I rode downhill for three minutes at a steady pace. As soon as the track widened, I reined in the donkey and drove him back again.
Helena Justina was exactly where I left her, with her face out of sight. Nothing had attacked her: only me.
When my heart steadied I walked over, then reached down and rubbed the top of her head gently with my thumb.
'I thought you had left me,' she said in a muffled voice.
'Is that likely?'
'How should I know?'
'I thought I had left you,' I admitted. 'I'm the sort of fool who would think that. If you just stay in the same place so I can find you, I shall always come back.' She choked on a sob.
I dropped on my haunches and wrapped both arms round her. I held her tight but after a few hot tears had trickled away under the neck of my tunic she grew quieter. We sat there, perfectly still, while I sent my strength flowing into her, and the strain I had been feeling for so long it had come to seem natural went running away too.
Eventually Helena mastered her misery and looked up. I hooked two fingers into her neckchain and pulled out my old silver ring. She coloured faintly. 'I used to wear it…' She tailed off in embarrassment.
With both hands I snapped the chain apart; Helena gasped and caught the little circle of silver as it fell into her lap. I glimpsed the inscription: anima mea, 'my soul'. I grasped her left hand and replaced the ring myself. 'Wear it! I gave it you to wear!'
Helena seemed to hesitate. 'Marcus, when you gave me your ring to wear-were you in love with me?'
That was when I realized how serious things were.
'I made myself a rule once,' I said. 'Never fall in love with a client-' She rounded on me in distress, then saw my face. 'Sweetheart, I've made a lot of rules, and broken most of them! Don't you know me? I am frightened you will despise me, and terrified other people will see you doing it-but I'm lost without you. How can I prove it? Fight a lion? Pay my debts? Swim the Hellespont like some lunatic?'
'You can't swim.'
'Learning is the hard part of the test.'
'I'll teach you,' muttered Helena. 'If you fall into any deep water, I want you to float!'
The water was pretty deep here. I stared at her. She stared at the ground. Then she confessed, 'That day you left for Croton, I was missing you so badly I went to your apartment to look for you; we must have passed one another in the street…'
Overcome, she ducked her head onto her knees again. I cackled with laughter, bitterly. 'You should have told me.'
'You wanted to leave me.'
'No,' I said. My right hand was cradling the back of her head, exploring a hollow which seemed purposely made to fit the ball of my thumb. 'No, my darling. I never wanted that.'
'You said you did.'
'I'm an informer. All talk. Mostly inaccurate.'
'Yes,' she agreed thoughtfully, raising her head again. 'Didius Falco, you do say stupid things!'
I grinned, then I told her some more.