Shadows in Bronze

He stared at me, as though he could not decide whether I was being satirical.

My side was aching more than I could easily tolerate.

'Talking of well-stocked bank boxes, I have some news for you, Pertinax. Caprenius Marcellus had decided that placing his hopes in you is the short road to a long disillusionment. When you left without seeing him, he made other arrangements-'

'Arrangements? What arrangements?'

‘Same as you today; he got married.'

His first reaction was disbelief. Then he believed it. He was too crazed even to feel hurt; I could see him immediately planning ways to extricate himself. The busy thoughts of a madman were moving in his sick eyes; I interrupted relentlessly: ‘Marcellus was extremely fond of Helena. With her help you might have held him – but Marcellus had realized the truth. Oh, in many ways she will always be tied to you! The very high-mindedness you despise her for ensures that. She hated being divorced. But anyone who could offer Helena a refuge from her own sense of failure was bound to supersede you easily enough. Accept it,' I warned him steadily. 'You lost Helena Justina the way you failed at everything else you tried.' Before he could insult me in return I went on, 'I know why she rejected you. Marcellus knew.' I straightened my spine as I sat there, bracing myself against the hot pains in my side. He lay, half reclining in the damp shade against the far wall, refusing to ask me. I told him anyway.

'You think such a lot of yourself, Pertinax!' Whether I was making any impression on him or not, I had now convinced myself. The insults flowed much faster after that. 'You were useless – she soon did better once she was free of you. I expect you think you know her very well, but I doubt it! For instance, in all the years you were married to her, did you ever once discover that when a man has made Helena a happy woman, she cries in his arms?'

The truth came home.

'That's right,' I said. 'You lost her for the oldest reason in the world – she found a better man!'

Pertinax jerked with fury. As he started to come at me, the palm he was leaning on slipped and slid outwards. His bare arm scraped full length on the loose gravel path. I made no attempt to move. At the critical moment I had my eyes closed, but I heard the soft hiss of escaping air as the sacrificial dagger pierced his lung.

He died at once. So I knew that as he fell forwards the Chief Priest's knife had pierced his heart.

XC

When my own heart had stopped pounding I slowly stood up. Helena's garden.

One day, however long it took, I would give her another garden, where there would be no ghosts.

I dragged my feet to the street door, feeling stiff and sour-spirited. Fumbling, I got the key in the lock and fell out into the sunny glare of the street. A small curly dog with a stump of a tail was nosing the sheet which some neat-minded Quirinal steward had flung over the bodies of the two German mercenaries while the refined people of the district sat in their houses complaining.

I ducked at the little dog; he wagged his rump like a conspirator.

'Falco!'

A hired chair stood in the shade of a portico. Beside it, sitting on a step, was the barmaid Tullis.

'Good of you to wait!' Not entirely altruistic on her part: I still had her marriage certificate stuffed in my belt. I handed over the contract and told her I had left her new husband conveniently dead.

‘Take this document to my banker. The money I promised is a legacy left to his freedman Barnabas by Atius Pertinax; as the freedman's widow it's yours. If the banker should query the signature on the contract, just remind him slaves adopt their patron's names when they are liberated formally.'

'How much is the money?' Tullia demanded briskly. 'Half a million.'

'Don't joke about it, Falco!'

I laughed. 'Truth! Try not to spend it all the first week.'

She sniffed, with the wariness of a natural businesswoman. This petal would clutch her cash with a sure grip. 'Can I take you somewhere?'

'Corpse to dispose of-'

Tullia smiled gently, pulling me by the arm to her sedan chair. ‘I was his wife, Falco. Leave me to bury him!'

I let a small puff of laughter crease past my throat. 'Duty's a wonderful thing!'

She took me where I asked, to my gymnasium. She leaned out and kissed me goodbye.

'Careful – too much excitement will finish me, princess!'

I watched her settle back inside the chair, with all the gravity of a woman who knew exactly how she would order the remainder of her life. There would be, I thought, very few men.

She leaned out as the chair pulled away. 'Cashed your bets yet, Falco?'

'Ferox lost.'

'Oh, the bets were on Little Sweetheart!' Tullia informed me laughingly, drawing the curtains to hide her – now she was a wealthy lady – from the crowd.

I staggered in to let Glaucus patch me up, while I dismally remembered my last sight of those white bone disks…

‘What in Hades happened to you? demanded Glaucus, ignoring the sword cut and considering my glum face.

'1 just won a fortune – but my niece has eaten it.'

Glaucus my trainer was a sensible man. 'Then put the child on a chamberpot – and wait!'

We had a discussion about whether bone dissolves in stomach acids, but I won't bother you with that.

He got me clean, and promised I would keep upright if I went steadily. Then I hired a chair myself, as far as the Capena Gate. I sat, dreaming of the new apartment I could now afford if any of the betting tokens were retrieved from Marcia…

Nothing is ever easy. As I paid off the beards at the end of the Senator's street, I noticed a group loafing outside a cookshop: Anacrites' men. They had worked out that sooner or later I would try to see Helena. If I approached the house, my convalescence would be in a prison cell.

Luckily I was no slouch as a lover. I knew where to find the Senator's back gate.

When I crept in like a marble-thief, Camillus Verus himself was standing with his arms folded, staring at the carp in his gloomy pond.

I coughed. 'Nice evening!'

'Hello, Falco.'

I saw him making faces at the fish. 'I ought to warn you, sir, when I leave here I am liable to be arrested in the street.'

‘Give the neighbours something to talk about.' The tunic Glaucus had lent me only had one sleeve; Camillus twitched an eyebrow at my bandaging.

'Pertinax is dead.'

‘Tell me?'

'Some time before I can remember, I shall have to forget.' He nodded. A carp shoved his snout up to the surface but we had nothing to give him so we just stared back guiltily.

'Helena has been asking for you,' her father said.

He took me indoors, as far as the atrium. The statue I had sent him from the Pertinax house now had pride of place. He thanked me as we both gazed at her, with a peacefulness that would have been unlikely if we had been surveying the real thing.

'I still wonder,' mused Camillus, 'if I should have ordered marble-'

'Bronze is best,' I said. I smiled at him, so he would know it was intended as a compliment to his daughter: 'More warmth!'

‘Go and see her,' he urged. 'She won't talk, and she won't weep. See what you can do…'

Her mother and a gaggle of maids were crowding the bedroom. So was a man who must be the doctor. My roses were by Helena's bed, my signet was on her thumb. She was busy ignoring good advice with a set, stubborn face.

I leaned in the doorway like a professional, looking mean and hard. She saw me at once. Helena had a strong face, which took its softness from whatever she was feeling. Whenever that sweet face lit with relief, simply at seeing me walk into a room alive, the mean, hard look became difficult to sustain.

I went on helping the doorframe to keep itself upright, trying to find the sort of tasteless ribaldry she would expect. She spotted the bandages.