The Iron Hand of Mars Read online

  An hour or so later, I re-emerged. The house had fallen quiet. I searched its bowels until I found Xanthus, lying on his bed and writing up his diary. I knew from travelling out with him that he was keeping a richly boring travelogue.

  “At least ‘the day I killed the soldier’ should keep your grandchildren enthralled! And here’s another excitement: this is going to be the night when you give me a proper shave.”

  “You going out?”

  “No. Staying in.”

  He had rolled to his feet and was unpacking his gear, though mildly unimpressed by the bonanza I was offering. Wine at dinner had calmed him down to the point of utter silliness. “Has a brush with death made you vow to dedicate your stubble to the gods in an alabaster pyx, Falco? I’m not sure they make vases big enough!” I let him sit me down and envelop me in a fine cambric wrap, but I ignored the joshing. “What does sir prefer—depilatory liniment? I use a nice white vine paste. I never recommend my gentlemen to try the weird stuff like bat’s blood—” He was enjoying himself more than I reckoned to tolerate.

  “A razor will do.” Superstition made me hope he would change to a different blade from the one that he had used earlier.

  “Sure? I can do you ground pumice or individual tweezing just as easily. My word, you’ve been neglecting yourself. It’s probably best to try and burn this off with bitumen!” I think the last one was a joke.

  “Whatever will have the smoothest result. And I want a haircut as well—but leave some curl. Just trim off the worst shagginess…” Xanthus put an engraved copper mirror into my hand, like somebody keeping a baby quiet with a rattle. I carried on describing what I wanted, even though I knew barbers never listen. A private informer needs to possess some stubbornness.

  “Jupiter, Falco! Who are you trying to impress?”

  “Mind your own business.”

  “Oh!” Xanthus spat on his whetstone. “Oh, I see!” Even he caught on eventually. His normal eagerness to please turned into the ribaldry I met everywhere on this subject: “You’ll have your work cut out there!” Quite often that was Helena Justina’s line too, I remembered pessimistically. “This calls for my Norican steel…”

  I wanted the best, so was unable to quibble. But I felt pretty sure that the Norican steel was what he had used to cut my attacker’s throat.

  * * *

  To his credit, he made the best of the unpromising material I had placed at his disposal. I had never been shaved so closely, nor with so little discomfort, and even the haircut just about fitted the style of subdued dishevelment with which I felt most at home. After years of delicately gauging the wishes of emperors, Xanthus could judge his client as nicely as you’d expect in a barber who would be sent to the public strangler if he snipped a wrong curl.

  As it turned out, he might have spared himself the trouble. Still, I dare say it was not the first time he had spent hours preparing someone for an assignation that flopped.

  With a stinging chin and in a fug of disconcerting unguents, I quietly admitted myself to what I knew was the best guest-bedroom. I kept telling myself that everything would be all right once I had cornered Helena on her own and treated her to my adoring attentions. I could hardly wait to see her. I had a fairly pressing need to re-establish normal relationships.

  No such luck. There was a taper, but the large room lay half in darkness. I stood for a moment, adjusting to the dim light and trying to think up a suave line of conversation if my beloved was reclining on swansdown and reading a light ode or two while she waited impatiently for me … No point: there was no Helena. The high bed with its tortoiseshell frame, fringed coverlet, and engagingly carved footstool stood empty. Instead, a small hunched figure lay snoring on a lower couch—presumably a slavegirl she had brought to look after her.

  So much for me! No chance of a passionate reunion with a servant looking on! I could remember when she never let a slave stay in her room at night if I was in the vicinity.

  I stepped back. Closing the door, my pent-up emotion gripped me. She must have known I would come. She must be keeping out of the way deliberately. Chatting with Justinus. Frightening that simple soul with her tales of broken wheels and brigands. Chewing over family business. Putting his career to rights. Anything that would avoid having to face me, angry at the way she had disappeared from Rome, yet badly wanting to go to bed with her.

  I decided to take my outrageously barbered person out on the town and get as drunk as possible.

  Indignation carried me as far as the front door. Then I remembered that Moguntiacum had small-town, small-minded habits. There was nowhere open for entertainment, except for the usual places too sordid to contemplate. Besides, the prospect of trying to work tomorrow with a head like a sack of oatmeal after a night gossiping inanely with some drab in a tavern when I had hoped to spend it with Helena, became too hard to bear. I sat in the tribune’s garden for a while, feeling miserable, but Justinus was no devotee of landscape and it was a poor spot to sulk in. His dog found me and climbed alongside on the seat to chew at my tunic hem, but even the bench had damp moss on it and he soon jumped down and snuffled off into the darkness. I too slunk away to my room.

  I had my back to the door. I had just pulled off my tunic (a clean one; too good for sleeping in) when someone came in.

  “As nice a view of a nude wood sprite’s back as I ever had the privilege to glimpse!”

  Helena.

  * * *

  Having been attacked once that day, I spun round jumpily. Helena’s warm appraising eyes were smiling as I lowered my handful of tunic in an attempt at decency. Her smile always had an irresistible effect on me.

  “This is a private room, lady.”

  “Good!” she said. I could feel my face colouring, but applied a scornful expression; it only encouraged her. “Hello, Marcus.” I said nothing. “I thought you wanted to see me?”

  “What gave you that idea?”

  “A strong scent of lotions in my room.” She sniffed. I cursed Xanthus. He had doused me in pomade until a bloodhound could have tracked me all the way from the Gallic Strait to Cappadocia.

  Helena tipped her head to one side, watching me. She was leaning on the door behind her, as if to stop me escaping. My jaw set. “How’s Titus?”

  “How should I know?”

  “So what brings a stylish young lady to this wilderness?”

  “Someone I follow about.” Helena had the knack of making her most illogical action sound like a rational response to some crazy slight from me.

  “You left me!” I accused her, in a low tone.

  “And how was Veii?” Her well-bred voice had a sarcastic note that dried my mouth like grape skins.

  “Veii’s a dump.” Suddenly, for no obvious reason, I felt tired.

  “Are the widows attractive?” As I expected, it sounded like fighting talk. Now I knew why I felt defeated.

  “Some of them think so.”

  “I was talking to one,” Helena said crisply. “She implied that your trip to Veii was a wild success.”

  “The widow’s a liar.”

  Helena looked at me. She and I were friends for a good reason: we knew one another well enough to be able to pick a resounding fight, yet we both knew how to appeal for a truce. “That’s what I tell myself,” she answered quietly. “But why, Marcus?”

  “Jealous that I refused her and went home to you. What were you doing in Veii?”

  “Trying to find you.”

  Somewhere between us the quarrel died. “You’ve found me now,” I said.

  * * *

  Helena Justina came across the room. She had a purposeful air I was not quite ready for, though I would be. “What’s on your mind, lady?”

  “Nothing you won’t like…” She tugged the tunic from my hand.

  For pride’s sake I tried to bluff it out: “I warn you, I hate forward women—”

  “Wrong. You like a girl who looks as if she knows exactly what you’re thinking, and doesn’t care…”
>
  All the same, uncertainty flickered. She stepped back. I stepped after her.

  I could feel her physical warmth even before her bare arms came through mine. She must have changed from the woollen dress I had seen earlier to a lighter one. If I undid two brooches, the flimsy material would drift to the floor, leaving all of her available. They looked like brooches with easy clasps. I put my hands on her shoulders, as if undecided whether to hold her off or hold her closer. My thumbs found the clasps automatically.

  Helena started to pull away from me. It brought us effortlessly to the bed. “Don’t look so nervous, lady!”

  “I don’t frighten that easily.”

  “You should do…”

  “Oh stop pretending to be tough!” Helena knew most things about me, and what she didn’t know she guessed. “You’re not a thug; you know how to be affectionate…” I felt affectionate all right. I felt so affectionate I could think of nothing else.

  We landed on the bed. I let her take charge. She always liked organising. Tonight I liked whatever she liked. Today had posed enough problems. Now I had Helena Justina in my arms, in the friendliest of moods; I had everything I wanted, and was prepared for anything.

  She was making herself comfortable, arranging the bedclothes, taking off her earrings, unfastening her hair, killing the lamp … “Relax, Marcus!”

  I relaxed. I relaxed utterly. All the anxieties in my hectic brain grew calmer. I hauled Helena closer still and sighed heavily while my hands travelled slowly over the familiar shape of her, reacquainting themselves with her secrets. I held her, and closed my eyes in gratitude. Then I did the only thing a man could be expected to do in the circumstances.

  I went to sleep.

  XXX

  Most of the night had passed. I woke in a sweat, realising what I must have done.

  “Pleasant nap?” She was still there anyway.

  “You told me to relax … I’m awake now,” I said, trying to make it sound meaningful.

  Helena merely laughed at me, and snuggled against my shoulder. “Sometimes when I’m trying to make friends with you, I feel like Sisyphus pushing his rock up the mountain.”

  I laughed too. “Just when he’s shoved the thing up farther than ever before, he gets a terrible itch on the shoulder that he’s compelled to scratch … I know.”

  “Not you,” she disagreed. “You’d find some clever way to poke a wedge under the rock.”

  I loved her eccentric faith in me.

  I rolled over suddenly, seizing her in a domineering hold. Then, as she stiffened, expecting something fierce, I kissed her so gently she was overcome. “Sweetheart, you are the one person who will never need to worry about making friends with me.”

  I smiled into her eyes. She closed them. Sometimes she hated me to see how deeply she felt. I kissed her once more, making a deliberately thorough job of it.

  When she looked at me again her eyes were richly brown, and full of love. “Why did you run away from the dinner table, Marcus?”

  “I hate stories where dangerous bandits are grabbing women I care about as hostages.”

  “Ah, the bandit was a sweetie!” she teased softly.

  “I bet you handled him.”

  “I have some practice with curmudgeons who think they know all about women!” she mocked, but she was stretching beneath my weight so invitingly I could hardly concentrate. Helena grew still. “Do you care about me?”

  “I do.”

  “Did you miss me?”

  “Yes, my darling…”

  As I set about the pleasant task of showing her how much, she murmured restively, “It’s starting to get light, Marcus. I ought to go.”

  “I don’t think I can allow that…”

  For a moment longer I could tell she was unhappy. I pressed on, letting her know it would have to be all her decision if she wanted us to stop. Then she forgot about the proprieties of living in her brother’s house, and was all mine again.

  XXXI

  Light had worked round a stout northern European shutter to reach my comfortably untidy bed. We had not been asleep long this time, since we were still locked close in a way that made sleep fairly difficult.

  “Thank you, lady. I needed that.”

  “So did I.” For a modest girl, she could be very direct. Having grown up among women whose shameless behaviour was rarely matched by honesty in bed, it always startled me.

  I kissed her. “What am I supposed to say to your brother?”

  “Nothing. Why should you?” That was more like what I expected in a girl: totally unhelpful. She smiled. “I love you, Marcus.”

  “Thank you—but are you going to forgive me for not celebrating your birthday?” It now seemed safe to broach the issue.

  Good timing, Falco: she wanted a fight about it, but her sense of fairness won. “You didn’t know it was my birthday.” She paused. “Did you?”

  “No! You should know that…” I leaned across, then, after a slight delay caused by her sweetness and nearness, I fetched out the amber necklace I had bought on the wineship from Dubnus the pedlar.

  That reminded me—I had to do something about Dubnus. Why do crucial thoughts always interrupt at such inconvenient moments? I had been happily forgetting the Ubian scavenger, not to mention my plan to use him in my search for Veleda. With Helena Justina here in my arms, going into the barbarian forest was a prospect I now found unbearable.

  I let Helena inspect the glimmering skein of beads, then fastened it around her neck. “Suits you—especially with nothing else on.”

  “That should cause a sensation when I’m next asked to a dinner party! It’s lovely…” The sight of Helena wearing nothing but her birthday present encouraged me to further reconciliation, especially as I had managed to keep our physical union intact even when stretching sideways to my bedside table. “Marcus, you ought to be exhausted—”

  “I had a good night’s sleep.”

  “Are you afraid you might have forgotten how to do it?” she taunted wickedly, but accepting my attentions. Helena knew how to be gracious after she had received a well-chosen necklace of daunting cost. “Or had you just forgotten how good it is?”

  “Forgotten? Sweetheart, when you leave me pining, the problem is that I remember all too well.”

  For some reason this manly reassurance worked on Helena so well she responded with what might have been a sob, though it was well muffled. “Oh hold me—touch me—”

  “Where?”

  “There—anywhere—everywhere.”

  Nearby in the house something fell over with a loud crash.

  * * *

  Something large. A statue of museum proportions, or an immense vase.

  No one squealed. But after a second, we heard small desperate feet scampering.

  “That’s a child!” I was amazed.

  “Oh Juno, I forgot—” Helena reached the door first. The child was fleeing down the long corridor, leaving the giant shards behind. Unluckily for her, she had fled towards us.

  What she had pushed over was a dramatic, two-handled vessel that was trying to pass for a middle-period Hellenic black-figure wine crater. It almost succeeded, but I had been trained by experts and I knew a fake, even when it was the kind of high-class fake that has better workmanship than the original (and costs more). It had been displayed on the plinth where I had once written Falco was here in the dust to annoy the tribune’s servants. The crater had been big enough for a Treasury clerk to bury his savings in, and was probably the most expensive item Camillus Justinus possessed. The first piece in his lifetime collection, possibly.

  “Stop! Stand still at once!”

  Helena Justina could fix me in my tracks when she wanted to; she had no trouble with an eight-year-old. It was, however, the culprit who demanded: “What are you doing there?” The rude defiance seemed familiar.

  “Escaping from you!” I growled, for this must be the unwelcome soul I had observed snoring in Helena’s bedroom earlier. I strode to the r
emains and picked up a curved fragment. Odysseus with a jutting spade beard was enjoying being tempted by some female; she had a tantalising ankle, but the rest of her was broken off.

  I turned back angrily and surveyed the infant. She had a plain face and a petulant expression, with five or six thin little plaits tied together with a skinny rag on top of her head. My brain struggled to pin down which pot-bellied little disaster this was, and what relationship she bore to me. For it was one of ours all right. The gods only knew how she came to be in Upper Germany, but I could spot a member of the rampant Didius clan even before the wail of, “I was only playing—it fell over on its own!”

  She was hip-high, wearing a tunic that ought to have been decent, though she managed to have it hitched up so her bottom showed. That settled it; I knew her parentage all right. Augustinilla. An elaborate name, but a very straightforward personality—dumb insolence. She was my most hated sister Victorina’s most objectionable child.

  Victorina was the eldest in our family, the bane of my childhood, and my worst social embarrassment since then. As a child she had been a tough little tyke with a constant runny nose and her loincloth at half-mast around her scabby knees. All the local mothers had warned their children not to play with us because Victorina was so violent; Victorina made them play with her anyway. When she grew up she played only with the boys. There were plenty. I could never understand why.

  Of all the naughty children who could have walked in on my tender reunion with Helena, it had to be one of hers …

  “Uncle Marcus has got nothing on!” The reason was that the tunic Helena had plunged into as she rushed to the door was mine. With a good amber necklace it looked highly incongruous, increasing the impression that a Bacchanalia had been occurring in my room. The child’s accusing eyes went to Helena too, but there she had better sense than to comment. Presumably Augustinilla had witnessed at close quarters how Helena Justina had dealt with the wild bandit chief.

  I took up an athletic pose; a mistake. Flashing the oiled muscles of a handsome physique may succeed in a sunlit stadium within sniff of the Mediterranean, but in a dim domestic corridor halfway across Europe being unclad only makes you feel cold. In a dark mood, I waited for Helena to utter the traditional imperative: “She’s your niece; you deal with her.”