"Look after our young woman," Gaius commanded me, hugging Helena goodbye. Then to her, "And you look after him!"
I suppose he meant, if I was seasick. Which I was, though needless to say I looked after myself.
XXXIII
We had a long sea crossing, in a boat wallowing under a load of blue-grey British marble, to Gesoriacum in Gaul. Then overland to Durocortorum, where we turned off through Belgium into Germany and down the military corridor on the Rhine.
Use of the Imperial courier service is a dismal privilege. The special messengers on horseback cover fifty miles a day. We classed ourselves as a less urgent despatch and took an official carriage: four wheels on stout axles, high seats, change of mules every dozen miles, and after the double distance food and lodging all charged to the locals thanks to our pass. We were bitterly cold all the way.
We reached a professional understanding; we had to. It was too far to keep quarrelling. I was competent, she could see that; she could behave when she chose. Whenever we stopped she stayed within sight, and if she hardly ever talked to me, neither did she invite trouble from thieves, lechers, or tiresome inn landlords who tried to talk to her. Village idiots and beggars at bridges took one look at the set of her jaw, then slunk away.
All the couriers and drivers thought I slept with her, but I expected that. By her taut expression when she spoke to them I could tell she knew what they thought. She and I avoided the subject. Being viewed as the lover of Helena Justina was something I found difficult to pass off as a joke.
At the big military base of Argentoratum on the Rhine we met Helena's younger brother, who was stationed there. I got on well with him: those of us with ferocious sisters usually find common ground. Young Camillus organized a dinner that was the one bright spot on our appalling trip. Afterwards he took me aside and enquired anxiously whether anyone had thought to pay me for escorting her ladyship. I did admit I was already booking her twice. When he stopped laughing we rolled out to tour the nightlife of the town. He told me in confidence that his sister had had to endure a tragic life. I didn't laugh; he was a lad, he had a kind heart, and anyway the idiot was drunk.
She looked fond of her brother. That was fair enough. What tickled me was his affection for her.
At Lugdunum, where we picked up a boat down the Rhodanus, I narrowly escaped falling in. We had almost missed the boat altogether: it had already pulled in its gangplank and cast off, but the crew hooked the vessel to the river bank for us to leap across if we chose. I lobbed our baggage over the rail, then since none of the river men showed any sign of helping, parked myself with one foot on the deck and one on land to act as a human hand rope while her ladyship pulled herself aboard.
Helena was not a girl to betray doubts. I held out both my hands. While the boat bobbed almost out of reach, she grasped hold bravely and I passed her across. The boatmen lifted up their grappling hooks at once. I was left dangling. As the gap widened I braced myself for the shock of the icy Rhodanus until her ladyship glanced back, saw what was happening, then gripped my arm. For a second I hung spread-eagled; then she tightened her grip, I kicked off from land, and clapped down on the boat deck like a crab.
I was highly embarrassed. Most people would have exchanged a grin. But Helena Justina turned away without a word.
Fourteen hundred miles: long, bruising days, then nights in identical foreign rest houses full of what she rightly thought were quite appalling men. She never complained. Bad weather, spring tides, the couriers a contemptuous bunch, me: not a moan out of her. By Massilia I was mildly impressed.
I was also concerned. She looked tired; her voice sounded colourless. The inn was crammed and by now I knew how much she would hate the crush. I went to her room to collect her at dinnertime in case she felt nervous. She hung back, reluctant, pretending she was not hungry, but my cheery visage managed to lure her out.
"You all right?"
"Yes. Falco, don't fuss."
"Look a bit poorly."
"I'm all right." One of those days. She was human after all.
I tucked a shawl round her; I'd cos set a prickly porcupine if it was paying me twice.
Thank you."
"All part of the service," I said, and took her to dine. I was glad that she came. I did not want to eat alone. It was my birthday. No one knew. I was thirty years old.
We stayed at Massilia at an inn near the port. It was no worse and no better than the rest of Massilia; it was terrible. Too many strangers do a town no good. I was stiff from the road, and worried about my aching ribs. I felt a constant prickle as if we were being watched. I hated the food.
The acoustics in the dining hall were appalling. It was deafening. At one point I was called away by our ship's captain who wanted to make arrangements for embarkation. Quite straightforward: pay in advance, no frills, dawn start, bring your own baggage, find your own way to the docks or miss the boat. Thanks. What a wonderful town!
When I rejoined Helena she was driving off the innkeeper's lurcher who had his muzzle in my bowl. It being southern Gaul, where they know how to make strangers suffer, we were eating fish stew grainy stuff dyed red and full of broken bits of shell. I put my bowl on the floor for the dog. Few punishments match a birthday in Massilia, starving, and with a girl who regards you as if you had a niffy smell.
I persuaded Helena to sit out in the garden. That meant I went too, which was why I bothered to ask: I wanted some air. It was dusk. We could hear distant sounds of the port, there was running water and a fishpond with plopping frogs. No one else was about. Although it was cold, we sat on a stone bench. We were both tired, both allowing ourselves to relax slightly now Rome was only another sailing trip away.
"This is more peaceful! Feeling better now?"
"Don't fidget me," she complained, so I reproached her with my birthday.
"Bad luck," was all she said.
"Well, Marcus!" I mused. "Celebrating your feast day five hundred miles from home: gritty fish stew, filthy Gallic wine, a pain in your side, a callous client…" As I rambled on amiably, Helena Justina finally smiled at me.
"Stop grumbling. It's your own fault. If I'd known it was your birthday I'd have bought you a tipsy cake. How old now?"
"Thirty. Downhill to the dark boat across the Styx. Probably be sick over the side in Charon's ferry too… So how old are you?" This was daring, but she sounded almost sorry to have missed the tipsy cake.
"Oh… Twenty-three."
I laughed. Time yet to rope in a new husband…" Then I ventured in a casual voice, "My ladies usually like to tell me about their divorces."
"It's your feast day," Helena Justina snorted.
"So treat me… Where did you go wrong?"
"Fornication at the horse barracks!"
"Liar!" I didn't like her, but that had to be untrue. She was strict as a brick. That was probably the reason why I thought I didn't like her. "His fault then. What did he do? Too mean with the opal earrings or too free with the Syrian flute girls?"
She just said, "No."
"Beat you?" I risked. By now I was insatiably curious.
"No. If you really need to know," Helena declared, with an effort, "he was not sufficiently interested in anything about me to bother. We were married for four years. We had no children.
Neither of us was unfaithful She paused. Probably knew, you can never be sure. "I enjoyed running my own household but what was it for? So I divorced him."
She was a secretive person; I felt sorry I asked. Usually around this point they cry; not her.
"Want to talk about it? Did you quarrel?"
"Once."
"What about?"
"Oh… Politics."
It was the last thing I expected, yet utterly typical. I burst out laughing. "Look, I'm sorry! But you can't stop there do tell!"