Maia gasped. "You gave yourself up?"
"It's an old army trick," Petronius said defensively. "The maneuver that is so stupid, you hope you'll get away with it."
"You were nearly killed?"
"Ah, Maia, you think me a hero!"
"You are an idiot," said Maia.
"She means that fondly," Helena mediated, wincing.
"No, she means it," returned Petronius. He sounded cheerful. It was as if my fractious sister's presence had lifted his spirits.
Norbanus made the mistake of laughing to himself.
"You!" Maia stabbed her finger in his direction furiously. "You can answer to me!" She pushed past Helena to get to him. "Is it true, then? What I heard my brother say? You lied to them? You threatened them? You tried to kill Petronius? All the time you were hanging around, you were just using me?"
I tried to hold her back: no use. Petro just stood aside with his admiring look.
"I am sick of men like you!" Maia beat Norbanus on his chest with her fists. They were real blows, swinging from the shoulder with both fists locked together, as if she was chopping at a dusty carpet hung on a line. She was a sturdy woman, used to physical toil around the house. If she had had a stick, she would have broken his ribs.
Norbanus was taken completely by surprise. Well, nice men who put their old mothers on mental pedestals don't know about real women. The closest they get are dolled-up glamour-hungry floozies who pretend such men are wonderful. "I am sick of being used-" A beat from left to right.
"Sick of being played with-" A beat from right to left. "Sick of evil, manipulating swine ruining my life-"
"Leave it, Maia," I protested uselessly.
Norbanus was taking the punishment now for all the men in her previous life-for her husband even, and certainly for Anacrites, whose harassment had driven her here to Britain. As he staggered under the rain of blows, I stepped in, pulling my sister backwards away from him. Petronius made no attempt to calm her down. I think he was laughing.
"He's getting away!" shrieked Helena, as Norbanus seized his moment.
Petro and I let go of Maia. Norbanus made a lunge at Helena. She brandished the torch at him. He sent the fiery brand flying. In trying to save it, Helena cursed uncharacteristically, then wailed again, "He'll get away!"
"Not from me!" Maia had found and raised the ready-primed crossbow. Then she lifted the safety claw, snapped up the trigger pin, and shot Norbanus in the back.
LVII
The recoil sent her spinning, but somehow she stayed upright. Open-mouthed, she gasped with horror. She was still holding the weapon, keeping it away from her, as if terrified it would fire another bolt. For a moment no one else could move.
Norbanus was on the floor. Hundreds of defeated tribesmen in this province could testify that it only takes one direct hit from a Roman artillery bolt. We didn't even check for signs of life.
"Oh!" whispered Maia.
"Put it down," Helena murmured. "It won't go off again."
Maia hesitantly lowered the weapon. Petronius walked to her side. He looked more shocked than anyone. Well, if we were right about his feelings, the light of his life had just demonstrated a frightening personality. He took the weapon from her limp grasp, passing on the deadly thing to me.
"It's all right," he said gently. He knew she was in shock. "Everything is all right."
Maia was trembling. For once her voice was barely audible. "Is it?"
Petronius smiled a little, gazing down at her ruefully. "I'm here, aren't I?"
That was when Maia let out a choking sob and collapsed into his arms. I think it was the first time, at least since she reached womanhood, that I had ever seen my sister allow someone else to comfort her. He wrapped her in her own cloak with tender hands, then held her.
Helena met my eyes and wiped away a tear. Then she pointed at the corpse and mouthed, "What are we going to do?"
"Tell the governor a gangster's body needs to be cleared away."
She took a deep breath. Helena always tackled a crisis with logistical thought. "We must tell nobody, ever, who killed him."
"Wey-hey, why not? I'm proud of her!"
"No, no," Petronius joined in. "The children already have to cope with their father's death. They don't want to know their darling mama makes stiffs of professional mobsters on her evenings out."
The darling mama struggled to free herself from his enfolding grasp. "Give up," he said. "I'm not letting go." Maia stilled. Their eyes locked on to each other. Petro's voice dropped. "I thought I had lost you, Maia."
"Would it have mattered?" she asked him.
"Hardly at all," remarked Petronius Longus, who was not normally given to poetic conceits. "Well-maybe just enough to break my heart."
LVIII
He stared at her. She said nothing. That was Maia. "And what about you?" Petronius dared to ask. "Suppose I had been lost-"
"Shut up," said Maia. Then she buried her face against his chest and held him tight, sobbing. Petronius bent his head over her so they were close when she looked up again.
Maia had clearly prepared this speech sometime before: "I took the children out on the river to have time with them and talk about going home," she said. "And now I need to talk to you."
"I am ready to listen," replied Petronius. This was not strictly true. Instead, that rascal's way of listening was to demonstrate to Maia that he was keen on kissing.
Helena thumped me in the ribs, as if she thought that I was laughing. No chance. I had just seen my best friend throw himself into a life fraught with risk, and my sister agreeing to it. On both counts I was too shaken to mock.
We went outside eventually. The legionaries were clearing up. The prisoners had left. I muttered to Silvanus that Norbanus Murena was dead. We discussed what to do with the body. "Which way is the tide flowing?"
"Going out," he said.
"The ebb? That will do fine."
Silvanus took the point. He lent a couple of lads for the business. Petronius and I went back in the warehouse with them, and we carried out Norbanus, one man to each arm and leg. We brought the corpse to the edge of the wharf, just below what Hilaris had once called the temporary permanent bridge. We swung together a few times to get up a rhythm, then we let fly. Norbanus Murena sailed out a short distance over the Thamesis, then splashed in. We had not weighed him down. Nobody wanted him to hang about in the port area then one day come bobbing up again. Let him be washed well down the estuary and beached in the mud or the marshes.
If this town ever became a great metropolis, plenty of corpses would wind up in the river. Londinium would be a draw for drownings, through grisly foul play or tragedy. Some would even end up as floaters by accident. Over the coming centuries this great river would see many-the newly dead, the long dead, and the living sometimes, drunk or distraught or maybe merely careless, all pulled to oblivion by the strong dark currents. Norbanus could set a precedent.
As we watched him lurch and vanish, the procurator Hilaris arrived, anxious to inspect his damaged boat. He had had it for years (I had borrowed it myself); he used it for trawling along the south coast to his houses at Noviomagus and Durnovaria. Maia rushed up, to explain what had happened in the storm. Petronius glued himself to her. I saw her hand wind into his. They could hardly bear to be apart.
We brought Hilaris up to date on the gangsters. He made no comment on what had happened to Norbanus, though he must have seen our disposal measures.
"Well, you've cleaned up the town for us, Marcus! I knew I could rely on you." The words sounded flippant, but anyone who thought it would underestimate him. "And thanks, Petronius."