Venus in copper

Chapter III

Helena Justina's father, the Senator Camillus Verus, lived near the Capena Gate. A desirable spot, just off the Appian Way where it emerges from the republican city wall. On the way I managed to find another bathhouse to soothe my crop of new bruises. Luckily Rodan and Asiacus always punched a victim's ribcage, so my face was unmarked; if I remembered not to wince there was no need for Helena to know. A sickly Syrian apothecary sold me a salve for the sword-wound I had already been nursing in my side, though the ointment soon produced a greasy mark on my tunic, blueish, like mould on wall plaster, which was not designed to impress the fashionable residents of the Capena Gate.

The Camillus porter knew me but as usual refused me admittance. I did not allow this fleabag to delay my entry long. I walked round the corner, borrowed a hat from a roadmender, knocked again with my back turned, then when the porter foolishly opened up for what he thought was a travelling lupinseller, I rushed indoors making sure my boot stomped down hard on his ankle as our paths crossed.

'For a quadrans I'd lock you out on the step! I'm Falco, you muttonchop! Announce me to Helena Justina, or your heirs will be quarrelling over who gets your best sandals sooner than you expect!'

Once I got inside the house he treated me with sullen respect. That is, he went back into his cubicle to finish an apple, while I searched for my princess by myself.

Helena was in a reception room, looking pale and studious with a reed pen in her hand. She was twenty-three-or perhaps twenty-four now since I had no idea when her birthday was; even after I had been to bed with their treasure, I was not invited to share the family celebrations of a senator's house. They only let me see her at all because they cringed from Helena's own wilfulness. Even before she met me she had been married but had chosen to divorce herself (for the eccentric reason that her husband never talked to her), so her parents had already realised their eldest offspring was a trial.

Helena Justina was a tall, stately being whose straight dark hair had been tortured with hot curling rods, though it was fighting back well. She had handsome brown eyes which no cosmetics could improve, though her maids painted them up on principle. At home she wore very little jewellery, and looked none the worse for it. In company she was shy; even alone with a close friend like me she might pass for modest until she piped up with an opinion-at which point wild dogs broke pack and ran for cover all along the street. I reckoned I could handle her- but I never pushed my luck.

I posed in the doorway with my normal disrespectful grin. Helena's sweet, unforced smile of greeting was the best thing I had seen for a week. 'Why is a beautiful girl like you sitting on her own, scribbling recipes?'

'I am translating Greek History,' Helena stated pompously. I peered over her shoulder. It was a recipe for stuffed figs.

I bent and kissed her cheek. The loss of our baby, which we both still felt, had inflicted a painful formality on us. Then our two right hands found and gripped one another with a fervour that could have got us denounced by the pompous old barristers in the Basilica Julia.

'I'm so glad to see you!' murmured Helena fiercely.

'It takes more than prison bolts to keep me away.' I uncurled her hand and laid it against my cheek. Her ladylike fingers were perfumed with an eccentric combination of rare Indian unguents and oak-apple ink-quite unlike the stagnant whiffs that hung around the floosies I had previously known. 'Oh lady, I love you,' I admitted (still buoyed up by the euphoria of my recent release). 'And it's not just because I found out that you've paid my rent!'

She slipped from her seat to kneel by me with her head hidden. A senator's daughter would hardly risk letting a house-slave find her crying in a convict's lap- but I stroked her neck soothingly, just in case. Besides, the back of Helena's neck was an attractive proposition to an idle hand.

'I don't know why you bother with me,' I commented after a while. 'I'm a wreck. I live in a pit. I have no money. Even the rat in my cell had a sneer when he looked at me. Whenever you need me I leave you on your own- '

'Stop grumbling, Falco!' Helena snorted, looking up with a mark on her cheek from my belt buckle, but otherwise her old self.

'I do a job most people wouldn't touch,' I carried on gloomily. 'My own employer throws me into jail and forgets I exist- '

'You've been released- '

'Not exactly!' I confessed.

Helena never fussed over things she believed I ought to sort out for myself. 'What are you intending to do now?'

'Work on my own again.' She said nothing; no need to ask why I was unhappy. My bright plan posed one great problem: I would earn much less independently than my notional public salary, despite the fact that Vespasian's pay-clerks kept me months in arrears. 'Do you think this is stupid?'

'No; you're quite right!' Helena agreed without hesitation, though she must have realised going freelance destroyed any hope of me affording marriage into the patrician rank. 'You've risked your life for the state. Vespasian took you on because he knew just what you were worth to him. But Marcus, you're too good to suffer poor rewards form a stingy employer and petty Palace jealousies- '

'Sweetheart, you know what it means- '

'I said I would wait.'

'I said I wouldn't let you.'

'Didius Falco, I never take any notice of what you say.'

I grinned, then we sat together in silence a few minutes more.

After jail, this room in her father's house was a haven of tranquillity. Here we had rag rugs and tasselled cushions to make us comfortable. Thick masonry muffled out sounds from the street, while light flowing in through high windows on the garden side lit walls which were painted as mock marble, the colour of ripened wheat. It provided a gracious impression- though a slightly faded one. Helena's father was a millionaire (this was not good detective work on my part, just the minimum qualification for the Senate); yet even he regarded himself as struggling in a city where only multimillionaires attracted election votes.

My own position was far worse. I had no money and no status. To carry off Helena on respectable terms, I would have to find four hundred thousand sesterces and then persuade the Emperor to add me to the list of pitiful nonentities who form the middle rank. Even if I ever managed it, I was for her a disreputable choice.

She read my thoughts. 'Marcus, I heard your horse won his race at the Circus Maximus.'

Life does have its compensations: the horse, who was called Little Sweetheart, had been a lucky bequest to me. I could not afford to stable him, but before he went to the horse sales I had entered him in just one race- which he won at amazing odds. 'Helena, you are right; I made some money on that race. I might invest in a more impressive apartment, to attract a better class of client.'

Her head nodded approvingly, close against my knee. She had her hair pinned up with a pantheon of ivory bodkins, all with knobs carved as strict-looking goddesses. While I mused about my lack of money I had pulled one out, so I stuck it in my belt like a hunting knife, then teasingly set about capturing the rest. Helena squirmed in mild annoyance, reaching for my wrists. Eventually she knocked my fistful of pins to the floor; I let her flail around trying to find them while I carried on methodically with my plan.

By the time I had her hair all loose, Helena had repossessed her bodkins- though I noticed she let me keep the one stuffed in my belt. I still have it: Flora, with a crown of roses which is giving her hay fever; she turns up sometimes when I burrow for lost pens in my writing-box.

I spread out Helena's shining hair the way I wanted it. 'That's better! Now you look more like a lass who might agree to being kissed-in fact you look like one who might even kiss me of her own accord…" I reached down and pulled her arms round my neck.

It was a long, deeply appreciative kiss. Only the fact that

I knew Helena very well made me notice that my own passion was meeting unusual restraint from her.

'What's this? Gone off me, fruit?'

'Marcus, I can't-'

I understood. Her miscarriage had shaken her; she was wary of risking another. And she was probably afraid of losing me too. We both knew more than one bright spark of Roman rectitude who would automatically ditch a distressed girlfriend at a time like this.

'I'm sorry-' She was embarrassed, and struggling to escape. But she was still my Helena. She wanted me to hold her almost as much as I wanted to. She needed to be comforted- even though for once she shrank from encouraging me.

'My darling, it's natural.' I loosened my grip. 'Everything will right itself…" I knew I had to be reassuring so I tried to treat her gently, though it was hard to take disappointment when it felt so physical. I was cursing, and Helena must have been aware of it.

We sat quiet and talked about family matters (a bad idea as usual), then not long afterwards I said I had to leave.

Helena took me to the door. The porter had now disappeared altogether so I undid the bolts myself. She threw her arms round me and buried her face in my neck. 'I suppose you'll run after other women!'

'Naturally!' I managed to make a joke of it too.

Her huge stricken eyes were affecting me badly. I kissed her eyelids then tormented myself, holding her tight against me while I lifted her right off her feet. 'Come and live with me!' I urged suddenly. 'The gods only know how long it will take me to earn what we need to be respectable. I'm frightened of losing you; I want to have you close. If I rent a bigger apartment-'

'Marcus, I just feel-'

'Trust me.'

Helena smiled, and pulled my ear as if she thought that was the quickest way to make our difficulties permanent. But she promised to think about what I had said.

My step lightened as I walked home to the Aventine.

Even if my lady was reluctant to join me, with my winnings on Little Sweetheart there was nothing to stop me leasing a more gracious apartment anyway… Knowing what I was going home to, the thought of living somewhere else was bound to cheer me up.

Then I remembered that before I was hauled off to prison, my uncashed betting tokens had been swallowed by my three-year-old niece.