Time To Depart

XLIV

REPAIRING TO THE dining room enabled me to lighten the mood with tasteful praise for a recent repaint (heavy stuff, black dadoes and perspectives in deep red and gold). They must have been taken in by a contractor who dreamed of decorating Oriental tombs.

The Senator's wife declared coolly that we would dine now, without Justinus. She showed no particular emotion after her conversation with Helena about our coming baby; she must have been prepared for it. So much so that she had taken over the skip orphan as if to accustom herself to playing with a child she would rather avoid. Her sole concern now was to get through the celebration without embarrassment. The noble Julia had the suffering air of a woman who was doing her best even though everyone around her seemed determined to ruin her carefully planned day.

She had a fine sense of decency. I made sure I stepped forwards and handed her kindly to her dining couch. In return, Julia Justa politely insisted that I took the couch next to her. I was assuming the air of a guest who was a very close family friend. One reason I did this was to annoy Aelianus by letting him think he had been superseded in his own home and in front of all the slaves and family freedmen and -women – by his sister's unsuitable lover flagrantly adopting the role of a respected son-in-law.

I managed to maintain the fraud of gravitas right up until I caught Helena's eye. I lost control when she winked at me.

Food and wine always help. Besides, it was Helena's birthday, and we were people who all loved her. (Even her tense brother must have cared for her as much as his own right to a scandal-free public life.

The food was probably better than that normally served in that cash-strapped household. I was particularly taken by the lobster dumplings, which came in the first course along with Colymbadian olives and various pork nuggets. Helena and I managed to put in a fair ration of travellers' tales concerning food, enabling us to sidestep the dubious theatrical aspect of our tour in Syria. The centrepiece of the main course was a small whole boar in nut sauce, a dish which I freely admitted rarely featured in the cook's repertoire at my own house.

`We don't often have it here!' admitted the Senator, helping me to a vintage that I described as `suave'.

`Don't you mean smooth?' Aelianus was still trying to be caustic even when he had the bright blue stains of peas indigo spilt down his tunic. I had already pointed this out, while passing on my tip that worldly diners refuse titbits served in squid's ink.

`No, I mean warm and sophisticated with a cynically dangerous undertone that may trip some of us down stairs before the night's up.:

'Are you a connoisseur, Falco?'

`No, but I drink with one. I know the rhetoric,' I said, warning him off if he meant to indulge in snobbery. `My friend Petronius Longus can convincingly distinguish between Falernian from the hilltops, the middle slopes and the plain. I can't, though I'm always pleased to let him serve me samples as he tries to train my palate. His dream is to get hold of some vinum Oppianum.'

Aelianus was sufficiently tipsy to admit his ignorance: `What's that?'

'It was a legendary year, named after the consul, of course:

Oppianus, the man who killed Gaius Gracchus.'

`Why, that must be nearly two centuries old!' exclaimed the Senator. `If he finds any, try to get me a taste!'

`It may happen. According to Petronius the vintage was so good stocks were hoarded and they occasionally surface.'

`Would it be drinkable?' Helena asked.

`Probably not. A buff like Petro would gulp down the sludge, and get drunk on the mere cachet.'

`Buffs don't gulp,' she laughed, correcting me. `Buffs breathe, savour, mull, then compete at producing flowery descriptions -' `And get very sick.'

The Senator laughed, enjoying our repartee. `Try this, Marcus. It's Guaranumn, only produced in a very small quantity from the ridge above Baia, where the air must be salty, the earth sulphurous, and the grapes encouraged by the happy screams of the girls being seduced by gigolos in the bathing spa.'

`Oh really Decimus!' mouthed Julia Justa, though her goblet was out for a refill. She graciously received her wine from her husband then returned her attention to the skip babe, whose quiet demeanour in public had endeared him to her. She was shaking his rattle, a pottery pig with pebbles inside that Helena had bought from a market stall.

`Oh Mama!' Aelianus shuddered. `He could have come from anywhere.'

Angry, I had to bury my nose in my cup. Luckily the Guaranum was rich and full-bodied, a consoling wine.

`His clothes were fine quality. We think he came from a good home,' Helena countered coldly. `Not that that's important; the child is lost, and something must be done for him.' Her mother, who had known Helena long enough, deftly ignored the implication that something should be done by the Camilli.

`If his home was as good as all that,' Aelianus persisted, `there would be a public outcry from the people he was stolen from.'

`I doubt it!' his mother said abruptly. She moved the rattle, first shaking it to one side, then bringing it in front of the child's face. We watched him react by waving his hands. Helena's mother was an intelligent woman. She had spotted what even mine had missed. The babe did not respond until the rattle actually came into his view. Then Julia Justa told us crisply, `His family may have lost him deliberately. This baby is deaf!'

I dropped my head, covering my eyes. If he was deaf at birth, he would be dumb too. He was damned. People would write him off as an idiot. There was no chance of finding him a civilized home.

`Jupiter, Falco!' Aelianus crowed. `Whatever, are you going to do?'

`Oh do stop sniping!' His mother turned on her couch back to the table. `Marcus will produce an apt, elegant solution. Marcus always does.' It was difficult to tell whether she was reproving her son, or grumbling about me.

I raised my winecup to the lady and watched Helena frowning over the child's sad plight. We were two ticks away from giving him a home ourselves.

I was saved by a distraction. The useless door porter had let a drunk into the house. A tall, shyly attractive young man wandered into the dining room, crashing into a side table on his way: Quintus Camillus Justinus had finally shown up.

Blinking in the lamplight, he bent to kiss his mother, not a good thought. He then tickled the sole of Helena's foot, causing her to kick out wildly. She caught Aelianus a nasty blow on the ear as he sat up to say something insulting. With the intense care of the far from sober, Justinus placed two packages before his sister, then made a sudden lunge and kissed her too. Helena biffed him away.

Impervious to atmosphere, Justinus regained his balance like a tightrope walker, then staggered around the couches and threw himself on the empty one alongside me. I braced myself as he flung an arm across my shoulders. `Marcus! How are you surviving the party?' He was beyond help.

I made soothing noises while Helena sent me urgent signals to feed him. Since it was me he would throw up on, I had an interest in limiting his intake.

`Sorry, I'm a trifle tardy. I've been in the Saepta looking for a gift.'

My heart sank even further. `Where at the Saepta?' I already had glimmerings of why young Justinus was late and drunk tonight.

`Oh you'll know, Falco! I was wandering, then I saw a name I recognised and introduced myself. A wonderful auctioneer,' Justinus told his brother. Aelianus was grinning: the son whose sins still lay undiscovered watching the debauched noisily sink himself. I absorbed the ominous news that it was my not-so-wonderful pa who had been filling up the golden boy.

Helena broke in brightly, `We missed you! Sweetheart, is this my gift?'

'The small one,' Justinus enunciated clearly. `A bijou from your devoted brother.'

`Thank you very much.'

`The large heavy item is sent to you with compliments from my excellent friend Didius Geminus.'

`Is that,' jeered Aelianus, `the man who gave you so much wine?'

`My father,' I snapped. Julia Justa's face had frozen. I pressed on feebly, `Didius Geminus likes his customers in a weak state. I counsel you, Aelianus, against tippling with an auctioneer. As you see, your brother now needs a quiet lie-down – and the gods only know what he's spent!'

`Very reasonable,' Justinus burbled happily. He at least had taken my advice. He was lying down. Unhappily, it was in the sweetmeat display.

We left him there. It seemed kindest.

Helena tried to look jolly as she unwrapped her brother's gift. It was an extremely attractive mirror, decorated in Celtic style with magnificent swirls and curlicues of foliage. She examined her face in it, trying to forget her younger brother's condition.

`And your father has sent Helena a present too, Marcus!' Julia Justa was much cheered by thinking the Didius family knew about buying off would-be relations. Helena obediently unwrapped it.

`My father thinks a lot of Helena,' I said weakly.

That was evident. Pa had sent her a highly superior (wincingly expensive) jewel casket. Not too big – nothing brash – but a beautiful example in cedarwood. Every corner had elaborate bronze fittings, there were miniature feet, a neat fastener, and a perfect lock with a swinging escutcheon.

`Oh the darling!' Oh the bastard. He had completely ignored my own predicament. Not even a word of apology.

It seemed a moment for toasts. Wine was being poured by slaves who wanted a chance to crane at the young mistress's gifts. Various hairpin pots and tweezer sets were also being proferred by ancient slaves who had once nursed her. `Happy birthday!' exclaimed Helena's father, who for all his air of innocence knew how to cash in on a good mood.

Helena had found the casket key on a skein of wool. Even the key was a delight, a tiny three-pronged fancy set into a finger ring. `There's a note inside for you, Marcus.' She tossed across a scrap of recycled scroll. I did not wish to communicate with Pa; I pretended to glance at it, then I burnt it on a handy lamp.

Helena delved inside the box, deep in its handsome interior. I was in two minds to glide off somewhere, pretending to look for the latrine. Manners won; I bit a pastry instead. Honey oozed down my chin.

I saw Helena's face change. There must be more; the amazing box had contents. My heart started bumping angrily. She began lifting something out and immediately I realised what it was. Unexpected gold scintillations flickered on the casket's lid. Light fluttered like butterflies over her skin. Helena exclaimed in astonishment, `Oh!' Then she lifted an object of breathtaking beauty.

Around the table silence fell.

Slowly, as if terrified she would damage something, Helena placed her gift on the table. Light still glittered from a hundred minutely teased pieces of gold. Helena turned to me. Everyone else was looking at her present. I didn't need to. My concern was watching her.

It was a crown. It was very old. It was Greek. It had once been a prize at some classical games, in the era when athletes were perfect in both body and mind. It was composed of exquisitely suspended leaves and acorns, held on gold wires so delicate they trembled merely in the air. Among the glittering twigs that formed it crouched perfectly shaped insects, and a small golden bee perched over the clasp.

Helena's mother tried to pull herself together. `Oh Helena Justina, I am not sure you should accept this…' Her voice faltered. `Marcus, you have an extremely generous father.'

There was no doubting the reproof: it was too much. The common Didii had behaved crassly. From a mere relative of a purely unofficial son-in-law, such a gift was gross.

I smiled at Helena gently. Her soft dark eyes were full of tears. She knew. She was touching her little finger to one iridescent cicada as it hid beneath an oak leaf, caressing it as gently as if it were a newborn baby's cheek. `Pa has his moments,' I told her quietly. `He has style, and taste, and as your mother mentions, he can be extremely generous. Thoughtful too. He's obviously gone to a lot of trouble to find exactly the right box.'

`The crown is wonderful,' she said.

`You're a wonderful girl.'

`She cannot possibly accept it,' insisted her mother, more firmly. I raised an eyebrow. `Well, can you, fruit?'

Helena Justina smiled at me. She paid no attention at all to her family, but suddenly they understood.

The moment, which had become precious and tender, disintegrated with a lurch. Quintus had roused himself, his face lightly dusted with honey and cinnamon. `Marcus, a message. Your father says sorry he made you sweat. He had to get the crown back from the man he had sold it to.' What an unspeakable degenerate. Justinus burbled on as I ground my teeth. `There won't be any comeback – Geminus told the silly bastard he was retrieving it because he'd just seen on a vigiles listing that it's stolen property…'

Well thank you, Pa!

Helena giggled. Some members of her family may have found that unexpected. She said to me gravely, `I wonder, purely from commercial interest, whether your father screwed as much out of the silly bastard as some other seller had already squeezed from you?'

`Probably not. The disreputable Damascan whose retirement in comfort I've assured, could see I was buying out of love.'

I stood and raised my winecup formally, calling upon everyone to join in my toast. `According to the Damascan, this crown was once a prize in the Nemean Games. A prize worthy only of the finest, my darling.'

Her noble family had the grace to murmur agreement, pretty well spontaneously. We drank to Helena Justina in the robustly acceptable Guaranum that her father had saved to celebrate her special day. `Helena Justina, daughter of Camillus Verus and heart's joy of Didius Falco, greetings on your anniversary!'

`Happy birthday, Helena,' cried Julia Justa. After which, since she could not reach her daughter, whose dining couch was too far from her, the noble matron shed a seemly tear, then turned on her scented elbow and kissed me.