Lindsey Davis - The Jupiter Myth

I guessed. 'Accepting their support would be no different from taking on Florius.'

'You knew her well.'

'Yes, I knew her.' I stared at the pyre. 'I knew her, but it was a long time ago.'

Heraclea was also subdued. 'Amazonia was right. I'm giving up on Britain. I'm going home.'

'Where's that?'

'Halicarnassus!

'Well, that's the right place!' Halicarnassus is the spiritual homeland of the Amazons in myth. I glanced behind. Helena was talking to Petronius. From the stark expression on his face, this funeral was affecting him. He was thinking too much about that other in Ostia, when his two daughters were sent to the gods in his absence. Helena would comfort him. It would take her concentration off me for a moment. I took a chance. 'Heraclea, did Chloris say anything about me?'

The tall blonde turned and gazed at me for a moment. I don't know what I was hoping to hear, but she could not or would not supply it. 'No, Falco. No. She never said anything.'

So that was it. I left her amidst the sweet scent of burning pine cones and the avid flames.

Sometimes in the ensuing years I would remember her, trying not to dwell too much on the times we had spent together. I could cope with the memory.

'You were always trouble.'

'And you were always -'

'What?'

'I'll tell you next time we're alone…'

I returned to Petronius and Helena. They seemed to be waiting, as if they thought I had had something to finish.

We would not stay to the end, but for some time longer stood watching the flames in silence. The evil that had caused the death we mourned had been averted, at least temporarily. Londinium would fall prey to worse gangsters eventually, and for Petronius the task of hunting Florius remained. This woman who had died and her friends, whose grieving faces were lit by the fire, were outcasts – just like the criminals; they, however, stood for skill, talent, comradeship and good faith. They represented the best of those who came here to the end of the world in hope. Chloris had been destroyed, yet it was on her own ground, using her skills, defiant, admired, and, I thought, holding no regrets.

Who could say that was uncivilised? It depends what you mean by civilisation, as the procurator said.