'Thanks!' I barked, though I had the uneasy feeling my darling might be right. I buried my face in my hands for a moment then laughed. 'What will you do with the money?'
'Found a school. I'm not a hypocrite, Marcus.'
She was amazing. It seemed best to keep my admiration to myself. Helena needed no encouragement. I had wit-nessed her in public as endearingly shy-yet she forgot all about that whenever some daft idea like this invaded her head. 'I worry when you career off uncontrollably. Why ever did you go?' She would not answer me. 'Curiosity!' I slid my nearest arm round her and pulled her over against my chest, looking into her great dark eyes with their perplexing mixture of love and dismissiveness. 'So what did you think of my clients?'
'Rather too obvious-if I go again I must take them a present of some dress pins...'
Her old sense of mischief was dancing there, I was glad to see. 'Sabina Pollia clawed her way up from nothing-and may still have dirt under her fingernails. The maternal one looks like the kind of tremulous sweetheart who begs for protection-while she savagely manipulates everyone around her... Did you meet her little boy, by the way? I suspect that tot has the full measure of his mama. Atilia has big plans for him. Her life's work will be putting him up for the Senate the minute he's old enough -'
I could think of bigger ambitions for a family who had the energy and funds to promote a child; tactless to say so to the daughter of a senator. 'But a wonderful mother!' I teased, without thinking: equally tactless, in fact.
'Lots of us might be wonderful mothers?
Even before the violence flared I had enveloped her fiercely with both arms. 'You will!' We had never discussed this; no opportunity. I had assumed I was glad to avoid it; yet now I found myself launching into an urgent, prepared speech: 'My love, neither of us was ready; losing that baby may have been the best fate for the poor mite -' Helena squirmed angrily. I glimpsed some dark mood I didn't care for, but I was not prepared to dump the girl and run just because she expected it. 'No, listen; I need to talk about this-Helena, I never rely on anything, but so far as I'm concerned we now have to find some way of being together; we'll enjoy that-and when it really seems a good idea we will start a new generation of quaint curiosities like us -'
'Perhaps I don't want to -'
'I'll win you round -'
'Marcus, I don't want to think about it; I need to live with what has happened first!'
'I know that -' I suspected I would lose her altogether if she crashed the bolts home on me now. Besides, I was annoyed. 'Don't block me out of it-and don't suppose it had no effect on me!'
'Oh you and your old republican code!' Helena murmured with one of her sudden changes of mood, kissing my face. 'Stop being so reasonable -' I said nothing. 'Didius Falco, somebody ought to explain to you, informers are tough; informers are hard men who lead mean lives, and whenever they have a lucky escape, informers speed off back to their own low world-'
'Wrong. Informers are soft slugs. Any woman in decent shoes can stamp on us.' That reminded me of something: 'Though I have no intention of letting the Hortensius females squash me on a garden path. There was no need for you to reconnoitre the terrain; my darling, I can look after myself...' I could certainly do that. My problem was looking after Helena. 'Don't get involved.'
'No Marcus,' she promised, with a meek air I knew was false.
'Well don't tell me afterwards!' She was still watching me. 'There's no need to worry about me. Those two women at the Hortensius house are trash. There's no one to compete with you. Besides, I have a rule: never sleep with a client.'
'Ever broken it.'
'Once.'
I gave her a sheepish grin. She gave me a twitchy smile. I tugged her head down onto my shoulder and held her close.
The colonnade where we were lurking was a completely private area. I stayed as I was, holding Helena. I felt relaxed, and more affectionate than I usually allowed myself to be. She still looked troubled; I stroked her hair, which soothed the look away. This encouraged me to range more widely, in case there were any other little tension spots that needed attention...
'Marcus!' I decided to carry on. Her sleek, soft skin seemed to have been oiled at the baths especially to attract an appreciative hand. 'Marcus, you're making things impossible for both of us...' I decided to prove I was as tough as she had said earlier; so I stopped.
Not long afterwards I chose to make my excuses; the various chinks of silverware which announced that her parents were at dinner were becoming an embarrassment. Helena invited me to dine, but I did not want Helena or her parents (especially her mother) to get the idea I was the sort of parasitic hanger-on who kept turning up at mealtimes in the hope of being fed.
On leaving the house I walked north, thoughtfully. Some informers give the impression that wherever they go ravishing women shed their scanty clothing without the slightest encouragement and want to fall into bed. I told myself it so rarely happened to me because I appealed to a more selective type of girl.
Well; I had appealed to her once.
Chapter XVIII
The ladies were at home. Their men were elsewhere. The ladies were bored. I turned up like a treat from the gods, to fill the vacant after-dinner entertainment spot. If I had brought along a flute and a couple of Phrygian sword dancers I might have been better use to them.
In all my visits to the Hortensius house, I would never be received for an interview in the same room twice. Tonight I was shown into a dramatic azure leisure suite, with heavy boudoir overtones. All the couches had expensive coverlets flung over them with suggestive abandon. Bulbous cushions with shiny covers were piled on top, with fringing and fat tassels much in evidence. The room was stuffed with furniture: bronze side tables held up by priapic satyrs; silver daybeds with lions' feet; tortoiseshell cabinets. The cabinets were displaying a job lot of spiralled Syrian glassware (including at least one vase which had been recycled in Campania recently), some ivory, a collection of quite pretty Etruscan hand mirrors, and an extremely large solid gold vessel of doubtful purpose which they probably called 'a votive bowl', though it looked to me like the personal chamberpot of a particularly gross Macedonian king.
With their burnished skin and antimonied eyes the women looked as plush as the drapery. Sabina Pollia occupied her couch with the thrusting sprawl of a sage bush taking possession of a herb garden. Hortensia Atilia lolled with a neater habit, though she held one foot up behind in a way which made it impossible not to notice the nakedness of her exposed leg. In fact, as they faced one another over a huge platter of grape bunches I could not forget Helena's disparaging comments (her intention, presumably). They both wore their gowns in luxuriant folds that were designed more for sliding off than draping the shapely forms beneath. I kept wondering whether Pollia's left or right shoulder-brooch would be the first to slither down a lovely arm further than decency permitted. Pollia was in emeralds; Atilia dripping with Indian pearls.
Atilia's son, an ordinary child, was with them, kneeling on the marble with a terracotta model donkey. He was about eight. I winked at him, and he stared back with the stark hostility of any little boy facing a strange beak in his nest.