Clemens and one of the others looked out as I stomped upstairs holding a pottery lamp. They thought I was drunk. I didn't care what they thought. I needed a drink, but I was not going to confirm their views by getting one. None of us spoke.
All my family were in bed. Even the dog, curled up in her basket, barely tolerated me patting her. She humphed and turned away, letting me know I was a disreputable stop-out. Neither of my children stirred when I looked in on them.
Always anxious if I was out so late, Helena Justina was awake. As I undressed and had a cursory wash, I gave her a stripped-down version of the night's fruitless efforts. Helena sat in bed, with her glowing hair spread over her shoulders, hugging her knees. She knew how to listen. I tried to continue grousing, refusing the lure of a spirited woman who could be wonderfully peaceful in the presence of the stressed. Her calm wore me down. 'I did my best.' 'You always do, Marcus.' 'And it's never good enough.' 'Don't denigrate yourself You're tired, you're cold, and you had no dinner -' 'And I've a dirty great blister refusing to burst on my toe.' 'Do you want me to salve and bandage it, darling?' 'Don't fuss. I don't want tenderness and care. I'd rather suffer and look tough.' 'You're an idiot, Falco. Come to bed and get warm.' I went to bed, intending to get warm the lively way. I fell asleep. As I lay in her arms, I was faintly aware that Helena stayed awake long afterwards. She lay still, but her eyelashes were fluttering against my arm. Helena was thinking. If I had been less weary, I could probably have worked out where those busy thoughts were going. Then I might have worried too. Some time next morning I groaned and retreated under the bedcover, refusing to wake yet. For a moment I believed I was back in my old bachelor apartment in Fountain Court, where I could lie in all day and nobody loved or liked me enough to notice. I cared more about myself nowadays. My habits were decent, though I still enjoyed living controversially. And sometimes, when a mission was going nowhere and I had had a punishing day, I took time off to recover. That was when solutions sometimes came.
Dimly, I had heard Helena asking me to keep an eye on the children because she was going out. Well, I generally allowed that. I was a liberal husband and I had taken on a single-minded, independent wife. She had made me happy. I accepted that keeping a happy woman required time, the regular hire of a carrying chair with bearers, and permission to go where she liked so long as no aediles arrested her. She could shop, gossip with her friends, argue with her mother, argue with my mother, visit galleries and public libraries. She could walk in parks or make offerings at temples – though I advised against both, since public gardens are sordid places, haunts of rapists and rabid dogs, while temples are even more disgusting dives, used by purse thieves and pimps.
As a partner I was tolerant, affectionate, loyal and house-trained. She lived on a loose rein in all respects. However, there was one area where I thought I deserved to be consulted.
I did not expect Helena Justina to lean over me exuding a fug of her favourite perfume, amidst the tinkle that I recognised belatedly as her best gold ear-rings with the three rows of tiny spindle-whorls, to kiss me goodbye – knowing I was lost to exhaustion – and then to sail off on a visit to Titus Caesar. Without saying where she was going.
Titus had had his eye on her once. She knew how I still felt about that.
Finding myself fully awake about an hour afterwards, I suddenly remembered properly that heady scent of malabathron and those tuneful ear-rings – not to mention the innocent way she had murmured 'I'm just going out, darling'… I shot out of bed, conducted a lightning ablution and pelted downstairs.
I was formally dressed. 'Toga, Falco?' chortled the acting centurion, Clemens, acting amazement. He was leaning in a doorway with his arms folded. 'Running in a toga?'
'Seems like everybody's going to the Palace today!' commented Lentullus. So they all knew where Helena Justina had gone.
Lentullus was teaching my daughters to march up and down the hallway, bearing new little wooden swords. I recognised the wood (I had been saving it to make a pantry shelf, one day, in about ten years' time.) Lentullus, babysitting? Julia and Favonia dumped with a legionary? I knew what that meant too. Helena had not just taken Albia to make her look respectable, she had commandeered the new nursemaid, Galene, as well. And that meant, Helena Justina thought that if she saw Titus Caesar without me, she seriously needed chaperons.
Dear gods. And I had nearly let this feckless, faithless woman rub ointment on my sore toe.
XXIII
'You'll never catch her now!' sneered Clemens. 'She's long gone, Falco. '
I declared it would be a gallant gesture to escort my lady home after her royal interview. It sounded feeble, and if I did set off for the Palace I knew my doubts would grow worse with every step I took. Titus Caesar was commander of the Praetorians, and thus in control of Anacrites. Helena was right. She stood a good chance of persuading Titus to free her brother – perhaps better than her father trying to work on Vespasian. The Emperor tended to leave his subordinates to operate as they chose; he would avoid countermanding Anacrites unless the Spy was very clearly in the wrong. Titus always boasted he enjoyed doing daily 'good deeds'; Helena would persuade him that generosity to Justinus was classic Roman virtue. Would a man of virtue (a species I distrusted) want classic repayment, however?
'Helena Justina seemed anxious, Marcus Didius. Something to do with a relative, is it?' I refused to respond to this blatant curiosity. When I demanded to know why Clemens was hanging around at home instead of out on the search for Veleda, he suggested I might need company. He didn't mean at the Palace; it seemed I was going somewhere much more unsavoury. 'Man came to see you last night, Falco. Petronius, would it be? Big stiff with a sneer on his face, said he was in the vigiles.'
Like me, and like all ex-soldiers, Petro believed the recent military intake was shoddy. Recruits were rubbish, officers were second-rate, discipline had deteriorated and now that Petronius and I were no longer defending the Empire, it was remarkable its entire political structure did not disintegrate.
I concede that in our day we had the Boudiccan Rebellion. On the other hand, once the legions got to grips with her, Queen Boudicca was eliminated without a trace. Unlike Veleda, she was not now scampering around Rome, gazing at the sacred monuments while she plotted acts of terror right at the foot of the Capitol and made us all look fools. 'You could have told me before! What's his message, Clemens?' 'Our woman has been spotted talking to vagrants.' 'Did he say who? Or where the sighting happened?' 'No, Falco – Oh, I think he mentioned it was on the streets at night. ' 'Very specific!' If! had known this, I would have got up and done something about it several hours ago. Even Helena had not seen fit to pass on this message. She knew about it though: 'Helena Justina,' said Clemens, citing her name with exaggerated respect, 'said be sure to take backup, if you go out interviewing rough people.' He was making me sound a wimp, in a way that Helena would never have done; she knew I could look after myself 'Helena told us you will go to find the runaways that your friend told you about, on the Via Appia.' This was Helena subtly reminding me what Petro had originally said. 'Daytime would be best, when they are all sleeping up among the tombs; you'll lose them when they come into the city scavenging at night.' I felt my mouth tighten. 'And she doesn't want you bringing any parasites or skin diseases home, so please go to a bath house afterwards. She's left your oil and strigil out.'
Now I wished I could have done this early enough to have then dropped in at Titus Caesar's boudoir when I stank of tramps and could give the imperial playboy lice. 'Anything else?' I asked Clemens in a nasty tone. 'I've ordered horses,' he responded meekly. I hate horses. If he did not know that already, he soon worked it out. I should have known any plan devised by an acting centurion would be a time-waster. Clemens had thought it was clever for us to leave Rome by the Ostia Gate, pick up the mounts he had arranged – which were not horses but donkeys; I could have told him that – then ride right around outside to the south of the city. It was a long way. It was the lazy way, too, and it took far longer than briskly walking across, which is what I would have done, left to myself Only my abstraction caused by Helena being with Titus let Clemens bamboozle me into this crazy scheme.