`Oh really Decimus!' mouthed Julia Justa, though her goblet was out for a refill. She graciously received her wine from her husband then returned her attention to the skip babe, whose quiet demeanour in public had endeared him to her. She was shaking his rattle, a pottery pig with pebbles inside that Helena had bought from a market stall.
`Oh Mama!' Aelianus shuddered. `He could have come from anywhere.'
Angry, I had to bury my nose in my cup. Luckily the Guaranum was rich and full-bodied, a consoling wine.
`His clothes were fine quality. We think he came from a good home,' Helena countered coldly. `Not that that's important; the child is lost, and something must be done for him.' Her mother, who had known Helena long enough, deftly ignored the implication that something should be done by the Camilli.
`If his home was as good as all that,' Aelianus persisted, `there would be a public outcry from the people he was stolen from.'
`I doubt it!' his mother said abruptly. She moved the rattle, first shaking it to one side, then bringing it in front of the child's face. We watched him react by waving his hands. Helena's mother was an intelligent woman. She had spotted what even mine had missed. The babe did not respond until the rattle actually came into his view. Then Julia Justa told us crisply, `His family may have lost him deliberately. This baby is deaf!'
I dropped my head, covering my eyes. If he was deaf at birth, he would be dumb too. He was damned. People would write him off as an idiot. There was no chance of finding him a civilized home.
`Jupiter, Falco!' Aelianus crowed. `Whatever, are you going to do?'
`Oh do stop sniping!' His mother turned on her couch back to the table. `Marcus will produce an apt, elegant solution. Marcus always does.' It was difficult to tell whether she was reproving her son, or grumbling about me.
I raised my winecup to the lady and watched Helena frowning over the child's sad plight. We were two ticks away from giving him a home ourselves.
I was saved by a distraction. The useless door porter had let a drunk into the house. A tall, shyly attractive young man wandered into the dining room, crashing into a side table on his way: Quintus Camillus Justinus had finally shown up.
Blinking in the lamplight, he bent to kiss his mother, not a good thought. He then tickled the sole of Helena's foot, causing her to kick out wildly. She caught Aelianus a nasty blow on the ear as he sat up to say something insulting. With the intense care of the far from sober, Justinus placed two packages before his sister, then made a sudden lunge and kissed her too. Helena biffed him away.
Impervious to atmosphere, Justinus regained his balance like a tightrope walker, then staggered around the couches and threw himself on the empty one alongside me. I braced myself as he flung an arm across my shoulders. `Marcus! How are you surviving the party?' He was beyond help.
I made soothing noises while Helena sent me urgent signals to feed him. Since it was me he would throw up on, I had an interest in limiting his intake.
`Sorry, I'm a trifle tardy. I've been in the Saepta looking for a gift.'
My heart sank even further. `Where at the Saepta?' I already had glimmerings of why young Justinus was late and drunk tonight.
`Oh you'll know, Falco! I was wandering, then I saw a name I recognised and introduced myself. A wonderful auctioneer,' Justinus told his brother. Aelianus was grinning: the son whose sins still lay undiscovered watching the debauched noisily sink himself. I absorbed the ominous news that it was my not-so-wonderful pa who had been filling up the golden boy.
Helena broke in brightly, `We missed you! Sweetheart, is this my gift?'
'The small one,' Justinus enunciated clearly. `A bijou from your devoted brother.'
`Thank you very much.'
`The large heavy item is sent to you with compliments from my excellent friend Didius Geminus.'
`Is that,' jeered Aelianus, `the man who gave you so much wine?'
`My father,' I snapped. Julia Justa's face had frozen. I pressed on feebly, `Didius Geminus likes his customers in a weak state. I counsel you, Aelianus, against tippling with an auctioneer. As you see, your brother now needs a quiet lie-down – and the gods only know what he's spent!'
`Very reasonable,' Justinus burbled happily. He at least had taken my advice. He was lying down. Unhappily, it was in the sweetmeat display.
We left him there. It seemed kindest.
Helena tried to look jolly as she unwrapped her brother's gift. It was an extremely attractive mirror, decorated in Celtic style with magnificent swirls and curlicues of foliage. She examined her face in it, trying to forget her younger brother's condition.
`And your father has sent Helena a present too, Marcus!' Julia Justa was much cheered by thinking the Didius family knew about buying off would-be relations. Helena obediently unwrapped it.
`My father thinks a lot of Helena,' I said weakly.
That was evident. Pa had sent her a highly superior (wincingly expensive) jewel casket. Not too big – nothing brash – but a beautiful example in cedarwood. Every corner had elaborate bronze fittings, there were miniature feet, a neat fastener, and a perfect lock with a swinging escutcheon.
`Oh the darling!' Oh the bastard. He had completely ignored my own predicament. Not even a word of apology.
It seemed a moment for toasts. Wine was being poured by slaves who wanted a chance to crane at the young mistress's gifts. Various hairpin pots and tweezer sets were also being proferred by ancient slaves who had once nursed her. `Happy birthday!' exclaimed Helena's father, who for all his air of innocence knew how to cash in on a good mood.
Helena had found the casket key on a skein of wool. Even the key was a delight, a tiny three-pronged fancy set into a finger ring. `There's a note inside for you, Marcus.' She tossed across a scrap of recycled scroll. I did not wish to communicate with Pa; I pretended to glance at it, then I burnt it on a handy lamp.
Helena delved inside the box, deep in its handsome interior. I was in two minds to glide off somewhere, pretending to look for the latrine. Manners won; I bit a pastry instead. Honey oozed down my chin.
I saw Helena's face change. There must be more; the amazing box had contents. My heart started bumping angrily. She began lifting something out and immediately I realised what it was. Unexpected gold scintillations flickered on the casket's lid. Light fluttered like butterflies over her skin. Helena exclaimed in astonishment, `Oh!' Then she lifted an object of breathtaking beauty.
Around the table silence fell.
Slowly, as if terrified she would damage something, Helena placed her gift on the table. Light still glittered from a hundred minutely teased pieces of gold. Helena turned to me. Everyone else was looking at her present. I didn't need to. My concern was watching her.
It was a crown. It was very old. It was Greek. It had once been a prize at some classical games, in the era when athletes were perfect in both body and mind. It was composed of exquisitely suspended leaves and acorns, held on gold wires so delicate they trembled merely in the air. Among the glittering twigs that formed it crouched perfectly shaped insects, and a small golden bee perched over the clasp.
Helena's mother tried to pull herself together. `Oh Helena Justina, I am not sure you should accept this…' Her voice faltered. `Marcus, you have an extremely generous father.'
There was no doubting the reproof: it was too much. The common Didii had behaved crassly. From a mere relative of a purely unofficial son-in-law, such a gift was gross.
I smiled at Helena gently. Her soft dark eyes were full of tears. She knew. She was touching her little finger to one iridescent cicada as it hid beneath an oak leaf, caressing it as gently as if it were a newborn baby's cheek. `Pa has his moments,' I told her quietly. `He has style, and taste, and as your mother mentions, he can be extremely generous. Thoughtful too. He's obviously gone to a lot of trouble to find exactly the right box.'
`The crown is wonderful,' she said.
`You're a wonderful girl.'
`She cannot possibly accept it,' insisted her mother, more firmly. I raised an eyebrow. `Well, can you, fruit?'
Helena Justina smiled at me. She paid no attention at all to her family, but suddenly they understood.
