'What are you reading, Helena?'

'Plato.' It put a quick stop to the intellectual discussion.

'Well, well!' said Philocrates. This seemed to be his pause-filler.

'Well, well,' echoed Helena placidly. She could be very unhelpful to men who were trying to impress her.

'That's a beautiful dress.' She was in white. White had never suited Helena; I repeatedly told her so.

'Thank you,' she answered modestly.

'I'll bet you look even better with it off:' Mars blast his balls! Wide awake now, I was expecting my young lady to call out to me for protection.

'It's a paradox of science,' stated Helena Justina calmly, 'but when the weather gets as hot as this, people are more comfortable covered up.'

'Fascinating!' Philocrates knew how to sound as if he meant it, though somehow I thought science was not his strong point. 'I've been noticing you. You're an interesting woman.' Helena was more interesting than this facile bastard knew, but if he started to investigate her finer qualities he would be sent on his way with my boot. 'What's your star sign?' he mused, one of those pea-brained types who drought astrology was the straight route to a quick seduction. 'A Leo, I should say:'

Jupiter! I hadn't used 'What's your horoscope?' since I was eleven. He ought to have guessed Virgo; that would always get them giggling, after which you could cruise home.

'Virgo,' stated Helena herself crisply, which should put a blight on astrology.

'You surprise me!' She surprised me too. I had been thinking Helena's birthday was in October, and was mentally making up jokes about Librans weighing up trouble. Trouble was what I would be in if I didn't learn the correct date.

'Oh I doubt if I could surprise you with much, Philocrates!' she answered. The annoying wench must think I was asleep. She was playing up to him as if I didn't exist at all, let alone lying behind a tent wall growing furious, barely a stride away.

Philocrates had missed her irony. He laughed gaily. ' Really? In my experience, girls who appear terribly serious and seem like vestal virgins can be a lot of fun!'

'Have you had fun with a lot of girls, Philocrates?' asked Helena innocently.

'Let's say, a lot of girls have had fun with me!'

'That must be very gratifying for you,' Helena murmured. Anyone who knew her well could hear her thinking, Probably not so much fun for them!

'I've learned a few tricks with the pleasure pipe.' Two more words, and I would spring from the tent and tie up his pleasure pipe in a very tight Hercules knot.

'If that's an offer, I'm flattered, naturally.' Helena was smiling, I could tell. 'Apart from the fact that I couldn't possibly live up to your sophisticated standards, I'm afraid I have other commitments.'

'Are you married?' he shot in.

Helena loathed that question. Her voice acquired bite. 'Would that be a bonus? Deceiving husbands must be so amusing: I was married once.'

'Is your husband dead?'

'I divorced him.' He was dead now in fact, but Helena Justina never referred to it.

'Hard-hearted girl! What was the fellow's crime?'

Helena's worst insults were always delivered in cool tone. 'Oh he was just a normal arrogant male – deficient in morals, incapable of devotion, insensitive to a wife who had the good manners to be honest.'

Philocrates passed it over as a reasonable comment. 'And now you're available?'

'Now I live with someone else.'

'Well, well:' I heard him shifting his ground again. 'So where is the happy scribbler?'

'Probably up a date-palm writing a play. He takes his work very seriously.' Helena knew I had never done that, whatever job I was pretending to hold down. However, I did have an idea for a completely new play of my own. I had not discussed it with Helena; she must have noticed me thinking and guessed.

Philocrates sneered. 'Pity his skill doesn't match his dedication!' What a bastard. I made a note to write him out of at least three scenes in my next adaptation. 'I'm intrigued. What can this Falco have to offer a smart and intelligent girl like you?'

'Marcus Didius has wonderful qualities.'

'An amateur author who looks as if he's been dragged. through a thicket by a wild mule? The man's haircut should be an indictable offence!'

'Some girls like raffish charm, Philocrates: He's entertaining and affectionate,' Helena rebuked him. 'He tells the truth. He doesn't make promises unless he can keep them, though sometimes he keeps promises he never even made. What I like most,' she added, 'is his loyalty.'

'Is that right? He looks as if he knows his way around. How can you be certain he's faithful?'

'How can anyone ever be certain? The point is,' Helena said gently, 'that I believe it.'

'Because he tells you?'

'No. Because he never feels he needs to.'

'I suppose you're in love with him?'

'I suppose I am.' She said it unrepentantly.

'He's a lucky man!' exclaimed Philocrates insincerely. His mockery was evident. 'And have you ever betrayed him?' His voice held a hopeful note.

'No.' Hers was cool.

'And you're not going to try it now?' At last he was catching on.

'Probably not – though how can anyone ever be certain?' responded Helena graciously.

'Well, when you decide to try sipping from a different bowl – and you will, Helena, believe me – I'm available.'

'You'll be the first candidate,' she promised in a light tone. Ten minutes beforehand I would have burst from the tent and wrapped a guy rope around the actor's neck; instead I sat tight. Helena's voice hardly changed tone, though because I knew her I was ready for her new tack. She had finished with whimsy; she was taking charge. 'Now may I ask you something very personal, Philocrates?'

His big chance to talk about himself: 'Of course!' 'Would you mind telling me what your relations with the drowned playwright used to be?'

There was a brief pause. Then Philocrates complained spitefully, 'So this is the price for being permitted to converse with your ladyship?'

Helena Justina did not balk. 'It's simply the price for knowing someone who has been murdered,' she corrected him. 'And probably knowing his killer too. You can refuse to answer the question.'

'From which you will draw your own conclusions?'

'That would seem reasonable. What have you to say?'

'I didn't get on with him. In fact we damn nearly came to blows,' Philocrates confessed shortly.

'Why was that?' She hardly waited before adding, 'Was it a quarrel over a girl?'

'Correct.' He hated saying it. 'We both received a put-down from the same woman. I did less badly than him, though.' He was probably boasting to console himself. Helena, who understood arrogance, did not bother pursuing it.

'I'm sure you did,' she flattered him sympathetically. 'I won't ask who it was.'

'Byrria, if you must know,' he told her before he could stop himself. The poor rabbit was helpless; Helena had moved effortlessly from an object of seduction to his most confidential friend.

'I'm sorry. I doubt if it was personal, Philocrates. I've heard she is extremely ambitious and declines all approaches from men. I'm sure you rose above the rejection, but what about Heliodorus?'

'No sense of discretion.'

'He kept on pestering her? That would make her all the more obdurate, of course.'

'I hope so!' he growled. 'There was better sport on offer, after all.'

'There certainly was! If you had done her the honour: So you and the playwright had an ongoing rivalry. Did you hate him enough to kill him though?'

'Great gods, no! It was only a tiff over a girl.'

'Oh quite! Was that his attitude too?'

'He probably let it rankle. That was his kind of stupidity.'

'And did you ever tackle Heliodorus about him bothering Byrria?'

'Why should I do that?' Philocrates' surprise sounded genuine. 'She turned me down. What she did or did not do after that was no concern of mine.'