Venus in copper

Why do I do these things? (Why does anyone?)

I found cups on a sideboard, and a half-filled amphora of something which tasted brash enough for the kind of deliberate drinking which is bound to make you ill. Severina fetched a ewer of cold water. We did not bother with flavourings. Our mutual suspicion would provide a bitter spice if we needed it.

We ended up sitting on the floor, leaning our heads against a couch behind us. At first we drank in silence.

Even after five years as an informer, finding a corpse always unsettled me. I let the memory come surging in as it was trying to do: Novus, bare-buttocked in that undignified spasm. Novus, pressed face-down against the floor slabs, with that expression of stark terror...

'Are you all right, Falco?' Severina asked quietly.

'Murder offends me. Like me to describe the death scene?'

I noticed that her knuckles whitened as she gripped the stem of her ceramic cup. 'I can probably endure it!'

I had told her the worst of it. I spared myself dwelling on any more details.

Severina topped up her winecup. We had been serving ourselves-not letting formal manners interfere. It was like drinking with a man.

'Do you do this often?' I asked.

'No!' she conceded. 'What about you?'

'Only when the memory of the headache I had the last time has faded ...'

'If we are going to do this, shall I call you by your first name?'

'No.'

She chewed the side of her thumb for a moment, 'I thought you were my nice Uncle Marcus?'

'I'm Falco-and I'm not nice.'

'I see! Drunk but distant!I She laughed. Whenever Severina laughed she sounded arrogant-and that irritated me. 'I think you and I have more in common than you admit, Falco.'

'We have nothing in common!' I splashed more liquor into my cup. 'Novus is dead. What next, Zotica?'

'Nothing.'

'What was the wrong word. I should have asked, Who?'

'Don't be so offensive!' she told me-but she said it with a half-smile and a glint behind these pale eyelashes. She was daring me to ask fiercer questions. Interrogation was a thrill.

I knew better than to fight a suspect who so loved to be the centre of attention. Instead, I stretched lazily. 'Never again, eh? Sounds like what I always used to say, when some flighty piece took my cash and broke my heart.'

'Past tense?' Severina immediately wormed at me, unable to resist prying.

'Too old. Flighty bits want boys, who go like fire in bed and let themselves be bossed about -'

'You're romancing, Falco,' she scolded, as if something had suddenly made her more wary. 'Why can you never hold a straight-forward conversation?'

'I get bored,' I admitted. 'That straightforward enough?'

We both fizzled with tipsy laughter.

Severina was sitting cross-legged, with her back very straight. She was on my left. So I had lolled with my right knee bent, supporting my winecup hand. It enabled me to turn inwards, and watch her unobtrusively.

She filled her cup again. 'I'm drinking more than you!'

'I had noticed.'

'You intend to stay sober, so you can winkle out my secrets...'

'I like a woman with secrets -'

'You don't like me! Stop inventing... I should have asked,' she murmured, with what she probably thought was a sly approach, 'if anyone is waiting up for you at home?'

'No.' I drained my cup. The action was more drastic than I intended; I nearly choked.

'You surprise me!' she taunted in a soft voice.

When I stopped coughing I said, 'You were right the other day; I overreached myself.'

'Tell me!'

'Not much to tell. One of us is yearning to settle down and start a family; the other wants to stay footloose.'Severina looked uncertain, as if she missed the joke. 'Women are so feckless!' I complained. 'They can't take the responsibility -'

'So how will you entrap her?' Severina now joined in the game, though with a scornful expression.

'I have my methods.'

'You men are so devious!'

'Once she discovers my wonderful cooking and my sweet devoted nature, I'll tie her down . ..'

'Does she help you in your work?'

'You asked me that before. I keep her out of my work.'

'I wondered if you sent her to spy on people in places you can't go?'

'I'd never let her go anywhere I couldn't go myself.'

'How considerate!' Severina said.

We had both stopped drinking and were staring ahead like crass philosophers. The effect of a harsh young grape-pressing on top of the subtle Falernian I had quaffed earlier, not to mention the smooth dinner wines Titus had served up at the Palace, was beginning to make me wonder if it would be possible to stand upright when I wanted to, Even Severina was now breathing drowsily.

'A night of revelations!'

I grunted, feeling bilious. 'Bit one-sided so far! The plan was that I would open up, then lure you into a confession...'

'Plan, Falco? You won't wheedle confessions out of me by such a transparent trick as getting me drunk!'

'You got yourself drunk.'

'I hate you when you're logical.'

'And I hate you-Oh forget it,' I sighed. 'I'm too tired to rise to the challenge of cheap dialogue.'

'You're falling asleep!' Severina chortled next. Perhaps I was. Perhaps I just wanted her to think so. (Perhaps I could no longer help myself.)

When I made no answer she tipped back her head, groaning. Then she pulled from her finger the red jasper ring with the two hands clasped; she tossed it wryly in the air, caught it, then set it down beside her on the floor. A spark seemed to leap from the gemstone to glint in her hair. Her action was not irreverent, yet obviously marked a formal end of her betrothal to the dead man. 'Nothing left to do ... no one who needs me ... no one to turn to ... What is it all for, Falco?'

The jewel she had removed looked almost as heavy as the one Novus himself had worn: far too massive for Severina's fingers, which were tiny as a child's. 'For profit, lady! That ring at least was a decent piece of gold!'

Severina moved the jasper ring dismissively on the mosaic, 'Gold wears thin. Like the love it pretends to represent'

'Some lasts.'

'Do you really believe that?' she demanded. 'Does your famous ladyfriend?'

I laughed. 'She's a realist. She keeps me on a short rope,just in case.'

After a moment Severina lifted her right hand, showing the cheap ring with a crudely etched Venus and a small blob that was meant to be the Cupid nestling her knee. 'Now copper-' she declared obscurely, 'that's for eternity!'

'Eternity comes cheap! Did you know, copper is named for the mountains of Cyprus, where the oxhide ingots come from?' I collect obscure facts. 'And Cyprus is the birthplace of Venus, so that's why copper is the metal of Love -'

'It gives you verdigris in the soul, Falco!' she murmured.

'You ought to see a doctor about that.' I refused to ask her what she meant. There is nothing you can do with a woman when she wants to be mysterious. 'So who gave you the copper ring?'

'Someone who was a slave with me.'

'He have a name?'

'Only among the Shades in the Underworld.'

I smiled wryly. 'Like so many of your friends!'

Severina leaned to collect the flagon. I raised my palm in protest but she shared the last of the wine between us.

She sat back, slightly closer. We drank, slowly, both deep in the glum privacy that passes for thought when drunk.

'I ought to be leaving.'

'We can give you a bed.'

What I desperately needed was untroubled sleep. In this house I would lie awake expecting a mechanical ceiling to lower itself and crush me ... I shook my head.

'Thank you for staying anyway.' Severina compressed her lips, like a girl who was all alone but trying to be brave. 'I needed somebody tonight-'