I lifted her hand, closing her fingers down firmly on my gift. Then without looking at any of them, I left.
LXV
I went to the Embankment. Up past the shuttered shapes of the puppeteers' booths onto the deserted promenade.
This was where I walked once with Helena Justina. It was a place where I went sometimes, by myself. Now it was dark, but I wanted the dark. I hunched into my toga, listening to Rome at night, fighting back my panic at what I had done.
I stood completely alone in that high place above Rome. A wind was blowing chilly. From the distance came intermittent strains of music, the stamping of sentries' feet, wild gusts of laughter and occasional sinister cries.
When I was calm again, which was when I was very, very cold, I came down.
I went back to the Palace. I asked to see Titus again. It was now very late. In the corridors tall shadows veered, while the few attendants I could find were gossiping and looked up, startled, when disturbed by my white-faced ghost.
No one seemed to find my presence odd. No one seemed to mind. Sometimes it is like that in official places when the night squad comes on duty; so little happens normally that they are glad of a change in routine.
They passed me in through various apartments dripping with drapery to a rather plain anteroom I had never seen before. Someone went into an inner room where I heard my name spoken in a low, incurious voice. After a moment a cheery old cove came out in his slippers, followed at a placid amble by the man who had brought me in, who then disappeared. The old cove scrutinized me.
"Both the young Caesars are tucked up in bed. Will I do?"
He wore a rumpled purple tunic, with no belt. He was a big, solid man about sixty years old, square-built and healthy, with a deeply lined forehead and an open stare. Somehow his very lack of ceremony lent his presence weight: over the years he had grown used to carrying men with him through sheer personality. He did it well. Damn the bastard from his great toes to the thin hair on his head, I liked him at once.
I knew who he was; the Emperor, Vespasian.
I thought it was best to answer politely that he would do.
He gazed at me with amused indulgence, then motioned me in. He had been working in a small area, made cosy with well-placed lamps. There were two neat piles of correspondence undergoing his attentions. It looked a disciplined scene. It was the sort of office I should like to work in myself.
"So you're Falco. You look a bit pea ky Want a cup of wine?"
"No thanks. I'm just a bit cold. Please don't trouble."
"Oh it's no trouble!" he roared cheerfully. There are unlimited cup-bearers and flagon-pourers waiting up the corridor for a chance to show off their stuff I still shook my head. Rather to my surprise he continued rattling on. "Bringers-in and takers out Each of them some sort of exalted specialist. If you want one, they can probably produce a slave to pick the fluff out of your navel, complete with a fluff-picker's apron and a pearl handled fluff-picking tool!" He seemed to have settled down.
"Nice relaxing retirement, sir," I chivied him gravely, "coming into all that!"
"I stopped relaxing when I saw the wages bill," Vespasian said bitterly.
He turned those deep eyes on me and I realized, I could have handled Titus, but not him.
"I heard about your antics over the fee!"
"I did not mean to insult you, sir."
Vespasian was silent. It seemed to me the look of strain for which he was so famous could easily be the effect of years in public places trying not to laugh. He was not, however, laughing now.
"What you insult is your own undoubted intelligence!" I like a man to be frank. Just as well. "So what," enquired the Emperor more mildly, "is this latest piece of pantomime about?"
So that was when I explained to Vespasian what I had come here hoping to achieve.
I told him the tale and I said I was sorry; I begged for a second chance as a clerk. He asked why; I said her; he said no.
I said what? Then he said no again.
This was not what I expected, not what I expected at all. After that Vespasian offered me a job. It was my turn to say no. I pointed out he disliked informers and I disliked Emperors; we were hardly well matched. He explained that he did not dislike the informers as such, only the work that they did. I confided that I felt much the same about Emperors.
He looked at me for a long time, though did not seem particularly upset.
"So this visit is about the Camillus girl?" I said nothing. "Falco, I don't believe in unsuitable liaisons across the ranks. A senator's daughter has a duty to respect the honour of her family. I'm considered old-fashioned," the Emperor commented.
I could hardly avoid knowing, since it was the talk of Rome, that Vespasian himself had kept house for years with a freed slave who had first been his mistress forty years ago. It was said, though it seemed unlikely, he had even brought this loyal old body to the Palace with him now.
"Sir, with due respect, I won't interrogate you on these matters, so I don't expect to have to answer for myself."
I think he was offended this time but after a second he grinned. "Titus says she seems a sensible wench!"
"I thought so," I snapped back, "until she tangled with me!"
"My old friend Hilaris," Vespasian protested, refuting this, "would strongly disagree. I never argue with Gaius; it leads to too much paperwork. He thinks well of you. What am I to tell him now?"
I looked at the Emperor and he stared at me. We reached an agreement; it was my own idea. He just sat there with his arms folded until I came out with it. He would put me on the list for the second rank; he would do it when I produced the qualifying money myself.
I had committed myself to earning and saving four hundred thousand pieces of gold.
Before I left I insisted on one other thing.
"I want you to see this."
I took out the inkwell I found in the saffron vault; it came from my pocket in a scatter of peppercorns. The Emperor turned it over in the palm of his great hand. It was an ordinary inkwell, a simple shape with a retaining ledge inside to prevent spills. On the base was neatly scratched: T FL DOM, the initials of Vespasian's younger son.
Before he could speak, I took it back.
"Since it won't be needed in court, I'll keep this as a memento of the case."
To do Vespasian justice, he did let me take the thing away.
I went home.
As I descended from the Palatine, Rome in the dead of night lay all round me, like a series of deep black pools between the faint lights on the ridges of the Seven Hills. So I turned my footsteps through the sleeping streets and at last came back into the familiar squalor of my own places, and the grim apartment where I lived and to which I had once brought a girl called Sosia Camillina.
It was the worst day of my life, and when I walked into my office I realized that it had not ended yet. The folding door opposite stood open. As I entered, a shaft of cold air moved subtly within the room. There was somebody out on my balcony lying in wait.
LXVI
My mother never came so late. Petronius was suspicious of the open air at night. I decided there was no chance whoever was lurking out there could be anybody I might wish to see.
I had bought some pottery lamps with my early fees from the senator, so I lit them all now for the first time to make it obvious that I had come to stay. Keeping one eye on the balcony door, I peeled off my clothes, poured myself a bowl of water, and washed all over until the smell of wealth and decadence was gone from my cold skin. I walked into the bedroom, making a lot of noise, found a clean tunic I was fond of, then combed my hair. It was still too short to curl.
All this time whoever it was went on waiting outside.
I wanted to go to bed. I went back into the main room, picked up one of my lamps, then steered my tired legs out onto the balcony. I was utterly exhausted and completely unarmed.
The air was soft, and faint noises of the city in the dark rose occasionally with that
odd sharpness you get sometimes as sounds reach the sixth floor.
"Now there's a sight!"
She was standing by the balustrade staring out, but as soon as I spoke she turned around: eyes like warm caramel in a creamy almond face. The gods only know how long she had been there; or what doubts assailed her confidence while she waited for me to come home.
"Sosia wrote to me about your view."
"Not the view," I said.
And went on looking at Helena.
She stood there, and I stood here, she in the dark and I with my lamp, neither of us certain any longer if we were friends. Distressed moths began to zoom in from the night. One day we would talk about what had happened, but not now; there was too much to re-establish between us first.
"I thought you would never come. Are you drunk?" I had called at several all-night wine shops on my way home.
"I'm sobering rapidly. How long have you been waiting?"
"A long time. Are you surprised?"
I thought about that. No. Knowing her, I was not surprised.
"I thought I would never see you again. Lady, what can I say?"
"Now you've spat in my eye in public, perhaps you should call me Helena."
"Helena," I murmured obediently.
I had to sit down. Levering myself onto the bench I kept for dreaming out of doors. I groaned with weariness.
"You want me to go," she offered awkwardly.
"Too late," I said, echoing another day. "Too dark. Too dangerous I want you to stay. Sit by me, Helena; sit with a man on his balcony and listen to the night!" But she stayed where she was.
"Have you been with a woman?"
It was too dark for me to see her face.
"Business," I said.
Helena Justina turned away, looking over the city again. There was a tight band squeezing my ribcage from the side where I damaged myself in Britain right round to the side I was not hurt at all. "I'm so glad to see you!"
"Me?" She turned back fiercely. "Or just anyone at all?"
"You," I said.
"Oh Marcus, wherever have you been?" This time when she asked there was a different catch in her voice.
I told her about the Embankment, and I told her about Vespasian.
"Does that mean you're working for the Emperor?"
I was working for her.
"I'm working for myself. But he agrees that if I save up the money to qualify, he'll include me in the lists as second rank."
"How long will it take?"
"About four hundred years."
"I can wait!"
That's if I never eat, and I live in a barrel under the Fabrician Bridge. I won't let you wait."
"I'll do what I want!"
Helena Justina rubbed her hand over her eyes and as her temper rasped I realized she was as tired as me. I held out one hand; at last she came. She perched alongside; I laid my arm behind her to shield her from the roughness of the wall. She sat stiffly, leaning a little away from me. I tugged back the mantle she wore over her head, and when I stroked the warm softness of her hair suddenly she closed her eyes. I knew now that meant yearning, not distaste.
Tucking in a loose strand that belonged folded back above her ear, I told her quietly how I had always liked the way she twisted up her hair.
"While I was waiting," Helena reported frostily, pretending to ignore that, "I saw off three chits in indecent frocks who had heard you might be rich I reached for her hand; she was wearing my ring. I expected that. Though not to feel it on the third finger of her left hand. "Your mother came." The reassuring clasp of her fingers answered mine. "She thought someone should stay; she warned me that you would troop in eventually, cold and tired and drunk and miserable as Cerberus. She thinks you'll come to no good."
"She thinks I need a good woman."
"What do you think?"
"If I found one, I'd disappoint her."
"You might disappoint each other. Or"
"Or," I agreed carefully, "we might not! My darling, that isn't the point."
After a moment Helena began again,
"You once said, if you loved me it would be a tragedy. But what if I love you?"
"I'll forgive you, if you can forgive yourself!"
She opened her mouth to speak, but I stopped her, laying one finger gently against her lips. "Don't. I can't bear that. You've seen how I live. I could never bring you here. You know what my prospects are virtually nil. I can't insult you with promises. Better accept how things are. Better say nothing, lady. Better run while you can"
"It's too late." Helena Justina repeated my previous words bleakly.
I released her and covered my face.
The moment passed.
A huge moth plunged into my lamp. He lay on the table, not even singed though stunned. He was two inches long and shaped like a catapult bolt, with strong mottled brown wings, folded close. He looked as dazed as I felt.
I stood up, lifting him delicately in the hem of my tunic; you can be a brave man but not enjoy the struggles of a live moth in your naked hand. Helena put out the lamp.
I placed the moth on a flower in my window box. He staggered slightly then stood docile. I left him there to fly off or take his chance with becoming a pigeon's breakfast in the morning. For a while I stood looking over Rome. The moment had passed, but her words would remain with me. As I worked alone, whenever there was privacy and quiet, Helena's words would be there.
"Marcus!" she begged.
I turned back to her steadily. There was barely enough light from the lamps indoors for me to make out her face. It didn't matter; I knew everything about her. Even hunched in sadness with her confidence gone, the sight of her caused a deep throb of panic and excitement within me.
"You know that I shall have to take you home."
Tomorrow," she told me, if you want me to stay."
"I want you to stay!" I stepped across the balcony.
The senator's daughter gave me a look that said she knew what was on my mind, and if the thought had not existed in the first place it would be there now; it was that sort of look. I was near enough to reach down for her with one arm around her waist. Then I swung her up, locked against me while I let myself start to remember how it felt to hold her close. We were both wary but she seemed quite co-operative, so I picked her up. Helena Justina weighed slightly less than a government ingot; not quite too heavy to handle, though difficult to steal… A man could carry her over his threshold and still not lose his silly smile; I know, because that is what I did.
It was so long past curfew the noise of delivery carts was finally beginning to quieten. It was far too late for me to take her home, or for anyone from her father's house to collect her from me. Tomorrow morning everything I knew of life would start again. Tomorrow I would have to take her back.
That was tomorrow. Tonight she was mine.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
AT THE IMPERIAL PALACE
Vespasian Augustus: A jovial old cove who has jumped up from nowhere and made himself Emperor of Rome.
Titus Caesar: Aged 30. Vespasian's elder son; popular and brilliant.
Domitian Caesar: Aged 20. Vespasian's younger son; not so brilliant, and not so popular.
IN REGIO I (the Capena Gate sector)
Decimus Camillus Verus: A senator (a millionaire).
Julia Justa: The senator's noble wife.
Helena Justina: The senator's daughter. Aged 23 and recently divorced: a sensible young woman.
Publius Camillus Meto: The senator's younger brother; engaged in the import/export trade.
Sosia Camillina: Meto's daughter. Aged 16. Blonde, beautiful, and therefore not obliged to be sensible.
Naissa: Helena Justina's wide-eyed maid.
Gnaeus Atius Pertinax: A junior official, holding the rank of aedile (special interest: discipline). in Regio XIII (the aventine sector)
Marcus Didius Falco: A private informer with republican views.
Falco's Mother: A mother; with views on
everything.
Didius Festus: Falco's brother. A National Hero (deceased).
Marcia: Aged 3. Falco's brother's child.
Petronius Longus: Patrol Captain of the Aventine Watch.
Lenia: A laundress.
Smaractus: A property speculator; also the owner of a gladiators' training school.
IN OTHER PARTS OF ROME
Astia: A drayman's floosie.
Julius Frontinus: A captain in the Praetorian Guard.
Glaucus: A Cilician. Proprietor of a respectable gymnasium: an unusual character.
A hot-wine waiter: (Pungent).
A watchman: (Drunk).
A gardener's horse: (Disposition unknown).
IN BRITAIN
Gaius Flavius Hilaris: Imperial procurator in charge of finance; whose brief includes the silver mines.
Aelia Camilla: The procurator's wife, youngest sister of the senator Camillus Verus and his brother Publius.
Rufrius Vitalis: An ex-centurion of the Second Augustan Legion, living in retirement at Isca Dumnoniorum.
T. Claudius Triferus: (A Briton). Holder of the contract to manage the Imperial silver mine at Vebiodunum in the Mendip Hills.
Cornix: A sadist. Foreman in charge of slaves at the Imperial silver mine.
Simplex: Medical officer to the Second Augustan Legion at Glevum (special interest: surgery).
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