Venus in copper

There was a small silence. 'Marcus, tell me where you have been.'

'Nose to nose with the Hortensius gold-digger.'

'Yes,' Helena answered sadly. 'I thought that must be it.'

Her tone implied she had been moping. I took a critical look at her: Helena's idea of moping was to throw on a vivid carmine dress, adorn her hair with a rope of glass beads like a crown of hyacinths, then courageously enjoy herself in company. I was about to respond with some crabby badinage, when a young man stepped out from the party room. In honour of the Senator's aunt's birthday he wore a toga whose luxurious nap rebuked the worn shine of my in workaday tunic. His haircut was crisp; a shiny wreath was parked on it. He had the sort of clean-cut aristocratic looks most women call attractive, even though the effect was simply due to phenomenal arrogance.

He expected Helena to introduce us. I knew better; she was too annoyed at his interruption. I beamed at him tolerantly. 'Evening. One of the family?'

'A friend of my brothers,' Helena interposed, recovering rapidly. The aristo looked quizzical at my plebian presence, but she gave him his orders with her usual forcefulness. 'Falco and I were discussing business, if you don't mind.'

Quelled, he returned to the reception room.

I winked at Helena. 'Friend of your brothers, eh?'

'It's an elderly gathering; my parents provided him to talk to me. You were inaccessible.

'Just as well, sweetheart. They would not have wanted me.'

'Falco, I might have wanted you.'

'You seem to be making do.'

'I have to!' she accused me hotly. 'Anyway, father would have asked you, but who knows where you are living now?'

I told her my new address. She returned graciously that now her father would be able to send the cast-off couch they had promised me. 'Father was trying to contact you urgently yesterday. He had been approached by Anacrites.'

I swore. 'The man's a complete pest!'

'You will have to do something about it, Marcus. With him hounding you, how can you do your work?'

'I'll deal with it.'

'Promise?'

'Yes. Life's becoming impossible.'

I returned to the issue of my new address: 'I'm living in two rooms and another will be the office; that leaves one which could quite easily become yours. You know what I want-'

'A tolerant housekeeper, a free bedmate-and someone brave to catch the crawlies who scuttle out of the floorboards!-No; that's wrong,' Helena corrected herself.

'Someone timid who will let you batter the insects and look tough!'

Well the offer stays open, but I don't intend to remind you again.' She knew it; pleading for her attention was not my style. 'Your noble pa will want you at his party; I'd better go'

Helena reacted with her customary snootiness: 'So you had.' She relented: 'Are you coming again?'

'When I can,' I answered, accepting the weaker note in her voice as the nearest I would get to an apology. 'I just have a lot to think about. But now I've met the woman, it ought not to be beyond me to sort it all out pretty smartly.'

'Do you mean you won't come until the case is over?'

'That sounds like a brush-off.'

Helena stuck out her chin. 'I'm getting the brush-off. It was a sensible suggestion.'

My teeth set. 'Gods, I hate sensible women! You decide. I'll come if you ask me. Whenever you want me you know where to find me.'

I waited for her to dissuade me, but Helena Justina was as obstinate as me. It was not the first time we had driven ourselves into some pointless deadlock.

I was leaving. She was letting me. 'Io, my darling! What I really need is a girl to stay at home and take messages!'

'You can't afford to pay her,' Helena said.

Chapter XXVIII

Boasting that I would settle the case quickly had been rash. The case was nowhere near its end yet. In fact it was only just beginning, as I would soon find out.

As I sloped off home I was thinking less about work than about women. A normal preoccupation-though weighing on me more heavily tonight. My clients, Severina, my ladylove, my mother, all had designs on my peace of mind. Even my sister Maia, whom I had still not seen since Ma sprung me out of prison, loomed as a subject of guilt because I had not yet made any attempt to thank her for rescuing the betting tags which financed my new apartment… It was all getting beyond me. I needed to take action; the best kind of action, which is nothing at alclass="underline" I had to stand back, give myself a breather, and let the ladies gently mull.

I planned to spend the next three days devoting myself to my own pleasure and profit. I even managed it for two of the days: not a bad success rate for a plan of mine.

First I spent a morning in bed, thinking.

Then, as I still officially worked for the Emperor (since I had never bothered to inform him otherwise) I went to the Palatine and applied to see Vespasian. I hung around the labyrinth of Palace offices for a whole afternoon before a flunkey deigned to tell me that Vespasian was away, enjoying a summer holiday in the Sabine hills. Now that he wore the purple, the old man liked to remind himself of his humble roots by kicking off the Imperial sandals and wriggling his toes in the dust of his old family estates.

Afraid I might run into Anacrites if I stayed too long, I left the Palace and put the Falco personality at the disposal of my private friends. That night I dined with Petronius Longus at his house. He had a wife and three young children, so it was a quiet occasion which ended early (and, by our standards, fairly soberly).

In the morning I redirected my request for an audience to Vaspasian's elder son, Titus Caesar. Titus was governing the Empire in virtual partnership with Vespasian so he held ample authority to overrule Anacrites in my little bit of bother. He was also known as a soft touch. This meant my appeal had to take its place in a mountain of other scrolls full of hard-luck stories from ambiguous characters. Titus worked hard, but in August lavishing clemency on down-and-outs was bound to proceed at a slower pace than normal.

While I was waiting for my own screed to grab his Caesar-ship's jaded attention I went to a horse sale with my brother-in-law Famia. I hated to part with Little Sweetheart, but the chariot stables where Famia worked as a vet for the Greens could not be expected to house a horse of mine for ever-well, not for nothing, which was the present arrangement (unbeknown to the Greens). So Famia and I auctioned poor old Little Sweetheart, before the cost of keeping him in hay outstripped his winnings. With money in my pocket I made a trek to the Saepta Julia where I let myself be tempted by a dirty, candelabrum which looked as if it might clean up (wrong, as usual) and an Egyptian cartouche ring (which fitted when I tried it on but felt too big when I got it home). Then I browsed in a couple of literary dealers and came away with an armful of Greek plays (don't ask me why; I hate Greek plays). I took some cash to my mother for her day-to-day expenses, and finally stowed what was left of the proceeds in my bankbox in the Forum.

Next day there was still no invitation to climb up to the Palace and make Titus laugh with my tale of woe, so I did go to see my sister Maia. She let me hang around her house for most of the morning, which led to lunch, followed by an afternoon asleep on her sun terrace. I promised her some of the Pincian cakes but Maia knew how to handle me; she managed to upgrade this to the offer of a house-warming in my spacious new abode. Like a speculator promising to square things with his banker I made a rapid escape: forgetting to agree a date.

Petronius and I spent that evening touring various wineshops to see if they were as good as we remembered from our youth. What with the free cups we were offered to encourage us to come more often, the flagons I bought him, and the drinks Petronius (who was a fair man) stood me in return, this occasion ended neither early nor soberly. I saw him home, since a watch captain risks all sorts of vindictive-ness if villains he may have arrested in the past spot him stumbling about the city.