that, he nosed out that she was with me, told her father, then used Publius as an excuse to arrest me for stalking in too close. All this in high panic, because the ingot lost in the street might have pointed to him.
Helena was his wife.
"Your first thought," she insisted, "will be that this implicates me."
She was not his wife now.
"You're too straight." My second thought always the best.
She goaded me on.
"Now can your dull brain tease it out? The two names Triferus gave to Uncle Gaius must be my husband Pertinax, and Domitian, Vespasian's son."
"Yes," I said. I felt about as useless as she always implied. It must be because Pertinax had been her husband that Gaius had refused to tell us whose names they were.
There was a long pause. Somewhat stiffly I asked, Tell me, lady, how long ago did you work this out?"
For a moment she remained silent. "When the captain of my husband's ship refused to carry us. Gnaeus and I had parted kindly. It was such a spiteful act." So she still called him Gnaeus!
The captain of your ex-husband's ship must have felt quite dismayed when you asked! How close," I demanded as another aspect struck me, "is your ex-husband to your Uncle Publius?"
"Uncle Publius cannot know about this."
"Sure?"
"Not possibly!"
"Any views on Vespasian?"
"Uncle Publius supports him of course. He's a businessman; he wants stability. Vespasian stands for a well-run state: high taxation also high profits in trade."
"Your uncle provides wonderful camouflage for Pertinax in more than one way."
"Oh Juno, my poor uncle!"
"Is he? Tell me, what line did Publius take in the discussion about Domitian Caesar that made you quarrel with Pertinax?"
"None. He wasn't there. He only came to our house for family events. Stop hounding my uncle!"
"I have to."
"Falco! Why? For heaven's sake, Falco, he's Sosia's papa!"
That's why. It would be too easy for me to ignore him"
"Didius Falco, your one certainty must be that none of her relations her father least of all can be part of anything that let that child be harmed!"
"What about your own father?"
"Oh really, Falco!"
"Pertinax was his son-in-law; a close tie."
"My father seriously disliked him after I was divorced." It fitted what I had seen. Decimus had been clearly annoyed when I mentioned Pertinax.
I asked her who was party to the Domitian conversation. She listed some names that meant nothing to me.
"You know anything about an alley called Nap Lane?" I sprang the question at her; she looked at me, wide-eyed, as I pressed on. "Sosia Camillina died in a warehouse there. Belongs to an old patrician stick, fading from the world on his country estate – a man called Caprenius Marcellus"
"I know him slightly," Helena interrupted in a steady voice. I have been in his warehouse; Sosia came with me. A dried out, painfully dying old stick who had no son. He adopted an heir. Common enough. A presentable young man with no hopes of his own, who was pleased to be welcomed by Marcellus into his noble house, honour his resplendent ancestors, promise to bury him with devoted respect and in return supervise the substantial Marcellus estates. The Censor's office would have told you if you bothered to ask. My husband's my ex-husband's full legal name is Gnaeus Atius Pertinax Caprenius Marcellus."
"Believe me," I commented blackly, "your ex-husband has several other filthy names!"
It seemed most comfortable not to talk for a while.
"Falco, I suppose you searched the warehouse?"
"You may suppose we did."
"Empty?"
"By the time we searched."
More frogs plopped. Some of them croaked. Some fish plopped. I threw a stone into the little pond and that plopped. Clearing my throat, I croaked.
"It seems to me," the senator's daughter dictated, sounding like her British aunt, "boors in a praetor's office and brats at the Palace cannot organize world events."
"Oh no, a real manager runs this monkey troupe!"
"I don't believe," she said, in a much smaller voice, "Atius Pertinax is capable of murder."
"If you say so."
"I do say so! Be cynical if you must. Perhaps people never really know anybody else. Yet we must try. In your work you must trust your own judgement"
"I trust yours," I admitted simply, since the compliment was true.
"Yet you don't trust me!"
My ribs were causing me severe distress, and my leg hurt.
"I do need your opinion," I said. "I do value it. For her sake Sosia's sake there can be no luxuries in this case. No loyalty, no trust then with any luck, no errors."
I limped to my feet, distancing myself as I spoke that name. It was a long time since I had thought of Sosia so directly; the memory was still unbearable. If I was going to think about Sosia Camillina, I wanted to be alone.
I walked over to the fishpond, huddled in my cloak. Helena remained on the bench. She must have spoken to no more than a grey shape, whose cloak flapped occasionally in the night wind rising off the sea. I heard her call out quietly.
"Before I face my people it would be helpful to know how my cousin died."
Gaius, who must have broken the news to her, would suppress details if he could. Since I respected her, I told her the bare facts.
"Where were you?" Helena asked in a low voice.
"Unconscious in a laundry."
"Was that connected?"
"No."
"Were you her lover
?" she managed to force out. Silence. "Answer me! I'm paying you, Falco!"
Only because I knew her stubbornness, did I eventually answer. "No."
"Did you want to be?"
I remained silent long enough for that to be an answer in itself.
"You had the chance! I know you did… Why not then?"
"Class," I stated. "Age. Experience." After a moment I added, "Stupidity!"
Then she asked me about morals. It seemed to me my morality was self-evident. It was none of her business, but in the end I told her a man should not abuse the eagerness of a young girl who has seen what she wants, and owns the instincts to obtain it, but lacks courage to cope with the inevitable grief afterwards.
"Had she lived, someone else would have brought Sosia disillusion. I did not want it to be me."
The night wind was rising, tugging at my cloak. My heart felt very grey. I needed to stop this.
"I'm going in." I had no intention of leaving my client alone in the dark; by now if there was any justice she knew that. Raucous revelry intruded from the mansio. She was uneasy in public places, and Massilia during drinking time is no place for a lady. No place for anyone; I was starting to feel unhappy out here in the open myself.
I waited, not impatiently.
"Better see you up."
I took her to the door of her room, as I had always done before. Probably she never knew how many offensive types I warned away during our trip. One night in a place where locks had yet to be invented and the clientele were particularly vile, I had slept across her threshold with my knife. Since I never told her, she had no chance to be grateful. I preferred it that way. It was my job. This, even though she was too awkward to have spelled out the contract, was what the precious little lady was paying me for.
She grieved more closely for Sosia then I realized. When, in the shadowed corridor, I turned to say goodnight and finally looked at her, I could see that although in the garden I heard nothing, she had wept.
While I stood, helpless at this unlikely spectacle, she remarked in her usual way, Thank you, Falco."
I assumed my own normal face, a shade too humble to be true. Helena Justina ignored that, as she always did. Just before she turned away she murmured, "Happy birthday!"
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