Pertinax was an excellent rider, and he knew this location. I took a horse out myself to warn the magistrate's searchers to watch closely for the roan, but he must have already slipped through. We had no idea where he might be heading-Tarentum possibly. We had lost him. I returned to the house.
When your nearest relations are spiking you so callously, the last thing you want and the first thing you get is inquisitive neighbours on a social call. Aemilius Rufus was now in with Marcellus, paying his respects. His sister, who had come with him, was walking on the terrace.
She was wearing black, with heavy veiling folded back while she patrolled the colonnade alone and gazed sadly out to sea.
'Aemilia Fausta! I'm sorry about Crispus. I would tell you it ought never to have happened, but that makes the tragedy worse. There was nothing I could do.'
I felt she had expended all her grief on her reluctant lover while he was alive; now he was dead she accepted my condolences decisively. I said in a low tone, 'In future, when you read some court poet's bucolic account of how the crowds at Misenum and Puteoli turn out every year to cheer the incoming grain ships, you can smile to remember what no one ever says: in the consulship of whichever two nobles are holding office this year, the transports' annual arrival went unmarked…'
'Is it all over?'
'Ships in the night! There may be stragglers still to come, but Vespasian can look after them once I've made my report.'
She turned to me, as she drew her black mantle into a closer frame for her fair-skinned face. 'Crispus was a man with special gifts, Falco. You will be proud to have known him.'
I let that pass. After a moment I smiled, 'Strong colours suit you.'
'Yes!' she agreed, with her new capable laugh. 'Didius Falco, you were right. My brother offends me, I won't live with him now. Perhaps I shall marry a rich old man, and when he's gone enjoy myself as a widow, in strong, dark colours, being over-demanding and shouting at people-or playing the cithara very badly by myself.'
I suppressed the thought that this honourable lady had been strolling here in the Consul's stately portico reckoning up the value of his fabulous estate.
'Aemilia Fausta,' I responded gallantly, 'on my word as a harp teacher, you play very well!'
'You always were a liar, Falco,' she said.