Helena grumbled something under her breath, so Rufus laughed. He rolled up his napkin and threw it at her; she biffed it back with the easy informality of old family friends. I could imagine their adolescence shared in long summer holidays here, swimming and boating and picnicking. Sailing to Surrentum. Trips to Capreae. Baiae. Lake Avernus.
Stolen kisses in the Sybil's Cave at Cumae. I pictured the effect such a glorious hunk of glowing masculinity must have had on Helena Justina while she was a growing girl.
Perhaps he still did.
The rough wine at the jailhouse plus the smooth wine on the sun terrace were filling me with a pleasant sense of irresponsibility. I beamed at the ladies, then sat back in the sunshine enjoying my drink.
'You work for Vespasian,' the magistrate broached. 'So what brings you here?' He was playing the innocent, well- mannered host, while swiftly ascertaining my interest in his patch.
Banking on Helena's good judgement in sending me here, I said, 'The Emperor wants to find a senator called Crispus. He is somewhere in this area, though people seem reluctant to admit to seeing him-'
'Oh, I've seen him!'
'You never told me that!' For the first time, the magistrate's sister spoke: a sharp, almost petulant voice.
Rufus looked at her. 'No,' he said; his tone was quarrelsome, though without apology. I remembered Helena saying Aemilia Fausta had wanted to marry Crispus, but he had declined to complete the contract. Crispus backing out could look like an insult to her family; her brother was bound to disapprove of her continuing interest. He turned back to me. 'Aufidius Crispus contacted me recently; we met at the baths at Stabiae.'
'Any particular reason for him getting in touch?'
'No,' said the magistrate levelly. 'Nothing particular.' Well; nothing a spruce young aristocrat would tell a hangdog like me.
'Special friend of yours, sir?'
'A friend; not special.'
I gave him a gracious smile. 'I don't mean to pry. I know he has a connection with your family. Marriages planned between persons of rank are public events.'
I sympathized actually; I had sisters myself. Besides, I was feeling hot, and on the verge of getting drunk again.
He stiffened, then acknowledged it. 'My sister had a disappointment there. We shall have to find her new interests to compensate. Aemilia Fausta was hoping to take up music this summer, though I'm afraid I have failed to find a harp teacher so far.
'Bad luck!' I murmured innocently.
'I've heard you are a man of many talents, Falco. I don't suppose you play?' Rufus had confiscated my livelihood. He must have deduced how badly I needed to find another one.
I took a thoughtful look at his sister, then tried to avoid revealing the pessimism I felt.
Aemilia Fausta carried a defeated expression no one could blame her for; it must be sorry work being the fairly ordinary sister of a fabulously handsome artefact who attracted all the attention wherever they went. She matched their house – antique and undisturbed, like an old, aloof Greek statue which had gathered dust in a viewing gallery for many years. The knack of giving pleasure had passed her by through no fault of her own. She was given to wearing robes the colour of second-rate gemstones – the grubby yellow of tourmaline or that sour, olivine green which jewellers know as peridot. Her complexion looked sickly, beneath a varnish of cosmetics that crinkled in the heat like a puppet's mask. Even here, on a high balcony where a pleasant breeze was rising off the sea, no hair on her sleek, pale head wafted out of place and she would evidently be annoyed if it tried. Her hair was the wrong shade of honey to be interesting.
For all that she was a young woman. Too old to remain single without a good reason, yet twenty-five at most. Her brother had cornered the family share of bone structure, but she must be educated and rich, and unlike her friend Helena she could be taken out in public without demolishing every plate of almond cakes that strayed within her reach. If she ever risked a smile she might be modestly attractive to a man in the right mood. Blow that dust off her, chase her about in the fresh air, pinch her in cheeky places until she jumped and squeaked a bit – something marginally tasty might be made of the noble Aemilia.
Helena Justina was looking daggers of disapproval, so I piped up at once that I would be happy to take the job.
XLIV
I had better things to do than hang about in the hope of a word with a woman whose only word would be 'goodbye'. I hoofed off back to the jail to free Larius. I took him to a cookshop, then he and I rescued Petro's disgraced ox. Nero had made friends with the hones and mules at the stable. He was like a child at a party; he did not want to go home.
'He looks tired,' commented Larius, as we butted the brute outside so we could harness him.
'Well he might!'
I set Larius on the road back to Oplontis with the cart. Since no man wants his apprentice around while he's teaching a lady the harp, I agreed that my nephew could take himself off painting walls. I stressed it was a temporary arrangement; Larius nodded unconvincingly.
As a harp tutor I lived in the magistrate's house. It saved on rent. Yet I grew to dread its cold, unlived-in smell. Doorways which I would have left open to show life going on in family rooms were grimly sealed with curtains. All the couches had sharp edges looking for a shin to bark. By day there was always a riot in the kitchen and at night there were never enough lamps. Rufus usually ate out; he must have noticed that his cook couldn't cook.
I armed myself for action with some musical manuscripts I found in the town. Aemilius Rufus had been right when he said the Emperor Nero still commanded loyalty here. Within a week of his suicide all the shops in Rome had swept their shelves clear of Caesarly tunelets and sent them out to the markets for wrapping fish. But there were plenty in Campania. For a beginner, Nero's tosh seemed ideal. His compositions were stupendously long, which gave Fausta plenty of practice; they were slow, which was good for her confidence; and without being unpatriotic, they were simplicity to play.
A lyre would have been easier, but with typical obstinacy Aemilia Fausta had set herself the professional challenge of a titian. It was a lovely thing; it had a deep resonance box decorated with mother-of-pearl, then the sides swept up into elegant horns, with an ivory crosspiece to take the seven strings. How well I could play the cithara is a question I'll leave blank (though when I was in the army I did own a flute with which I managed to create a fair amount of annoyance). Aemilia Fausta was not wanting to run away from home to join a pantomime band; for showing off to drunks at dinner parties, I reckoned I could get her up to scratch. And it would hardly be the last time a teacher had bumbled through a lesson on the basis of some hasty reading up the night before.
The noble lady did possess the sceptical strain I would expect in a friend of Helena's. She once asked me whether I had played much.
'Madam, music lessons are like making love; the point is not how well I can do it, but whether I can bring out the best in you!' She had no sense of humour. Her owly eyes stared at me anxiously.
Teachers who can play well are pretty self-involved. She needed someone like me; gentle hands, a sensitive nature – and able to explain in simple language where the lady I was with was going wrong. As I said: like love.
'Are you married, Falco?' she asked. Most of them do. I gave her my innocent bachelor's smile.
Once that had been clarified, Aemilia Fausta trundled on through her latest Imperial air, while I footled around with a forthcoming lecture on diatonic scales. (A subject on which I admit I could not expound with much fluency.)
We had our lessons indoors. Not to annoy the neighbours. (They never paid for tickets. Why give them a free treat?) A lady's maid sat in with us, for propriety, which at least allowed me to eye up the maid improperly during boring passages.
'You seem to have cracked this one, madam. Try it again, leaving out the repeats…
At that point the maid, who was sewing the sides of a tunic, gave a cry as she upset her pot of pins. She went d
own on her knees to pick them up so I scrambled round on the floor to help. People who go to the theatre may suppose the maid would take this chance to slip me a note. She wasn't in a coinedy, so she didn't; and I was not surprised. I live in the real world. Where, believe me, ladies' maids very rarely hand private informers secret notes.
Still, the knees she was down on were lusciously dimpled, she had fluttery black eyelashes and slender little hands-so I had no objection to spending a few moments with her on the floor. Aemilia Fausta played her harp more vigorously. The maid and I managed to find most of her pins.
When I got up, the noble lady dismissed her maid.
'Alone at last!' I cried gaily. Fausta humphed. I stopped her in mid chord and lifted the harp away with an air of suggestive, tender concern which was part of my stock in trade. She looked alarmed. I gazed deliberately into her eyes (which were, to be frank, not the best eyes I ever gazed into in the line of work). 'Aemilia Fausta, I must ask, why do you always look so sad?'
I knew perfectly well. The magistrate's sister spent too much time dreaming bitterly of lost opportunities. She lacked confidence; probably always had. What really annoyed me was the way she let her dresses paint her twenty-year-old features with a forty-year-old face. For all the silver hand mirrors in her well-stocked bower, she could never have looked at herself properly.
'I'm happy to listen,' I encouraged smoothly. My pupil allowed herself a poignant sigh which was more promising.
'The fellow is not worth it if he brings you such unhappiness… Will you talk about it?
'No,' she said. My usual measure of success.
I sat quietly, looking snubbed, then pointedly offered the harp again. She took it, but made no move to play. 'Happens to everyone,' I assured her. "The ones who hang around are deplorable dogs, while those you want won't look at you!'
'That's what my brother says.'
‘So what's our hero's name?
‘Lucius.' Keeping me in suspense while she pretended to misunderstand my question almost made her smile. I braced myself for those heavy layers of red ochre to crack, but her normal spiky melancholia took charge. It is Aufidius Crispus. As you well know!'
I ignored the indignation, and let her settle down. 'So what went wrong? I asked.
'We were to be married. He seemed to be delaying for a long time. Even I had to accept the delay would be permanent.'
‘These things happen. If he was unsure-'
‘I do understand all the arguments!' she declared in a light, too rapid voice.
‘I'm sure you do! But life's too short for suffering-'
Aemilia Fausta gazed at me, with the dark, tired eyes of a woman who had been unnecessarily miserable most of her life. I really do hate to see a woman as sad as that.
‘Let me help ease your troubles, madam.' I gave her a long, sad, significant look. She scoffed wryly, under no misapprehensions about her own allure.
Then I dropped into the silence, do you know where Crispus is?
Any sensible woman would have brained me with the harp.
There was no need for drama; I could see she really did not know the yachtsman's whereabouts.
I don't. I wish I did! If you find him, will you tell me? she pleaded.
'No.'
'I have to see him-'
'You have to forget him! Play your harp, lady!'
The lady played her harp.
She was still playing, and there was still a slight atmosphere which a stranger might misinterpret, when a cheery voice cried, 'I'll see myself in! and Helena Justina arrived.
I was demonstrating fingering. The best way to do that is to sit beside your pupil on a double seat, and put both arms round her.
'Ooh, lovely! Don't stop!' cooed Helena in a facetious tone which nearly made me choke. Aemilia Fausta played on stolidly.
It was a warm day so I and my pupil were casually clad in a few light drapes of nothing much. For my musical role I always adopted a laurel wreath; it tended to slide down over one eye when I bent towards my pupil (as a harp teacher has to). Helena Justina was sensibly wrapped in several layers, though with a rather odd sunhat on (it looked like a folded cabbage). She let the contrast between herself and us speak a lot.
She leaned on a marble pediment oozing queenly distaste. 'I never knew you were musical, Falco!'
'I come from a long line of self-taught struminers and squeakers. But actually this is not my instrument.'
'Let me guess – panpipes?' she mocked derisively.
Feeling left out, Aemilia Fausta twanged into her rather stately version of a whirling Bacchic dance.
I assumed the ladies wanted to gossip so I waited long enough to show it was my own decision, then I left. I returned to my menial's cubicle and did some desultory reading for Fausta's lesson the next day. I could not settle, knowing Helena was in the house.
Feeling peckish, I set off in search of sustenance. The food here was poor and pedestrian. On the other hand, the food was free, and if your stomach could take it they let you eat what you liked. (The magistrate kept a personal physician, in the event of really serious after-effects.)
I came into the hall, whistling breezily since I was employed to bring music to the home. An old crone with a mop fled to complain about me to Fausta looking appalled. The ladies were in the inner garden; I could hear the chink of spoons in pretty custard bowls. No place for me. I decided to go out.
Life is never all black. As I went past the porter's corridor, Aemilia Fausta's maid pushed her hand out through the curtain and slipped me a note.
XLV
I stood in the street, reading my message with a faint smile. ‘You look shifty!' Camillus Verus' stately daughter, at my back.
‘Trick of the light… I lifted my shoulder to stop her looking over it, then managed to screw up and drop the note as if that was what I had intended all along. I grinned at her. 'Aemilia Fausta's waiting maid has just made me an offer I shall have to refuse.'
‘Oh shams! ' mouthed Helena gently.
I hooked my thumbs in my belt and slowly swaggered off, letting her come if she chose. She did.
‘Thought we were strangers; can't you leave me alone?'
‘Don't flatter yourself, Falco. I wanted to see Rufus-'
‘Bad luck. He's deploying the fabulous Apollonian profile in court. Two sheep rustlers and a slander case. We reckon the sheep stealers did it, but the slander's a put-up; plaintiff's nephew is a barrister who needs to show off-'
'You're well at home! I would not have thought Aemilia Fausta was your type,' she found it necessary to add.
I walked on, replying peacefully, ‘She has a scrawny appeal. I like blondes… And there's always the maid.'
'Oh, you won't see her again!' chortled Helena. 'If Fausta spots her girl making overtures, she'll be sold before you get back from our stroll.' I gave her my hand into a colonnade as a handcart laden with marble creaked past. 'Don't waste your time, Falco. Aemilia Fausta never notices rugged types with wicked grins.' She jumped off a pavement with an impatient twirl. 'Fausta only likes pomaded aristocrats with mattress stuffing between the ears.'
'Thanks; I'll load on more attar -' I hopped after her, brightening up as we bandied words. 'I feel sorry for the lady-'
'Leave her alone then! She's vulnerable; the last thing she needs is to find you with that soft look in your lying eyes, pretending you can't keep your hands off her-'
We were standing on a corner glaring at each other now. I tweaked at a strand of Helena's new hair. 'Been through a sheep dip, or are you starting to rust?'
‘It's called Egyptiau Russet. Don't you like it?'
'If you're happy.' I loathed it; I hoped she could tell. 'Trying to impress someone?'
‘No; it's part of my new life.'
What was wrong with your old life?'
'You, mostly.'
'I like a girl to be frank – but not that frank! Here's the court,' I growled. 'I'll nip in and tell the judge an Egyptian carrot wants him, then I'm of
f to flatter his sister with my Lydian arpeggios!'
Helena Justina sighed. She put her hand on my arm to stop me turning away.
'Don't disturb Aemilius Rufus; it was you I came to see.'
I waited until she let my arm go before I turned back. 'Well? What about?
'It's hard to define.' The look of trouble in those fine, bright, wide-spaced eyes sobered me abruptly. 'I believe someone I am not supposed to know about is lurking round the villa Rustica-'
'What makes you sure? '
'Male voices talking after Marcellus is supposed to be in bed, glances among the servants-'
'Is it worrying you?' She shrugged. Knowing her, she was more annoyed at being misled. But it worried me. I had the afternoon free, so I offered immediately: 'Are you going back?
'I came with a steward who has errands for Marcellus-' 'Forget it. I'll take you.'
Just what she intended; I knew perfectly well.
We took the steward's mule, leaving a message that I would return it. I prefer my ladies to ride in front; young fruit insisted on sitting behind. The mule joggled, a situation I allowed because Helena had to cling on round my waist. Just after we turned into the Marcellus estate this scheme went awry. I could sense her growing restless so I was already reining in, but before I could lift her she skidded down the mule's flank in a swift rumple of white skirts around the longest legs in Campania – then she was sick, miserably, over a rail. -
Stricken with conscience I fell off the mule too. Among all his bells and leather fringes I hastily found a water gourd.
'Oh I hate you, Falco! You did that deliberately. '
I had never seen her look so ill. It frightened me. I sat the lass on a boulder and gave her the gourd to sip. 'You'll feel better quicker if you just stop arguing-'
'No I won't!' she managed to flash up at me, with an honest grin.
Cursing myself, I wet my neckerchief and wiped her hot face and throat. She had that drained, dry-mouthed, white- gilled expression I recognized from being a poor traveller myself. I crouched over her anxiously, while she sat with her head in her hands.
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