A dying light in Corduba

XXXI

Helena was asleep. Off guard and helpless, she looked more tired than when she knew I was checking up on her. I told myself some of her present exhaustion reflected my rampant skills as a lover, but her drawn face was starting to worry me.

I should never have let her travel so far. Bringing her to Baetica was stupid. I had no real hope of finishing my task before the baby arrived. The past two days had convinced me of what I should have known from the first: none of the suave local dignitaries was likely to admit what was going on. Exposing the conspiracy would take halfway to for ever – and finding 'Selia', the dancing girl who liked attacking agents, might be impossible.

I had to allot more time to Helena, though I needed to balance this carefully with letting her help in my work; it tired her nowadays more than she wanted to admit. Another man with a different woman might have kept work and home separate. For us there was no choice. Helena became distant and unhappy if I left her out of a problem. If I encouraged her to help me, she tore in wholeheartedly – but was it wise? If not, how could I dissuade her? This was how we had first come to know one another and her interest was unlikely ever to diminish. Besides, now I was used to it I relied on her help.

As if she sensed my thoughts, she awoke. I watched the relaxed expression on her face alter to suspicion that I was up to no good.

'Don't squash the baby,' she murmured, since I was lolling all over her.

I roused myself and prepared to get up. 'I'm taking advantage while I still can. You know Roman children expect to start barging their parents aside from the moment they're born.'

'Oh, it will bully you all right,' Helena laughed. 'You'll spoil this baby so much it will know it can do as it likes with you

…' Behind the banter she was looking concerned. I was probably frowning, thinking yet again that somehow we had to get it born first. Alive.

'Maybe we ought to investigate a midwife in Corduba, fruit. Just in case anything starts happening early -'

'If you will feel happier.' For once she seemed prepared to accept advice. Maybe that was because it was me talking. I liked to think I could handle her – though from the first hour I met her I had realised that with Helena Justina there was no hope of issuing instructions. She was a true Roman matron. Her father had tried to create in her a meek, modest partner to some all-knowing male. But her mother's example of quiet contempt for the opposite species was just as traditional, so Helena had grown up forthright, and doing just as she liked. 'How did you progress with Licinius Rufius?' she asked sweetly.

I started pulling on tunics. 'We were gossiping like foster-brothers until Prancer took to munching his clipped trees.'

'Any results?'

'Oh yes, he cut them down to size 2.' Helena threw a boot at me. 'All right, seriously: Rufius takes the line that hoarding oil and fixing prices would be unnecessary. He says there is plenty for all. Like Annaeus he feigns shock at the suggestion that any upright Corduban businessman would be so greedy as to plot a cartel.'

Helena slid on to the edge of the bed beside me so she too could dress. 'Well, you're used to being considered a crude slanderer of men with crystal consciences – and you're also used to proving them villains in the end.'

'Whether these two have actually joined the conspiracy I wouldn't like to say – but someone has definitely asked them about it. I'm convinced the issue was discussed when they went to Rome.'

'Would Annaeus and Rufius be particularly important in setting up a price ring?' Helena wondered, slowly combing her hair.

While she was trying to wind up a chignon, I tickled her neck. Being a rascal always helped me to think. 'I bet they would. Annaeus is a duovir, for one thing; he carries clout in Corduba. Consider him first: from a great Hispanic family with extraordinary wealth. He could perhaps feel he's above corrupt business ideas. He might even feel too much loyalty to Rome.'

'Or too much to lose!' Helena commented.

'Exactly. But still he's tinged with disgrace that was not of his making; he now belongs to a family of enforced outsiders – and he has his sons to think about. He looks a disaffected rebel in the making. Add to that his huge influence on the local political scene, and if I was recruiting for a cartel, I'd certainly be after him.'

'He may just prefer to opt out,' Helena argued. 'His family have seen what happens to schemers. He may want the quiet life.' I conceded the point as she pouted thoughtfully. 'What about Rufius?'

'Different: a new man. Driven by ambition for his grandchildren,' I said. 'If he joins in, it will be because he wants a short route to power and popularity. If a price ring is set up, it would suit him to be known as the man who started it; other members would more readily support him in pushing his grandson. So I shall have to decide: is he honest or crooked?'

'What do you think?'

'He looks honest.' I grinned at her. 'That probably means he's a complete crook!'

At last Helena managed to lean away from me long enough to skewer her hair with an ivory pin. She lurched upright and went to our bedroom door to let in Nux; I had shut out the dog earlier because she was jealous if we showed each other affection. Nux scampered in and shot under the bed defiantly. Helena and I smiled and sneaked out, leaving Nux behind.

'So what now, Marcus?'

'Lunch.' An informer has to honour the priorities. 'Then I'm going bad to Corduba to see if I can roust out Cyzacus, the bargee. He's not a damned shepherd; he can't have a load of flocks to fumigate. I don't believe his office is really closed up for three days on account of the Parilia.'

I rode in on the horse, slowly. So slowly I started dozing and nearly fell off.

The bargee's office was still closed. 'I failed to find anyone who knew where his private house was. Another afternoon of my precious time was wasted, and I could see there was little point returning here for at least another day.

While I was in Corduba, I seized advantage of Helena's agreement and sought out a midwife. For a stranger in town, this was fraught with difficulties. My sisters back in Rome, who were keen on sensational stories, had already scared me with wild tales of crazy practitioners who tried shaking out babies using physical force on the mother, or their hopeless assistants who tied the poor woman in labour to the top of the bed, then lifted the foot in the air and dropped it suddenly… My eldest sister had once had a dead baby dismembered in the womb; none of the rest of us had ever quite recovered from hearing the details over nuts and mulled wine at our Saturnalia gathering.

I walked to the forum and asked various respectable- looking types for advice, then I double-checked with a priestess at the temple who laughed drily and told me to see somebody quite different. I suspect it was her mother; certainly the dame I eventually visited looked seventy-five. She lived down a lane so narrow a man with decent shoulders could hardly squeeze through it, but her house was tidy and quiet.

I sniffed at her to see if she had been drinking and I squinted at her fingernails to make sure she kept her hands clean. Without actually seeing her in action, that was all I could do; by the time I did test her methods, it would be too late.

She asked me a few questions about Helena, and told me dourly that as she sounded a bonny girl she would probably have a large baby, which of course might be difficult. I hate professionals who cover themselves so obviously. I asked to see the equipment she used, and was readily shown a birthstool, jars of oil and other unguents, and (very quickly) a bagful of instruments. I recognised traction hooks, which I supposed could be used gently to pull out living children; but then there was also a set of metal forceps with two hideous rows of jagged teeth along its jaws, which I guessed from my sister's old story must be for crushing skulls to remove them in pieces when all else had failed and a stillbirth became inevitable. The woman saw me looking sick.

'If a child dies, I save the mother if I can.'

'Let's hope it won't come to that.'

'No; why should it?' she replied calmly. There was a small sharp knife for cutting birth-cords, so maybe the old dame did manage to produce infants intact occasionally.

Somehow I escaped on terms which left us free to send for the midwife if we needed her, though I had omitted to tell the woman where we stayed. Helena could decide.

I was so disturbed I lost my way and left by the wrong city gate. White pigeons fluttered as I passed. Needing to think, I led Prancer along the track outside the town walls which would bring me to the river. The bright day mocked my gloomy mood. Poppies, borage and daisies raised their heads beside the way, while pink oleanders crowded against the ramparts and plunged down towards the river which I eventually reached. I was on the upstream, totally unnavigable side, where the low marshy ground looked as if it never flooded. Meandering streams dawdled among tracts of firmer land which supported wild tangles of undergrowth and even large trees where birds that looked like herons or cranes nested. Other significant winged creatures – maybe falcons, or hoopoes – occasionally swooped fast among the foliage, too far away to identify properly.

Nearer to me midges swarmed, and above them were swallows. Less idyllically, a dead rat lay in a cart rut, complete with its phalanx of flies. Further on I came to a group of public slaves; I won't call them workmen. One was dancing, two took their ease on stools, and four more leaned against the wall while they all waited for the stonecutter to carve the sign that said they had completed a repair today. Not long afterwards I came to the bridge.

The afternoon was a waste of time, and my visit to the midwife had failed to reassure me. Feeling more tense than ever, I rode back to the estate. Evening was falling on the distant Mariana mountains, and I wanted to be with my girl.