Authors: Lindsey Davis
XLVI
Helena Justina rarely wore much jewellery, but all her best pieces were on her tonight. I sensed her anguish even in the dark.
Without moving, she asked me in a low voice, "What shall I do?"
"Whatever he says, I think. He's not very big but he's armed."
I had found a blacker shadow, two yards away on my right. Instinct told me about the blade. I scooped the lass across me to my left. The voice laughed scornfully: Treeing his sword arm if he had a sword! Lady, let's have your loot!"
With a wrench of annoyance, Helena detached her scintillating earrings, a panther-headed bangle from each arm and the tiara from her hair. Holding all these, her fingers fumbled at her necklace catch.
"Let me."
"Lot of practice?" scoffed the thief.
He was right; I had undone necklaces before. I could manage this. There were two loops of wire which I pushed together, then twisted apart; while it was on, the weight of the necklace held them in place. Her neck was soft, and warm from running. I know that because only a fool undoes a lady's necklace without tickling the lady's neck.
"Hercules knot!" I answered suavely, then let the light skein of gold shiver into her hand.
A scrawny paw reached out to take possession, then he snarled at me. "Your ring too!"
I sighed. It was the only legacy other than debt that I had ever received. I tossed him my Great Uncle's signet ring.
"Thanks, Falco!"
"He knows you!" Helena sounded annoyed.
The villain was obviously some Aventine scavenger, but a stranger to me. I chipped back sharply, "Lots of people know me, but not many of them would pinch my Uncle Scare's signet ring!"
Helena tensed as if she hoped I would pull out some hidden weapon, then jump. Vespasian had stopped the Praetorians searching his visitors as a signal of quiet times, but I was not such a maniac as to visit the Palace with a knife up my sleeve; I had nothing to jump with.
Our thief suddenly lost interest. Listening too, I heard why. I caught a whistle I recognized; the scavenger slipped down the entry and vanished with his swag.
A man with a flare tumbled into the alley.
"Who's there?"
"Me Falco!" Someone else joined him hotfoot. Tetro, that you?"
"Falco? We've just flushed out that runt Melitus he get anything off you?"
"Jewellery. Lucky you turned up; I had a sack of gold, too!"
"I'll follow it up. You had a what?"
"Sack of gold."
All the time we were speaking, Petronius Longus had been walking down towards me. Now, in the light of the patrolman's flare, he finally glimpsed a vision of my naiad.
"Falco! Now that's downright perjury1." he exploded. He gripped his trooper's arm, then brought up the brand like a beacon. From then on, his eyes were ignoring me. In the torchlight Helena Justina shimmered, iridescent as an opal; excited eyes, that challenging expression, and the best set of shoulders in the Capena Gate She was the same height as me, so my big, slow friend gave us both four inches. He was dressed entirely in brown, with a wooden baton of office twisted through his belt. He wore leather wrist guards greaves strapped to the knee, and a knotted headband round his all but shaven head. I knew he played with children's kittens when he was at home, but he looked grim. Helena edged closer to me; I took the opportunity to slip my arm around her. He shook his head, still rapt in disbelief. Then, all dimpling innocence, the dimwit had to ask, "I suppose you'll try to tell me, this is your vinegar pot?"
What a vindictive bastard!
Before I could wriggle out of it, Helena broke free of my arm and rapped back in a thin voice: "Oh that's me! He usually says I make Medusa's snakes look like a pot of fishing worms."
I bellowed, Tetronius Longus, for a quiet man you make a lot of unnecessary noise!"
There was nothing I could say to her, so I grumbled at him.
"She's a senator's daughter"
"Where would you get one of those?"
"Won her at dice."
Thundering Jove! Where's the game?" he demanded, lifting her hand in his.
"Oh put her down! Titus and Domitian Caesar have both made their poisoned marks on the poor wench tonight " Bright-eyed with the discovery of a friend in a predicament, Petro smirked defiantly, then kissed my senator's daughter's hand with the exaggerated respect he normally keeps for handing Vestal Virgins along the Ostian Way. I was struggling to stop him: "Mars Ultor, Petro! This is the Camillus girl"
"Oh, I realized that! If it were one of your Libyan dancing girls you'd have her in some boudoir on her back!" He believed that I had deliberately lied to him about her; he was furious.
"Oh I'll grant you the boudoir," I slammed at him through bared teeth though not necessarily on her back!"
Petronius grew flustered. I knew that he would; for him lewd talk was private, between men. He released Helena abruptly so she lifted her chin. She was white as smoked linen. My heart sank.
"Watch captain, advise me please. I want to reach my father's house, can anything be done?"
I'll take her," I interrupted, warning him not to interfere.
At that, quite unexpectedly, Helena flung at me: "No thank you! I've heard your opinion; now I'll tell you mine!" She had lowered her voice but Petro and I both winced. "You went to Hades and back in Britain; you saved my life; you are the only person in Rome who keeps a lamp lit for my cousin. You do all that, yet you remain foul-mouthed, prejudiced, and full of casual derision as lacking in good manners as you are in good nature or good will. Most of the things you blame me for are really not my fault"
"I don't blame you for anything"
"You blame me for everything1." She was wonderful. I could not believe I had ever thought otherwise. (Any man can make a bit of a mistake.) "If there's one thing, Didius Falco, I shall regret to the end of my days it's not letting you fall in the River Rhodanus while I had the chance!"
She had a way with pleasantries that flayed a man's skin.
She was so angry I became helpless, I leaned against the wall behind us, and laughed until I was weak.
Petronius Longus continued to stare in embarrassment over our heads at the wall, but he said drily, "Regret it even more, lady; even in the army Falco never learned to swim!"
She went whiter still.
We heard shouts. Footsteps scuffled. The trooper on guard at the end of the alley called out in a low voice. Petronius moved forward anxiously.
"Petro, help us out of this dead end?"
"Why not?" He shrugged. "Let's shift He stopped. "Ladyship, I can take you"
"Back off, Petro," I interjected sourly. "The princess is with me."
"Trust him, lady," he condescended to say kindly to Helena. "He's wonderful in a crisis!"
"Oh he's wonderful anywhere," Helena Justina capitulated reluctantly. "According to him!"
From a senator's daughter, this startled him as much as it did me.
We all squeezed out of the cul-de-sac into the noisy thoroughfare. His man muttered. We ducked back. Petronius growled back over his shoulder at me, "They're swarming like honeybees in Hybla. If we cause a diversion"
"Steer them away from the river," I agreed quickly.
"Shriek if the lady shoves you in the Tiber, so we can all watch you drown! Lend me this With a swift grin, Petronius unwound Helena Justina from the white mantle that she wore outdoors. He draped it round the smallest of his lads, who pranced out into the traffic followed by appreciative cheers from the rest.
At the Ostian Way crossroad, Petro posted his men on traffic duty. I knew what to expect; everything ground to a standstill within seconds. I glimpsed a raised arm as Helena's mantle flickered white amid the screaming drivers, all standing up on their footboards, hurling abuse at the watch.
In the chaos, we slipped away. To shed its weight while I was looking after Helena, I left the bag of gold for Petronius to take to mother's for me warning him it belonged to ma, so he had better not risk milking the contents for himself. Then I headed back fast on the way we had first come. Soon we were much too far west, but in quieter streets, the river side of the Aventine, near the Probus Bridge. I brought us south past the Atrium of Liberty, stopping by Pollio's Library to catch a hasty drink from a fountain. While I was about it, I washed my filthy shoes and legs. Helena Justina tentatively began to do the same, so I gripped her heels and swabbed her feet like a very brisk banquet slave.
Thank you," she murmured quietly. I gave my grimmest attention to cleaning off her beaded shoes. "Are we safe now?"
"No, lady. We're in Rome, in the dark. If anyone jumps us they will probably knife us out of sheer disappointment that we've nothing left to steal."
"Oh don't fight!" she cajoled me.
I did not reply.
I was trying to decide what to do. I reckoned both our homes might be being watched. Helena Justina had no friends nearby; everyone she knew lived further north. I settled on taking her to stay with my mother.
"Have you realized what this is all about, ladyship?"
She read my thoughts. "The silver pigs are at Nap Lane!" It was the only explanation for her ungracious husband's last-minute legacy. "His name was in our stolen letter; he realized he was now proscribed. He created that codicil in case he was betrayed by his collaborators, to deprive them of funds in revenge but what did he imagine I would do with the ingots if I found them?"
"Return them to the Emperor. You're honest, aren't you?" I asked her in a dry tone.
I tucked her feet into her shoes again and began to walk.
"Falco, why are they chasing us?"
"Domitian overreacting? Titus hinted we were suspicious about your legacy. And he may have listened outside the door before he came whistling in. What's that?"
I caught a chuckle of sound. A bevy of horsemen swirled out of nowhere. A tall-sided garden rubbish cart was grumbling past empty; I dragged Helena aboard, jammed up the backboard, and we lay, petrified, while the horses dashed by.
Perhaps it was coincidence; perhaps not.
Two hours had passed since we left the Palace; the strain was beginning to tell. I peered out, saw a man on horseback, then ducked so hard I banged myself half-unconscious before I realized I had only glimpsed a statue of some ancient general going green about the wreath. Something snapped.
"This cart seems to know where it's going," I muttered. "Let's just keep down!"
It was an arthritic waggon pulled by an asthmatic horse, eratically steered by the oldest gardener in the world; I guessed they would not be going far.
We hid until we came to a stable, then the old man unhitched the horse and pottered off home. He left a guttering taper, despite the risk of fire, so either he was utterly drunk or the horse was afraid of the dark.
We were alone. We were safe. There was only one problem: when we looked outside we were in a public garden. It had eight-foot-high railings and as he left the man had locked the gates.
"I'll cry for my mother," I murmured to Helena. "You climb out and fetch help!"
"If we can't get out, no one else can get in..."
"I am not bedding down with a horse!"
"Oh Falco, where's your sense of adventure?"
"Where's your sense?"
We bedded down with the horse.
XLVII
In the stall next to the horse was some straw which various ticks and fleas had decided was clean. I spread out my toga, framing an apology to Festus, though that glad spark would have found this a huge joke. In less respectable company, I might have giggled myself.
I undipped my belt, threw my sandals aside, hurled myself back on the straw and watched Helena Justina straighten my shoes tidily alongside hers. She distanced herself with her back turned, pulling out her ivory hairpins in despair. She dropped the pins into her shoe while her hair untwined in one loosened tangle down her back. I decided against reaching out for a friendly tug. You have to know a woman very well before you pull her hair.
She sat hugging her knees. Without her mantle she was obviously cold.
"Here our quaint national garment can make a cosy bedspread. Snuggle up and get warm. Hush! Who's to know?" I dragged her back beside me, pinned her with one elbow and rapidly flung the long ends of my toga round us both. "My own theory is, warming up women was what the founding fathers had in mind when they invented this..."
The senator's daughter had landed in my ceremonial cocoon with her head just below my chin. She was too chilled to resist. She shuddered once, then lay stiff as a post in a wattle fence. As soon as she realized she could only escape with a great deal of effort, she fell diplomatically asleep. She does hate fuss.
I lay awake; she could probably hear my brain creaking as I turned over the night's events. I settled into what I now realized was my favourite position for thinking: leaning my cheek against a peaceful woman's head. I had never discovered this before; Libyan dancing girls wriggle far too much.
Dancing girls had actually become a trial to me in several ways. In a manhunt a bare-wasted panicking dancer would be death. They have their place; they give avidly though they take with equal enthusiasm, as my banker could confirm. Associating with dancing girls had cost me more than loss of face tonight. One way and another, I had had my fill of them.
Once Helena Justina was asleep, I gradually relaxed.
She was no great weight, but I could hardly forget she was there. She fitted perfectly into the crook of my arm, and by turning my head I could breathe warm draughts of the scent which lingered in her hair. Fine, clean, shining hair that resisted the curling irons and soon dropped into smoother folds than maids in charge of fashionable women like to see. She was wearing Malabathron again. Her black swine of a husband must have given her a mighty great pot unless of course this girl of strange surprises was saving it for me... (A man can dream.)
I was too exhausted to achieve much by thinking, even when I felt so comfortable. I nuzzled Helena's scented hair, ready to doze off. I may have sighed, in the slow, sombre way of a man who has failed to solve his problem despite half an hour of thought. At the point when I gave up the struggle it seemed perfectly natural to be lying in a bale of straw with my arm around Helena Justina, and since by that time I had settled close enough to manage it, and since she was asleep, it also seemed natural to kiss her very gently on the forehead before I drifted off myself.
She moved slightly.
It struck me she had been awake all the time.
"Sorry!" M Didius Falco was quaintly embarrassed. Thought you were asleep."
I was whispering, though there was no need since the constant shuffling of his fidgety hooves said the damn horse was still wide awake too. Probably half Rome knew what I had done. I heard Helena murmur in her sceptical way, "Is a goodnight kiss on the forehead a service your ladies find on your expenses sheet?"
"All I could reach." I fell back on bluff. "When I land a lady in a garden stable her kiss is complimentary of course."
The senator's daughter lifted her head, leaning up on her elbow as she turned, close above my madly pounding heart. Still holding her lightly, I skulked down into the straw, trying to ignore my fierce consciousness of her body lying against me. She must have felt the tightening of my chest. She looked different with her hair loose. Perhaps she was. I had no way of knowing whether I had stumbled upon some new person, or the woman Helena Justina had always been. But I knew the person she was tonight was someone I liked a great deal.
"And how often does this happen, Falco?"
"Not often enough!"
I glanced up, anticipating hard words, but found her face unexpectedly soft. I smiled ruefully. Then, as my smile began to fade, Helena Justina leaned forwards and kissed me.
I had my free hand tangled in her hair to stop her if she tried to move away, but she did not try. After an aeon of blissful disbelief I remembered to start breathing again.
"Sorry!" she teased gently. She was no more sorry than I was. I tightened my grip to bring her back, but found her already there.
Until then my encounters with women had relied on strategic wine jugs and heavy-handed wit, followed by an elaborate ballet I choreographed to arabesque me and my partner offstage into some convenient bed. The experiences of Didius Falco had been less frequent, and far less interesting, than constant allusion may suggest, but to my credit I did usually manage to supply a bed.
Now, without seriously intending it, I was kissing Helena in the way I had been wanting to kiss her for so long I had no idea when the yearning began. She looked at me quite calmly, so I went on kissing her just as I ought really to have kissed her at Massilia, and every night for a thousand miles before while she kissed me back until I knew this time neither of us thought it was a mistake. I stopped.
"We're embarrassing the horse..." One of the first facts of life a man understands is that you never tell a woman the truth. Yet I told this one the truth; I always had done and I always would. "Helena Justina, I gave up seducing women." I held her face between my two hands, keeping back her hair.
She considered me gravely. "Was that a vow to the gods?"
"No a promise to myself." In case she felt insulted, I kissed her again.
"Why are you telling me?" She did not ask why the promise, which was just as well because I did not really know.
"I want you to believe it."
Very carefully, Helena kissed me. I turned one palm against hers; her cool fingers interlaced with my own. One of her bare feet was making friends with mine as she asked, Ts this a promise you want to keep?"
I shook my head in silence (she was kissing me again).
Various connected circumstances forced me to admit: "I don't think... I can." It was so long since I wanted a woman so intensely, I had almost forgotten the pain of acute physical desire. "Tonight I don't want to anyway...!"
"Marcus Didius Falco, you are not seducing me," smiled Helena Justina, as she solved my moral dilemma with the sweetness I had for so long failed to recognize in her. "I am trying as hard as I can to seduce you!" I had always known she was a forthright girl.
I have no intention of describing what happened next. It is private between me, the senator's daughter, and the gardener's horse.