Without comment, we paid off her shabby landlady and took the girl to the better premises where we ourselves were lodged. Claudia grabbed Julia Junilla from my nephew Gaius and absorbed herself in the baby. Gaius gave me a disgusted look, and stalked out with the dog. I shouted out for him to look for Famia, whom we had lost again.
"So where is Quintus?" Helena asked Claudia curiously.
"He has gone on to Ptolemaïs, continuing his search."
"No luck so far?" I grinned.
"No," said Claudia, returning not the slightest flicker of a smile.
Helena exchanged a discreet glance with me, then took the girl off to the local baths lugging large quantities of scented oil and hairwash, in the hope that pampering would restore Claudia's spirits. Hours later they were back, reeking of balsam but no further forward. Claudia remained tortuously polite, refusing to unbend and spill gossip.
We passed her the letters we had brought from the Camilli and from her own grandparents in Spain. She took the scrolls to read in private. On her reappearance she did ask, in a rather strained voice, "And how is Camillus Aelianus?"
"How do you think he is?" Respect for a bride who bunked off a week before her formal engagement was not my style. "It's polite of you to ask, but he lost his betrothed-very suddenly. At first he thought you had been kidnapped by a mass murderer, so that was a bad shock. More importantly, he lost your winsome fortune, lass. He's not a happy boy. He has been viciously rude to me, though Helena still thinks I should be kind to him."
"And what do you think, Marcus Didius?"
"As is my wont, I accept all blame with a tolerant smile."
"I must have misheard that," murmured Helena.
"I did not mean him to be hurt," said Claudia wanly.
"No? Just humiliated, maybe?" If I sounded angry it was probably because I found myself defending Aelianus, whom I disliked. "Since he's not getting respectably married, he stood down from the Senate elections this year. Now he's twelve months behind his contemporaries. Every time his career comes under scrutiny in future, he'll have to explain that. He will have cause to remember you, Claudia."
Helena gave the girl a shrewd stare. "I doubt if that marriage would have worked. Don't blame yourself, Claudia," she said. Predictably, Claudia herself did not react.
For a moment I wondered whether we could return Claudia to her snooty betrothed in Rome, and pretend the adventure with Justinus had never occurred. No. I could not be that cruel to either of them. If she now married Aelianus he would never forget what she had done. The public scandal might die down, but he was the type to harbor a deep grudge. Every time they wanted to quarrel he would be burning to drag up the past, while the normal self-righteousness that helps a woman survive being married to a bastard would be lost to Claudia. She had crossed the bridge into enemy territory, and cut off her own retreat. Now the barbarians were just waiting to descend on her.
We changed the subject and made plans for traveling to Ptolemaïs, to join Justinus. There was no way I would take ship again unnecessarily. It was only about twenty-five more miles along the coast, so I hired a couple of carts. Claudia had made some feeble suggestion about going by sea but I cut her short. "If we start really early and push ourselves, we might force it in a day," I assured her. "All it needs is luck and military discipline." She still looked miserable. "Trust me," I cried. The poor girl clearly needed somebody to invest her with spirit. "All your cares are over, Claudia: I'm in charge now."
Then I thought I heard Claudia Rufina mutter to herself, "Oh Juno-another one!"
Forty-one
THINGS WERE GETTING worse. Ptolemaïs was even breezier and even more Greek. Whereas Tocra just butted out into the Mediterranean, Ptolemaïs actually had the sea lapping on two sides. Although its harbor was more sheltered, furious waves coursed at an angle in the open water, while flying sand stung us as we hacked into town from the west. Our journey had taken us two days, even though I had pressed on as hard as possible. The coast road was dismal. We found no way station, and were forced to sleep rough overnight. I noticed that Claudia hunched her shoulders and said nothing, as though she had experienced this before.
By now the rolling green and brown hillocks of the jebel came down almost to the city. Squeezed between the sea and the mountains, this was an offshoot of Cyrene, still further east. There were historic connections with the Egyptian Ptolemies (hence the name) and the neighborhood was still used as a cattle-ranching area, fattening flocks for rich Egyptians who lacked pastures of their own.
It was a dry old place to have chosen to build; an aqueduct brought in a vital water supply, which was stored in huge cisterns under the forum. Yet again the meticulous Justinus had left word, so once we had struggled into the city center, and found the right temple, and dug out the underpriest who was in charge of messages from foreigners, it only took us another hour or so to persuade the disinterested Greek-speaking burghers to give us directions to where he was staying. Needless to say, this was not among the well-appointed homes of the local wool and honey magnates, but in a district that smelled of fish-pickle, where the alleys were so narrow the tormenting wind whistled through your teeth as you battled around every corner. Also needless to say, even when we found his billet, Justinus was out.
We left a note ourselves, then waited for the hero to come to us. To cheer us up, I spent more of Helena 's father's money on a slap-up fish supper. It was eaten in a subdued mood by tired, dispirited people. I had now acquired the traditional party-leader's role of irritating everyone and pleasing none, whatever I tried to organize.
"So, Claudia, did you ever see the gorgeous Gardens of the Hesperides?"
"No," said Claudia.
Helena attempted to take a hand. "Why; what went wrong?"
"We couldn't find them."
"I thought they were near Berenice?"
"Apparently."
Claudia's permanent pose of neutrality had slipped for a moment, and we could hear honest rancor growling through. Helena openly tackled the girclass="underline" "You seem rather low. Is anything wrong?"
"Not at all," said Claudia, putting down the uneaten half of her grilled red mullet for my dog, Nux. Dear gods, I do hate mimsy girls who pick at their food-especially when I have paid through the nose for it. I was never partial to women who seem unable to enjoy themselves; what was more, to have caused a scandal and then to be so unhappy about it seemed an atrocious waste.
Well, we only had to stick it out in snobbish Ptolemaïs for ten days before a message came from Justinus to Claudia saying he was now living in Cyrene, so there was yet another haughty Greek city waiting to despise us if we cared to trek that way.
This time it did seem as if it might just be worth bothering to pack up and transfer ourselves: Famia became very excited because he thought Cyrene was a good source of horses, Helena and I wanted to see the runaways together so we could try to work out what had gone wrong with them, and besides, Justinus' note had a coded tailpiece which we deciphered as, "I may have found what I was looking for!"