Fighting my weariness, I stumbled out onto the balcony and watered my plants. It could be windy up here, yet my hanks of dusty ivy and pots of blue scillas flourished better than I did. My youngest sister Maia, who looked after them when I was away, said that this gardening was meant to impress women. Our Maia was a shrewd little bun, but wrong about that; if a woman was prepared to climb six flights of stairs to see me, she knew in advance what kind of cheapjack here she was climbing those stairs for.
I breathed the night air slowly, letting myself remember the last young lady who visited my eyrie, then left with a flower in her shoulder brooch.
I was missing her badly. No one else seemed worth bothering with. I needed to talk to her. Every day without Helena seemed somehow unfinished. I could manage the hurly-burly, but the evening stillness reminded me what I had lost.
I fell indoors, too tired to lift my feet. I felt drained, yet Vespasian's letter got the better of me now. As I wrenched at the wax I was automatically assessing today's events.
A conspirator in a dead plot had died unnecessarily; a freedman who ought not to be important suddenly was. This idiot Barnabas provided an irresistible challenge. Smiling, I unrolled the document.
a) Under the authority of Vespasian Augustus; M. Didius Falco to escort the funeral ashes of A. Curtius Longinus, senator (deceased), to his brother A. Curtius Gordianus (priest), believed to be at Rhegium. Departure; immediate.
b) Travel documents herewith.
It sounded crisp. Needless to say, the ashes were missing; I would have to endorse someone's docket to get those released. For Rhegium read Croton. (Palace scribes are never accurate: they don't have to make the forty-mile detour over mountain roads when they get it wrong.) As usual, they had forgotten to enclose my travel pass, and there was no mention of my fee.
A vigorous snake in the margin in the Emperor's own hand exclaimed:
c) Why am I rebuilding the Temple of Hercules? Can't afford it. Please explain!
I found my inkpot behind half a cabbage and wrote on the back: Caesar!
a) The priest has been loyal.
b) The Emperor's generosity is well known.
c) The Temple was not very big.
Then I resealed the letter, and readdressed it to go back.
Under the cabbage (which my mother must have left for me) I noticed another important communique: from her. She stated darkly,
You need new spoons.
I scratched my head. I could not tell if this was a promise or a threat.
The Palace had had its money's worth; I went to bed. The normal procedure was simple; I stood my favourite wine cup on the corner of the blanket box, then peeled off my tunic, rolled under the hairy counterpane and drank my drink in bed. Tonight I just fell down on top and kept all my clothes on. I managed to think about Helena long enough to share all my worries, but just as I reached what might happen after that I could feel myself falling asleep. Had she been there in my arms events would probably have taken the same course…
Informing is a drab old business. The pay's filthy, the work's worse, and if you ever find a woman who is worth any trouble you don't have the money and you don't have the time; if you do, the chances are you simply don't have the energy.
I could no longer remember leaving my house that morning; I had come home tonight too exhausted to eat my dinner and too depressed to enjoy a drink. I had passed by my best friend without a chance to gossip; I had forgotten to visit my mother and let Helena guess my ghastly involvement in the disposal of her relative's corpse. I had shared my lunch with a watchdog, swapped insults with an Emperor, and thought I'd seen the ghost of a murdered man. Now my neck ached; my feet hurt; my chin needed shaving; I was longing for a bath. I deserved an afternoon at the races; I wanted a night on the town. Instead, I had committed myself to travelling three hundred miles to visit a man I was not allowed to interview, who would probably refuse to see me when I arrived.
For a private informer, this was just an average day.