The Silver Pigs

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.