Helena's bedroom was full of servants. For her safety's sake I welcomed them. Besides, now things were so serious it was best not to play around with bright ideas like kissing her in corridors.
I brought her in, then winked chirpily at her. Making them feel safe was part of the first-class service I reckoned to give. 'Well, this is like old times!'
'I am so relieved you are here!'
'Forget it. You need protection. We'll talk tomorrow. But expect me to veto any suggestion of you seeing Barnabas.'
'I will if I have to-' She hesitated. 'There is something about him you don't know yet, Marcus-'
'Tell me.'
'After I see him.'
'You won't. I'm not intending to let you be exposed to him again!' She took a furious breath, then subsided as her bright eyes clashed with mine. I shook my head tenderly. 'Ah lady! I can never decide whether you are my favourite client-or simply the most quarrelsome!'
She buffed me on the nose with her knuckles, like a pet who had been a nuisance. I grinned, and left her, still capped with the golden net that made her look so young and vulnerable. Maids flocked round to help her prepare for bed, and I managed to believe we were on good enough terms again that Helena Justina would happily have dismissed her women and kept me.
I prowled round on guard all night. She would expect that.
Barnabas put in no further appearances, though I kept up a steady tread, hoping he would hear my relentless patrol as I continued watching out for him.
Next morning I took Helena down to Oplontis and left her with Petronius and Silvia while I went back to Herculaneum to collect my things.
'You look disgruntled. I hope I'm not to blame!' Aemilia Fausta gurgled with girlish sarcasm. I had been up all night and the hour's sleep I had snatched while Helena was breakfasting had only made things worse. I had hitched a ride in a dung cart; I had the fly bites to prove it and felt too bilious to face an Aemilius luncheon of oozing pickled eggs.
Aemilia Fausta, who wanted the world to know she had been ferried home last night by the great Aufidius Crispus, pretended to apologize for leaving me in the lurch. 'I was unable to find you, Falco, to tell you my plans-'
'I knew your plans; Crispus told me his.' It was not the time for Fausta to indulge in badinage. 'Don't fret,' I growled. 'The place was full of women who were after me… Sailed home in the Isis, eh? I trust nothing scandalous occurred?'
Fausta heatedly denied it (which left the indelible impression something had). I could not imagine that any bachelor alone with her on a pleasure boat could allow himself to overlook the chance.
'Madam, make it your rule in future: just do what seems natural, and apologize to the musicians afterwards!'
Luckily at that point the kitchen erupted into one of its fits of clattering so she had to sweep off to play the mistress of the house. She looked like a woman who could shout at a kitchen maid. I scowled after her, thinking about Helena Justina, who looked as though when she saw some stupid girl making a mess of cleaning a cauliflower, she would grasp the knife quietly and demonstrate the way it should be done… Then I thought that perhaps what Aemilius Rufus wanted from Helena was a wife to train his cook.
Loathing Rufus, I extracted my salary from the house steward, then found Fausta again to say goodbye.
'I shall miss my music lessons!' she admonished me gaily. She seized the cithara (which Crispus must have brought back on the yacht too, polite man) and started plectruming away like a Muse who had been given a lecture from Apollo on the need to keep her standards up. I commented on the nerve-racking vitality.
'Does this mean that Aufidius Crispus made things up?' I still hoped he had attempted to shed Fausta, but my heart sank; his behaviour with women was evidently as fickle as Helena had warned me it often was with horseflesh and might yet be over politics.
Fausta murmured in a prim voice, 'If Aufidius Crispus was to achieve the supreme honour there would naturally be a place for an Empress at his side…'
'Oh naturally,' I rasped. 'Someone gracious who will not object when he prods dancing girls with his princely staff of office! He won't achieve it-because I for one will be ripped to shreds by the Furies before I let him do it. Aemilia Fausta, if you want an honourable position you could achieve better by marrying someone like Caprenius Marcellus, especially if you presented him with a child-' (This illustrates the low type of client I usually worked for.) I intended to leave Fausta's imagination to judge how the noble role of motherhood might be achieved in view of the Consul's poor health and advanced years, but she looked so complacent I spelt it out vindictively: 'Get his name on a contract then find yourself a charioteer or bath-house masseur who will help you make an old man very happy-and set yourself up for a long and wealthy widowhood!'
'You're disgusting!'
'Just practical.'