"I am a senator's daughter," she interrupted in a busy tone of voice, "you are two ranks below. This is not illegal; yet it will not be allowed She struggled restlessly but I would not let her go. "There is nothing for us"
"Perhaps! Lady, you and I are as cynical as one another about the world. We will do whatever we must, but don't doubt me. I wanted you very badly; I had wanted you for a long time as much as you wanted me!" I saw her gaze become unsteady. Quite suddenly I hoped, and made myself believe, that her view of me had been better than I thought, not only last night, but perhaps long before. I threw myself into the hope, knowing yet not caring that I was a fool. "And now…"
"Now?" she repeated. A tiny smile twitched in the corner of her mouth. I realized she was answering a smile of mine; she was still with me after all. Fighting for her friendship, I watched her melt back to the intimacy we so unexpectedly found last night. More sure of myself, I soothed that tender spot on the nape of her neck where I had undone the catch of her necklace many hours before. This time I dared let myself notice the flutter on her skin where she was touched. This time I understood that she realized how every nerve in my body was aware of her.
For the second time I told her a truth she must have known already.
"Now I want you again."
XLIX
Afterwards, awe-struck, I felt her racked by half a dozen sobs, releasing tensions which even in her arms last night I had only half realized were there.
"Marcus!"
I fell asleep, shedding all other senses as Helena Justina spoke my name.
I had called her my darling. Any self-respecting informer knows better than that. We were both fairly preoccupied at the moment when it escaped, and I told myself that she probably had not heard. But in my heart I knew I hoped she had.
When they eventually unlocked the gates, we walked out past the stiffly sprouting banks of acanthus while the gardeners, with their floppy hats on their big daft heads and their flat dirty feet in the dew, gaped after us. Still, I dare say it was not the first time they had found uninvited visitors nesting in their patch. Before I took her home I bought Helena some breakfast, something hot from a shop. It was a sausage shop. Fortune defend me, you are dealing with a man who once fed a senator's daughter a peppered calf-meat rissole wrapped in a laurel leaf. Fortune defend my lady, she ate it in the streetl
I ate mine too, though cautiously, for my mother brought me up very strictly to eat indoors, respectably.
It was dawn along the Tiber, with a pale sun glimmering. We sat in our ruined finery on a wharf by the river and watched leisurely boatmen ply the silvered water. We had a long good-humoured conversation about whether me thinking all gardeners are daft was another example of my pointless prejudice. There were wonderful smells of dried fish and new bread. It was the start of a bright day, though the air still hung chill in the shade by the waterfront booths. It seemed to me it was the start of more than a bright day.
We looked a pair of grisly desperados; I was ashamed to take her home. I found a small private bathhouse already open. We went through together; no one else was there. I bought a flask of oil at an exorbitant price, then in the absence of a bath slave, anointed Helena myself. She seemed to like that; I know I did. Then she scraped me down with a borrowed strigil, which was even better fun. Later, while we were sitting side by side in the warm-air-room, she suddenly turned towards me without a word. She held me close, burying her face. Neither of us spoke. Neither of us needed to. Neither of us could.
All was quiet when I brought her home. The worst part was persuading her father's dumb pig of a porter to wake up and let their lady in. It was the slave who had refused to recognize me the evening before. He would remember now: as she went indoors, the senator's daughter turned back quickly and kissed me on the cheek.
I walked from the Capena Gate back to the Aventine.
I walked without noticing my journey. Exhaustion and elation were swamping me. I felt I had aged a generation in a single night. I was utterly happy benign towards all the world. Although I was so tired, my maniacal grin glittered from ear to ecstatic ear.
Petronius was hovering outside Lenia's laundry, with the pinkish face and limp hair of a man who had been steaming himself in a laundry for a long time. I felt a deep pang of affection, which he did not deserve and would never have understood. He thumped me in the stomach, then looked at me closely. All the strength had gone from my legs but I accepted the thump with only a faint blink.
"Marcus?" he demanded uncertainly.
Tetro. Thanks for your help."
"Pleasure. Your mother wants to speak to you about that bag of gold. And this is yours, isn't it?" He handed me my Uncle Scare's ring.
"You tracked down that runt Melitus?"
"No trouble. We know his haunts. I recovered some loot that belonged to your lady her jewels. I took them round to her house this morning; the people said she wasn't there…" His voice faded uncertainly.
"No. She is now. I told her if you managed to return her jewellery a reward would be polite. I suggested something nice for your wife!"
He stared at me. I regarded him with poignant tenderness. What a wonderful friend.
"Look, Falco, about last night"
I chuckled dismissively. "Fate!"
"Fate!" he exploded. "What shit's that?" A simple soul; with a sound philosophy! He was heartbroken to find me in this trouble. (He could tell I was in trouble by my ludicrously gentle smile.) "Oh Falco, you poor excitable devil what have you done?"
Lenia came out. Behind her the dull boom of the washtubs throbbed before she swung her backside to close the door. After a lifetime of swaggering with armfuls of dirty linen, she did this as automatically as she opened the doors with her foot. Her arms were free now, but her lined forehead told me she had a headache from imbibing too much with Smaractus the night before. Her frock clung to her in twisted folds, eternally damp from the steam. For some reason, she had lately taken to flinging thin scarves back over her shoulders, in a travesty of refinement. She weighed up my condition as impartially as a stain on a bedsheet, then scoffed, "Soft as cake custard; the fool's in love again."
"That all?" Petro tried to reassure himself, though as usual when faced with one of my extravagant antics sturdy Petronius did not appear convinced. "Happens to Falco three times every week."
He was wrong. I knew now: until that morning I had never been in love.
"Oh my Petronius, this is different."
"Blossom, that's what you always say!" Petro shook his head sadly.
I gazed from one to the other of them, too tired and too shaken to speak, then turned upstairs by myself.
Love! That took me by surprise.
However, I was ready for it. I knew what to expect too. Some heartless little button of a girl, pretty as glass. No one who would want me (I intended to suffer; I was a spare-time poet). I could cope with that (I could scribble whole rivers of verse). Some bright enamelled button, or a whole string, until I found one whose hard-nosed father I could wear down to a wedding, then sink like any dutiful citizen into convenience and boredom…
Knowing Helena Justina would never be convenient. She was a person I could study for half a lifetime with no danger of becoming bored. Had my status been different, I might have regretted not having half a lifetime to spare.
I could not afford it. Not even the button. A man bowed down by my negative bank balance had to brace himself for chasing rich widows of the elderly grateful kind…
I walked upstairs feeling certain of all that. I marched up four flights before I changed my mind.
Love was final. Absolute. A horrendous relief. I walked all the way back down again, and went out to a perfume shop.