Shadows In Bronze Part 20

She looked at me oddly then went on, 'Can't you see that Aemilius Rufus took you into his house to keep an eye on you?'

'What's his interest?'

'To partic.i.p.ate in reconciling the Emperor and Crispus himself- to help his career.'

'I thought he seemed evasive; yet his future looks bright enough-'

'He has lived too long away from Rome; he is very ambitious, but not well enough known.'

'Why was he away?'

'Nero. Anyone so good-looking posed a threat to the Caesarly ego; it was either self-exile or-'

'A trip to see the arena lions at state expense? Why does he look like that?' I scoffed. 'Did his mother meet a Macedonian vase peddler behind a bush?'

'If it was his sister you'd be happy enough!'

I laughed briefly. 'If it was his sister she might be happier herself.'

Helena was still perched on her boulder but looked brighter. I rolled out on the ground, full length on my belly at her feet. I felt happy. Lying here in the sunshine, on good Vesuvius ploughland, with clear air in the lungs, someone pleasant to talk to, the Bay of Neapolis stretched away in a blue mist...

At Helena' silence I glanced up.

She had been overtaken by some mood of her own. She sat gazing out across the Bay, then she closed her eyes briefly, with an expression which was both pained and pleased at the same time.

It had nothing to do with my mission. She would have told me that.

Perhaps she was thinking about her handsome friend.

'It's growing hotter.' I hooked myself upright. 'I should get you indoors. Let's go.'

I started off too fast, because Helena had to slip her hand into mine to slow me down. I kept hold of her, whether she liked it or not, to cheer myself up.

It was hot, though pleasant walking. I was keen to march ahead and explore the villa, but in the country a man should always make time for a stroll with a la.s.s. You never know when the demands of city life will provide another chance. You never know when the la.s.s will agree.

We came through the vineyards where the half-ripe green bunches were already bending boughs. Our road doubled back. As we turned into the next slow climb upwards we caught sight of the villa. In the riding range on the terrace, a man was exercising two horses, turn and turn about.

'Are those racers? Is there a trainer?'

'Bryon - that's him.' She paused. The stables here might be worth exploring...'

I hopped up on a boundary rail, dinging to a fig tree in the corner of a field. The Senator's daughter, who had no sense of propriety, put one sandal on the rail then pulled herself up too, hanging on to me. We watched the trainer press the horse he was riding fast down the course, then slow, turn, spurt ahead and pelt hard along another length. I had no interest in racehorses, but it gave me an excuse to hold Helena steady...

We turned to each other at exactly the same time. At that range it was impossible to ignore how intensely we both remembered what had happened in the past. I released her, before staying so close became far too difficult. Then I leapt to the ground and helped Helena down too.

She lifted her chin defiantly. 'I suppose you threw the spoons in the sea?'

'Certainly not! My father was an auctioneer; I know the price of spoons...' We were friends. Nothing could change it. Friends, allied by the love of intrigue; constantly arguing yet never quite as irritated with each other as we both professed. And the tension between us, both emotional and s.e.xual, still felt decidedly permanent to me. 'Just now, what were you thinking of?' I ventured to ask.

Helena moved away from me quietly, shaking her head. 'Something I'm not sure about. Don't ask me,' was all she said.

XLVI.

By the time we reached the house, Helena was looking dreadful again. She normally enjoyed such st.u.r.dy good health that this troubled me as much as it plainly embarra.s.sed her. I insisted on staying beside her until she was installed on a couch in a long colonnade, with a tray of hot borage tea.

While the small flurry which our arrival caused was settling down I acted the visitor. Helena sent away the slaves. I sat with her, supping from a little bowl which I held between a thumb and two fingers like anyone respectable. (If it's not too strong I quite like borage tea.) When my mouth was thoroughly scalded I put my bowl down then stretched, looking round. No sign of Marcellus, and few staff. The usual gardeners were raking out a big bank of mimosa. Their heads were well lowered over it. Somewhere indoors I could hear a woman scrubbing, accompanying herself with rasping song. I poured more tea through a pointed strainer for her ladyship, standing idly beside her afterwards as if I was merely watching the slow curl of the steam...

The great house seemed relaxed and quiet. Normal people going about their normal tasks. I touched Helena's shoulder quietly, then strolled off on my own like a shy man going to answer a natural call.

Seeing the racehorse trainer had aroused my interest. I walked round the outbuilding in the hope of finding him. The stables lay on the left as you faced out to sea. There was an old livery block, used for pack mules and carriages. And a large new section, built about five years ago, with signs of recent activity. With the discretion of half a lifetime I managed to infiltrate myself indoors unseen.

There was no doubt, this was where Pertinax and Barnabas had once kept their bloodstock. The tack room contained one of the silver equine statuettes I had seen in the Pertinax house in Rome. Most of the stabling was empty now, presumably since his death. But two horses I was confident I recognized from that morning were sweating contentedly in adjacent stalls. They had just been rubbed down by a burly hostler who was now swabbing out the walkway between the rows.

'h.e.l.lo!' I cried, as if I had permission to be there. The man leaned on his besom and gave me a shrewd look.

I strolled down to the two hones and pretended to take an interest. 'These the two Atius Pertinax had in Rome?'

I hate horses. They can tread on you, or lean on you, or roll heavily on top of you to break your legs and crush your ribs. If you offer them t.i.tbits they will gobble off your fingers. I treat them as cautiously as lobsters, wasps, and women who regard themselves as lively s.e.xual athletes; horses, like any of those, can give you a nasty nip.

One was all right. He was really something special; even I could tell that. A proud-necked, sweet-spirited stallion with mulberry colouring. 'Hallo, boy...' While I was petting this beauty, I glanced at his stablemate. The hostler jerked his head with shared disgust.

'Little Sweetheart.' Someone had a sense of humour. Little Sweetheart was rubbish. He stretched his neck at me, jealous of his neighbour receiving attention, though he knew in this heady company a rapscallion who looked like an overworked bottle brush stood no chance.

'Bit of a character? What's this one called?'

'Ferox. He gets twitchy. Little Sweetheart calms him.' 'Ferox your champion?'

'Could be.' The stableman looked canny in a professional horsey way. 'He's five now, and pretty well furnished... You a racing man?'

I shook my head. 'I'm an Army man! When the legions want to go anywhere, they march on their own feet. If horseflesh is a real strategic necessity they hire in hairy short-legged foreigners, who can ride like h.e.l.l in battle, know how to doctor the staggers, and will discreetly deal with dung. Works superbly. In my view, any system that works for the legions is good enough for a citizen in ordinary life!'

He laughed. 'Bryon,' he introduced himself.

'Name's Falco.' I went on fondling Ferox to sustain the conversation. 'You're the trainer! What are you doing mucking out? No stable lads?'

'No anything. All sold up.'

'When Pertinax took the ferry into Hades?

He nodded. 'The horses were his pa.s.sion. First thing the old man did: all the stock, all the staff- gone overnight. He couldn't bear them here.'

'Yes I heard he was cut up. What about these two? '

'Maybe he regretted it later. Ferox and the Sweetheart were sent to him from Rome.' I knew about that. When we cleared out the house on the Quirinal we found bills of sale for these two in Marcellus' name. I never saw the animals but I had signed the chitty for their transfer home myself. 'So what's your interest, Falco?' Bryon eontinued. He seemed friendly, but I could tell he was sceptical.

'You know Barnabas?'

'I used to,' he answered, without committing himself.

'I've got some cash that belongs to him. Has he put in an appearance here lately?' Bryon looked at me, then shrugged. 'I reckon,' I pressed on with a warning note, 'you would certainly have seen him - in view of the horses.'

'Perhaps... In view of the horses!' He agreed the hypothesis without giving an inch. 'If I do see him, I'll tell him that you came.'

I fended off Little Sweetheart, who was nuzzling insistently, and pretended to change the subject. 'Things seem quiet round here for a villa on Vesuvius in summer. Is no one staying at the house?'

'Only the family,' Bryon informed me in his straight-faced, stony way.

'And the young lady?'

'Oh she's one of them!'

This trainer had a shrewd idea I was someone without authority; he drew me firmly out of doors and began to walk me to the house. As we went by the livery stables I made sure I scanned every stall. Bryon finally lost patience with our good-mannered pretence. 'If you tell me what you're looking for, Falco, I'll tell you if we have it here!'

I grinned, unabashed. I was looking for the two horses that had followed me from Rome to Croton - not to mention their mystery rider, whom I deduced had been Barnabas.

'Try this then: two top-quality riding nags - a big roan that looks as if he was bred for the racetrack but just missed, and a squatter skewbald packhorse-'

'No,' Bryon said tersely.

He was right; they were not here. Yet the abruptness of his answer convinced me that at some time he had seen the two I meant.

He marched me back to the colonnade then backed off seeming both disappointed and relieved as Helena Justina, the young lady who was one of the family, greeted me with her sleepy, unperturbed smile.

XLVII.

When I strode back to Helena with my happy harpist's whistle, she had just been joined by her father-in-law. Making no reference to the retreating horse trainer, I apologized for my presence as I gave Caprenius Marcellus a vague explanation of events: 'I ran across Helena Justina, with a touch of the sun... '

The arrival of Marcellus put an end to my exploring. There was no help for it; I took my departure formally, with a calm nod to her ladyship-all I could do to answer the question in her dark, deeply inquisitive brown eyes.

Marcellus must have found my story easy to believe. Helena looked completely drained. I felt she needed more than a rest under a rug and a hot drink. She needed someone to look after her. The worst part was, my normally competent lady looked as if she thought so too.

As I rode the steward's mule back down the villa track I could hardly remember a word from her between when I brought her to the house and when I left. Only those eyes, which had settled on me with a stillness that made me hate leaving her.

Something was wrong. One more problem. One more buried relic to excavate as soon as I had time.

d.a.m.n the steward, waiting in Herculaneum for his mule; I stopped off and took dinner in Oplontis with my friends. Frankly, I thought they all seemed more relaxed, now I had pushed off to live elsewhere.

Helena's prophecy about the maid was correct. The daft chit had been sent to the slave market! Incredible. I hoped she found a more charitable mistress; I never saw her again.

Nothing was said to me. Next day I raised the matter with Aemilia Fausta myself. She heard my views, then threatened to terminate my teaching post. I advised her to do it; she crumbled; I stayed.

My disgust was not simply because the girl had been attractive. After half a day with Helena I could barely remember what Fausta's maid was like. But I thought there must be better ways of keeping discipline.

I would not allow this set-to with Fausta to affect our professional relationship. She grew keener than ever to improve her musicianship. She had found a new incentive: she told me that Aufidius Crispus was planning a huge banquet for all his friends on this part of the coast.

Rufus was going. He refused to take his sister, he told her he was escorting a girl he knew. Fausta seemed startled. I hoped that meant the girls her brother knew were unsuitable types; it promised more fun.

I had great hopes of the Crispus thrash. Partly for Aemilia Fausta, who was determined to gate-crash the event. And partly because she was taking her harp. So to beat time un.o.btrusively (and talk her past unfriendly doormen), the n.o.ble Aemilia Fausta was taking me.

XLVIII.

My friend tells me whenever women feel that way the hero always turns out to have limp hands, a sneering mother, and a bladder condition which affects his private life. Luckily I never knew Aufidius Crispus well enough to hear about his family or his medical complaints.

He had taken a villa at Oplontis (hired it, leased, borrowed, simply pinched it for the night, who knows? - who cared, when the setting was gracious, the liquor was lavish and the beautiful after-dinner dancers were pretty well nude?). According to local custom, the villa had belonged to Poppaea Sabma, Nero's second wife. This Imperial connection held out a hefty hint of the ambitions of our host.

Poppaea's villa was the dominating feature at Oplontis. Probably the people who had lived in it managed to overlook the clutter of rude fishing huts beyond their boundary and thought their villa was was Oplontis. People who inhabit such opulence find it convenient to ignore the poor. Oplontis. People who inhabit such opulence find it convenient to ignore the poor.

For most of our stay this grand complex stood shuttered and dark. Arria Silvia tried to get in for a look round, but a watchman chased her off. As far as we could gather, when Poppaea married Nero this villa became subsumed into the Imperial estates, and after she died it stayed empty. There seemed a reluctance to do anything with the place, as if the waste of such a beautiful woman's life, and the cruel means of her death at Nero's hands, had struck even the Palace bailiffs with a sense of shame.

Most of the mansion was on two floors, with the building girdled by single-storey colonnaded walks and gardens on all sides. A wide terrace lay right on the seafront, leading to a grand central suite. The side wings must have contained over a hundred rooms, each decorated in such exquisite taste that as sure as eggs get broken they would be stripped out and renovated the next time the villa was occupied. It was ripe for refurbishment; by which I mean, it was lovely as it was.

I could never exist anywhere so huge. But it gave a spare- time poet plenty of scope to fantasize.

Dinner was held properly at the ninth hour. We arrived in good time. From the array of chairs congesting the Herculaneum road this was one of the largest functions I would ever be a.s.sisting at. The magistrate had set off ahead to collect his bit of fancy stuff, but Aemilia Fausta believed other people paid their local taxes for her personal convenience so she had commandeered an escort from her brother's official staff; they marched us briskly past the crowds, queue-hopping at public expense.

Most of the local quality, and some mere s.m.u.t, were dining here courtesy of big-hearted Crispus tonight. The first people I spotted were Petronius Longus and Arria Silvia. They must have let themselves be netted to a.s.sist the great man's aim of extending very public hospitality on a wide social front. A true patron. Father figure to starveling clients from all ranks. (Buying in support from top to bottom of the voting tribes.) Petronius would take his free bread buns and run. I happened to know that since Petro had been elected to the watch he had never cast a vote. He believed a man on a public salary should be impartial. I didn't agree but I admired him being so stubborn in his eccentricities. Aufidius Crispus would be an unusual politician if he had allowed for such morality in the voters he was courting.

Petro and Silvia did not speak to me at that juncture. They were inside, watching my progress with satirical smiles. I was still outside. I was hopping about in my best mustard tunic while my formidable female companion argued with the chamberlain at the door.

The man consulting the guest list knew his barley from his oats. This function was slickly organized. There was never any question of me barging us in bodily; if I tried any rough stuff, the heavy mob in studded wristguards who were lurking with a backgammon board behind the potted plants would fix us in a genteel arm lock and wheel us on our way.

Aemilia Fausta was a woman of few ideas but when she got one she recognized a treasure she might never possess again and she stuck to it. As she weighed in I felt seriously impressed. Tonight she was trussed up in mauve muslin, with her small white bosoms like two cellar-grown mushrooms arrayed in a greengrocer's trug. A castellated diadem sat rock steady on her pillar of pale hair. Bright spots of colour, some of it real, fired her cheeks. Determination to see Crispus made her as sleek and as wicked as a shark on the scent; the chamberlain was soon thrashing with the breathless desperation of a shipwrecked sailor who had spotted an inky fin.

'What host,' sneered Aemilia Fausta (who was a small woman, fairly bouncing on her heels), 'draws up a steward's dining list which includes himself or his hostess? Lucius Aufidius Crispus would expect you to know: I I' announced the n.o.ble Fausta with unspeakable gall, 'am his fiancee!'

The only thing that diminished this defiant gambit in my eyes was that for the lady it was simply the truth.

Beaten, the hapless flunkey led us in. I raised a fist to Petro, accepted a coronet from an extremely pretty flower girl, and then as the magistrate's sister whirled ahead I padded along behind, carrying her cithara. A clean-cut master of ceremonies weighed up the situation fast, then settled Fausta with a bowl of Bithynian almonds while he glided off to consult Sir. Surprisingly quickly he slid back. He a.s.sured Aemilia Fausta that her place was waiting in the private dining room, the elegant triclinium where Crispus himself would be presiding over the premier guests.

I don't know what I had expected, but the speed and good manners with which his castoff was made welcome provided an early hint that Aufidius Crispus possessed dangerous social expertise.

XLIX.

The master of ceremonies started to apologize.

'Forget it. I'm just her harp teacher; no need to fiddle with your seating plans again-'

He promised to squeeze me in, but I told him when I was ready for any squeezing I would do it myself.

It was almost eating time, but I slipped out through the late-corners to scrutinize the flotilla of fabulous barges which had cl.u.s.tered against the s.p.a.cious platform on the villa's seaward side. The Isis Africans took only a moment to find; she had been moored aloof from this nautical scrimmage, on her own, slightly out in the Bay. She was lying dark, as if everyone had already disembarked.