'Tell me. What aspect?'

'It's possible you have allied yourself with a highly dubious family.' Helena laughed ironically. She and I were such close friends I could tell her the unthinkable: 'I am beginning to wonder if my brother the hero in fact ended his days as a thief and a candidate for cashiering.' Helena must have been expecting it, for she simply stroked my brow quietly and let me take my time. 'How can I ever say that to Ma?'

'Make quite sure of the facts first!'

'Maybe I won't tell her.'

'Maybe she already knows,' suggested Helena. 'Maybe she wants you to put the record straight.'

'No, she asked me to clear his name! On the other hand,' I argued unconvincingly, 'perhaps all this only looks like a scandal-but appearances deceive.'

Helena knew my opinion: that is not how scandals work.

She changed the subject, trying to ease my introspective mood by asking about what had happened to me earlier that day. I described the disrupted auction, then told her what I had learned from Geminus about my brother's last business scheme, including the Phidias Poseidon. I ended with how I had been summoned by that ghastly urchin Gaius and had left my father in his office, surrounded by flotsam like some old sea god in a cave.

'He sounds like you,' she commented. 'Hiding away from the world at the top of your sixth-floor apartment on the Aventine.'

'It's not the same!'

'You don't like people going there.'

'People bring trouble.'

'Even me?' she teased.

'Not you.' I grimaced at her. 'Not even today.'

'Perhaps,' Helena suggested thoughtfully, 'your elder brother also had a secret den somewhere?'

If so, it was the first I knew of it. Yet behind his open, cheery attitude, Festus had been full of secrets. He had lived with his mother; he certainly could have used a hideaway. Jupiter knew what would be waiting there if ever I discovered it.

We stopped discussing the issue because just then Marponius came in person to inform Helena that her father had arrived to free her. The judge was wearing his best toga for entertaining such splendid company, and a big grin because the surety he had demanded from the noble Camillus before he would release his dangerous daughter was extremely large. When he saw me in the same room he looked annoyed, though he said nothing about it. Instead, he enjoyed himself announcing that I too was to be set free on recognizance.

'From whom?' I demanded suspiciously.

'From your father,' grinned Marponius. He obviously knew I found the thought unbearable.

Produced for our parents as a murderer and his accessory, we managed not to giggle inanely, but felt like bad teenagers being hauled off home from the town jail after some prank in the Forum that would horrify our ancient great-aunts when they heard of it.

By the time we appeared, our two rescuers were close allies. They had met before. Now they had a disgrace in common and thanks to the judge's ingratiating wine steward, they were both slightly drunk. Geminus was down on one knee having a good look at a large urn from southern Italy that was pretending to have Athenian origins. Camillus Verus had kept slightly more control of his manners, though only by a thread. He gave me a whimsical salute, while commenting loudly to my own father, 'I suppose this makes a change from having to complain about their expensive hobbies, wild parties and shocking friends!'

'Never have children!' Pa advised Marponius. 'And by the way, Judge, your urn's cracked.'

Marponius rushed to inspect his flawed property. While he was crouching on the floor, he managed to speak a few hurried words about releasing us into family custody, the fathers' duties of supervision, et cetera. In return, Pa gave him the name of a man who could make the crack invisible (one of a horde of such dubious craftsmen known at the Saepta Julia). The judge then scrambled upright, shook hands all round like some theatrical pimp restoring long-lost twins, and let us escape.

As we struggled out into the winter night, our happy fathers were still congratulating themselves on their generosity, making jokes together about how to supervise our parole, and wrangling about which of their houses we should be dragged off to dine in.

Rome was cold and dark. It was late enough for the streets to be growing dangerous. Helena and I were hungry, but we had endured enough. I muttered that if they wanted to check up on us we would be with Ma, then we both fell into the chair they had brought for Helena and made the bearers set off at a cracking pace. I gave a loud instruction for Mother's house, then once we got around the first corner I changed the directions to Fountain Court.

Now I had an impossible mission, an indictment for murder-and two highly indignant fathers chasing me.

But at least when we reached the apartment the new bed had arrived.

XXXI

Next morning Helena was startled when I jumped out of bed at first light.

This was not easy. The new bed was successful in various ways that are private, and it had given us a most comfortable night's sleep. We awoke under a huge feather-filled coverlet which we had brought home from Germany, as warm as chicks in a nest. Beside the bed, in pride of place, stood the adjustable bronze tripod Helena had acquired from Geminus-as a present for me, apparently.

'Is this for my birthday? It's not for three weeks.'

'I remember when your birthday is!' Helena assured me. It was partly a wry joke, because of an occasion when I had somehow missed hers, and partly nostalgia. She knew the date because that was the first time I ever kissed her, before I realised the frightening fact that I was in love with her, or could believe she might be in love with me. We had been at a ghastly inn in Gaul, and I was still amazed at my bravado in approaching her-not to mention the consequences. By the way she smiled, Helena was also thinking about the occasion. 'I felt you needed cheering up.'

'Don't tell me how much he stung you for it; I don't want to be depressed.'

'All right, I won't tell you.'

I sighed. 'No, you'd better. He's my father. I feel responsible.'

'Nothing. When I said how much I liked it, he gave it to me.'

That was when I sprang out into the cold.

'Dear gods, Marcus! What's this?'

'Time is running out.'

Helena sat up, huddled in our German coverlet and staring at me from amidst a tangle of fine dark hair. 'I thought you said the enquiry would be less pressing now you didn't have to dodge Petronius?'

'This has nothing to do with the enquiry.' I was pulling on more clothes.

'Come back!' Helena launched herself across the bed and locked her arms around me. 'Explain the mystery!'

'No mystery.' Despite fierce resistance, I pushed her back into bed and tucked her in tenderly. 'Just an unpaid bill of four hundred thousand big ones that suddenly fell due.' She stopped struggling, so I managed to kiss her. 'First, I found out yesterday that a certain rash young lady is prepared to state in public-before a judge-that we are virtually man and wife: and now I've discovered my relations at large are sending us gifts to set up home! So forget the enquiry. Compared with the urgent need to assemble a dowry, a little matter of being a murder suspect fades into insignificance.'

'Fool!' Helena burst out laughing. 'For a moment I thought you were serious.'

She did have a point. When a man of my meagre standing has fallen for a senator's daughter, however much he adores her he takes a risk in hoping for something to come of it.

I let her enjoy the hilarious prospect of marriage to me, without bothering to worry her with the news that I meant what I said.