Venus in copper

Hyacinthus called out that he would see me on Thursday if I was able to attend the funeral, then he led off the little washer-upper. (Another thing Helena and I agreed afterwards, was that if we were right about Anthea's relationship with Viridovix, Hyacinthus had probably taken her over now.)

At the outside door I heard the runabout mention to Helena that downstairs in the street there were two men prominently watching our block. Rough types, he said.

Helena went into the living room alone. She would be thinking about what Hyacinthus had just said, not wanting to worry me. I heard her battering something in a bowl to take her mind off it.

Eventually she reappeared. 'Omelette for dinner.'

'What's that?' She was holding a dish covered in a thin layer of wet white froth.

'Egg white. I think if it's left it will set on the dish. It doesn't look much. But I suppose if it was Severina's own idea she could have convinced herself it resembled a decorative bed of snow.'

'Especially on silver.'

Helena was surprised. 'The dishes were gold!'

'Not all. Anthea said she nearly didn't wash up the cake plate; I saw that, it was a giant silver comport Severina had given to Novus.'

'I still think she was wasting eggs,' Helena muttered, inspecting our own crock doubtfully.

'All right. Tell me instead what the runabout said about men watching the house.' She concentrated on the egg white; Helena did not believe in sharing her troubles with an invalid. 'I think we're safe,' I told her, because I knew who the watchers would be.

'Marcus-'she began indignantly.

'When you go out, march straight up and ask who sent them here.'

'You know?'

'Petronius. He has equipped us with a highly visible vigilante guard.'

'If Petronius thinks that necessary, it frightens me even more!' We stared at each other. Helena must have decided there was no point creating a fuss. 'Did I ask the right questions?'

'You always ask the right questions!'

'The cakes are important, Marcus; I know they are. You could poison cakes individually. But ensuring the right victim took the right cake… I thought it must be the extra large one.'

'I know you did,' I smiled at her.

'That would have been perfect, Marcus! Hortensius Novus was the host. In such a vulgar house I bet they offer platters to the host first; Novus could be guaranteed to grab the best!'

I smiled again. 'Yet Severina took it off the plate!'

'This is a complete puzzle.'

'Perhaps not. It could be that Severina is innocent. Maybe she went to the house, even though she was feeling off colour, because she had realised the banquet could be dangerous for her beloved. Maybe she really wanted to check for anything suspicious in the food.'

'Is that what she says?' Actually, that was one line she had not inflicted on me yet. 'It could be,' Helena retorted bleakly, 'this is just what Severina wants you to think. Do you believe Viridovix knew she was checking for people trying to get at his food?'

'Viridovix was no fool.'

Helena growled. 'Perhaps you were meant to discover the business with the giant pastry; it could be a clever double bluff, while the poison was really somewhere else -'

'Oh it was somewhere else!' We both fell silent. 'If he was poisoned at the dinner,' I said, 'it may rule out any connection with Priscillus. His business rival could not easily snuff him out in his own house.'

'Could not Priscillus have bribed one of the Hortensius slaves?'

'Risky. Slaves fall under suspicion so easily. It would take a large bribe-and then there is a risk that a slave with too much money becomes conspicuous.'

'Not if the slave was Viridovix; and if Viridovix is now dead!'

'I won't believe it was the cook.'

'All right. You met him!' She noticed I was really too tired to go on. 'Are we any further forwards?' she asked, smoothing my bedcover.

I lifted a scratched finger tenderly to her cheek. 'Oh I think so!' I leered at her cheekily.

Helena put my arm back under the cover. 'It's time I fed the parrot; go to sleep!'

'The parrot is old enough to feed itself.'

She was still sitting quietly with me. 'You sound better; it's a good sign when you can talk.'

'I can talk; I just can't move.' Something was on her mind. 'What is it, fruit?'

'Nothing.'

'I know my girl!'

'Marcus, how do you bear the pain?'

'At the time you're being beaten up, you tend to be too busy to notice it. Afterwards, you just have to be brave…' I was watching her. Sometimes Helena's dogged way of tackling life made her close in on herself. It was hard for anyone to reach her then, though sometimes she would turn to me. 'Sweetheart… when you lost the baby did it hurt?'

'Mmm.' Despite the brief answer, she was prepared to communicate. There might never be another opportunity like this.

'Is that why having another frightens you?'

'I'm frightened of everything, Marcus. Not knowing what will happen. Not being able to do anything about it. The helplessness… Incompetent midwives, crass physicians with terrifying instruments-I'm frightened I'll die. I'm terrified that after all that effort the baby will die, and how will I bear it?… I love you very much!' she said suddenly. It did not seem irrelevant.

'I would be there,' I promised her.

She smiled sadly. 'You would find some urgent job to do!'

'No,' I said.

Helena wiped away her tears while I lay trying to look reliable. 'Now I'll go and feed the parrot,' she said.

She made the mistake of looking back from the door.

I grumbled plaintively, 'You're only using that parrot as a handy alibi!'

'Look at the state of you!' Helena scoffed. 'Who needs an alibi?'

Then before I could reach out and grab her she had to run, because a grinding noise announced that the damned parrot was learning to bend open the bars of its cage.

'Oh stop being so wicked and tell me who did it!' Helena roared.

But Chloe only shrieked back, 'Marcus has been a naughty boy!'

Untrue, unfortunately.

Chapter LIII

Helena decided she would visit her parents before the Senator (with a large cudgel) came to visit me.

I was half dozing when I thought I heard her returning; I lay low until someone came into the bedroom, when I shouted out, 'Is that you?'

'Oh Juno!' Wrong voice! 'Yes; it's me-you frightened me!'

Severina Zotica.

I sat up abruptly. She had the parrot on her forearm, so she must have been into the office where we kept its cage. I wondered if the prying cat's little feet had also invaded Helena's room. Her nose would have brought her tripping in here, for Helena was a determined believer in fenugreek poultices, continually applied (unlike Petronius, who cleaned wounds once with his balsam resins, then tended to lose interest).

My mashed features stopped the gold-digger short. 'Oh no! Oh, Falco, whatever happened to you?'

'Appius Priscillus.'

She was at the bedside, fluttering with concern. 'But you need looking after -'

'Someone takes care of me.'

Her eyes darted round quickly. She had already absorbed the fact that despite half a week's dissolute growth of beard, I was well sponged down, combed, and fitted out like an eastern potentate with cushions and bowls of figs. My abrasions and swellings had finished growing worse, though they had not yet begun to improve; the bandages were off to air them, but I had been covered up with a clean tunic-not for modesty, but to stop me prodding the bumps and scabs to check progress every five minutes.

'Your mother?' Severina queried sharply.

'Girlfriend,' I stated, for some reason not wanting her to know.

Severina's white face seemed to become taut. At that moment the parrot crooned softly in its throat, so she stroked the feathers on its grey neck. 'You lied to me, Falco-about this bird-and about your woman friend too.'