'I used to believe,' Helena complained to me privately later, 'Lucius Petronius and Maia were each trying to decide what they wanted. Sadly, I think they know now – and it's not each other.'
My sister and my friend both had tragic histories. Petro, once seemingly respectable, domesticated, and kind to tabby kittens, had plunged into a crass affair. He had strayed from home before, but this was with a gangster's wife, which was disastrous. Even his tribune became touchy about it, and his wife divorced him. Silvia took his daughters away to Ostia, where she now lived with a low-grade seasonal street-food seller; she had humiliated Petronius as much as possible.
Maia, equally settled apparently, had then been widowed. This situation is often to be welcomed, though even the deadbeats and wastrels my sisters married were rarely eaten by arena lions in Tripolitania after a trial for blasphemy. Few families on the Aventine could boast of so much excitement and we were trying to keep the dishonour quiet, for the sake of Maia's children. Lying about it no doubt added to her sense of isolation. She had made other mistakes too. Bad ones. She made a fool of herself with Anacrites the Chief Spy, for one thing. That was a situation we could not talk about at all.
'I thought they just needed time,' Helena sighed.
'Oh they may yet be prodded into close proximity – but you'll need to use a long stick.' Petronius Longus was a big lad, and my sister could be volatile.
'Better not to interfere, Marcus.'
'Right.'
If the bad thing about staying in an official residence was constant smalltalk, the good was that on the occasions Helena and I did sneak off alone, we were entirely alone. Nux, my dog, was scrabbling outside the door now, but we could pretend to ignore her. Our two little daughters, along with Maia's children, were safe in the custody of Aelia Camilla's nursery staff. Even our hopeless nursemaid had been absorbed and put to some use; I dreamed that she would stay there when we left.
'This is fine,' I said, stretching lazily. 'What we need is a house with so many rooms that nobody can find us, and cohorts of obedient staff, trained to walk about in silence, sponging away all trace of children's mashed-up food with tolerant smiles.'
'They have a Greek steward who can play the tibia.'
'The double flute! We could get one. We wouldn't need a new nursemaid if we had him to put the babies off to sleep with his tootling.'
'This one certainly soothed you into nodding off last night!' scoffed Helena.
'He's a rotten player. Anyway, I confess I had a drop too much to drink with Petro before dinner. I was trying to cheer him up.'
'You failed then, Marcus.'
'Lucius Petronius is not a happy boy.'
'Well he should be! He's going to the bad, isn't he? He chose to do it,' Helena said crisply. 'He damn well should enjoy it.'
'Going bad was good fun when I tried it. I don't know why he's so incompetent…
'Hasn't found the right rope-dancer yet.'
Helena was referring to an old girlfriend of mine. She had never even met the woman, but she never let me forget that she knew of my colourful past.
To retaliate, I closed my eyes with a smile of supposed blissful reminiscence. A mistake, of course. My thoughts really did stray in the wrong direction. Helena knew that. She whacked me with a cushion, right at the spot where my stomach was digesting its unsatisfactory British lunch.
Petronius had in fact now ceased to be a social embarrassment. He completely disappeared. He left me a rudely worded note to say he was going off alone. He did not say he was leaving the province, nor did he give me any clue where to contact him. I checked discreetly with the procurator's staff: Petro had been seen leaving the governor's residence, wearing what my prissy slave informant described as a very dirty tunic. (So at least he was not off screwing some carrot-haired woman he had left behind to marinade ten years ago.) I found all his usual clothes, still in his pack, under the bed in the guestroom he had occupied. When Petro went to the bad, he threw himself into it in sordid style.
I tried not to feel envious.
In Rome, I would have assumed he was on vigiles surveillance and thought nothing of it. Here, a continent away from his official patch, that explanation could not apply. For him simply to vanish without discussion troubled me; I wondered if he were even more unhappy than I had noticed.
Maia was less sympathetic. 'Now you know how Helena feels when you just stay out and don't tell her why,' she reproved me. 'Still, he's a man. He is thoughtless and selfish. That's all we can expect.' She had dumped him, so presumably she did not care, but her children had grown enormously fond of Petro on their long trip across Europe together; they were giving their mother a bad time, mithering over where he was. Maia had no answers – a situation that never suited her.
'Am I to set him a place tonight at dinner, I wonder?' asked Aelia Camilla, more anxious and puzzled than annoyed. She was a decent woman.
'No, don't. In fact,' scoffed Maia, 'don't set him a place even if he suddenly comes back!'
Petronius did not return.