SHADOWS IN BRONZE

reasons that are nobody's business but mine.

By now most of the coast lay in darkness. When I returned to the inn Fausta had disappeared. Although it was so late, I found Larius talking poetry to the nursemaid Ollia on a bench in the inn courtyard; at least he had progressed from Catullus to Ovid, who has a better outlook on love and, more crucially, on sex.

I sat down with them. 'You been philandering, uncle?'

'Don't be ridiculous. No senator's daughter would enjoy being bedded on the bare ground among a lot of curious spiders with a pine cone in her back!'

'Really?' asked Larius.

'Really,' I lied. 'What coaxed Aemilia Fausta away from the sand hoppers?'

'A kind-hearted, off-duty watch captain. He hates to see noblemen's sisters sitting drunk on beaches.'

I groaned. Petronius Longus was always a soft touch for a sobbing girl. 'So he threw her over his shoulder, stuffed her into the chair while she declaimed what a nice man he was, then he marched off her pathetic entourage to Herculaneum himself?'

Larius laughed. 'You know Petro!'

'He won't even bother to ask for a reward. What did Silvia say?'

'Nothing-very pointedly!'

It was a beautiful night. I decided to hitch up Nero and meet Petro with transport home. Larius decided to keep me company; then, because they were young and illogical, Ollia came as company for him.

When we reached the magistrate's house the door porter told us Petronius had arrived with the lady but since she was none too stable in her party shoes, had helped her indoors. Rather than risk fending off suggestions for fun with Aemilius Rufus, we waited in the cart.

Petro, who was a long time coming out, seemed surprised to find us there. We were all napping, so he swung into the front seat and took up the reins. He was the best driver among us anyway.

'Watch that magistrate!' I warbled. 'His Falernian is decent but I wouldn't want to meet him behind a bathhouse pillar in the dark… His sister give you much trouble?'

'Not if you ignore the usual 'Men are disgusting; why can't I get one?' stuff.' I said some hard words about Fausta, though Petronius maintained the poor little thing was rather sweet.

Larius was nodding off on Ollia's comfortable shoulder. I had a better woman to think about than some louse of a magistrate's fool of a sister so I huddled in a corner and went to sleep too, lulled by the cart's gently creaking motion through the warm Campanian night.

Ever good-natured, Petronius Longus hummed to himself quietly as he drove us all home.

LXVII

Two days later the magistrate tried to arrest Atius Pertinax. It was Petro's daughter's birthday so I had slipped down to Oplontis with a gift. After my spurning him, Rufus made no attempt to warn me. So I missed the action.

There was not much to miss. Rufus should have followed my advice: since the Villa Marcella was orientated seawards, the discreet approach was down the mountain from above. But when orders to apprehend Pertinax arrived from Vespasian, Aemilius Rufus grabbed a troop of soldiers and dashed up the main estate road, prominently visible to the house.

Marcellus gave him a frosty greeting and permission to search, then sat in the shade to wait for the idiot to discover the obvious: Pertinax had fled.

Once the furore had subsided, Helena Justina followed me to Oplontis with the tale.

'Gnaeus rushed off riding with Bryon. Bryon, in all innocence apparently, came back later with both horses, to say the young master had decided to go for a cruise-'

'He has a boat?'

'Bryon left him on Aufidius Crispus' yacht.'

'Does Crispus know there is an arrest warrant?'

'That's unclear.'

'Where was the yacht?'

'Baiae. But Bryon saw her sail.'

'Brilliant! So the illustrious Aemilius Rufus has flushed Pertinax onto the fastest thing between Sardinia and Sicily…'

Rufus was useless. I would have to charter a ship and look for the Isis Africana myself. It was too late in the day now, so at least I could enjoy one more evening with my lady first.

•

Silvana was the birthday girl (Petro's middle daughter; she was four), and tonight the children were joining our evening meal. We were delayed, however, because we had hit one of those joyful family crises without which no holiday is complete. Arria Silvia found the nursemaid Ollia in floods of tears.

Two brisk questions about Ollia's personal calendar revealed that my prophecy about the fisherboy must be correct. (He was still hanging around every day.) Ollia denied it, which clinched the verdict. Sylvia gave Ollia a slap round the head to relieve her own feelings, then instructed Petronius and me to sort out the inconvenient lobster catcher, now that it was too late.

We found the young gigolo preening his moustache by an old lead-stocked anchor; Petro got an arm up his back rather further than his arm was meant to go. Of course he claimed he never touched the girl; we expected that. We marched him to the turfy shack where he lived with his parents and while the youth sulked Petronius Longus put the whole moral issue in succinct terms to them: Ollia's father was a legionary veteran who had served in Egypt and Syria for over twenty years until he left with double pay, three medals, and a diploma that made Ollia legitimate; he now ran a boxers' training school where he was famous for his high-minded attitude and his fighters were notorious for their loyalty to him…

The old fisherman was a toothless, hapless, faithless cove you would not trust too near you with a filleting knife, but whether from fear or simple cunning he co-operated eagerly. The lad agreed to marry the girl and since Silvia would never abandon Ollia here, we decided that the fisherboy had to come back with us to Rome. His relations looked impressed by this result. We accepted it as the best we could achieve.

•

The news that she was to be made an honest woman by a sly tyke with a seaweed moustache set Ollia off crying again, as well it might. Larius, from whom we had kept the sordid details in view of his artistic nature, was glowering at me frantically.

'Ollia's slipped up with her bit of whale blubber,' I enlightened him. 'She's just realized why her mother always warned her: she'll spend the next fifty years paying for this mistake. When he's not out after the women he'll be lying in bed all day, shouting for his dinner and calling her a dozy slut. Now you will appreciate why women who can afford it are prepared to risk abortionists' drugs-'

Larius got up without a word and went to help Petronius order the wine.

Helena Justina, who had been talking to the children while Silvia was calming Ollia, shot me the long, cool glance of a senator's daughter who had glimpsed life on the seamy side and decided this too was something any woman who could afford it would spend serious money to avoid.

•

We managed to make a good night of it, in the desperate way people do when the choice is between dogged