Time to Depart (12 page)

XXIII

When I walked into my apartment I found someone standing in the doorway from the balcony. Her dark hair shone in the sunlight behind her; she had left its warmth immediately she heard my footfall.

She was full of grace and serenity. She wore a simple dress in blue, with a late October rosebud in a pin on the top seam. If she had used perfume, it was so discreet that only the favoured fellow who kissed her neck would be aware of it. A silver ring worn on her left hand showed her loyalty to whoever he was. She was everything that a woman should be.

I gave her a courteous nod.

'People will be racing to tell you,' I said, 'that Petronius and I spent an hour in a brothel near the Circus Maximus this afternoon. It's famous for offering disgusting services as bribes to the vigiles. We were witnessed coming out nudging each other guiltily, and with happy grins.'

'I know,' she said.

'I was afraid of that.'

'I dare say!'

The slender links of one bracelet slipped over her fine wrist as she lightly held a scroll. Her feet were bare. She, who should have been cushioned. on swan's-down amidst some great man's marble colonnades, had been reading in the warm sun, high above the squalor of the Aventine where she lived with me.

I selected a cool and formal tone. 'People overreact sometimes. I was with Petro when he reached his own house and couldn't make his wife answer the door. A neighbour shoved her head through a shutter and bawled, "She's taken the children to her mother's and your dinner's been thrown at the cat." I had to help him pick the lock. He loves that cat; he insisted on going in to look for it.'

She smiled. 'Every hero should have a tragic flaw.' I happened to know she didn't care for cats. I suspected she despised heroics too.

I thought it best to maintain a serious approach. 'Despite his pleading, I felt unable to escort him to fetch Arria Silvia from her mother's lair.'

Did you leave him by himself then?'

'He was all right. He had his cat .. ,' Something caught in my throat. 'I wanted to make sure you were still here.'

'I'm here'

'I'm glad.'

It was mid-afternoon. I had been as quick as possible, but I had gone to bathe. Now I was clean. Every inch of me was oiled and scraped, but I felt as if I walked in grime.

'Were you worried?' I asked.

Her dark eyes were fixed on me with a steadiness my heart was failing to match. 'I do worry when I hear you're in a brothel,' she told me in a low voice.

'I worry when I go into a brothel myself.' For some reason, I suddenly felt clean again. I smiled at her with special warmth.

'You have to do your work, Marcus.' There was a shade of resigned amusement lurking deep in Helena Justina's gaze. It seemed to me she had deliberately placed it there. While she waited for me she had taken her decision: either we could fight, and she would only end up feeling more wretched than when she started, or she would make it be like this. 'So what did you think of the brothel?' she asked quietly.

'It was a dump. They didn't have a monkey. I wouldn't take a senator's daughter near the place.'

'The monkey in the one we ran through was a chimpanzee,' she reminded me. Her tone was serious, but the seriousness was a joke.

Sometimes we did fight. Sometimes, because she wanted me too badly to use reason, I could make her quarrel bitterly. Other times, the intelligence with which she handled me was breathtaking. She set trust between us like a plank, and I just walked straight across.

I could see a very faint twist at the corners ofher mouth. If I chose to do it now, with merely a look in my eyes I would be able to make her smile.

I crossed the room. I came right up to her and took her by the waist. A slight colour stained her cheeks, echoing the unopened rose pinned to her dress. As I had suspected, the perfume was there for somebody who knew her well enough to come close enough to treat her tenderly. Not many had ever had that privilege. I breathed slowly. A whisper of cinnamon crept over me, not just any perfume, but one I particularly liked. It was fresh, only recently applied.

I let myself enjoy looking at her for a while. She enjoyed herself letting me drown gently in old memories and new expectations. I must have dropped my hand without intending it. I felt her fingers entwine in mine. I drew up both our hands and held hers hard against my chest.

The room was silent. Even the street noise beyond the balcony seemed far away. -

Helena leaned forward and brushed my mouth with a kiss. Then, with no flutes or incense or sticky wines, without needing to negotiate a price, without even needing words, we went to bed.

XXIV

By the time consciousness reasserted itself, my sister Galla had told my sister Junia, who had rushed to relate the tale to Allia, who - since she could no longer exclaim with Victorina, who was dead - told Maia. Maia and Alba normally did not get on, but this was an emergency; Allia was almost last in the queue and she was bursting to amaze somebody with news of my latest offence. Maia, who alone amongst them had a conscience, first decided to leave us alone with our trouble. Then, since she was a friend to Helena, she set off for our apartment to make sure nobody had left home over it. Had rapid action been necessary, Maia would have comforted anyone she found sobbing, then rushed out to look for the runaway.

While she was still on her way to us, I was rousing myself. 'Thank you.'

'What for?'

'The sweet gift of your love.'

'Oh that!' Helena smiled. I had to close my eyes, or I would have been in bed with her until nightfall.

Then she asked me, wanting answers this time, about our visit to Plato's Academy. I rolled over on my back, with my arms behind my head. She lay with her cheek against my chest while I told her my impressions, ending with the fact that I had known Lalage long ago.

Helena laughed at the story. 'Did you tell her?'

'No! But I left a few hints to worry her.'

Helena was more interested in the results of our official enquiries: 'Did you believe her when she claimed she was going to resist having the place "protected" by a male criminal?'

'I suppose so. To call her competent would be an understatement! She can run the brothel and easily beat up anyone who tries to interfere.'

'So maybe,' suggested Helena, 'she was telling you more than you think.'

'Such as?'

'Maybe she would like to take over where Balbinus left off ' 

'Well we've agreed she wants to run her own empire. Are you suggesting something more?'

'Why not?'

'Lalage control the gangs?' It was an alarming thought. 

'Think about it,' said Helena.

I was silent, but she must have known I always took her suggestions seriously. Grumpily I accepted this one, though it was against my will. If we could say Nonnius Albius had stepped into the space left by his former chief, things would be much simpler both to prove and to put right. If we needed to consider newcomers, let alone women, the affair assumed unwelcome complexity.

Wanting to make sure I had listened, Helena sprang up excitedly, leaning over me on her elbows. Then I noticed her expression change. With a sudden mutter she turned away out of bed and left me. She scampered next door, and I heard her being sick.

I followed, waited until the worst was over, then put an arm around her and sponged her face. Our eyes met. I gave her the look of a man who was being more reasonable than she deserved.

'Don't say anything!' she commanded, still white-lipped. 

'Wouldn't dream of it.'

'It can't be something we ate at dinner disagreeing with me, because we forgot to have any dinner.'

'Just as well, apparently.'

'So it seems you were right,' she admitted, in a neutral voice.

Then Maia's voice exclaimed from the door, 'Well congratulations! It's a secret, I dare say.'

'Unless you tell somebody,' I answered, biting back a curse.

'Oh trust me!' smiled Maia, deliberately looking unreliable.

She came in, a neat, curly-haired woman weating her good cloak and nicest sandals so she could make a real occasion of simpering at the trouble I had caused. 'Put her on the bed and lie her flat,' she advised. 'Well this is it!' she chirped at Helena helpfully. 'You've really done it now!'

'Oh thanks, Maia!' I commented as Helena struggled upright and I started clearing up.

Helena groaned. 'Tell me how long this is going to last, Maia.' -

'All your life,' snarled Maia. She had four children, or five if you counted her husband, who needed more looking after than the rest. 'Half the time you're lying down exhausted, and the rest you just wish you could be. As far as I can tell it goes on for ever. When I'm dead I'll come back and tell you if it improves then.'

'That's what I was afraid of,' Helena answered. 'First the pain, and then your whole life taken over. . .'

They both seemed to be joking about it, but there was a real edge. Helena and my youngest sister were on very friendly terms; when they talked, especially about men, there was a fierce undertone of criticism. It made me feel left out. Left out, and thoroughly to blame.

'We can have a nurse,' I offered. 'Helena my darling, if it make you feel better, I'll even set aside my principles and let you pay for her.'

This piece of piety did not soothe the situation. I decided it was time to go out. I put up the excuse of emptying the rubbish pail, grabbed it and sauntered downstairs whistling, leaving the pair of them to enjoy themselves grumbling. I wasn't going far. I would use up the rest of the evening at the new apartment on the other side of Fountain Court. Having a second home to escape to began to seem a good idea.

I felt shaken. Faced with definite evidence that I was becoming a father, I needed to be alone somewhere so I could think.

I had chosen a good moment. The basket-weaver hailed me with news that a man he knew who hired out carts was bringing one round for me, something he had volunteered when I talked to him previously. The cart could only be driven here at night because of the vehicle curfew, and as I would be keeping it for a few days while I cleared the property, arrangements were required. I wanted to use the cart as a temporary rubbish skip. For this to work we had to put it up on blocks and take the wheels off, or someone was bound to make off with it. That was no easy task. Then we had to manhandle the wheels inside the weaver's shop and chain than together for added security. My troubles had only just started. In the short time that the weaver, the carter and I were in the shop making the wheels safe, some joker stowed half a woodworm bed frame and a broken cupboard in the skip.

We dragged them out and towed them a few strides further, leaving them outside the empty lockup on the other side of the road, so the aediles would not make us (or anybody who knew us) pay for clearing the street. Luckily Maia came down at that point, so I told her to send her eldest boy and I'd give him a copper or two to act as a guard.

'I'll send him tomorrow,' Maia promised. 'You can have Marius when he's finished school, but if you want a watchman earlier in the day you'll have to pinch one of Galla's or Allia's horrible lot.'

'Marius can miss a few lessons.'

He won't. Marius likes school!' Maia's children were encouragingly well behaved. Since I felt disinclined to bring more vandals and loafers into the world, this cheered me up. Maybe, despite all, the evidence I saw daily in Rome, parenthood could work out well. Maybe I too could father a studious, polite little person who would be a credit to the family. 'Put a cloth on top overnight. Famia reckons that makes a skip invisible.'

Famia, her husband, was a lazy swine; trust him to realise people are so idle they would rather lose a chance of dumping their waste in someone else's bin than apply a bit of exertion uncovering the container first.

Maia hugged me rather unexpectedly. In our large family she was the only one younger than me; we had always been fairly close. 'You'll make a wonderful father!'

I pointed out that there were a great many uncertainties before ever I got that far.

XXV

After Maia left I started hauling debris from the first-floor apartment. The weaver, who told me his name was Ennianus, assured me he would love to be some help but apparently he had a bad back that not many people knew about. I said it was lucky that selling baskets didn't call for much bending and lifting, then he shambled off.

I didn't need him. I rolled my tunic sleeves up to my shoulders and set to like a man who has something disturbing to forget about. Although autumn had arrived, the nights were still light long enough for me to put in an hour or two of heavy work. The whole first-floor apartment was crammed with dirty old junk - though I came across no dead bodies or other unpleasant remains. It was hard work, but could have been much worse.

Smaractus must have let his handymen use this place sometimes as a materials store. There were half-buckets of good nails lurking under the watped scaffold boards and bits of mangled joist timber. One of his halfwits had left behind a perfectly decent adze that would find a welcome place in my own toolbag. They were a feckless lot. Dustsheeting had gone mouldy through being folded up while wet. Pulleys had rusted solid. Paint had gone hard in uncovered kettles. They never took home an empty wine flask or filthy food wrapper if they could stuff it under the unusable tangles of hoisting rope. There were unopened sacks of substances that had set like rock so it was impossible to identify the contents; nothing was labelled, of course. Smaractus never bought from a regular builders' merchant, but acquired oddments from contractors who had already been paid once by some innocent householder who had never heard of demanding to keep spare materials.

I cleared one room and used it to store any stuff I could reclaim. By the end of the evening I had made good headway and felt pleased with my work. One more stint would reduce the apartment to a shell, then Helena and I could start thinking about what was needed next. I had not found many bad mending jobs to do. The decor would probably be a pleasure to tackle once I had braced myself to start. Living in the kind of hovels I did, I had never had much call to be a dado and fresco man so this would be something new. Everywhere needed a furious scrubbing, but it struck me that while I was attached to the Fourth Cohort I might be able to wangle help from the fire-fighters to bring the water in .

On my final trip down to street level I found I had been donated an old bench and a soaking-wet counterpane in my rubbish skip. I turfed them out, then covered the skip, and roped it too. I went to the nearest baths to cleanse myself of dust and sweat, mentally adding sweet oil and a strigil to the list of things I would bring across next time I came to work. After I rinsed the dirt from my hair, I also added a comb to the list.

It was dark when I made my way back up Fountain Court. I felt tired but satisfied, as you do after hard labour. My muscles were stretched, but I had rent at the baths. I felt on top of life. Playing the thorough type, I stepped over to look under the cover and check my skip again.

In the gloom I nearly didn't see what was there. If I had still been tipping rubbish in, I would not have noticed a thing. That was somebody's intention. Rome being the city it is, whoever put the young baby in the cart meant him no good. He was cute, and gurgling trustingly, but a baby who gets dumped by his keeper does not easily acquire another - not unless he is grabbed by a woman who is purposely watching the middens in case someone abandons an unwanted newborn. Nobody in Fountain Court felt that desperate. Whoever ditched this little one had left him to die. They would not have expected anybody else to pick him up and take him home.

Since it was me who found him, that was what I did.

'Only you could do this!' Helena groaned.

'Your lucky day!' I told the babe. 'Here's a nice lady who only wants to cuddle you. Listen to me. She's a pushover for big brown eyes and a showy grin - '

'This is no good, Marcus.'

'Very true. I'm determined to be firm. I'm not allowing other people's unwanted goods in my rubbish skip. I paid for it, and I've got plenty of clutter to shift for myself - '

'Marcus!'

'All right, but once I picked him up and took him out, what was I supposed to do? Lay him down in the gutter and just walk off?'

Helena sighed. 'Of course not.'

'He'll have to find himself a berth somewhere. This is just a temporary reprieve.' It had a callous ring.

I noticed Helena made no attempt to come and take the child. He stared at me, as if he realized this could be the big tricky moment in his life. He was quite a few months old, enough to take notice of his surroundings anyway.

He looked healthy. His hair, which was dark and slightly curled, had been trimmed neatly. He wore a proper little tunic, in white, with embroidery at the neck. He had been wearing it much longer than he should, however. That kind of babywear usually belongs to families where the children are changed regularly, almost certainly by a nurse; this baby had not been cleaned up, perhaps for days. He was soiled and sore. I was handling him gingerly.

'Poor little fellow needs a bath.'

'I'll find you a big bowl,' snorted Helena. She was definitely not going to help.

'Luckily you've come to a home where the women are fierce but the men understand it's not your fault,' I told him. When I talked, he hardly seemed aware of me. I tickled his chin, and he did condescend to wave his feet and hands about.

He was a very quiet baby. Something about him was too subdued. I frowned, and Helena, who had by then brought me a bowl of warm water, looked at me closely the way she did when she thought I was drawing conclusions. 'Do you think he has been mistreated?'

I had lain him on his back on a tunic on the table while I took the clothes off him. He was not afraid of being handled. He was plump, a good weight. There were no bruises or unhappy marks on him.

'Well, he looks unharmed. But there's something odd,' I mused. 'He's too old, for one thing. Unwanted babies are abandoned at birth. This lost mite must be nearly a year old. Who keeps a child so long, looks after him, grows fond of him - and then carefully pushes him under a canvas in a rubbish skip?'

'Someone who knows it's your skip!' suggested Helena dryly.

'How could they? I only got it tonight. And if they wanted me to find him, why wait until I'd finished work, covered it up, and could not be expected to look inside again? I only found him by accident. He could have died of exposure or been gnawed by rats or anything.'

Helena was examining a loose cord around his neck, a twisted skein of coloured material. 'What do you think this is? It's very fine thread,' she said, unravelling it partially. 'One of the strands could be gold.'

'He's had an amulet probably. But where's it gone?'

'Too valuable to throw away with the child!' Helena Justina was growing angry now. 'Some person felt able to abandon the baby - but made sure they kept his bulk.'

'Perhaps they removed it because it might have identified him?'

She shook her head sadly, commenting, 'This never happens in stories. The lost child always has a jewel very carefully left with it so years later it can be proved to be the missing heir.' She softened slightly. 'Maybe his mother cannot keep him, but has preserved his amulet as a memento.'

'I hope it breaks her heart! We'll make sure we keep his tunic,' I said. 'I'll get Lenia to wash it, and I'll ask her if any of the laundry girls have seen it before. If they have they are bound to remember the embroidery.'

'Do you think he's a local baby?'

'Who knows?'

Somebody knew. If I had had more time, I might have traced his parents, but the rubbish-skip babe had picked the wrong moment to be dropped on me. Working with Petronius on the Emporium heist was going to take up all my energies. In any case, finding parents who don't want their babies is a dead-end job.

I had done the child a favour, but in the long run he might not thank me for it. He had been found in a district so poor that we who lived there could hardly keep ourselves alive. On the Aventine, three times as many children died in infancy as those who survived, and many of the survivors grew up with no life worth speaking of. There was little hope for him, even if I did find somebody to take him in. Who that could be I had no idea. Helena and I had our own troubles; at this stage we were certainly not available to foster unknown orphans. There were too many children already in my family. Although no member of the Didius clan would be made to suffer this child's fate, finding space for an extra who had no claim on us was inconceivable.

We could sell him as a slave, of course. He wouldn't be overjoyed about that.

The baby seemed to like being washed. The sensation appeared to reassure him, and when Helena allowed her guard to slip and started a gentle splashing game, he seemed to know he was expected to chuckle and play along with her. 'He's not a slave's baby,' I observed. 'He's already been among feckless time-wasters who throw water all over the room!'

Helena let me haul him out, though she did find a towel to dry him on. He must have decided that now he could start in with the serious demands: food preferably. We had patted him all over, allowing him a few more tickles on the way, and rolled him in a stole while we thought about where we could stow him safely overnight. Then the babe decided to assert himself and began roaring.

Unluckily for Helena, that was the moment when the Palace slave arrived to ask me to an urgent confidential meeting with the Emperor's eldest son.

I managed not to grin as I kissed Helena tenderly, apologised for bunking off - and left her to cope.