Women change a lot between eighteen and twenty-three. It was painful to see her untouched by her trials with Pertinax, and to wish I had known her first. Something in her expression, even at that age, made me uneasily aware I had been flirting too busily elsewhere today-and all my life.
'Too submissive. He's missed her,' I murmured. 'In real life the lady glares out as though she'd bite your nose off if you stepped too close-'
Inspecting my snout for damage, Geminus reached to give it a possessive tweak; my arm jerked up to fend him off. 'So how close do you generally step?'
'Met her. Last year in Britain. She hired me as her bodyguard back to Rome-all perfectly straight and free from scandal, see-'
'You losing your touch?' he mocked. 'Not many noble young ladies could ride fourteen hundred miles with a likely lad and not allow themselves some consolation for the rigours of the road!' He peered at her. I felt a moment of uncertainty, as if two people I cared about had just been introduced.
I was still clutching her recipe.
'What's that?'
'How to cook Turbot in Caraway. No doubt her husband's favourite midday snack-' I sighed grimly. 'You know what they say: for the price of three horses you may buy a decent cook, and with three cooks you can possibly bid for a turbot-I don't even own a horse!'
He eyed me evilly. 'Want her, Marcus?'
'Nowhere to keep her.'
'That statue?' he asked, with a broad grin.
'Oh the statue!' I answered, smiling sadly too.
We decided it would be highly improper to sell a noblewoman's portrait in the public marketplace. Vespasian would agree; he would make her family buy it back at some exorbitant price. Geminus disapproved of emperors as much as I did, so we omitted Helena Justina from the Imperial inventory.
I sent the statue to her father. I wrapped it myself for transit, in a costly Egyptian carpet which had not been inventoried either. (The auctioneer had tagged it for himself.)