'I didn't ask what she ought to do!'

I smiled. 'She won't ask it either, knowing her.'

He sat quiet for a time. He liked Helena, I knew that.

Suddenly I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees, cradling my cup. Something had struck me. 'What did Festus do with the money?'

'The half-million?' Pa rubbed his nose. He had the same nose as me: straight down from the forehead without a bump between the eyebrows. 'Olympus knows!'

'I never found it.'

'And I never saw it either.'

'So what did he tell you about it when he was mentioning the Phidias?'

'Festus,' drawled my father, with some exasperation, 'never gave me any idea the Phidias had been paid for by the collectors! That I only learned from Carus and Servia well afterwards.'

I sat back again. 'They really did pay him? Is there any chance this receipt of theirs is forged?'

Pa sighed. 'I wanted to think so. I looked at it very hard, believe me. It was convincing. Go and see it-'

I shook my head. I hate to pile up misery.

I could think up no new queries. Now Orontes Mediolanus was our only lead.

We spent some time (it felt about two hours) arguing about arrangements for getting to Capua. By Didius standards this was fairly refined. Even so, all my sensible plans for lessening the agony of a long, tiring journey were overturned. I wanted to ride down there at the fastest speed possible, do the business, then pelt home. Pa insisted his old bones were no longer able to endure a horse. He decided to arrange a carriage, from some stable he vaguely specified as a meeting-place. We came near to agreeing terms for sharing expenses. There was some discussion about a departure time, though this remained unclear. The Didius family hates to upset itself by settling practicalities.

Yet another servant appeared, on the excuse of collecting the tray. He and Pa exchanged a glance that could have been a signal. 'You'll be wanting to leave soon,' hinted my father.

Nobody mentioned the woman he lived with, but her presence in the house had become tangible.

He was right. If she was there, I wanted to disappear. He took me downstairs. I pulled on my cloak and boots hurriedly, then fled.

Luck was against me as usual. The last thing I felt able to cope with happened: not two streets from Father's house, while still feeling like a traitor, I ran into Ma.

XLVII

Guilt settled on me like an extra cloak.

'Where are you sneaking from?'

We stood on a corner. Every passer-by must have been able to tell I was a son in deep trouble. Every lax villain on the Aventine would be chuckling all the way to the next drinking-house, glad it was not him.

Honesty pays, people tell you. 'I've been enjoying the entertainments of my father's smart town house.'

'I thought you looked sick!' sniffed Ma. 'I brought you up to avoid places where you might catch a disease!'

'It was clean,' I said wearily.

'What about the little job I asked you to help sort out for me?' From the way she spoke, I was thought to have forgotten it.

'Your "little job" was what got me arrested the other day-Helena, too. I'm working on it. That's why I had to go to Pa's. I've been running around on your commission all today, and tomorrow I have to go to Capua-'

'Why Capua?' she demanded. For obvious reasons Capua had long been a dirty word in our circle. That pleasant town was a byword for immorality and deceit, though apart from having once played host to my absconding father, all Capua ever did was to overcharge holidaying tourists on their way to Oplontis and Baiae, and grow lettuce.

'A sculptor lives there. He was involved with Festus. I'm going to talk to him about that business deal.'

'On your own?'

'No. Pa insists on coming with me,' I admitted. Ma let out a terrible wail. 'Mother, I cannot help it if your estranged husband starts claiming his paternal rights belatedly.'

'So you're going together!' She made it sound like the deepest treachery. 'I would have thought you'd want to avoid that!'

I wanted to avoid the whole journey. 'At least he can identify the sculptor. The man is now our only hope of sorting out this business-which I warn you, is likely to prove expensive in every way.'

'I can lend you a few sesterces-'

'A few sesterces are nowhere near enough. The price of extracting our family from this problem is about half a million.'

'Oh Marcus, you always did exaggerate!'

'Fact, Ma.' She was trembling. I would be trembling myself if I said 'half a million' too many more times. 'Don't worry. This is men's business. Geminus and I will deal with it-but you have to accept the consequences. Finding so much to clear up my brother's problem puts paid to any hope in Hades that I can marry Helena. Just so you know. I don't want any nagging on the subject. It's out of my hands-and we have our beloved Festus to blame for everything.'

'You never liked your poor brother!'

'I loved him, Ma-but I certainly don't like what he has done to me now.'

I saw my mother lift her chin. 'Perhaps the whole business would be better left alone:'

'Ma, that is impossible.' I felt tired and cold. 'Other people will not let us forget it. Look, I'm going home. I need to see Helena.'

'If you're going to Capua with that man,' advised my mother, 'take Helena to look after you!'

'Helena's just returned from one long journey; the last thing she wants is a trip to deepest Campania.' Not, anyway, with a raddled old auctioneer and a hangdog informer who had never in his life been so depressed.

My mother reached up and tidied my hair. 'Helena will manage. She won't want you on your own in bad company.' I wanted to say, ' Ma, I'm thirty, not five years old!' but arguing never got me anywhere with Mother.

Most people would think that a senator's daughter who abandoned herself to a low-life informer was bad company.

But the thought of taking Helena on one last fling before I was bankrupt did cheer me up.

At home, Helena Justina was waiting for me. Dinner was eel again. A vast consignment must have wriggled into market that morning. The whole of Rome was sitting down to the same menu.

Dinner was normally my province. Since I reckoned my beloved had been brought up merely to behave chastely and look decorative, I had laid down a rule that I would buy and cook our food. Helena accepted the rule, but sometimes when she knew I was busy and was afraid of not getting fed that night, out she would rush to provide us with an unscheduled treat. My ramshackle kitchen made her nervous, but she was perfectly competent at following the recipes she had once read out to her servants. Tonight she had poached her offering in a saffron sauce. It was delicious. I munched it down gallantly while she watched me eat every mouthful, searching for signs of approval.

I sat back and surveyed her. She was beautiful. I was going to lose her. Somehow I had to tell her the news.

'How was your day with your father?'

'Wonderful! We played about with some collecting snobs, had fun picking on some artists, and now we're planning a bad boys' outing. Would you like to go to Capua?'

'I may not like it, but I'll tag along.'

'I warn you, Pa and I are established as the fabulous Didius muckers-a rough pair whose very name can clear a street. You'll be coming to impose some sobriety.'

'That's a pity,' Helena told me, with a glint in her eye. 'I was hoping I could be a loose woman who keeps a gold piece down her cleavage and swears horrendously at ferrymen.'

'Maybe I like that idea better,' I grinned.

False jollity gave me away. Seeing I needed consolation she sat on my lap and tickled my chin. In the hope of this kind of mistreatment, I had been barbered in Fountain Court before I came up. 'What's the matter, Marcus?'