'I wouldn't do it. I would not be convinced myself.'
Marponius sniffed. My views were unimportant; he had too high an opinion of his own place in the world. I had my own thoughts on where he belonged: face down in a wet gulley with a rhinoceros standing on top of him.
I glanced at Petro. Slowly he said, 'Falco, I don't want to believe you did this, but no one else is a suspect, and all the circumstantial evidence indicts you.'
'Thanks!' I said.
I was feeling tired. This was hopeless. There was nothing I could say or do to extricate myself-or Helena, who looked like my accomplice in a bungled cover-up. The judge had completed his questions. He decided to hold both of us in custody.
Normally I would have appealed for assistance to Petronius. As he was the arresting officer, I had to wait for somebody else to come forward with our bail.
Somebody would. Helena Justina's family would adore the chance to berate me for getting her into this.
We were to be kept at the judge's house temporarily. He had us locked in separate rooms, but as soon as the house quietened down I picked my way out of mine and into hers. Only the fact that Helena was also trying to break her lock with a brooch pin held me up.
XXIX
I came in and leaned against the door, trying to look debonair. Helena had stepped back. Still clutching the brooch, she gazed at me. Guilt and fear were in her eyes; they were brighter than ever with anxiety now I had arrived. Mine were smiling. Probably.
'Hello, sweetheart. Are you breaking out to find me?'
'No, Marcus. I'm trying to escape before I have to face your wrath.'
'I never get angry.'
'Well you never admit it.'
I could never be angry with Helena Justina when she was fighting back with that determined glint. We were in serious trouble, however, and we both knew it. 'I am merely perplexed at how to extricate us from this mess, to which you must admit you have contributed…'
'Don't try being reasonable, Falco. The effort makes your ears go red.'
'Well, if you wanted to get back at me for my fling with Marina, I could have suggested less drastic ways-' I stopped. There were tears welling in her eyes. Helena had made a terrible mistake and under the show of pride she was desolate. 'I'll get us out of this,' I said, more gently. 'Just brace yourself for some bad jokes from your father when he has to come here grovelling to Marponius while he coughs up your surety.'
'Yours has been sent for too.'
'Mine won't come.'
She would not be consoled, but we were on friendlier terms now. 'Marcus, what happened to your face?'
'It hit somebody's fist. Don't worry, fruit. Marponius hasn't enough evidence against us to name a date for a hearing in court. That means he has to release us. If I'm free on bail I shall at least be able to pursue my enquiries without constantly having to dodge Petronius.'
Helena looked rueful. 'Your best friend-who now knows you're living with an idiot!'
I grinned at her. 'He knew that already. He thought you were insane to take me on.'
'He told the judge it was true love.'
'And is he wrong?' I reached for the brooch she was still holding, and pinned it back on her neatly. 'Marponius believed him enough to lock us up in separate cells to prevent collusion. Well, then-' A tremulous smile from Helena answered my broad grin. I held out my arms to her. 'So, my darling, let's collude!'
XXX
It took so long for Helena's papa to rally round, I began to dread that he was leaving us to stew. He might have refused to pay a judicial ransom to release me, but I did think he would rescue Helena. Her mother would insist on it.
Helena's conscience was tormenting her. 'It's all my fault! I just noticed the knife and took hold of it because I wondered whatever something of your mother's could be doing there…'
Holding her close I soothed her. 'Hush! All the family go to Flora's. Any one of them could have decided to take their own bread-cutter to attack the week-old rolls. And they are all daft enough to leave it behind afterwards.'
'Maybe one of them will remember…'
My money was on Festus as the culprit, so that was out.
We were lying on a couch. (Purely for convenience; I had more tact than to seduce my girlfriend under the nose of a 'man of ideas'.) Anyway, it was a hard couch.
The room was dark, but noticeably more high-class than where I had been locked up. As a cell for a senator's daughter, it passed. There was a gilt footstool for the couch. An apple log smoked in a fire-basket. We had dim lamps, a small Eastern carpet on one wall, side-tables bearing curios, and vases on shelves. It was cosy. We had privacy. There was in fact no reason why we should rush to decamp.
'Why are you smiling, Marcus?' She had her face buried in my neck, so I was surprised she realised.
'Because I'm here with you…' Maybe I was smiling because we had squared the odds.
'You mean, we're in terrible trouble as usual, but this time it's my fault… I shall never forgive myself for this.'
'You will.'
The house had fallen quiet. Marponius was the type who dined alone then retired to his study to reread Cicero's defence of Sextus Roscius. If ever he hired himself a dancing girl, it was so he would have an audience when he practised snippets of fine oratory.
Caressing Helena's head, I let my mind wander back over the day. Then my thoughts meandered even further, through childhood and youth, trying to make sense of the complex fiasco that had brought me here.
So far I had established that my brother, the eternal entrepreneur, had probably connived with some of his fellow centurions to rob their legion's savings bank; that he had purchased what might be a rare antique statue; and that his ship had sunk.
I had not actually established, but I strongly suspected, that the agent employed by Festus might have absconded with the statue before the ship foundered. That was good, possibly. I might be able to track down the agent and make a quick denarius from the Phidias myself.
Perhaps the agent had had nothing to do with it.
Perhaps the ship had not really sunk.
Then a more ugly possibility faced me. Maybe it had never sunk-and maybe Festus knew that. He could have lied about the Hypericon, then have sold the goods privately and run off with the money. If so, my role now was impossible. It was too late to cash in on the Phidias, I had no money to pay off the legionaries, and I could not clear my brother's name for Ma.
Almost everything I had discovered so far was dubious. It looked as if we had stumbled across the worst-ever crisis in my brother's fabled 'lupin round': his business ventures in the grey economy. Those had usually failed-usually a day after Festus himself had safely pulled out of them. He always trod a sticky path, like a wasp on the rim of a honey jar. Maybe this time he had overbalanced and fallen in.
Helena moved so she could see me. 'What are you thinking about, Marcus?'
'Oh, the Golden Age-'
'The past, you mean?'
'Correct. The long-lost, glittering, glorious past… Probably not so glorious as we all pretend.'
'Tell me. What aspect?'
'It's possible you have allied yourself with a highly dubious family.' Helena laughed ironically. She and I were such close friends I could tell her the unthinkable: 'I am beginning to wonder if my brother the hero in fact ended his days as a thief and a candidate for cashiering.' Helena must have been expecting it, for she simply stroked my brow quietly and let me take my time. 'How can I ever say that to Ma?'
'Make quite sure of the facts first!'
'Maybe I won't tell her.'
'Maybe she already knows,' suggested Helena. 'Maybe she wants you to put the record straight.'
'No, she asked me to clear his name! On the other hand,' I argued unconvincingly, 'perhaps all this only looks like a scandal-but appearances deceive.'
Helena knew my opinion: that is not how scandals work.
She changed the subject, trying to ease my introspective mood by asking about wh
at had happened to me earlier that day. I described the disrupted auction, then told her what I had learned from Geminus about my brother's last business scheme, including the Phidias Poseidon. I ended with how I had been summoned by that ghastly urchin Gaius and had left my father in his office, surrounded by flotsam like some old sea god in a cave.
'He sounds like you,' she commented. 'Hiding away from the world at the top of your sixth-floor apartment on the Aventine.'
'It's not the same!'
'You don't like people going there.'
'People bring trouble.'
'Even me?' she teased.
'Not you.' I grimaced at her. 'Not even today.'
'Perhaps,' Helena suggested thoughtfully, 'your elder brother also had a secret den somewhere?'
If so, it was the first I knew of it. Yet behind his open, cheery attitude, Festus had been full of secrets. He had lived with his mother; he certainly could have used a hideaway. Jupiter knew what would be waiting there if ever I discovered it.
We stopped discussing the issue because just then Marponius came in person to inform Helena that her father had arrived to free her. The judge was wearing his best toga for entertaining such splendid company, and a big grin because the surety he had demanded from the noble Camillus before he would release his dangerous daughter was extremely large. When he saw me in the same room he looked annoyed, though he said nothing about it. Instead, he enjoyed himself announcing that I too was to be set free on recognizance.
'From whom?' I demanded suspiciously.
'From your father,' grinned Marponius. He obviously knew I found the thought unbearable.
Produced for our parents as a murderer and his accessory, we managed not to giggle inanely, but felt like bad teenagers being hauled off home from the town jail after some prank in the Forum that would horrify our ancient great-aunts when they heard of it.
By the time we appeared, our two rescuers were close allies. They had met before. Now they had a disgrace in common and thanks to the judge's ingratiating wine steward, they were both slightly drunk. Geminus was down on one knee having a good look at a large urn from southern Italy that was pretending to have Athenian origins. Camillus Verus had kept slightly more control of his manners, though only by a thread. He gave me a whimsical salute, while commenting loudly to my own father, 'I suppose this makes a change from having to complain about their expensive hobbies, wild parties and shocking friends!'
'Never have children!' Pa advised Marponius. 'And by the way, Judge, your urn's cracked.'
Marponius rushed to inspect his flawed property. While he was crouching on the floor, he managed to speak a few hurried words about releasing us into family custody, the fathers' duties of supervision, et cetera. In return, Pa gave him the name of a man who could make the crack invisible (one of a horde of such dubious craftsmen known at the Saepta Julia). The judge then scrambled upright, shook hands all round like some theatrical pimp restoring long-lost twins, and let us escape.
As we struggled out into the winter night, our happy fathers were still congratulating themselves on their generosity, making jokes together about how to supervise our parole, and wrangling about which of their houses we should be dragged off to dine in.
Rome was cold and dark. It was late enough for the streets to be growing dangerous. Helena and I were hungry, but we had endured enough. I muttered that if they wanted to check up on us we would be with Ma, then we both fell into the chair they had brought for Helena and made the bearers set off at a cracking pace. I gave a loud instruction for Mother's house, then once we got around the first corner I changed the directions to Fountain Court.
Now I had an impossible mission, an indictment for murder-and two highly indignant fathers chasing me.
But at least when we reached the apartment the new bed had arrived.
XXXI
Next morning Helena was startled when I jumped out of bed at first light.
This was not easy. The new bed was successful in various ways that are private, and it had given us a most comfortable night's sleep. We awoke under a huge feather-filled coverlet which we had brought home from Germany, as warm as chicks in a nest. Beside the bed, in pride of place, stood the adjustable bronze tripod Helena had acquired from Geminus-as a present for me, apparently.
'Is this for my birthday? It's not for three weeks.'
'I remember when your birthday is!' Helena assured me. It was partly a wry joke, because of an occasion when I had somehow missed hers, and partly nostalgia. She knew the date because that was the first time I ever kissed her, before I realised the frightening fact that I was in love with her, or could believe she might be in love with me. We had been at a ghastly inn in Gaul, and I was still amazed at my bravado in approaching her-not to mention the consequences. By the way she smiled, Helena was also thinking about the occasion. 'I felt you needed cheering up.'
'Don't tell me how much he stung you for it; I don't want to be depressed.'
'All right, I won't tell you.'
I sighed. 'No, you'd better. He's my father. I feel responsible.'
'Nothing. When I said how much I liked it, he gave it to me.'
That was when I sprang out into the cold.
'Dear gods, Marcus! What's this?'
'Time is running out.'
Helena sat up, huddled in our German coverlet and staring at me from amidst a tangle of fine dark hair. 'I thought you said the enquiry would be less pressing now you didn't have to dodge Petronius?'
'This has nothing to do with the enquiry.' I was pulling on more clothes.
'Come back!' Helena launched herself across the bed and locked her arms around me. 'Explain the mystery!'
'No mystery.' Despite fierce resistance, I pushed her back into bed and tucked her in tenderly. 'Just an unpaid bill of four hundred thousand big ones that suddenly fell due.' She stopped struggling, so I managed to kiss her. 'First, I found out yesterday that a certain rash young lady is prepared to state in public-before a judge-that we are virtually man and wife… and now I've discovered my relations at large are sending us gifts to set up home! So forget the enquiry. Compared with the urgent need to assemble a dowry, a little matter of being a murder suspect fades into insignificance.'
'Fool!' Helena burst out laughing. 'For a moment I thought you were serious.'
She did have a point. When a man of my meagre standing has fallen for a senator's daughter, however much he adores her he takes a risk in hoping for something to come of it.
I let her enjoy the hilarious prospect of marriage to me, without bothering to worry her with the news that I meant what I said.
As I walked down the Aventine and towards the Emporium the warm glow of having reached a decision about Helena kept me going for about two streets. After that normality descended. Bad enough was the problem of trying to pluck four hundred thousand sesterces from thin air. If I wanted Helena I had to pay the price, but it was still far beyond my reach. Even more depressing was the next task I had set myself: seeing another of my brothers-in-law. I tried to find him at his place of work. He was not there. I should have known. He was a bureaucrat; naturally he was on holiday.
My sister Junia, the superior one, had married a customs clerk. At seventeen, this had been her idea of moving up in society; now she was thirty-four. Gaius Baebius had progressed to supervising other clerks at the Emporium, but Junia undoubtedly had grander dreams in which a husband who merely hung around the docks collecting taxes did not feature. I sometimes wondered if Gaius Baebius ought to start testing his dinner on the dog.
They did own a dog, mainly because they wanted to have a door-tile warning people to beware of him. Ajax was a nice dog. Well he had been once, before life's troubles got him down. Now he set about his duties as a watchdog as seriously as his master fulfilled his important role at the customs-house. Ajax's friendly greeting for tradesmen was to tear the hems off their tunics, and I knew of at least two lawsuits brought after he removed chunks of visitors' legs. I had actually given
evidence for one of the plaintiffs, for which I had not yet been forgiven.
Ajax did not like me. When I appeared in his slightly smelly doorway innocently trying to gain admittance, he strained at his leash until his kennel began to slide across the floor. I managed to hop past, with his long snout an inch from my left calf, cursed the dog in an undertone, and shouted a somewhat tense welcome to whoever was inside the house.
Junia appeared. She shared Ajax's view of me. In her case it was legitimate, since my birth had supplanted her as the youngest in our family. She had maintained a thirty-year grudge against me for loss of privilege, even before I told a magistrate she kept a vicious dog.
'Oh, it's you! If you're coming in, take your boots off. They're covered with mud.' I was already unstrapping them; I had been to Junia's house before.
'Sort out your hound, will you? Good boy, Ajax! How many travelling onion-sellers has he killed today?'
My sister ignored that, but called her husband. It took two of them to drag the dog and his kennel to their proper position and calm the wild creature down.
I greeted Gaius Baebius, who had come out from his breakfast licking honey from his fingers. He looked embarrassed to be found relaxing in his second-best tunic, clearly unshaven for the past few days. Gaius and Junia only liked to be seen in public in full formal dress, with her leaning submissively on his right arm. They were spending their lives practising for their tombstone. I felt sombre every time I came within two yards of them.
They had no children. This perhaps explained their tolerance of Ajax. He ruled them like a spoiled heir. Had the law allowed it, they would have adopted him formally.
Being the only childless female among our highly fecund family had left Junia enjoying her right to bitterness. She kept herself very smart, her house so clean flies died of fear, and if asked about offspring said she had enough to do looking after Gaius Baebius. Why he caused so much work was a mystery to me. I found him about as exciting as watching a bird-bath evaporate.
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