I was drunk.
I was so drunk even I could hardly pretend I had not noticed. Helena, Musa and their visitor, all sitting demure around the fire outside our tent waiting for me to come home, must have summed up the situation at once. As I carefully placed my feet in order to approach my welcome bivouac, I realised there was no chance of reaching it unobserved. They had seen me coming; best to brazen it out. They were watching every step. I had to stop thinking about them so I could concentrate on remaining upright. The flickering blur that must be the fire warned me that on arrival I would probably pitch face first into the burning sticks.
Thanks to a ten-year career of debauched living, I made it to the tent at what I convinced myself was a nonchalant stroll. Probably about as nonchalant as a fledgling falling off a roof finial. No one commented.
I heard, rather than saw, Helena rising to her feet, then ray arm found its way around her shoulders. She helped me tiptoe in past our guests and tumble on to the bed. Naturally I expected a lecture. Without a word she made me sit up enough to take a long quaff of water.
Three years had taught Helena Justina a thing or two. Three years ago she was a primly scowling fury who would have spurned a man in my condition; now she made him take precautions against a hangover. Three years ago, she wasn't mine and I was lost:
'I love you!'
'I know you do.' She had spoken quietly. She was pulling off my boots for me. I had been lying on my back; she rolled me partly on my side. It made no difference to me as I could not tell which way up I was, but she was happy to have given me protection in case I choked. She was wonderful. What a perfect companion.
'Who's that outside?'
'Congrio.' I lost interest. 'He brought a message for you from Chremes about the play we are to put on here.' I had lost interest in plays too. Helena continued talking calmly, as if I were still rational.'I remembered we had never asked him about the night Ione died, so I invited him to sit with Musa and me until you came home.'
'Congrio:' In the way of the drunk I was several sentences behind. 'I forgot Congrio.'
'That seems to be Congrio's destiny,' murmured Helena. She was unbuckling my belt, always an erotic moment; blearily I enjoyed the situation, though I was helpless to react with my usual eagerness. She tugged the belt; I arched my back, allowing it to slither under me. Pleasantly I recalled other occasions of such unbuckling when I had not been so incapable.
In a crisis Helena made no comment about the emergency. Her eyes met mine. I gave her the smile of a helpless man in the hands of a very beautiful nurse.
Suddenly she bent and kissed me, though it cannot have been congenial. 'Go to sleep. I'll take care of everything,' she whispered against my cheek.
As she moved away I gripped her fast. 'Sorry, fruit. Something I had to do:'
'I know.' Understanding about my brother, there were tears in her eyes. I made to stroke her soft hair; my arm seemed impossibly heavy and nearly caught her a clout on the side of the brow. Seeing it coming, Helena held my wrist. Once I stopped flailing she laid my arm back tidily alongside me. 'Go to sleep.' She was right; that was safest. Sensing my silent appeal, she came back at the last minute, then kissed me again, briskly on the head. 'I love you too.' Thanks, sweetheart.
What a mess. Why does solitary, deeply significant thought lead so inevitably to an amphora?
I lay still, while the darkened tent zoomed to and fro around me and my ears sang. Now that I had collapsed, the sleep I had been heavily craving refused to come. So I lay in my woozy cocoon of misery, listening to the events at my own fireside that I could not join.