Shadows in Bronze

LVII

Next morning I took Helena down to Oplontis and left her with Petronius and Silvia while I went back to Herculaneum to collect my things.

'You look disgruntled. I hope I'm not to blame!' Aemilia Fausta gurgled with girlish sarcasm. I had been up all night and the hour's sleep I had snatched while Helena was breakfasting had only made things worse. I had hitched a ride in a dung cart; I had the fly bites to prove it and felt too bilious to face an Aemilia’s luncheon of oozing pickled eggs.

Aemilia Fausta, who wanted the world to know she had been ferried home last night by the great Aufidius Crispus, pretended to apologize for leaving me in the lurch. 'I was unable to find you, Falco, to tell you my plans-'

'I knew your plans; Crispus told me his.' It was not the time for Fausta to indulge in badinage. 'Don't fret,' I growled. 'The place was full of women who were after me… Sailed home in the Isis, eh? I trust nothing scandalous occurred?'

Fausta heatedly denied it (which left the indelible impression something had). I could not imagine that any bachelor alone with her on a pleasure boat could allow himself to overlook the chance.

'Madam, make it your rule in Muse: just do what seems natural, and apologize to the musicians afterwards!'

Luckily at that point the kitchen erupted into one of its fits of clattering so she had to sweep off to play the mistress of the house. She looked like a woman who could shout at a kitchen maid. I scowled after her, thinking about Helena Justina, who looked as though when she saw some stupid girl making a mess of cleaning a cauliflower, she would grasp the knife quietly and demonstrate the way it should be done… Then I thought that perhaps what Aemilius Rufus wanted from Helena was a wife to train his cook.

Loathing Rufus, I extracted my salary from the house steward, then found Fausta again to say goodbye.

'I shall miss my music lessons!' she admonished me gaily. She seized the cithara (which Crispus must have brought back on the yacht too, polite man) and started plectruming away like a Muse who had been given a lecture from Apollo on the need to keep her standards up. I commented on the nerve-racking vitality.

‘Does this mean that Aufidius Crispus made things up?' I still hoped he had attempted to shed Fausta, but my heart sank; his behaviour with women was evidently as fickle as Helena had warned me it often was with horseflesh and might yet be over politics.

Fausta murmured in a prim voice, ‘If Aufidius Crispus was to achieve the supreme honour there would naturally be a place for an Empress at his side…

'Oh naturally,' I rasped. ‘Someone gracious who will not object when he prods dancing girls with his princely staff of office! He won't achieve it – because I for one will be ripped to shreds by the Furies before I let him do it. Aemilia Fausta, if you want an honourable position you could achieve better by marrying someone like Caprenius Marcellus, especially if you presented him with a child -' (This illustrates the low type of client I usually worked for.) I intended to leave Fausta's imagination to judge how the noble role of motherhood might be achieved in view of the Consul's poor health and advanced years, but she looked so complacent I spelt it out vindictively; ‘Get his name on a contract then find yourself a charioteer or bath-house masseur who will help you make an old man very happy – and set yourself up for a long and wealthy widowhood!'

‘You're disgusting!'

‘Just practical.'

Barracking her about Crispus had upset her equilibrium. Uncertainty swept over her again. Her head bowed towards the cithara, that pale hair in its faultless chignon looking like unyielding new lacquer on a hard stone bust. ‘So you're leaving me… My brother tells me you are working for Helena Justina now.

We stared at one another, both remembering the last time Fausta had mentioned her brother and Helena in one breath.

I brought out carefully, 'I think you made a mistake.'

'What was that?'

'Your brother,' I said levelly, 'does not tangle with your friend.' I was sure of it. The magistrate had let Helena leave the banquet with a wave from afar. He was the type who would. But I happened to know that if Helena had a lover she kissed him goodbye.

'Then it must be someone else!' Aemilia Fausta lost none of her spite. 'Perhaps,' she suggested, 'the man you have been hired to protect her against?'

The woman was ridiculous. I refused to waste effort arguing.

By that time, in any case, it had struck me that my new client had gone with me to Oplontis that morning a little too readily; I raced back there without more ado. I was right. Helena Justina had a mind of her own. The minute I had disappeared towards Herculaneum, she had made some excuse to Silvia and set off back to the Villa Marcella by herself.

No doubt about it: she was hoping to see Barnabas.

I found her at the villa on a daybed in the shade, pretending to sleep. I tickled her foot with a flower. She opened her eyes meekly.

'Either do what I say, or I give up the job.'

'I always do what you say, Falco.'

'Do it – and don't tell lies!' I refused to enquire if she had seen the freedman, and she did not volunteer. Anyway, there were too many servants about for a discreet chat. I stretched out under a box hedge. I felt desperately tired. 'I need to sleep. Wake me if you decide to shift from here.'

When I woke up she had gone indoors without telling me. Someone had fastened a flower at a ludicrous angle in the straps of my left boot.

I stomped in and found her.

'Lady, you're impossible!' I dropped the flower in her lap. 'The only thing this commission has to recommend it is I can forget about giving lectures on diatonic scales.'

'You give lectures on everything. Would you rather be in Herculaneum, teaching the harp?'

'No. I'd rather be here protecting you – from yourself, as usual!'

'Oh, stop harassing me, Falco,' she grumbled cheerfully. I grinned at her. This was wonderful: my favourite work.

I sat down a few feet away, where I arranged my expression to appear suitably diffident and was all set to fend off marauders if any were on the prowl that afternoon.

The one advantage being a harp teacher did have was that in order to demonstrate fingering you could position yourself right alongside the young lady who was employing you, and put both arms round her. I would miss that.

Probably.