Shadows In Bronze Part 37

That nightmare journey all across Rome took another hour.

I planned the best route I could round the southern side of the Palatine, though it meant clambering through the grounds of Nero's Golden House. The Golden House was in limbo - too extravagant for the Flavians - so I found a whole convention of surveyors crowding the lake area, trying to decide what our respectable new Emperor should do with it. Vespasian himself had a grand idea that this prime site should be returned to the people, the Flavians' gift to Rome for all posterity... So here were the designers, about to wish on us a fifteen-year construction site for their new city amphitheatre. The last thing I wanted as I struggled to reach the Camillus house was having my way impeded by a swarm of dreary architects in peculiar- coloured tunics, planning yet another forgettable Imperial monument. It strikes me the happy Roman mortar mixer who developed the use of concrete has a lot to answer for.

At last I reached the peace of the Capella Gate. As usual, the door porter refused to let me in.

I argued; he shrugged. He looked like a king and I felt like a lout. He stood inside; I stayed out on the step.

By then I was so hot after my gallop, and so anxious, that I grabbled the young pervert by the front of his tunic, then flung him against the doorpost and banged my way in. Falco: ever ready with the subtle touch.

'If you know what's good for you, sonny, you'll learn to recognize the friends of the house!'

A sharp female voice demanded what the commotion was. I was whisked into a reception room, face to face with the n.o.ble Julia Justa, the Senator's highly irritated wife.

'I apologize for breaking in,' I said tersely. 'There seems no other way I can pay my respects-'

Helena Justina's mother and I had failed to strike up a friends.h.i.+p. What I found most unnerving (since, to put it bluntly, her mother did not like me) was that where Helena had inherited expressions and intonations from her father, her looks came from her mother's side. It was always odd to see the same intelligent eyes as hers viewing me so differently.

I noticed that Julia Justa, who was a well-dressed, well-mannered woman, with a face that had benefited from the best oils and cosmetic a millionaire's wife could buy, looked pale and strained today. She also appeared to have some problem deciding what to say to me.

'If,' began Helena's mother slowly, 'you are visiting my daughter-'

'Look - I heard something that disturbed me; is Helena all right?'

'Not entirely.' We were both standing. The room seemed incredibly stuffy; I was finding it hard to breathe. 'Helena has lost the child she was expecting,' her mother said. Then she regarded me with a pinched expression, uncertain what to expect from me - yet certain it would be something she did not like.

It was quite unacceptable to turn my back on the wife of a senator in her own home, but I took a swift interest in a dolphin statuette that served as a lamp. I never like other people seeing my emotions until I have inspected them for myself.

The dolphin was a slick little clown, but my silence was worrying him. I returned my formal attention to the Senator's wife.

'So, Didius Falco! What have you to say about this?'

'More than you think': My voice sounded tinny, as if I had spoken into a metal vase. 'I'll say it to Helena. May I see her?'

'Not at present.'

She wanted me out of the house. Good manners and a bad conscience both dictated a speedy departure. I never had much truck with good manners: I decided not to s.h.i.+ft.

'Julia Justa, will you tell Helena I am here?'

'I cannot, Falco - the doctor has given her a strong sleeping draught.'

I said in that case I had no wish to inconvenience anyone, but unless Julia Justa vividly objected I would wait.

Her mother agreed. She could probably see that if they put me out of doors I would only cause speculation among their n.o.ble neighbours by lurking out in the street like a seedy creditor.

I waited three hours. They forgot I was there.

Eventually, the door opened.

'Falco' Helena's mother surveyed me, startled at my sticking power. 'Somebody should have seen to you-'

'Nothing I wanted, thanks.'

'Helena is still asleep.'

'I can wait.'

At my grim tone, Julia Justa came further into the room. I answered her curious gaze with a hard, bitter stare of my own.

'Madam, was today's event an accident of nature, or did your doctor give your daughter something to help things along?'

The lady considered me with Helena's own angrily perturbed dark eyes. 'If you know my daughter, you know the answer to that!'

'I do know your daughter; she is extremely sensible. I also know Helena Justina would not be the first unmarried mother who had a solution to her predicament wished on her!'

'Insulting her family will not help you to find out!'

'Excuse me. I've spent a long time thinking. Always a bad idea.'

Julia Justa let slip a slight sigh of impatience. 'Falco, this is achieving nothing; why are you still here?

'I have to see Helena.'

'I must tell you, Falco - she never asked for you!'

'Did she ask for anyone else?'

'No.'

'Then no one else will be offended if I wait.'

Then Helena's mother said that if I felt so strongly I had better see Helena now, so that for everybody's sake I could go home.

It was a small room, the one she had had as a child. It was neat, and convenient, and when she had returned to her father's house after her divorce she must have asked for it back because it was nothing like her grand apartment in the Pertinax house.

In a narrow bed, under a natural linen coverlet, Helena lay motionless. She was drugged so deeply there was no chance of waking her. Her face looked completely colourless and plain, still in the exhaustion of her physical ordeal. With other women in the room I felt unable to touch her, but the sight of her dragged out of me, 'Oh they should not have done this to her! How can she know anyone is here?'

'She was in pain; she needed rest.'

I fought against the thought that she might need me. 'Is she in danger?'

'No,' her mother said, more quietly.

Still sensitive to atmosphere, I noticed that the white-faced maid who was sitting on a coffer had been crying earlier. I found myself asking, 'Will you tell me the truth; did Helena want the child?'

'Oh yes!' her mother answered immediately. She disguised her annoyance, but I glimpsed the bad feeling that must have surged around this family before today. Helena Justina would make no one an easy relative; she did everything in her own stubborn high-minded way. 'That may have placed you in a difficult position,' Julia Justa suggested to me in a thin voice. 'So this must be quite a relief?'

'You seem to have me well weighed opt' I answered narrowly.

I wanted Helena to know that I had been with her today.

I had nothing else to leave, so I tugged off my signet ring and laid it on the silver tripod table at the side of her bed. Between the pink gla.s.s water beaker and a scatter of ivory hairpins, my worn old ring with its dirty red stone and greenish metal looked an ugly chunk, but at least she would notice it and know whose grimy hand she had seen it on.

'Don't move that, please.'

'I shall tell her you came!' Julia Justa protested reprovingly.

'Thank you,' I said. But I left the ring.

Her mother followed me from the room.

'Falco,' she insisted, 'it was an accident.'

I would believe what I heard from Helena herself. 'So what happened?'

'Is it your business, Falco?' For an ordinary woman - or so she seemed to me - Julia Justa could pack a simple question with heavy significance. I let her decide. She went on stiffly, 'My daughter's ex-husband asked to meet her. They quarrelled. She wanted to leave; he tried to stop her. She broke free, slipped, and hurt herself running downstairs-'

'So this is down to Pertinax!'

'It might well have happened anyway.'

'Not like this!' I burst out.

Julia Justa paused. 'No.' For a moment we seemed to have stopped sniping. Her mother agreed slowly, 'The violence certainly increased Helena's distress... Were you intending to come again?'

'When I can.'

'Well that's generous!' cried the Senator's wife. 'Didius Falco, you arrived a day after the festival; I gather that is usual for you - never around when you're really wanted. Now I suggest you stay away.'

'There may be something I can do.'

'I doubt it,' said Helena's mother. 'Now this has happened, Falco, I imagine that my daughter will be quite content if she never sees you again!'

I saluted the Senator's wife graciously, since a man should always be good-mannered to a mother of three children (especially when she has just made a highly dramatic statement about the eldest and sweetest of her children - and he intends to insult her later by proving her wrong).

Then I left the Camillus house, remembering how Helena Justina had begged me not to kill Pertinax. And knowing that when I found him, I probably would.

Lx.x.xV.

I walked straight to the Transtiberma and up to his room. I was completely unarmed. It was stupid. But all his personal property had gone; so had he.

Across the street the wineshop was doing a hectic trade, but with a stranger serving. I asked after Tullia and was brusquely informed: tomorrow; the waiter could hardly find time to account for her. Men were always calling for Tullia, I expect.

I left no message; no one would bother telling that busy young lady that yet another healthy male with a hopeful expression had been hanging round for her.

After that I spent a lot of time walking. Sometimes I was thinking; sometimes I just walked.

I crossed back to the city, pausing on the Aemilian Bridge. Downstream, the desultory river slapped past the triple peperino arch of the main exit from the Great Sewer. At some time in the past three months a bloated corpse, for which I had responsibility, must have swirled out down there, anonymous amidst the dark storm water that carried him away. And now... Did you know, only emperors and stillborn babies have the right to be buried in Rome? Not that it would have been relevant for our poor sc.r.a.p of life. I had a wry idea what informal arrangements were made for the relics of early miscarriages. And perhaps if I had been a different man, with a less neutral view of the G.o.ds, I might have heard in the sound of the Tiber lapping past the Cloaca Maxima the crude, punis.h.i.+ng laughter of the Fates.

Hours after I had left the Transtiberina I turned up at Maia's house. She took one look at me, then fed me, kept away the children, kept away Famia with his wine flask, and steered me to bed. I lay in the darkness, thinking again.

When I could bear no more, I let myself sleep.

Pertinax could be anywhere in Rome but the next day was Thursday, and Thursday marked his champion's run in the Circus Maximus; I knew where to find him then - somewhere among the two hundred thousand spectators who would be cheering Ferox on: Easy!

Famia, who liked to enjoy an occasion by making himself sick with excitement from the crack of dawn, tried to drag me out early, but if I spent all morning in the full glare of the stadium, I would be useless for anything. Once you have seen one opening procession winding into the arena, you can miss a few. What's another presiding magistrate with a smug expression leading the parade in his four-horse quadriga, when there are men to catch who murder priests, batter fathers of young families, and cut off the lives of unborn children before their parents have even had a chance to quarrel over what their names might be?

When I left my sister Maia's house, I took a detour by way of Galla's where luckily I found Larius.

'Excuse me, young sir, I want a hack artist!'

'Be quick then,' he grinned. 'We all have to go to the Circus to cheer a certain horse...'

'Spare me the honour! Look, do me a thumbnail sketch-'

'You modelling for a grotesque medallion on a Celtic drinking pot?'

'Not me.' I told him who. Then I told him why. Larius drew the portrait without another word.

The loss of the unborn is a private grief: To lighten the atmosphere I begged him not to waste his money gambling on my horse. 'Don't worry,' agreed Larius frankly. 'We'll cheer yours - but the cash is on Ferox today!'

I walked to the Capena Gate. No one in the Camillus family was receiving visitors. I sent in my respects, with the distinct feeling the door porter would not deliver them.

I noticed a flowershop, so purchased a huge bunch of roses at an equally imposing cost.

'They came from Paestum!' wheezed the florist, excusing it.

'They would do!' I cried.

I sent in the roses for Helena. I knew very well that she would rather have had a flower I grew on my balcony, since she was a sentimentalist, but her mother looked like a woman who would appreciate the cost of a grand bouquet.

Helena must have been awake now but I was still refused admission. I left, with nothing but the memory of her white face yesterday.

Since n.o.body loved me I went to the races.

I arrived at noon; the athletics were on. Filling the outer vaults was the usual scene of deplorable commerce, a strange contrast to the delicacy of the paintings and gilt decoration which adorned the stucco and the stonework under the arcades. In the cookshops and liquor stalls the hot pies were lukewarm and greasy, and the cool drinks came in very small containers at twice the price you would pay outside. The loose women were plying for hire noisily, vying with the bookies' touts for spectators who were still trickling in.

Only I could attempt to snare a villain in the largest stadium in Rome. I entered by one of the gates on the Aventine side. I had the president's box on my far left above the starting gates, the glittering imperial balcony immediately opposite me against Palatine Hill, then the apsidal end with the triumphal exit away to my right. The dazzle off the first two tiers of marble seats was sizzling hot by then, and even in the lull at lunch-time I was met by a wall of sound.

In the old days, when men and women sat higgledy- piggledy together and the Circus Maximus was the best place to find a new love affair, I would have stood no chance of finding anyone without his seat number. Even now that the Augustan regulation had segregated people respectably, the only rows I could eliminate for certain were those allocated to women, boys with their tutors, or the priestly colleges. It was a fair bet Pertinax would not risk taking his place on the lower podium, where fellow senators would recognize him. And knowing what a sn.o.b he was, he would avoid the top gallery, which was frequented by the lowest orders and slaves. Even so, the Circus filled the whole valley between the Cattle Market Forum and the old Capena Gate; it could seat a quarter of a million, not to mention the hordes of auxiliary workers busily toing and froing on legitimate tasks, the aediles looking for bad behaviour in the crowd, the pickpockets and pimps keeping an eye out for the aediles, the perfume-sellers and garland girls and wine toters and nut merchants.

I did start to work along one block, scanning the crowds as I fought round the gangway which divided the first and second of the three tiers of seats. Staring up sideways soon made me dizzy, and the ma.s.sed faces merged into one indistinguishable blur.

This was no way to find a bug in a sack of barley. I nipped down the next stairway back into the arcades, then pa.s.sed among the booths and the knots of prost.i.tutes, showing everyone the little plaque Larius had drawn for me. When I reached the business end of the stadium I found Famia, who introduced various other people to whom I also exhibited my sketch of Pertinax.

After that the only decent thing was to make a show of inspecting my brother-in-law's efforts to turn out my racehorse handsomely.