Poseidon s Gold

When I finished she hooted with her usual grating derision. 'So it's a fine-art mystery?'

'That's right. I strongly suspect that most of the statues and all of the people are fakes.'

'You do talk! Did he find you that night, then?'

'What night, Lenia?'

'This night you've been talking about. The night Festus left for his legion. He came here. I thought I told you at the time: Late, it was. Really late. He banged on my door, wanting to know if you had staggered home so drunk you couldn't make the stairs and were curled up in my washtub.' Since six flights do hurt after revelry, it had been known.

'I wasn't here-'

'No!' giggled Lenia, knowing about the Marina fiasco.

'He should have known where I was: You never told me this-' I sighed. One more in a long string of undelivered messages.

'You talking about him tonight just reminded me.'

'Five years late!' She was unbelievable. 'So what happened?'

'He flaked out in here, making a nuisance of himself.'

'He had had some.' Much like us this evening.

'Oh I can handle soaks; I get enough practice. He was broody,' complained the laundress. 'I can't stand miserable men!' Since she had elected to marry Smaractus, who was a long-faced, insensitive, humourless disaster, she was gaining practice in tolerating misery too-and with more yet to come.

'So what was Festus on about?'

'Confidential,' sneered Lenia. 'He groaned, "It's all too much; I need little brother's strong right arm", and then he shut up.'

'Well that was Festus.' Sometimes, however, my secretive brother would be gripped by a bacchic drive to talk. Once the mood was on him, once he decided to display his inner being, he would usually open up to anyone who got in the way. He would ramble for hours-all rubbish, of course. 'It's too much to hope he revealed any more?'

'No. Tight bastard! Most people find me easy to talk to,' Lenia boasted. I remembered to smile graciously.

'So then what?'

'He got fed up of waiting for his precious brother who had stayed out playing around with Marina, so he cursed me, cursed you a few times, borrowed one of my washtubs, and disappeared. He went off muttering that he had work to do. Next day I heard he had left Rome. You weren't around much afterwards yourself.'

'Guilt!' I grinned. 'I bummed off to the market garden until the heat died down.'

'Hoping Marina would have a convenient lapse of memory?'

'Maybe. What did he want a washtub for?'

'Juno, I don't know. It turned up again on the doorstep covered with mud or cement or something.'

'He must have been rinsing his smalls: Why did you never tell me this before?'

'No point. You would have been upset!'

I was upset now.

It was one of those pointless, tantalising events that sting you after someone dies. I would never really know what he had wanted. I could never share his problem; never help. Lenia was right. Better not to know these things.

I found an excuse to leave (yawning heavily) and staggered upstairs.

Six flights give you a lot of time for thinking, but it was not enough.

Both missing and hating my brother, I felt exhausted, dirty, cold and depressed. I could have dropped on the stairs, but the landings were freezing and stank of old urine. I was heading for my bed, knowing that all too soon I had to be up out of it again. Despair made my feet heavy; I was chasing a hopeless puzzle, with disasters fast closing in on me. And when I reached my own apartment I groaned even more, because more trouble was waiting for me. Under the ill-fitting door a gleam of light showed. That could only mean someone was in there.

I had already made too much noise to start creeping up and springing surprises. I knew I was too drunk for an argument and too tired for a fight.

I did everything wrong. I forgot to be careful. I could not be bothered to organise a possible escape. I was too tired, and too angry to follow my own rules, so I just walked straight in and kicked the door shut after me.

I was staring at the lamp that burned on the table quite openly, when a small voice murmured from the bedroom, 'It's only me.'

'Helena!' I tried to remember that one of the reasons I loved her was her startling knack of surprising me. Then I tried to play sober.

I snuffed the light, to disguise my state. I dropped my belt and fumbled off my boots. I was icy cold, but as a gesture to civilised living I shed a few layers of clothing. As soon as I stumbled to bed Helena must have realised my condition. I had forgotten the bed was new; in the darkness it was wrongly aligned for the path my feet knew, and the wrong height. Besides, we had moved it to avoid the great hole in the roof, which Smaractus had still not repaired.

When I finally found the bed, I fell in awkwardly, almost falling out. Helena kissed me once, groaned at my foul breath, then buried her face in the safer haven of my armpit.

'Sorry: had to suborn some witnesses.' Warmth and comfort greeted me alluringly as I tried to be stern. 'Listen, you disobedient rascal, I left you at Mother's. What's the excuse for this?'

Helena wound herself around me more closely. She was welcome and sweet, and she knew that I was not complaining much. 'Oh Marcus, I missed you:'

'Missing me could get you hurt, woman! How did you get here?'

'Perfectly safely. With Maia's husband. He came right up and checked the room for me. I've spent an evening going around your sisters' houses asking about the knife from the caupona. I dragged your mother with me, though she wasn't keen. Anyway, I thought you would want to know the results,' she excused herself weakly.

'Bamboozler! So what's the good news?'

I felt a small, but obvious, belch escaping. Helena shifted further down the bed. Her voice came faintly through the coverlet. 'None, I'm afraid. Not one of your relatives can remember taking that knife from home, let alone ever using it at Flora's.'

Even in the dark I could feel my head spinning. 'The day's not a total disaster. I heard a couple of things. Censorinus had a companion in Rome-Laurentius. It's good. Petro will have to find him before he can indict me.'

'Could this be the murderer?'

'Unlikely, but possible:' Talking was difficult. 'And there is, or was once, a sculptor called Orestes-no, Orontes. He's disappeared, but it's given us another name:' In the new bed, already warmed for several hours by Helena, relaxation was seeping gloriously through my frozen limbs. I wrapped myself around her more conveniently. 'Dear gods, I love you:' I wanted her safe, but I was glad she was here. 'I hope Famia was sober when he brought you.'

'Maia wouldn't send me home without safe protection. If she had known it was a drunk I would be waiting for she would not have let me come at all!' I tried to think up a rejoinder, but none came. Helena stroked my cheek. 'You're weary. Go to sleep.'

I was already doing so.

Hazily I heard her saying, 'Your father sent a message. He suggests that tomorrow morning he should take you to visit Carus and Servia. He says, Dress up. I've put a toga out for you:'

I wondered who in Hades were Carus and Servia, and why I should allow these unbidden strangers to bother me with such formality. Then I knew nothing until I woke the next day with a splitting head.

XLI

It was late morning when I lurched from the apartment. I wore my favourite worn indigo tunic, since my idea of dressing up has always been to put comfort first; my heaviest boots, since the weather looked foul; a cloak, for the same reason; and a hat, to shade my eyes from painful light. My head hurt and my internal organs felt delicate. My joints ached. An upright posture seemed unnatural.