The Silver Pigs

LXII

The noise of the Triumph was more subdued, but still distracting, when I emerged.

The yard was of course empty, but I decided to look around. I crossed stiffly to the great door, listened, heard nothing, so squeezed discreetly in. I stopped by the door while my eyes grew accustomed to the shimmering cinnamon haze.

They were still here! Helena Justina, the dimmed light of my battered life, looking almost as jaded as I felt, was sitting on a bale; she seemed unharmed, though she had been tied up. The reason her slippery uncle had not yet absconded was immediately apparent; he was helping himself to sack loads of her top-class peppercorns. Pertinax had been his partner, so I suppose Meto reckoned half fell due to him. He glanced up and spotted me.

"Tut, sir! I can't let you rob my client!" I cried.

For one brave instant as Helena looked round what passed between us was no more than lovers' shared reproach, as if her sense of betrayal gnawed as painfully as mine.

"Oh gods, Falco," she uttered miserably. "Don't you ever give up?"

My legs were shaking and my fingers sticky with blood. I had one eye fixed on her uncle and he had his fixed on the sword; it lay across a barrel equidistant from us both. You could tell he was middle class; he was so careless with his tools.

"No point lying still in the dark until some villain is ready to slip his blade between my ribs Meto was setting down the basket of peppercorns he had been filling with a scoop. He had seen I had a dagger in my hand. I added gently, "I use the word villain advisedly of course."

Without letting my gaze fall I began to unbuckle my belt. Wrapping the buckle end round my left fist, I let the leather slide through the jet bracelet which I brought into his view.

"You seem curiously nostalgic, sir! Take this, for instance:

Sosia Camillina's piece of jet He stiffened. Then I dropped the quiet question: "Why did you take it? Why did you keep it? Was it triumph over me, or pity for her? A trophy or a genuine memento?" When he made no answer I hurled at him, "Or guilt? Publius Camillus Meto, did you kill your own child?"

Helena gasped.

"Don't be a fool!" Meto exclaimed.

I had shaken him. I had shaken her. Saying it aloud, I had shaken myself.

"Did Pertinax?" I bellowed, to harass him. In fact I knew who had.

"No." His reply was low.

"But you killed him!"

"Don't be ridiculous I saw him begin to resist. "Falco, your own meddling killed my daughter"

It was Helena who interrupted fiercely, suddenly joining me: "Don't blame the buffoon for the whole pantomime!"

"Domitian killed your daughter." Sparkling with malice I weighed in for myself. "You know that very well. You may have been horrified I do believe you were but you could say nothing about it because that would incriminate you. Domitian killed her. His initials are on the inkwell you saw me find in the saffron vault. Domitian killed her; my guess is he was there alone. He acted in haste when he realized she must recognize his famous face. Someone him? you? Atius Pertinax? carried her body from the vault up here, probably not expecting the Aventine watch to appear; the Aventine watch and me " I heard a catch in my own voice.

"Marcus!" Helena exclaimed.

I knew then for absolute certain, he had lied to me. Helena Justina was never in the plot.

My eyes went to her.

Publius had begun to move.

"Who found that bracelet?" It had him mesmerized; his advantage was already thrown away.

"I did, uncle!" He was stopped by Helena herself. "I found it today in your house. Oh Juno, you make me so angry! You think other people are completely insensitive! You kidnapped Sosia; your name was in the letter Uncle Gaius wrote to Vespasian. Today I watched you calmly stand here and let me blame papa papa who has spent twenty dreary years covering up your disgrace! My aunt Aelia Camilla told me the truth your wild youth in Bithynia, that was too wild and went on far too long to be simple exuberance! Your public career in Mauretania that ended so abruptly for reasons that were never explained! Exiled from one province after another, and now from Rome! Political speculation, social scandal, riot, shady business deals, women Sosia! Her mother the wife of a consul-designate, the husband so inconveniently abroad; you would rather the child had been exposed on a midden but as always, father decently stepped in. Father's life has been a misery you even inveigled him into marrying me to a man he disliked so you could persuade Pertinax to help import the silver!" I had heard her rant before, but never with the passion she was demonstrating now. "You think nobody can know"

"Even Sosia knew," I slipped in. "Your name is on the list she gave to me. Condemned to a common informer, Meto by your own child!" I saw no reason to tell him that Sosia scratched his name out.

He looked from Helena Justina to me, then laughed softly as he had never done before. It showed that momentary handsomeness I had noticed before at Sosia's funeral; I could see how when he wanted to bother he must have drawn the women.

"Excellent team!" he applauded us. It was true. That was what we had always been. In this case we had formed a true partnership. We were fighting him together now. "Made for the middle rank," he scoffed. "Not for me. Life with a high moral tone, and so little else! Trapped among third-grade tax collectors, freed Imperial secretaries, the Admiral of the British Channel Fleet! Hard work on a mean salary or struggling in trade. No ceremony abroad, no style or power at home"

If this was his social grievance, it was not one that impressed me. I growled at him, with the full venom of a tired man from an Aventine tenement, "You never lacked; you had comfort and leisure all your life. What do you want?"

"Luxury and influence!" he admitted without flinching.

Helena Justina suddenly stood up. Her voice rang clear.

"Then take the silver. Let it be my gift for my poor beleaguered father. Take it. Go away and never trouble him or any of us again."

It was a brave gamble and I understood now what my clear principled lady had earlier been trying to achieve. Like her father, she was trying to salvage her uncle's reputation, even on his terms. She was swamped in a tangle of family loyalties beside which the petty wrangling of my own relations seemed positively jolly.

"Your conscience-racked father has nothing left for me " Publius began.

It was a decoy. At the same moment, both he and I swung forwards towards the spot where Helena Justina helplessly stood. She knew she was in danger. He saw me anticipate and sprang instead for his sword. I saw him change course and zig zagged after him.