Venus in copper

Chapter XV

The first positive signal about Severina's motives: I felt my toes curling inside my boots, while my heels tried to press themselves through the unyielding tessellations of the mosaic floor. The coarse fibres of my worn woollen tunic prickled against my collarbones. Into this oddly civilised room with its austere occupant, horror had stalked.

Before I could comment, the astrologer took the initiative. 'I presume you are not a superstitious man?'

'The point,' I exclaimed, 'is whether Severina believes this gives her a hold over her fiance!' Rome accepts anyone who takes a keen interest in their own destiny-but to peek at someone else's must be a sign of bad intentions. Indeed, in political life, to acquire an opponent's horoscope is a deeply hostile act. 'Future husband or not, Severina has broken a serious taboo of privacy. Tyche, you could be heading for indictment as an accessory to an unnatural death: if the freedman dies I'd be prepared to cite you for encouraging his murderer-unless you co-operate. What did you tell her?'

'I told her the truth, Falco.'

'Stop fencing! If Novus is supposed to die in the next few weeks, better warn me now -'

'If the man is supposed to die, then he will!'

'Next you'll tell me that we all die -'

'My gifts are passive; I can interpret fate. It is not my role to change it.'

'Ha! Don't you ever try?'

'Do you?' she chipped back.

'I was brought up by a good mother; compassion has a habit of intruding into my working life -'

'You must get very despondent!'

'I should be even more despondent if people with evil intentions were allowed to proceed unchecked -'

'Any force has its opposite,' Tyche assured me. 'Malign influences must be balanced by kindly ones.' Still standing quite motionless, she suddenly gave me a smile of such intensity it was impossible to meet head-on. 'Perhaps you are an agent of the stars?'

'Forget it!' I growled, fighting back a grin. 'No ethereal committee of management owns me; I am an independent spirit.'

'Not quite, I think!' For a moment she seemed to hesitate over whether to laugh. She let the desire pass and stood aside from the doorway.

I prognosticated (privately) that a handsome dark-haired man with intelligent eyes was about to make a brisk exit from her house. 'Tyche, if you refuse to tell me whether Novus is secure, at least say this: will Severina Zotica be executed for her crimes?'

'Oh no. She may never be happy, but she will live long and die in her bed.'

'You told her that?'

The wry look returned to the fortune-teller's face. 'We spoke only of her hopes for happiness.'

'Ah well, I imagine very few people ask you, am I likely to be fed to the lions as a common criminal?

'True!'

'And what did you tell her about her marriage?'

'You will not believe it.'

'Try me.'

'Severina's next husband will outlive her in old age.'

I said that was good news for the husband!

Time to leave. I saluted the seer thoughtfully, with the respect I give anyone who can keep three accountants busy. They never let you get away that easily: 'Would you like a prediction, Falco?'

'Can I prevent it?'

'Someone who loves you may have a higher destiny.'

'Anyone who loves me could do better in life!' As we mentioned Helena I could not prevent the fortune-teller seeing the change in my face. 'The someone in question would not be in love with me now, if she had the sense to opt for a less cranky fate.'

'Your heart knows whether that is true.'

There was no damned reason why I should justify Helena to a postulating, nit-picking, Babylonian mountebank. 'My heart is at her feet,' I snapped. 'I shall not blame her if she gives it a nudge with her toe then kicks it around the floor a bit! But don't underestimate her loyalty! You have seen me, and made a few accurate deductions, but you cannot judge my lady -'

'I can judge anyone,' the woman answered flatly, 'by seeing the person they love.'

Which, like all astrological pronouncements, could mean anything you wanted-or nothing at all.