I said, trying not to laugh too hard, 'This will make a sensation in court!'

A narrow expression crossed the clerk's face. 'I told you this was mine, Falco.'

'So what?' He said nothing. I remembered he liked redheads. 'You're mad, Lusius!'

'I haven't made up my mind yet.'

'If you go in mere to see her, she will make your mind up for you ... Whatever do you see in her?'

'Apart from quiet habits, interesting looks--and the fact I would be living on the verge of danger every minute I was with her?' the clerk asked, with a rueful lack of delusion.

'Well you know exactly what you're in for -- which is more than most people do! She says she has no intention of remarrying--which means she's actively looking for her next husband. Step right up, my boy--but don't fool yourself you'll be the one who can control her--'

'Don't worry. What's left of the lozenge will do that.'

'Where is the disgusting evidence?'

'It's safe.'

'Where, Lusius?'

'I'm not an idiot. n.o.body can get at it.'

'If you ever tell her where it is, you're a dead man!'

Lusius patted my shoulder. He had a quiet confidence that almost frightened me. 'I've arranged perfect protection, Falco: If I'm a dead man before I'm ready to go, my executors will find the evidence together with the doctor's sworn statement, and an explanatory note.'

A true lawyer's clerk!

'Now I'm going in,' he said. 'Wish me luck!'

'I don't believe in luck.'

'Neither do I really,' admitted Lusius.

'Then I'll tell you this: I met a fortune-teller, who told me the next husband Severina fastens on will live to a ripe old age ... it depends if you believe in fortune-tellers, I suppose. Have you got a nest egg?'

'I might have,' answered Lusius warily.

'Don't tell her.'

Lusius laughed. 'I was not intending to!'

I stepped away from the porch; he lined up to bang the bell.

'I still think you ought to tell me where you have put the fatal jujube.'

He decided it might be useful for someone else to know: 'Corvinus deposited his will in the House of the Vestals recently.' Standard procedure for a senator. 'He let me put mine in with it. if anything happens to me, Falco, my executors will find that my testament has a rather intriguing seal...'

He was right: he was no idiot. No one, not even the Emperor, could get hold of a will without proper sanction, once it had been given for safekeeping into the Vestal Virgins' charge.

'Satisfied?' he asked me, smiling.

It was brilliant. I loved it. If he hadn't had such a ghastly taste in women, Lusius and I could have been real friends.

I even thought, with just the slightest tinge of jealousy,that it was possible Severina Zotica might at last have met her match.

Chapter XLVII.

The Senator was sitting in his courtyard garden, talking to his wife. In fact they looked as if they had been wandering round and round some subject until they were both tired of it: probably me. But Camillus Verus had a cl.u.s.ter of grapes in his hand and continued pulling off the fruit in an easy manner even after he saw me, while Julia Justa--whose dark hair in the dusk made her startlingly like Helena -made no move to breach the peace.

'Good evening, sir--Julia Justa! I hoped I might find your daughter here.'

'She comes,' grumbled her father. 'Borrows my books; uses up the hot water; raids the wine cellar! Her mother usually manages some s.n.a.t.c.h of conversation; 1 count myself lucky if I glimpse her heel disappearing round a doorframe.' I started to grin. He was a man, sitting in his garden among the moths and flower scents, allowing himself the privilege of sounding off against his young. '... I brought her up; I blame myself--she's mine ...'

'True!' said his wife.

'She has been here tonight?' I b.u.t.ted in to ask her mother,with a smile.

'Oh yes!' her father burst out rowdily. 'I hear your house fell down?'

'One of those things, sir! Lucky we were out...' He waved me to a stone bench with a flourish. 'Your house fell down; so Helena Justina had to ask me how to replace the deeds for her Aunt Valeria's legacy; Helena came to raid her old room for dresses; Helena wanted me to tell you that she would see you later--'

'Is she all right?' I managed to squeeze in, turning again to her mama in hope of sense.

'Oh, she seemed her usual self,' Julia Justa commented.

The Senator had run out of jokes; a silence fell.

I braced myself. 'I should have come before.'

Helena's parents exchanged a glance. 'Why bother?' shrugged Camillus. 'It's pretty clear what's going on--'

'I should have explained.'

'Is that an apology?'

'I love her. I won't apologise for that.' Julia Justa must have moved abruptly for I heard her ear-rings shivering and the flounce on her stole swished against the stonework with a scratch of embroidery.

The silence stretched again. I stood up. 'I'd better go and find her.'

Camillus laughed. 'Can I a.s.sume you know where to look, or should we get up a search party?'

'I think I know where she is.'

Tired as I was, I walked. I approached my old lair over the high crest of the Aventine; I came to it with dragging feet, thinking about the handsome houses rich people own, and the awful holes where they then expect the poor to live.

I entered the Twelfth district. Home smells a.s.saulted my nose. A wolf whistle, without violence, followed me in the darkness as I took the lane.

Fountain Court.

Of all the groaning tenements in all the sordid city alleyways, the most degrading must be Fountain Court...

Outside the barber's, Rodan and Asiacus lifted their gladiatorial frames from a bench where they were chatting; then they sank down again. They could find another day to batter me. At the laundry I heard convivial strains from where Lenia must be entertaining her sordid betrothed. Rome was full of women planning how to fleece their men; grinning, I wondered if she had managed to persuade him yet to name a day.

A door opened. Outlined against the light behind I glimpsed a disorderly lump, topped by a few scrags of hair; Smaractus!

I was all paid up until November; no point stopping to insult him. It would keep. I could exercise my rhetoric some other day. Pretending not to notice him, I tightened my cloak and pulled down my hat so I could pa.s.s by like some sinister wraith, enveloped in black. He knew it was me; but he stepped back.

I steeled my legs, then warmed by nostalgia for familiar aggravation, I broached the first of those depressing six flights of stairs.

Chapter LXVIII.

The place was a dump.

An amphora, n.o.bbled from the Senator's mansion, stood leaning against what pa.s.sed for a table. The bung was out. So this was what went on here when I was off elsewhere, struggling with a case ... Two pastry doves, oozing with raisin juice, were standing in an old chipped dish, beak to beak like battered lovebirds. One still managed to look sleek enough, but the other had a tired droop to his tail--like me.

The glamorous piece who pretended to take in messages was sitting on the balcony with a beaker of wine, reading one of my private waxed tablets. Probably the one I would have ordered her not to read. The poetry.

She had left a spare cup on the table in case anyone happened along who liked decent wine. I poured myself a drink. Then I leaned against the folding door and rapped with my signet ring. She appeared to take no notice, but her eyelashes ruffled slightly so I reckoned that my manly presence had registered.

'Falco live here?'

'When he feels like it.'

'I've got a message.'

'Better give it to me.'

'You're beautiful.'

Her eyes lifted. 'h.e.l.lo, Marcus.'

I gave her my masterful grin. 'h.e.l.lo, fruit! It's all over. Gone as far as I could.'

'Will you convict her?'

'No.'

Helena laid aside my poetry. Alongside her on the bench was a small pyramid of published works. She was wearing one of my more disreputable tunics and her feet were pushed into a pair of crumpled old slippers, also mine. I said, 'Trust me to pick a girl who pinches my clothes and raids my library!'

'These came from Uncle Publius--' She gestured to the scrolls. I knew the Senator had a brother who died earlier that year, lost at sea (made a bad mistake in politics). 'His house had jumble going back to the province where he served as a young man--'

'You read all those this evening?' I asked, afraid it would be an expensive business keeping this quick reader stoked.

'Just skipping.'

'Skipped anything good?'

'I've been reading about King Juba. He married Cleopatra Silene, the daughter of Mark Antony. He seems quite an interesting person--for a king. One of those eccentric private scholars who write detailed notes on curious subjects--a treatise on Spurge, for example.'

'Good old Juba!'

'Are you familiar with Spurge?'

'Naturally.' I sounded as if I were thinking What in Hades is Spurge? I grinned. 'Spurge is that green plant, all the same sickly colour: spear-shaped leaves and bitty flowers--'

Helena Justina brought her two strong eyebrows together, then went quiet in a way that meant How does this idiot know about Spurge! I heard a warm gurgle: the laugh, full of delight, which she reserved for teasing me. 'Oh you're a market gardener's grandson!'

'And full of surprises!' I said defensively.

'You're clever,' Helena replied, giving me a soft look.

'I like to show an interest. I can read. I read everything I can lay my hands on. If you leave those scrolls around the house, I'll be an expert on King Juba by the end of the week.' I was feeling sore; due to failing in the case maybe. 'I'm not an Aventine lout. Wherever I go I notice things. I pay attention to the Forum news. When people talk I listen properly--' Helena's patient silence stopped my bitter, boisterous flow. 'I know, for instance, that you, my darling, have something particular to say to me about Spurge.'

She smiled. I loved Helena's smile. 'It can be used in medicine. King Juba named one kind Euphorbia, after his physician. Euphorbus employed it as a purgative. Mind you,' declared my darling caustically, 'I wouldn't allow Euphorbus to spoon a dollop into me!'

'Why not?'

'The dose has to be exactly right. Spurge has another use.'

'Tell me,' I murmured, leaning forwards expectantly at the glint in her bonny eyes.

'In King Juba's province archers use it to paint on arrowheads. Spurge is also highly poisonous.'

'Poisoned arrows usually work by causing rapid paralysis ... so where,' I asked, to give her the pleasure of telling me even though I already knew, 'is this province your uncle once served in, which had the famous and scholarly king?'

'Mauretania,' said Helena.

I closed my eyes.

Helena stood up and wrapped her arms round me. She spoke in the quiet, reasoned way she used when we were unravelling a case. 'Of course, this proves nothing. A jurist might deny it was even evidence. But if a prosecution lawyer read out an excerpt from King Juba's treatise, then you told the court about the scroll you saw in Severina's house, then--if the barrister was persuasive and you managed to look more sensible than usual--this is the kind of colourful detail which might condemn.'