I sent the map along to Frontinus, to depress him while he was shaved. I sat in the wraparound chair. Helena had a rapid sponge-wash, tweaked a gown from her clothes chest, clipped on jewelry. She touched my cheek. "You look tired, Marcus."
"I'm wondering what I have got myself into."
She came across to me, combing her fine hair. After a vague attempt to pin it up, she let the whole swathe tumble. Knowing the comb would stick in my curls, she neatened them instead with her long fingers. "You know this is vital."
"I know it's dangerous."
"You think it's right."
"They need to be stopped by someone, yes."
"But you wonder why you?" Helena knew that sometimes I relied on her to reassure me. "Because you have the persistence, Marcus. You have the courage, the intellectual skills, the sheer anger that is needed to face up to such wickedness."
I put my arms around her, hiding my face against her stomach. She stood, crouching a little over me, one hand running inside the neck of my tunic to massage my spine. I heard myself groan wearily. "I want to go home!"
"Marcus, we can't go, not until you have finished here."
"It never ends, though, sweetheart." I leaned back and looked up at her. "Organized crime keeps coming. One success only quells it temporarily and opens possibilities for new rackets."
"Don't be so disheartened."
I smiled ruefully. "I'm tired. I didn't sleep two nights ago. My girlfriend had a fight with me… Love me?"
Her thumb caressed my forehead. "If I didn't love you, I would not have had the fight."
That was when I chose to tell her-when I had to tell her-we were liable to see Chloris at the residence that night.
Helena released her hold on me, but when I caught her hands in mine she did not resist. "Don't get this wrong, love. Chloris has to make her deposition for the governor and she has also been asked to look at our dinner guests. Both Norbanus and Popillius have been invited tonight, along with other newcomers who could be the gang leaders. This is business, Helena. I'm not playing about."
Helena merely said quietly, "What she is doing is perilous." I know." I was terse. "She does not seem to know that her status makes the witness statement unusable in court."
"She is doing it for you."
"She's doing it because she likes stirring!" She always did. Women like that don't change. "I am not sure she sees just what danger she courts."
"Her career is based on physical risk," Helena pointed out.
"Yes, but that's her choice. She enjoys the thrills and she earns a great deal of money. She and the other girls have come here to Britain because fighting in the new amphitheater will make them independent for life- if they survive. But tangling with street criminals is different. The odds on survival are far worse. If I were an ethical person I would spell out the truth to her."
"But you need what she tells you."
"Well, I could myself report to Frontinus what she said, but he won't act on hearsay."
"She saw what happened," Helena insisted. "Infamous or not, if Frontinus interviews her in private and he believes her, then she will give his actions validity."
"Closed-room verdicts are not my favorite scene, Helena."
"You're a grumpy old republican! Oh, I despise them too, Marcus, but if they have to happen I would rather it was in a cause like this."
"Bad politics." I hated this situation. The Claudian emperors were fond of it, subjecting their enemies to secret trials at the Palace, rather than facing them in the Senate or open court. I had hoped that with our Flavian dynasty the practice would die out. It was for panicking leaders, to remove imagined rivals after swift closet questioning-often based on trumped-up evidence. Informers, I regret to say, were often the filthy instruments of such private trials. I had never worked like that.
As we went to dinner, the procurator popped out of an office and signaled me. He had been lying in wait with Amicus. Helena went on ahead, while Hilaris and I held a hurried consultation with the torturer.
"Titus is just putting things away-" I caught Hilaris looking pale again as Amicus reported. "I got the waiters' stories. They all match; its nice and neat. Apparently, the two men you are holding run a helpful service. They deter troublemakers and sneak-thieves who might grab the takings. All the wine shops appreciate the extra security, and are happy to contribute modest sums to obtain it."
Hilaris and I gazed at him in surprise.
"Well, that was today's silly story," Amicus scoffed in a comfortable tone. "Tomorrow I shall crank things up a bit. They think they've got away with it. When I reappear with the bag, they'll be ripe to tell me their life histories in ten volumes of fine poetry. Mind you, the barber stuck. I knew it. Bastards!" He then inquired anxiously, "Is there any hurry?"
"Everything seems quiet currently" Hilaris said, sounding cautious.
Amicus suddenly transferred his attention to me. "Falco! Do you have a witness to any of the killings?"
I wondered why he asked. "The murder of the Briton, probably. Do you want details?"
"No. I just like to warn the nasty fibbers that I can obtain corroboration."
I was slightly shy of telling this professional I was using Chloris. Better for her sake, anyway, that I kept her name quiet.
Hilaris invited Amicus to dine with us. He refused gruffly. It seems torturers prefer not to socialize.
Tonight we had more guests than on other occasions; it had to be a buffet party rather than a formal dinner on couches. We spilled out from the dining room into the garden, with music from the Hilaris family's tibia-player and the Norbanus harpist. The tibia-player was excellent; he must have put in plenty of practice here in boring Britain. The harpist, presumably trained in Rome where there were more distractions, was simply adequate. The evening remained sedate. Anyone who hoped for half-naked gymnastic dancers hoped in vain.
Due to the plucking and tootling, conversation did not thrive. Norbanus himself hung around Maia as usual. However, at one point he approached me rather deliberately; I was sitting with Helena, unfashionably conversing with my wife.
"I ought to have a word, Marcus Didius. About your sister-" I raised an eyebrow. His manner was open, friendly, even honest. He managed to avoid acting like a creep, and although he was a businessman, clearly accustomed to his own way in most things, he was scrupulously polite over this. "It cannot have escaped you that I enjoy Maia's company. But if my attentions offend you, then of course I shall withdraw" (His sad smile, said Helena afterward, was a delicate touch.)
I told Norbanus gruffly that my sister made her own decisions. He looked pleased, as if I had given him boarding rights. In fact I thought the only way she would see through him was if nobody interfered. Mind you, I had made that ridiculous assumption once before, over that swine Anacrites.
Norbanus Murena went back to my sister, who was staring across at me suspiciously. I watched him, keeping my face neutral; he was good-looking, confident, and as the women kept saying, he seemed a nice man. I could see Maia was finding him welcome company. He was not being pushy. Perhaps this kind of courteous, well-heeled self-made man was just what she needed.
On his way around the gravel paths to the seat where Maia had placed herself, Norbanus had passed Popillius. They must have met before, the previous night when the lawyer first made himself known at the residence (when I was out, having my weak spots tested by darling Chloris). Now the two men exchanged brief nods. They did not speak. They looked like mere acquaintances.
Popillius was a typical off-duty lawyer. Socializing happily, he ignored the fact that his two clients were still incarcerated in this very house. He and Frontinus had chatted tonight as if their wrangle over Pyro and Splice had never occurred. By tomorrow Popillius would be back on the attack, while Frontinus would resist the lawyer's efforts as strongly as if he had never been tonight's genial host.