Albia, who was standing behind her, must somehow have found her and said I was a prisoner. Helena would have fearlessly broached a house full of women. She must have rushed here in a hurry, for she had even brought the children. She had come to try to rescue me-but her eyes told me if she had known in advance about Chloris I would have been left to my fate.
"Well here he is!" exclaimed Helena Justina, companion of my bed and heart. She used the singsong voice that is supposed to reassure small children who are anxious in strange surroundings and who fear a parent has gotten lost. She was a good mother. Neither Julia, who was sitting on the grass, nor the baby in her arms would sense whatever emotions Helena herself felt. I was really lost now and I knew it.
She did look impressive. A tall, dark-haired woman, making conversation with these professional fighters as if she moved among females who were outside society all the time. Like Albia at her side, she wore blue, but in several well-dyed shades, the material draped around her body with unconscious elegance. Lapis and pearl earrings said she had money; the lack of other jewelry added that she need not crudely flaunt her wealth. She seemed confident and forthright.
"Helena, my soul!"
Her dark eyes fixed me. Her voice was carefully tuned. "Your children were missing you, Marcus! And here you are like Hercules diverting himself among Queen Omphale's women. Do be careful. Hercules was suspected ever afterwards of too much liking for women's dress."
"I am wearing my own clothes," I murmured.
Her glance flicked over me. "So you are," she commented insultingly.
Arms wide and screaming with glee, Julia Junilla hurtled up to see me. When I picked up my little thunderbolt she devised a boisterous game of climbing headfirst down inside my tunic. It was already a gaping neck-hole where the threads had run in mighty ladders and the braid had torn. This was the final indignity. I just stood and let myself become gymnastic equipment for my two-year-old.
"So!" Helena then exclaimed, her gaze resolutely finding Chloris. "Have you finished with him? Can I take him home?"
"You've married your mother!" Chloris accused me, not bothering to lower her voice.
"I don't think so," I said. "I can handle my mother."
Tired of being choked, I wrestled Julia back upright. For once, she subsided and lay looking out at the women with her curly head on my shoulder in a way that made her pretty cute. Hands reached to pet and tickle her, amid oohs and aahs.
The situation changed. Chloris was bright enough to see that her companions had been swayed by the sight of us as a family group; breaking us up would do her more harm than good. "It's been lovely having you, but you had best run along home now, Marcus."
Chloris walked us to the door. She did her best to sour the situation further. "Well, he makes good babies, I can see." It implied that Helena was just my breeding mare. Neither of us took the bait. "I hope I haven't caused you too much trouble, Marcus darling," she said sweetly.
"You were always trouble."
"And you were…"
"What?"
"Oh-I'll tell you next time we're alone." Helena was seething, as she was meant to. "Now off you go, darling…" mouthed Chloris maliciously. "Don't be too hard on him, Helena my dear. Men have to follow their willies, you know."
Helena Justina then pulled off her best effort. Standing in the street, she said, "Of course they do." She smiled. It was polite. It showed the power of her upbringing. "That was what brought him to me."
Albia had bent to unfasten Nux, who had been let outside tied to a wooden post. She threw me a scared look, then let the dog drag her along well ahead of us.
"Thanks for the rescue."
"I heard you were kidnapped!" Helena retorted. "If it had been mentioned that you had become a willing sex toy, I would not have interfered."
"Settle down."
"Who exactly was that, Marcus darling?"
"A crowd-pulling gladiatrix called Amazonia." I came clean. "In a previous career she was a circus ropedancer."
"Oh, her!"
"I always had good taste," I growled. "That's why I went for you."
Helena Justina, with the full power of her breeding, let it be known that she was unimpressed.
I felt like a man who had just made a choice. This is always depressing, for some reason.
No wonder I was feeling low. I was now carrying two tired children through darkened streets whose ambience I did not trust, alongside an extremely silent wife.
XXVI
I took the children to the nursery and put them into their cribs myself. This looked like a ploy. I couldn't help that. Their mother rather pointedly opted out.
I found Helena afterward, just as I expected, on her own. She was seated in a wraparound chair pretending not to care. That was an act. She was waiting for me to come and find her. I had made hasty preparations. I even bathed rapidly; never have an argument with a woman when you know she is scented sweetly with cinnamon but you really stink. Lest my cleanup look too calculated, I then rushed off barefoot to find her, and I forgot to comb my hair. The eager lover, with the endearing tousled look: tonight I had to throw in every lousy gambit.
I lowered myself onto a couch, staying upright with an elbow propped on the end arm. "Want to hear about my day?"
I kept it brief. I kept it factual. Near the beginning, when I described taking out Albia, Helena interrupted, "You did not consult me."
"I did wrong there."
"You are the man of the household," she commented sarcastically.
I plodded on with the story. She listened, but never looked at me. "…At that point the gladiator girls took me into custody by force. The rest you know."
I sat exhausted. It felt good to be clean and in a fresh tunic. Dangerous too; this was no moment to relax and nod off. I might as well pass out in the middle of making love. A subject I was not too tired to think about-but a pleasure I would not be given tonight.
When Helena finally looked up, I was gazing back at her peacefully. The love in my expression was natural; she should believe that. I had never known anyone like her. I studied her face, every line familiar, from that fiercely jutting chin to the heavy, knitted eyebrows. After we came home she had quickly redone her hair; I could tell from the new arrangement of the knobbed bone pins. She saw me work that out, wanting to hate me for being so observant. She had changed her earrings too. The lapis danglers always made her ears sore; she now wore smaller gold ones.
"Want to hear about my day?" Ever the fighter, Helena challenged me.
"Love to."
"I won't bother you with the tedious round of morning and afternoon duties." Thank Jove for that.
"I am always intrigued by your wide social range, Helena," I reproved her gently.
"That doesn't sound like you."
"No, it sounds like a pompous donkey," I said. "But this isn't you either. I suspect you have things to tell me."
Helena Justina wanted very badly to hurl a cushion in my direction, but she kept her dignity. Her long hands were clasped firmly in her lap, to stop herself. "Did you find out what those women were doing in the street when they broke up your tussle with the brothel-keeper? Or were you too busy fooling with Chloris to ask useful questions?"
I felt my teeth set. "You, however, did ask them?"
"I managed a few inquiries while I was enduring their company." She did not actually say coldly, While you were frolicking in the love nest. "There is a businessman trying to take over their group. He is being too pushy and they do not welcome it. They work without a manager and they don't want to pay a cut to someone else."
I wondered if this was the gangster Petronius was looking for. "What's his name?"
"I never asked. All he wants is to exploit them. They know he runs brothels too," Helena told me. "So when you tried to help Albia escape they weighed in. They told me you needed them!"