A DYING LIGHT IN CORDUBA

Neither of the young Camillus brothers, Aelianus and Justinus, were at dinner. They were bright fellows in their early twenties brought up to have moderate habits-so naturally they were out on the town. As a sober citizen of thirty-three, approaching the grave honor of Roman fatherhood, I tried not to look as if I wished I were out there with them.

'Is Justinus still keen on the theater?' Their youngest rascal had taken up leering after actresses.

'They both like to keep me worried!' Camillus senior reported dryly. He kept his troubles close to his chest. 'Aelianus has promised to return in an hour.' Immediately I noticed his wife working out that he and I must have discussed this subject previously.

'At least he knows where his home is!' Julia Justa had a tart version of Helena's sarcasm. She was a handsome, hard-done-by woman, like her daughter, with fierce intelligence and liquid brown eyes. Maybe Helena would end up like this. Helena herself stabbed at her bowl of shrimp dumplings, looking morose. She knew what was coming.

Her mother took a deep breath, in a way that was familiar to me. I had a mother too. The views of these two women from distinctly different backgrounds were tragically similar, especially in regard to me. 'You look as if you are about to rush away with acute diarrhea, Marcus Didius,' smiled the noble Julia through thin lips. She understood men. Well, she was married to one, and had produced two more.

'I wouldn't dream of insulting the wonderful banquet before us!' It was a workaday spread, in fact, for the Camilli were struggling against the dire financial troubles that afflict hereditary millionaires. Still, flattery seemed wise.

'Someone has to ensure that my daughter is fed.' A certain kind of woman always goes for the self-righteous in insults.

'Cobnuts!' Helena contributed. It was perhaps injudicious to use a phrase she had clearly picked up from me. 'With donkey bells on them!' she added-an embellishment of her own. 'I don't believe I know that expression, Helena.'

'The nuts are mine,' I admitted. 'I take no credit for the bells.' To Helena I said, 'If word's going around that I starve you, I'll have to buy you a pork rissole on the way home and insist that you eat it in public.'

'Cobnuts again. You never let me do anything scandalous.'

'Please be serious!' her mother retorted. After a day hard at work, I felt too tired to respond politely and Julia Justa seemed to sense my weakness. On first hearing the news of our forthcoming child her reaction had been muted, but since then she had had six months to brood. Tonight she had opted for the full lecture. 'I simply feel there are things we all ought to face up to, since it does look as if Helena will be carrying her child to term. This time,' she added unnecessarily, as if to have had one miscarriage was somehow Helena's fault. 'I had hoped to see you married before this, Helena.'

'We are married,' said Helena stubbornly. 'Be sensible.'

'Marriage is an agreement between two people to live together. Marcus and I have clasped hands and agreed.'

'It's plain you have done more than that-' Julia Justa tried appealing to me, pretending she thought I was more reasonable: 'Marcus, help me out!'

'It is true,' I mused, 'that if I went before the Censor and was asked To the best of your knowledge and belief, and by your own intention, Didius Falco, are you living in a valid state of marriage?' I should bravely answer 'Yes, sir!''

The senator smiled and engaged in a bit of private commentary. 'I love that 'to the best of your knowledge and belief'!' His own wife received this very coolly, as if she suspected some hidden jibe.

'Formalities are not required,' growled Helena. 'We don't need an augury because we know we are going to be happy-' It sounded more of a threat than a promise. 'And we don't need a written contract to tell us how our affairs will be unwound if we part, because we won't ever separate.' Actually we didn't need a contract because there was nothing financial to unwind. Helena possessed money but I refused to touch it. I had none, which saved a lot of fuss. 'Just be grateful we are sparing Papa the expense of a ceremony and the burden of a dowry. Times will be hard if he is to put both of my brothers into the Senate-'

'I doubt that will occur,' her mother replied bitterly. She decided not to specify why, though it was obviously our fault: bringing the family into disrepute.

'Let's be friends,' I said quietly. 'I'll do my best to acquire greater status, and when I'm a suave equestrian counting beans on my farm in Latium and fiddling my taxes like respectable people do, we'll all wonder what the fuss was about.'

Helena's father was keeping quiet. He knew his daughter was not the problem nowadays. It was his sons he needed to watch. Without extremely careful treatment Justinus was likely to end up entangled with an actress (specifically illegal for the son of a senator) while my current inquiries were beginning to suggest that Aelianus was involved in an intrigue that could be both dangerous and politically disastrous. He had told his father nothing about it-a bad omen in itself.

Luckily at that point a slave brought a message that Aelianus had come home. His father and I were able to escape to the study to interview him. By the rules of convention Helena Justina would remain with her mama.

Well, she would do until she lost her temper. That might happen fairly soon. I overheard her mother asking, 'How are your bowels, Helena?' I winced, and fled after her papa. He had already skipped out of it. For a senator, he was a wise man.

FOURTEEN

Three of us were seated together, like an intellectual symposium. Lack of space in the small, scroll-filled room made civilized reclining impossible. Letters, accounts and intriguing works of literature were piled all around us in teetering stacks. If challenged about his untidiness (as he regularly was by his wife) Decimus Camillus Verus would say that he knew exactly where everything was. One of his likable characteristics: in truth he could have had no idea.

The senator and I were both upright on his reading couch. Aelianus had squeezed onto a stool which his father's secretary occupied in the daytime. While he fiddled with a pot of pens, a bust of Vespasian stared down from a shelf above him, as if our eminent Emperor were checking that the young man's neck was clean.

This son and his father looked fairly alike. They had matching strong eyebrows, though the boy was more thickset. He was also surly where his father was mild-mannered. It was a phase of youth-unfortunately a phase which could lose him the chance of making useful friends. There was no point telling him that. Being

critical of his social skills was the certain way to rush him into making life's fatal mistakes.

'I don't have to talk to you, Falco!'

'It's advisable,' his father chastised him briefly.

I kept my voice quiet. 'You can talk to me informally here- or you can be sent for a full grilling on the Palatine.'

'Is that a threat?'

'Senators' sons don't get beaten up by the Praetorian Guard.' I made it sound as if they could be, when someone with my clout requested it.

Aelianus glared. Maybe he thought that if he had been anybody else's son I would have taken him to a wine bar and enjoyed a much more easygoing chat without involving his family. Maybe he was right.

'What's this about?' he demanded.

'One man dead and another close to Hades. A strong Baetican connection, and an unhealthy whiff of conspiracy. Your presence at the last Olive Oil Producers' dinner in close company with one of the victims now needs accounting for.'

He went pale. 'If I have to explain myself I want to see someone more senior.'

'Of course,' I agreed. 'I'll just point out that asking for special treatment makes you sound like a man in trouble. People with nothing to hide give their evidence to the regular official.'

And that's you?' He was being careful now.

'It's me. Orders from the top.'

'You re trying to implicate me in something.' Dear gods, he was truculent. And I hadn't even started yet.