A DYING LIGHT IN CORDUBA

'How has he been annoying you?'

'He'll annoy you too, because we've been landed here with the dreadful bull-necked, spoiled-brat, insensitive rich girls' delight 'Tiberius' himself.'

'Here?'

'It's your fault.'

'Naturally!' I know my place. Helena was clearly furious; I kept hold of the oil flask in case she let fly with it. 'Even though I was a hundred miles away?'

'Afraid so.' She had the grace to grin at me. I put down the oil flask. Helena Justina had a smile that could freeze all my capillaries. Our eyes met, a glance that was rich with feeling and memory. Only friends can exchange so much, so rapidly. 'It was because of your horse, Prancer.'

'Prancer belongs to Annaeus Maximus.'

'And you lent him to Quadratus and Constans. Quadratus brought him back.'

'I told him not to.'

'Well, isn't that just like him?' Her voice grated. 'And now the irritating creature has come to stay here, where everyone loathes him, and he's using all the bathwater!- If I challenge him about it he will apologize so politely I'll want to hit him with an oven hook. I can't prove that he does it deliberately, but he makes life a trial from morning to night for everyone around him.'

I tutted. 'He has to be a villain. I'll prove it yet!- But Helena, my heart, you still haven't told me: Why has this social wood-louse become our guest?'

'Your horse threw him. He has hurt his back.'

'I won't hear another word against Prancer: the horse has taste!' I cried.

Growing too cold, we both stepped into wooden-soled clogs and braved the steam of the hot room. Helena took a bronze strigil and started scraping me down while I braced my aching limbs against her steady strokes. I could take as much of that as she was prepared to indulge me with, especially now that her mood had softened up.

'So Quadratus is bedridden?'

'No such luck. He can shuffle about. Everywhere Optatus and I try to go, he appears, making himself agreeable.'

'That's disgusting!'

'He decided it was courteous to take an interest in my pregnancy. He keeps asking questions I don't want to think about. He's worse than my mother.'

'The man's a complete lout. Worse than a girl's mother? That's as low as he can get! By the way, how is your pregnancy?'

'Don't bother, Falco. When you try to take an interest, I know it's all fake.'

'You know I'm a fake you can trust.'

'You're the fake I'm stuck with, anyway…'

She looked tired. I pried the curved strigil from her hand and took over ridding myself of sweat, oil and filth. Then we both sank onto the wooden bench to endure what else we could of the heat. Helena collected the damp strands of her hair and wound them into a clump, holding the weight off the back of her neck.

'Marius Optatus could go out in the fields and olive groves, but I've been stuck with our unwanted guest. I had to talk to him. I had to listen too-unendingly. He is a man. He expects to hold the floor. What he has to say is banal, humorless and predictable. He expects admiration in inverse proportion to content, of course.' I was chortling. I loved to hear Helena condemning somebody else.

'Has he made advances to you?' I demanded suspiciously. I knew how I would react if I had Helena Justina to myself for days.

'Of course not.'

'He's an idiot then!'

'He regards me as a mother-goddess, I believe. He pours out his heart to me. His heart is about as interesting as a burned cinnamon bun.'

'Has he admitted he's a bad boy?'

'He doesn't know,' said Helena, summing him up with furious clarity. 'Whatever he does, he never even thinks about whether it's right or wrong.'

I sucked my lower lip. 'No fascinating hopes and joys? No undetected talents?'

'He likes hunting, drinking, wrestling-with opponents who are not too professional-and telling people about the future he has planned.'

'He told me how good he was going to be as quaestor.'

'He told me the same,' she sneered. 'I expect he tells everyone.'

'I expect some are impressed.'

'Oh lots would be,' she agreed readily. 'People think mere self-confidence equates to nobility.'

She fell silent for a moment. 'I'm confident,' I mentioned, since she was obviously thinking it.

'You're confident for good reason. And when that's inappropriate you're filled with doubt. What Quinctius Quadratus lacks is judgment.'

We were again silent. The slave had done his duty with a will, and the room quivered with steam now. Wetness streamed over my forehead from the hair flattened on my head. I scooped water from a basin and threw it over my face and chest. Helena was looking very flushed. 'You've had enough,' I warned her.

'I don't care. I'm just so pleased to be with you, to be talking to you.'

It was too hot to touch another person, but I took her hand and we exchanged a slippery embrace.

'Why do we hate him?' I mused after more reflection. 'What has he really done? Other people think he's wonderful.'

'Other people always will.' Helena had clearly had plenty of time to evaluate the hero.

'He's likable.'

'That's what makes it so bad; he could be worthwhile, but he's chosen to waste his potential. We hate him because he is bound for success, which he doesn't deserve. He is an empty shell, but that will not prevent him rising.'

'His underlings will buoy him up.'

'And his superiors will avoid the effort of reporting his inadequacy.'

'He'll introduce stupid procedures and make terrible decisions, but by the time the results show he'll have moved on up the ladder and be wreaking havoc somewhere else.'

'And he will never be called back to answer for his mistakes.'

'It's the system. The system is rotten.'

'Then the system must be changed,' said Helena.

Left to myself I would have sunk into a heavy sleep, but I managed to rouse us both enough to wash in the warm pool. 'So what's the story of poor young Constans?'

'I told you most of it.'

'You were with Aelia Annaea?'

'Tolerating Quadratus was becoming too much. Optatus took to finding excuses to ride into Corduba. Aelia and Claudia came to rescue me; we sneaked off in the Annaeus carriage, and then we spent the day at Aelia's house.'

'This was today?'

'Yes. Then this afternoon a desperate message came for Claudia Rufina to rush home because of the tragedy. Her brother had been working on the estate; I think maybe there had been some trouble about the life he had been leading-that party you went to with Aelia's brothers has had its repercussions throughout the neighborhood. Anyway, Rufius Constans had promised to reform himself. Hard work was his way of showing it.'

'What caused the accident?'

'New stones had been delivered for an oil press, and he went to inspect them. Nobody thought he would attempt to move them on his own. When he failed to return for lunch with his grandmother a servant was sent