Shadows in Bronze

LI

I should never have allowed this. Her father would disapprove of his flower rushing about, and my sort of work is best done alone.

On the other hand, Helena Justina always did seem to find a plausible reason to ignore social conventions, and as we combed through the great reception rooms I certainly saved time having somebody who could identify the man I was looking for. Or not, in fact; because Crispus was never there.

‘Is he a family friend? '

‘No; my father hardly knows him. But Pertinax did. When I was married he came to dinner several times…' Turbot in Caraway, no doubt.

As we went out into the spacious formal gardens which extended beyond the central features of the house, she slipped her hand through my arm. I had seen her like this before. Helena hated crowds. The bigger they were, the more her own sense of isolation grew. That was why she was clinging to me; I was still a menace, but I had a friendly face.

‘Hmm!' I mused, as we stood at the far end of the garden among fine-scented roses, looking back towards the stupendous fluted pillars of the grand saloon. 'This would be nice work if we had time to enjoy it -' I tilted my wreath to a more debonair angle, but Helena answered severely: 'We don't have time!'

She hauled me back indoors and we started to explore the smaller rooms. As we crossed the lofty atrium we passed one of the senators who had dined in the triclinium, already leaving the party with his wife. He nodded goodbye to Helena, with a grim glance at me as if I was just the sort of low-down plebeian rake he would expect to find with a senator's daughter twined around him at a party like this.

‘That's Fabius Nepos,' Helena told me in an undertone, not bothering to untwine her arm just to save an old gent's blood pressure. ‘Very influential in the Senate. He's elderly and traditional; not inclined to speculate-'

‘Looks like we can assume he's one prospective collaborator who is going home early, unimpressed!'

Encouraged, we pressed on into a smaller hall which was decorated with illusionary perspectives of Corinthian columns, theatrical masks, a peacock to please the popular taste, and an elevated Delphian tripod to add a touch of culture for the rut. An extremely serious man with a beard was talking about philosophy. He looked as if he believed himself. The people who were privileged to hear his visionary dissertation looked as if they all thought they would probably believe him too – only nature had denied them the wherewithal to catch his drift.

I did. I thought it was tosh.

When we peeped back into the triclinium, Aemilia Fausta was sitting morosely by herself, plucking at her cithara. We ducked out before she spotted us, giggling together uncharitably. Later we discovered a long corridor set with stone benches for waiting clients, where Fausta's brother and a group of similar well-barbered aristos were standing round with wine cups, watching some of the younger male waiters playing dice on their knees on the floor. Rufus looked surprised to see us, but made no attempt to reclaim Helena so I waved and we sped on.

She seemed in no mood to go sedately back to him. Her spirit was up now. She pushed ahead of me eagerly, sweeping open double doors and rapidly scanning the occupants as if she hardly noticed the ribaldry from the drinkers or the startling combinations of people who had wrapped themselves together for the purposes of pleasure. It was not, as I remarked at the time, the kind of party you would take your Great-aunt Phoebe to.

'I expect an aunt could cope with it,' Helena disagreed. (Thinking about my own Auntie Phoebe, she was probably right.) 'But let's pray your mother never finds out you came!'

'I'll say you brought me -' I grinned suddenly. I had noticed a welcome alteration in her appearance. 'You've washed your hair!'

'A lot of times!' Helena admitted. Then she blushed.

In one colonnade the musicians who had come with the Spanish dancers were now strumming and fluting for their own amusement – about six times as well as they had played for the girls.

Not a good night for fountains. By one in a small tetrastyle atrium we saw the other senator from the triclinium, spread- eagled between two slaves while he was gloriously, obliviously sick.

'I don't know his name,' Helena told me. 'He had a lot to drink. He's the commander of the Misenum fleet -' As he sagged between the slaves we watched for a moment, admiring the fleet commander's total abandonment.

After half an hour of fruitless search we both stopped, frowning with disgust.

'Oh, this is hopeless!'

'Don't give up; I'll find him for you -' The part of me that wanted to snort that I would find him for myself backed down happily before the part that was smitten with honest lust. When Helena Justina was bright-eyed with determination she looked adorable…

'Stop it, Falco!'

'What?'

'Stop looking at me,' she growled through her teeth, 'in that way that makes my toes curl!'

'When I look at you, lady, that's how I have to look!' 'I feel as if you were going to back me into a bush-' 'I can think of better places,' I said. And backed her towards an empty couch.

The annoying bundle wriggled out from under me just as for once I had her in a satisfactory clinch. I landed on the couch in the graceful position the Fates liked to see me in: flat on my face.

'Of course!' she exclaimed. 'He'll have a room! I should have thought of that!'

'What? Have I missed something?'

'Oh, hurry, Falco! Get up and straighten your wreath!'

Two minutes later she had me back in the atrium, where she crisply extracted from the chamberlain directions to his master's dressing room. Three minutes after that we were standing in a bedroom with a dark-red painted ceiling, just off the seafront side of the house.

In the five seconds since we had stepped inside his borrowed boudoir, I had learned two things. Aufidius Crispus was wearing an ensemble which made his ambitions perfectly clear: his dinner robe was deeply dyed with the juice of a thousand Tyrian sea-shells to the luxuriant crushed purple which emperors reckon suits their complexions best. Also, his luck was better than mine: when we came in he had the prettiest after-dinner dancer pinioned on a bed with her rose behind his ear and half her breast in his mouth, while he was banging away at her Spanish tambourine with breathtaking virility.

I turned Helena Justina against my shoulder to shield her from embarrassment.

Then I waited until he had finished. In my business it always pays to be polite.