Poseidon s Gold

Helena was looking at me for more answers. 'We just about escaped being destitute. We were barely clad and fed. But that applied to everyone we knew. It sounds bad to you, love, with your privileged upbringing, but we were the swarming mass of the great Roman poor; none of us expected any better from life.'

'You were sent to school.'

'Not by him.'

'But your family did have benefactors?'

'Yes. Maia and I had our school fees paid.'

'She told me. By the lodger. Where did he come from?'

'He was an old Melitan moneylender. My mother found space for him so the rent money would help out.' She only let him have a fold-up couch and a shelf for his clothes in a corridor. She had assumed he would hate it and leave, but he clung on and lived with us for years.

'And your father disapproved? Was the lodger a cause of arguments?'

This was all wrong. I was supposed to be the intruder who went round asking awkward questions, forcing long-hidden secrets to bubble to the surface of other people's ornamental ponds. 'The Melitan did cause a lot of trouble, but not the way you mean.' The Melitan, who had no family, had wanted to adopt Maia and me. That had caused some tumultuous rows. To Helena, who came from a civilised family where they hardly seemed to wrangle over anything more serious than who beat the Senator to the best bread roll at breakfast, the riots among my own tribe must sound harsh and barbaric. 'I'll tell you about it some day. My father's disappearance was directly related to his flamboyant girlfriend, not the lodger. Times were hard and he wasn't prepared to endure the struggle with us. The Melitan was irrelevant.'

Helena wanted to argue, but accepted it. 'So your father suddenly walked out one day-'

'It seemed unexpected, but since he left with a red-haired scarfmaker, maybe we should have been prepared.'

'I've noticed you hate redheads,' she said gravely.

'Could have been worse: could have been a Macedonian; could have been a blonde.'

'Another colour you loathe! I must remember to stay dark-'

'That means you're not leaving me?' I threw in lightly.

'Even if I do, Marcus Didius, I shall always respect your prejudices!' Helena's gaze, which could be oddly charitable, met mine. A familiar spark tingled. I let myself believe that she would stay.

'Don't go!' I murmured softly, with what I hoped were pleading eyes. Her mood had changed again, however. She looked back as if she had just spotted mould on a best table napkin. I kept trying. 'Sweetheart, we haven't even started yet. Our "old times" have yet to be enjoyed. I'll give you things to look back on that you cannot even dream-'

'That's what I'm afraid of!'

'Ah Helena!'

'Ah nuts, Marcus!' I should always have spoken to her in formal Greek, and never have let her pick up my own slang. 'Stop bluffing,' commanded the love of my life. She had a sharp eye for fraud. 'So your father started a new life as an auctioneer in Capua; he eventually reappeared in Rome, the man I know as Geminus. Now he is a rich man.' She had met my father briefly. He had made sure he steamed in like Lars Porsena of Clusium to inspect the high-born madam who had picked me up. I still felt good whenever I remembered his amazement. Helena Justina was not some enamelled old baggage I was chasing for her money. He found her presentable, apparently rational, and genuinely fond of me. He never got over the shock and I never stopped gloating.

This sibyl could also be too shrewd for her own good: 'Is it his wealth you resent?'

'He can be as rich as he likes.'

'Ah! Is he still with the redhead?'

'I believe so.'

'Do they have children?'

'I believe not.'

'And he's still there twenty years later-so he does have some staying power!' Without intending to let her see a reaction, I ground my teeth. Helena queried thoughtfully, 'Do you think you inherited that?'

'No. I owe nothing to him. I'll be loyal to you of my own accord, princess.'

'Really?' Her light inflection belied the sharp whip in the insult. 'You know where he is, Marcus; you recommended him to my own father. Sometimes you even work with him yourself.'

'He's the best auctioneer in Rome. One of my professional specialities is recovering stolen art. I deal with him when I have to-but there are limits, lass.'

'Whereas,' she started slowly. Helena could use a word like 'whereas' not merely to shade her argument, but to add hints of moral stricture too. Her conjunctions were as piquant as anchovy. 'Whereas your brother seems to have worked with Geminus on a much more frequent footing: They were close, weren't they? Festus never felt the anger that obsessed you after your father left?'

'Festus never shared my anger,' I agreed bleakly.

Helena smiled slightly. She had always thought I was a broody beggar. She was right, too. 'The two of them had a long and regular partnership on a straightforward father-and-son basis?'

'It seems like it.' Festus had had no pride. Maybe I had too much-but that was the way I liked it.

'Don't you know, Marcus?'

'I am forced to that conclusion. Festus never mentioned it.' Sparing my feelings, I suppose. Mother's too. 'There was a hiatus in relations when my father was living out of Rome, but Festus must have resumed contact pretty soon afterwards.' Sometimes I wondered if they had even stayed in touch throughout the time when Father was hiding up in Capua. 'Certainly by the time Festus died they shared a lock-up in the antiques quarter, over at the Saepta Julia.' Where my mother could not see them. 'And then they were as close as two termites.'

'So your father will know about the statues and the ship that sank?'

'He should. If it was one of their joint ventures.' She had dragged the words out of me like crusted amber oozing from an old pine tree. Before Helena could capitalise on the achievement, I said sternly, 'I left him until last deliberately. I am going to see Geminus tomorrow.'

'I think you're afraid to face him.'

'Not true-but you have to understand, my father can be a very tricky customer. I wanted to assemble as many facts as possible before I tried talking to him.' She was closer to the truth than I admitted. I had never discussed family affairs with Father, and I hated the thought of starting now. 'Helena, just leave me to get on with it!'

Very manly. Asking for trouble, in fact. That glimmer in her eyes was quite dangerous now.

'All right.' I hate reasonable women. 'Don't scowl,' she complained. 'Anybody would suppose I interfered.'

'May I be eaten alive by ravens if I thought it: Is that the end of the marathon grilling?'

'No.'

I thought not. We still had Marina to upset our evening. The grilling had hardly started yet.

XVIII

I made one last attempt to restore peace. 'I'm in serious trouble, sweetheart. I may be under arrest soon. Don't let's spoil our evening with any more home truths.'

Helena Justina listened almost demurely, her hands lightly folded in her lap. Anyone who had never met her might suppose she was a woman of quality interviewing a cushion-stuffer who was seeking outwork. I knew her better. She looked sad, which meant she was angry- more angry than if she had merely looked annoyed.

Soon she would be sad too.

'Marcus, when people are so eager to tell me that you seduced your brother's girlfriend, I would like to assure them I have already heard the full story from you.'

'Thank you,' I said, pretending to assume it was a compliment. The full story posed some problems. Only Festus knew that. 'To start with, Helena, if I did seduce my brother's girlfriend, Marina did not object to it-and as for Festus, it was probably his plan.'

'Maybe she seduced you?' suggested Helena, almost hopefully.

I smiled. 'No, that's your privilege.'

Then I told her about that long and dreadful night in Rome.

My brother Festus was thirty-five years old when he died. Frankly, we had not been prepared to lose him to a hero's death. An accident during a prank seemed more his style.