A dying light in Corduba

LII

'Marcus!'

She was there. Alive. Larger than ever; still pregnant. Whole. Sound.

I fell to my knees beside the chair as she struggled to rise and took her in my arms. 'Oh dear gods…' My breath rasped in huge painful gulps.

Helena was crying. She had been crying before I crashed into the room. Now instead she was calming me, holding my face between her hands, her light rapid kisses on my eyes both soothing and greeting me.

'Optatus said there had been an accident -'

'Oh my darling! It's neither of us.' She laid my hand upon the unborn child, either to comfort me or herself, or to give the baby notice that I was home again. It seemed a formal, archaic gesture. I tickled the child and then kissed her, both with deliberate informality.

'I should bathe. I stink and I'm filthy -'

'And half dead on your feet. I had a feeling – I've ordered hot water to be kept for you. Shall I come and scrape you down?'

'That's more pleasure than I can cope with…' I rose from my kneeling position beside her wicker chair. 'Stay and rest. But you'd better tell me about this accident.'

'Later.'

I drew a finger across her tear-stained cheek. 'No, now.'

Helena said nothing. I knew why she was being stubborn. I had left her. Something terrible had happened, which she had had to cope with on her own, so now I had lost my rights.

We gazed at one another quietly. Helena looked pale, and she had her hair completely loose, which was rare for her. Whatever had happened, part of her unhappiness was because she had been alone here without me. Well, I was home now.

Lindsey Davis

A Dying Light in Corduba

In the dim light of a single oil lamp, Helena's eyes were nearly black. They searched my face for my own news, and for whatever I was feeling towards her. Whenever we had been apart there was this moment of readjustment; the old challenge was reissued, the new peace had to be reaffirmed.

'You can tell me I shouldn't have gone away – but do it after you explain what's been happening.'

She sighed. 'You being here wouldn't have changed anything. There has just been a terrible accident. It's young Rufius,' she told me. Rufius Constans. He was working on an oil press on his grandfather's estate when one of the quernstones slipped and crushed him. He was alone when it must have happened. By the time somebody found him he was dead.'

'Yes, that's a dreadful thing to have happened…' Constans had been young and full of promise; I felt bitterly depressed. Helena was expecting my next reaction. I tipped my head on one side. 'He was alone? Nobody else was with him?'

'No Marcus,' she replied softly. I knew that, trained by me to be sceptical in every situation, they had already spent time wondering, just as I was doing now. 'No; I can see what you are thinking. But there is no possibility of mischief.'

'No special crony lending Constans a hand with the oil press?'

'No. Quinctius Quadratus was out of action; I can vouch for that myself.'

I took her word. I was too tired to concern myself with how she knew.

I held out my hand and now she let herself take it. 'Have you been fighting?' Helena could always spot the damage. 'Just a few knocks. Did you miss me?'

'Badly. Was your trip useful?'

'Yes.'

'That makes it all right then.'

'Does it? I don't think so, love!' Suddenly unable to bear being apart from her, I tightened my grip to pull her up from the chair. 'Come and wield a strigil for me, sweet-heart. I'll never reach my own back tonight.'

We had edged around my guilt and her withdrawal. Helena Justina held herself against me for a moment, her soft cheek pressed to my stubbled one, then she took my arm, ready to walk with me to the bath-house. 'Welcome home,' she whispered, and I knew she meant it now.