Then to my horror the senator's daughter held out her arms to Marcia and heaved her over the table with the confidence of a person who has always been good with children until then. I thought of that clean, well-behaved little maiden I had seen on her lap in Londinium, and cursed inwardly. Marcia flopped like a sack in her arms looking thoughtful, gazed up at her, deliberately dribbled, then blew bubbles with the spit.
"Behave," I instructed feebly. "Wipe your face."
Marcia wiped her face on the nearest material, which was the embroidered end of Helena Justina's long white scarf.
"Is she yours?" Helena asked me in a guarded tone.
It was my own affair if I let myself be used as a morning nursery school, so I just said, "No."
That was rude, even for me, so I condescended to add, "My niece." Marcia was the child my brother Festus never knew about.
"She's difficult because you spoil her," Helena commented.
I told her somebody had to; she seemed satisfied with that.
Marcia began to examine Helena's earrings, which had blue glass beads hung on gold links. If she pulled the beads off she would eat them before I could reach across the table and grab them back. Fortunately they seemed well-soldered together and firmly hooked onto her ladyship's delicate ears. I myself would have gone for the ears, which lay close to her head and were pleading to be nibbled. Helena looked as if she guessed what I was thinking. Rather stiffly I enquired what I could do for her.
"Falco, my parents are dining tonight at the Palace; you're wanted there too."
Trough with Vespasian?" I was outraged. "Certainly not; I'm a strict republican!"
"Oh Didius Falco, don't make such a fuss!" Helena snapped.
Marcia stopped blowing bubbles.
"Keep still!" I instructed as she suddenly rolled about, chortling with exaggerated glee; the child was as heavy and ungainly as a calf. "Look, give her back; I can't talk to you while I'm worrying"
Helena gripped her, sat her upright, dried her face again (identifying for herself the cloth I kept for this task) while competently straightening her earrings as she continued to do business with me. "She's no trouble. There's no need to talk; Falco, you talk too much."
"My papa's an auctioneer."
"I can believe that! Just stop worrying." I sealed my lips in a bitter line. For a moment she seemed to have finished, then she confessed, "Falco, I've tried to see Pertinax." I said nothing, since what I would have said was unfit for her respectable shell-like ears. The spectre of another girl in white, lying still at my feet, was strangling me. "I went to the house. I suppose I wanted to confront him. He was not there"
"Helena I protested.
"I know; I should never have gone," she muttered swiftly.
"Lady, never walk in alone on a man to inform him he's a criminal! He knows that. He's likely to prove it by coming at you with the first weapon to hand. Did you tell anybody where you were going?"
"He was my husband; I wasn't afraid"
"You should have been!"
Quite suddenly her tone melted: "And now you are afraid for me! Truly, I'm sorry." A sick shiver ran round me under my belt. "I wanted to take you"
"I would have come."
"Provided I asked you properly?" she teased.
If I see you in that kind of trouble," I said tersely, "you won't have to ask."
Her eyes widened, with a look of surprise and shock.
I drank my milk.
I was settling down again. Marcia lolled her tousled head against Helena's handsome bosom, watching us. I watched the child well that was my excuse as Helena cajoled me, "Will you come tonight? It's a free dinner, Falco! One of your employers has rushed from abroad to meet you. You know you're too inquisitive to let that pass."
"Employers plural!"
She said there were two possibly three, though probably not. I tried suggesting two meant double rates but she retorted: "Your rates are what my father agreed! Wear a toga; bring your dinner napkin. You might consider investing in a shave. And please, Falco, try not to embarrass me…"
"No need, lady you embarrass yourself. Give me back my niece!" I snarled venomously; so at last she did.
When she had gone, Marcia and I walked onto the balcony hand in hand. We hauled out the hot-wine waiter, who had been snoring in a loincloth on a pallet, and waited in his foul fug until Helena Justina emerged into the street. We watched her climb aboard her chair, her head far below like a shining teakwood knob amidst a foam of snowy veils. She did not look up; I was sorry about that.
"That lady's lovely!" decided Marcia, who normally liked men. (I encouraged that condition, on the premise that if she liked men when she was three she would grow out of it and leave me a lot less to worry about by the time she was thirteen.)
"That lady has never been lovely to me!" I growled.
Marcia gave me a sideways look that was surprisingly mature.
"Oh Didius Falco, don't make such a fuss!"
I went to visit Pertinax myself. Everything I had told Helena was true; it was a stupid thing to do. Luckily the bullying lout was still not at home.
XLI
As chance would have it, I met Petro the next day. He whistled, then held me gently at arms' length.
"Whew! Where are you off to, dazzler?"
In honour of dining with the lord of the civilized world, I was in my best tunic, buffed up in the laundry until all the old wine stains were almost invisible. I wore sandals (polished), a new belt (pungent), and my Great Uncle Scare's obsidian signet ring. I had spent all afternoon at the baths and the barber's, not merely exchanging the news (though I had done that too, until my head spun). My hair was shorn so I felt as light-hearted as a lamb. Petronius inhaled the unusual wafts of bathing oil, shaving lotion, skin-relaxant and hair pomade amongst which I was making my fragrant way, then with one careful finger he lifted two pleats of my toga a quarter of an inch along my left shoulder, pretending to improve on the sartorial effect. This toga originally belonged to my brother, who like a good soldier reckoned to equip himself with everything of the best, whether he needed it or not. I was sweating under the weight of the wool, and my own embarrassment.
I said, lest my sceptical crony should deduce something incorrect, "Just taking a rancid old vinegar pot to a party at the Palace."
He looked shocked. "Night assignments? Watch yourself, blossom! This could lead to trouble for a good-looking boy!"
I had no time to argue. I had spent so long at the barber's, I was already late.
The porter at the Camillus house refused to recognize me; I nearly had to thump him, ruining my good mood and neat attire. The senator and Julia Justa had already left. Fortunately Helena was waiting for me quietly in the hall, so she came out in response to the kerfuffle, already aboard her chair. She ran an eye over me through the window, but it was not until we reached the Palatine that I had a proper chance to inspect her in return.
She gave me quite a shock.
I suppose money makes its point. As soon as I handed her out, wreathed in her ladylike mantle with a half-veil demurely tucked from ear to ear, I started to get that sense of unease when someone you know is so dressed up they seem to be a stranger. Unwrapped, I found her mother's miserable maids had really done their duty by the daughter of the house. Once they worked her over with the manicure prodders and eyebrow tweezers, curling tongs and earwax scoops, left her fermenting all afternoon in a mealy flour face mask, then finished her off with a delicate sponging of red ochre across the cheekbones and a fine gleam of antimony above the eyes, Helena Justina was bound to be presentable enough, even to me. In fact she looked burnished from the glint of the filigree tiara clipped around her elaborate hair to the beaded slippers sparkling through the flounce at the hem of her gown. She was bare armed in sea-green silk. The effect was of a cool, tall, distinctly superior naiad.