Shadows in Bronze (30 page)

LXVII

Two days later the magistrate tried to arrest Atius Pertinax. It was Petro's daughter's birthday so I had slipped down to Oplontis with a gift. After my spurning him, Rufus made no attempt to warn me. So I missed the action.

There was not much to miss. Rufus should have followed my advice: since the Villa Marcella was orientated seawards, the discreet approach was down the mountain from above. But when orders to apprehend Pertinax arrived from Vespasian, Aemilius Rufus grabbed a troop of soldiers and dashed up the main estate road, prominently visible to the house.

Marcellus gave him a frosty greeting and permission to search, then sat in the shade to wait for the idiot to discover the obvious: Pertinax had fled.

Once the furore had subsided, Helena Justina followed me to Oplontis with the tale.

'Gnaeus rushed off riding with Bryon. Bryon, in all innocence apparently, came back later with both horses, to say the young master had decided to go for a cruise-'

'He has a boat?'

'Bryon left him on Aufidius Crispus' yacht.'

'Does Crispus know there is an arrest warrant?'

'That's unclear.'

'Where was the yacht?

'Baiae. But Bryon saw her sail.'

'Brilliant! So the illustrious Aemilius Rufus has flushed Pertinax onto the fastest thing between Sardinia and Sicily...'

Rufus was useless. I would have to charter a ship and look for the Isis Africa myself. It was too late in the day now, so at least I could enjoy one more evening with my lady first.

Silvana was the birthday girl (Petro's middle daughter; she was four), and tonight the children were joining our evening meal. We were delayed, however, because we had hit one of those joyful family crises without which no holiday is complete. Arria Silvia found the nursemaid Ollia in floods of tears.

Two brisk questions about Ollia's personal calendar revealed that my prophecy about the fisherboy must be correct. (He was still hanging around every day.) Ollia denied it, which clinched the verdict. Sylvia gave Ollia a slap round the head to relieve her own feelings, then instructed Petronius and me to sort out the inconvenient lobster catcher, now that it was too late.

We found the young gigolo preening his moustache by an old lead-stocked anchor, Petro got an arm up his back rather further than his arm was meant to go. Of course he claimed he never touched the girl; we expected that. We marched him to the turfy shack where he lived with his parents and while the youth sulked Petronius Longus put the whole moral issue in succinct terms to them: Ma's father was a legionary veteran who had served in Egypt and Syria for over twenty years until he left with double pay, three medals, and a diploma that made Ollia legitimate; he now ran a boxers' training school where he was famous for his high-minded attitude and his fighters were notorious for their loyalty to him...

The old fisherman was a toothless, hapless, faithless cove you would not trust too near you with a filleting knife, but whether from fear or simple cunning he co-operated eagerly. The lad agreed to marry the girl and since Silvia would never abandon Ollia here, we decided that the fisherboy had to come back with us to Rome. His relations looked impressed by this result. We accepted it as the best we could achieve.

The news that she was to be made an honest woman by a sly tyke with a seaweed moustache set Ollia off crying again, as well it might. Larius, from whom we had kept the sordid details in view of his artistic nature, was glowering at me frantically.

'Ollia's slipped up with her bit of whale blubber,' I enlightened him. 'She's just realized why her mother always warned her: she'll spend the next fifty years paying for this mistake. When he's not out after the women he'll be lying in bed all day, shouting for his dinner and calling her a dozy slut. Now you will appreciate why women who can afford it are prepared to risk abortionists' drugs-'

Larius got up without a word and went to help Petronius order the wine.

Helena Justina, who had been talking to the children while Silvia was calming Ollia, shot me the long, cool glance of a senator's daughter who had glimpsed life on the seamy side and decided this too was something any woman who could afford it would spend serious money to avoid.

We managed to make a good night of it, in the desperate way people do when the choke is between dogged survival or sliding under the morass.

As soon as Petronius reappeared with trays of bread and wine flasks the strain began to evaporate. The affectionate touch of his great hands on frazzled heads soothed everyone as he got us organized. Finding myself near Silvia, who did have more troubles than usual that night, I jollied her along with a hand on her knee (the table was so narrow that people sitting opposite were practically on your lap). Silvia kicked Petro, thinking it was him, so without bothering to look up from his mullet he said, 'Falco, keep your hands off my wife.'

'Why do you behave so badly, Falco?' Helena grumbled at me publicly. 'Put your hands on the table and if you must be offensive, ogle at me.'

I wondered morosely whether Helena was so short with me because she was worried about Pertinax being on the run. I watched her, but she knew I was doing it; her pale face resolutely gave nothing away.

It was one of those nights when a troupe of country dancers came, which soon cheered us up with something to scoff at. Anywhere in the world you can see these tired performers; the girls with scarlet ribbons and tambourines who turned out on close inspection to be a mite older than they first appeared; the bright-eyed little card with a fiendish grin and savagely hooked nose who frenetically played the pan-pipes; the aloof, balding character tootling a solemn flute of a kind unknown to musicologists. Shepherds down from the hills, or the inn-keeper's relations, who knows? It was a summer job - a little money, a few drinks, some thin applause, whistles from the locals, and for us the educational extra of slipping out to the latrine and finding one of the dancers leaning on a wall eating a stick of salami - looking less colourful, less cheerful, and decidedly less clean.

These were as good, or as bad, as they ever are. They whirled and glided and kicked their booted heels with just a touch too much disinterest (considering they expected us to put money in the hat), though the girls did smile steadily as they touted round baskets of roses afterwards, cursing under their breath at the big, black-haired young man who was supposed to wring the cash from us. He showed a particular yen to sit down for a drink out of someone else's flagon and take the weight off his quaint dancing pumps. While he was talking to Petronius, I put my arm round Helena and reminisced how in the old days it always turned out that my elder brother Festus knew the flute player, so the children in our party would be given a free instrument from the sad musician's bundle of home-whittled sticks, instead of us having to pay for them...

Petro leaned over to Helena. 'Once he sounds off about his brother, whip his wine cup away!' She did. I let her, because while she was doing it she smiled at me so fondly I felt weak. Petronius chivalrously handed her a walnut. It was one of his accomplishments that he could crack a walnut shell so skillfully he brought out the kernel intact: both halves, still held together cunningly by their papery flange. After she ate it she let her head loll on my shoulder, and held my hand.

So we all sat under a vine trellis into the evening, with the glint of the dark sea beyond a stone abutment, while men in skimpy tunics thumped up the dust in a fine haze over the hibiscus leaves. Ollia had a stomach-ache and my poor Larius had heartache. I was thinking about my search for Atius Pertinax tomorrow. Helena was smiling dreamily. Petronius and Silvia decided that their holiday had done them as much good as it ever would, and it was time to go home.

None of the new flutes would play. (They never do, but Petro and I would never learn.)

We all walked slowly back to the inn, and because it was Silvana's birthday we made a ceremony of putting the children to bed. I did not know what I would have to go through before I saw Helena again, so I had drawn her to one side for a private farewell. Someone called upstairs that I had a visitor. Petronius winked at me and went down to deal with it.

One of the children, who had reached the state of being as naughty as they dared, scampered after him in her undershirt. Twenty seconds later, even over the hubbub upstairs, we heard her screams.

I was first down the corridor and first down the stairs. Petronilla stood rooted in the doorway, still screaming. I picked her up. There was nothing else to do.

Petronius Longus lay sprawled face down in the inn courtyard with both arms outstretched. A savage blow had felled him, struck at the most dangerous, tender area of his neck. The blood which oozed so slowly from the wound said everything.

For one long moment I held his child, and simply stood, unable to move. There was nothing I could do for him. I knew he was dead.

LXVIII

Among the pounding feet that followed me down, Silvia's sandals whispered, then she shot past me like a breath and onto him before I could snatch her back. I thought she gasped, 'Oh, y baby?' but that must have been a mistake.

I pushed the child into someone's arms then ran out and tried to persuade Silvia to leave him. Helena Justina squeezed in alongside me and knelt by his head so she could gently check for a breath or a pulse.

'Marcus, come and help me - he's alive!'

After that she and I worked as partners. Life held some hope again. There were things to do.

Larius tore off on a donkey in search of a doctor. Ollia, with surprising sense, extricated Silvia. I did not want to move Petro, but it was growing darker every minute and we could not leave him out there. Helena commandeered a room on the ground floor - paid for it, I think - then we carried him in on a hurdle.

He should have been dead. A smaller man would have been. I would be. Presumably some villain who specialized in pointless gestures now thought I was.

He was deeply unconscious, so deeply it was dangerous. Even if he ever woke, he might not be himself. But he was a big, fit man with the physical strength to match; there was stamina and determination in everything he did. Larius found a doctor who salved the wound, reassured us that Petronius had not lost much blood, and said all we could now do was keep him warm and wait.

Helena soothed the children. Helena made Silvia comfortable with blankets and cushions in Petro's room. Helena saw to the doctor, shooed off the sightseers, and reassured Ollia and Larius. I even saw her with Ollia, feeding the children's kittens. Then she sent a message to the villa that she was staying here.

I went round the inn, as Petronius used to every night.

I stood on the road outside, listening to the darkness, hating whoever had done this, plotting revenge. I knew who it must have been: Atius Pertinax.

I looked in on the stables and fed Nero hay by hand. Indoors again in the room where Petro had been taken, Silvia rocked gently, nursing Tadia in her arms. I smiled, but we did not speak because the children were asleep. I knew Silvia blamed me. For once we had nothing to quarrel about: I blamed myself.

I snuffed all the tapers except one, then sat with him. Tonight his features contained strange hollows. Under the bruises from his headlong fall his face seemed so lacking in colour and emotion it was like another man's. I had known him for ten years; we had shared a barracks at the back of the world in Britain and a tent on forced marches during the Iceni troubles. Back in Rome afterwards, Petronius and I had split more wine jars than I cared to remember, scoffed at each other's women, laughed at each other's habits, exchanged favours and jokes, rarely squabbled except when his work clashed with mine. He was a brother to me, where my own had been almost too colourful to tolerate.

He never knew I was there. Eventually I left him, with his two elder daughters curled asleep against his side.

I walked upstairs, watchful and conserving my resources. I turned up the mattress on his bed and found, where I knew it would be, Petro's sword. I stood it beside my own bed.

In our other room, Helena was talking to Ollia and Larius; I looked in to say goodnight, needing to count heads. I managed to croak at Helena pompously. 'This is very inadequate, but thank you for staying. It would be chaos without you. I don't mean to burden you with our troubles...'

'Your troubles are my troubles,' Helena replied steadily. I smiled, unable to cope with it, then jerked my head at Larius. 'Time for bed.'

But Helena was persuading Ollia to confide in her and Larius seemed part of the seminar, so after I had left them the murmur of their voices continued for some time.

It was the third hour of darkness. I was lying on my back, with folded arms, studying the top of a window recess on the opposite wall as I waited for the day and my chance to extract my revenge. A board creaked; I expected Larius but it was Helena.

We knew each other so well we never spoke. I held out my hand to her, and made space on the awful bed. She blew out her lamp and I damped it to stop the wick smelling, then I thumbed mine too.

Now I was lying on my back with my arms folded, but this time they were folded tight round Helena. Her cold feet found a place to warm themselves under one of mine. I have a clear recollection of how we both sighed at that moment, though I cannot say which of us fell asleep first.

Nothing happened. There is more than one reason for sharing a bed. Helena wanted to be with me. And I needed her there.