Shadows in Bronze

IXL

We were eating when Helena came.

We had left Ollia with the children, apart from Tadia who had been badly stung by a jellyfish so we brought her with us, still flushed and miserable (the poor mite had sat on it). Larius stayed with Ollia; I overheard the two of them discussing lyric poetry.

We ate at an open-air winery where they also served seafood. Petronius had inspected the kitchen at Silvia's behest; I won't pretend the proprietors welcoined him, but he had the knack of getting into places wiser men would have left alone, then being treated for ever as a friend of the management.

Helena had seen us and was out of her sedan chair by the time I came up. I heard her instruct the servants to amuse themselves with a flagon and come back for her later. They stared at me, but I had little Tadia half-asleep in my arms so I looked harmless.

'Personal delivery, ladyship?'

'Yes- I'm having a mad burst of energy -' Helena Justina sounded breathless, but that may have been the effort of extracting herself and my mother's new bucket from the sedan chair. 'If I were at home I'd be tackling those jobs everyone avoids, like spring-cleaning the pantry where we keep the fish-pickle jars. In someone else's house it seems impolite to suggest their kitchen amphorae may leak… She was dressed plainly in grey though her eyes were very bright. ‘So I may as well deal with you-'

'Oh thanks! Like a nasty sticky ring on a floor slab, waiting to be scrubbed away?' She smiled. I muttered grittily, 'When you smile you have beautiful eyes!'

She stopped smiling. But she still had beautiful eyes.

I looked away. Out to sea. Round the Bay. Up at Vesuvius – anywhere. I had to look back. Those eyes of hers finally met mine directly.

‘Hello, Marcus,' she said carefully, like someone humouring a down.

And I answered, 'Hello, Helena.' So sensibly she blushed.

When I introduced the Senator's daughter I tried to spare her embarrassment, but she was carrying a bucket and my friends were not the type to miss an eccentricity like that.

‘Brought your own feeding pail, young lady?' Petronius has a typically Aventine line in ribaldry. I caught his eye as he watched his curious wife inspecting Helena.

Arria Silvia had already twitched her whiskers at the prospect that my stately guest might be more than a business acquaintance. 'I'm very fond of Falco's mother!' Silvia stated regally when the bucket was explained (establishing that she and Petro knew me first).

‘Lots of people are,' I breezed. ‘So am I sometimes!' Helena gave Silvia a pale, commiserating smile.

Helena Justina became withdrawn in noisy public places, so she sat down at our table with hardly a word. We had been devouring shellfish; I had once come all across Europe with her ladyship, one Hades of a journey where we had had nothing to do but swap complaints about the food. I knew she liked to eat so I skipped asking and ordered her a crayfish bowl. I gave her my napkin and the way she accepted without comment may have been one of the clues Silvia sniffed out.

'What happened to your ear, Falco?' Helena could be pretty curious too.

'Got too friendly with a jetty.'

Petronius, looking relaxed as he winkled the legs off his prawns, related how I had tried to drown myself; Silvia added a few humorous details of my failure to get afloat today.

Helena frowned 'Why can't you swim?'

'When I ought to have been learning, I had been confined to barracks.'

'Why?'

I preferred to leave this open but Petronius helpfully passed on the tale he had spun Larius, 'We had a tribune who thought Marcus had been playing around with his girl.' 'True?' she grilled, adding scornfully, 'I suppose so!'

'Of course!' Petro gladly confirmed for her.

'Thanks!' I remarked.

Then Petronius Longus, being basically good-natured, swigged the juice from his bowl, stuffed a bread roll in his mouth, poured wine for us, left some money for the meal, gathered up his weary daughter, winked at Helena – and took himself off with his wife.

After this performance I cleaned my bowl slowly while Helena was finishing hers. She had turned up her hair the way I liked, parted in the centre then twisted back above her ears.

'Falco, what are you staring at?' I gave her a look that confessed I was wondering if I dared nuzzle her nearest ear lobe – so she shot one back which said I had better not try.

An uncontrollable grin took possession of my face. Helena's expression informed me that being flirted at by a love-them-and-leave-them gigolo was not her idea of a holiday treat.

I lifted my cup, gently saluting her; she sipped hers. She had taken more water than wine when I first served her, and had drunk very little when Petro refilled her cup. 'Had your ration up at the villa Rustica?' She looked surprised. 'Is your father-in-law a heavy drinker?'

'A glass or two at mealtimes to help him digest. Why?'

'That day I came, the flask he collected would have done duty at a gladiators' victory thrash.'

Helena considered it. 'Perhaps he likes to leave some on the table for the slaves who wait on him?'

'Perhaps!' Neither of us believed it, as both of us knew. Time to talk business, since flirting had been ruled out.

'If you've already been to Nola and back, you've had a busy day. So what's so urgent?'

She flashed a tired, rueful smile. 'Falco, I owe you an apology.'

'I expect I can bear it. What have you done?'

'I told you Aufidius Crispus had never been to the villa – then the infuriating man arrived as soon as you left.'

I gloomily used my thumbnail as a toothpick. 'In a litter with a fancy gold prong on top, and slaves in saffron livery?'

‘You passed him!'

‘Not your fault.' She ought to have known by now that if I was ever annoyed she had only to expose me to that grave, apologetic look. I was not annoyed but she did know, judging by her expression, which was having a tricky effect on me. 'Tell me about it?'

'It appeared to be a sympathy call. I was told, he had come to talk to Marcellus about his son.'

‘Prior arrangement?'

'Looked like it. I think my father-in-law rushed his lunch with me so the men would be able to talk in private when Crispus arrived.' Modest women expect to be excluded from male get-togethers; Helena was openly annoyed.

'They took the flagon,' she acknowledged. 'You never miss much!'

I grinned, enjoying the flattery. I also enjoyed her secret glint as I let her manipulate me – then her swift, sweet, honest laugh when she noticed I knew. 'Don't suppose old Marcellus told you what they discussed?'

‘No. I tried to hide my interest. He passed the visit off with a comment about Crispus making himself agreeable… Ask me why I went to Nola with Marcellus?'

I leant closer with my chin on my hands and requested obediently, 'Helena Justina, why did you go to Nola?'

'To buy you a bucket, Falco – and you've never even looked at it.