Lindsey Davis - One Virgin Too Many

I twisted my belt around so the buckle would not dig into Helena as I held her tight against me, looking over her shoulder and nuzzling her neck. "Tell me the story."

She sighed. "I liked it as soon as I saw it," she said, after a moment, speaking quietly and with the direct honesty I had always adored in her dealings with me. "I bought it for you. I thought it would delight you. I thought we would enjoy living here as a family. It was in decent condition, yet there was plenty we could do to make improvements in our own taste when we had time and the inclination. But I see it is a disaster. You cannot be so far from Rome."

"Hmm." I liked it too. I understood just what had made Helena choose this place.

"I can sell it again, I suppose. Build the bathhouse, then pass it on as a 'newly renovated home of character-fine views and own baths.' Somebody else can discover that Gloccus and Cotta have failed to install a working soakaway."

"And that the new hypocaust leaks smoke."

Helena squirmed around to look at me in horror. "Oh no! How can you tell?"

I shook my head sadly. "When boneheads like Gloccus and Cotta install them, they always do, love. And they will leave the wall flues blocked up with rubble-and quite inaccessible-"

"No!"

"As sure as squirrels eat nuts."

She covered her face and groaned. "I can already see the scroll with the new owner's compensation claim."

I was laughing again. "I love you."

"Still?" Agitated, Helena broke my hold on her and stepped back. "Thank you very much-but that's avoiding the issue, Marcus."

I caught her slender hands in mine. "Don't sell it yet."

"I have to."

"We'll get it right first." This suddenly seemed urgent. "Don't jump too quickly. There's no need to-"

"We have to live somewhere, Marcus. We need space for a nursemaid for Julia, and help in the house-"

"Whereas this house needs a whole cohort of slaves; you would have to send a troop down into Rome every day just to shop at the markets-I like it. I want you to keep it while we consider what to do."

Her chin came up. "I should have asked you first."

I looked around again at the gracious house in its sun-drenched grounds, overlooked by the worried white dove who could see we were people to reckon with. Somehow, it put me in a tolerant mood. "That's all right."

"Most men would say I should have consulted you," Helena commented quietly.

"Then they know nothing." I meant that.

"Nothing I suggest ever frightens you, or makes you lose your temper. You let me do whatever I like." She sounded quite puzzled, though she had known me long enough not to feel surprise.

Doing what she liked had brought her to live with me. Doing what she liked had led us on greater adventures than most men ever share with their dull wives.

I winked at her. "Just so long as what you like is what you do with me."

We stayed all day on the Janiculan. We walked around taking measurements and making notes. I made loose doors secure; Helena swept out rubbish. We talked and laughed a lot. If we were selling the place, it was theoretically a waste of our time. We did not see it that way.

Gloccus and Cotta, the keen bathhouse contractors, never showed.

I went over to Ma's house to tell her what I thought about the new house. (Helena came too, to hear what I said.) Trouble was waiting: the damned lodger was at home.

"Don't make a noise! Anacrites is off-color. The poor thing is having a wee snooze."

That would have been fine, but warning us woke him up. He emerged eagerly, knowing that I would rather have left without seeing him.

"Falco!"

"Oh look; every perfect day has its low point, Helena."

"Marcus, you're so rude! Good evening, Anacrites. I am sorry to hear that your wounds have been troubling you."

He did look drawn. He had been suffering from a near-deadly head blow when he went out to Tripolitania, and the sword slashes he took while playing the fool in the arena were a further hindrance to his recovery. He had lost far too much blood in Lepcis; it had taken me hours to bind him up, and all through the trip home I had expected to find myself chucking his corpse over the side of the ship. Well, a boy can hope.

Ma fussed around him now while he tried to look brave. He managed; I was the one who nearly threw up.

He had forced himself to come off his couch still in his siesta wear-a bedraggled gray tunic and battered old slippers like something Nux might bring me as a treat. It was far from Anacrites' normal sleek gear: a hideous glimpse of the man behind the public persona, as unsuitable as a domesticated lynx. I felt embarrassed being in the same room as him.

He scratched his ear, then beamed. "How is the new house?"

I would have given a good chest of gold to prevent him knowing my potential new address. "Don't tell me you had your sordid operatives tail us there?"

"No need. Your mother always keeps me up to date." I bet the bastard knew about the house before I did. Loyal to Helena, I bit that back.

Ma was bringing him invalid broth. At least that meant we all got some. It was stuffed with the vegetables she had pinched from the market garden yesterday.

"I am so well looked after here!" Anacrites exclaimed complacently.

I gritted my teeth.

"Maia was here today," said Ma, as I wielded my spoon morosely. I saw Anacrites take an interest. Perhaps he was just being polite to his landlady. Perhaps he wanted to upset me. Perhaps he did have an eye on my newly available sister. (Dear gods!) Ma pursed her lips. "I heard all about this plan you cooked up with your confederate."

I decided not to mention that buying the tailor's business was my hated confederate's plan. My mother had guessed, I could tell. Whether she also knew it was Pa's money buying it for Maia I dared not even contemplate.

"It seems an ideal solution." Helena backed me up firmly. "Maia needs an occupation. Tailoring is what she knows, and she will thrive on the responsibility."

"I'm sure!" said Ma, sniffing. Anacrites was keeping quiet in such a tactful way I could have rammed his broth spoon down his throat. "Anyway," my mother went on with great satisfaction, "nothing may come of it."

"It's all fixed, as far as I know, Ma."

"No. Maia refused to agree unless she was given time to consider it. The contract was not signed."

I put down my spoon. "Well, I tried. The children need a future. She ought to consider that."

Ma relented. She was a fierce defender of her grandchildren. "Oh, she's intending to do it. She just wanted to make it clear she does not jump when your father orders it."

It was so rare for my mother to mention my father that we all fell quiet. This really was embarrassing. Helena kicked me under the table, as a signal for us to leave.

"I say, Marcus." Anacrites interrupted the awkward silence suddenly. "I did find out what that lad you sent was asking."

I replaced my backside on the bench from which I had lifted it tentatively. "Someone I sent? What lad?"

"Camillus, what's his name?"

I glanced at Helena. "I know two lads called Camillus. Camillus Justinus helped me rescue you from your due fate in Lepcis Magna-Anacrites, I presume not even you are so ungrateful as to forget him-"

"No, no. The other, this must be."

"Aelianus," Helena said coldly. Anacrites looked disconcerted. He seemed unaware that both Camilli were Helena's younger brothers and that he himself had actually cultivated Aelianus as a useful contact once. His head wound had affected the patterns of his memory.

I was annoyed. "I never sent him or anyone else to see you, Anacrites."

"Oh! He said you did."

"Playing at mystery men. Have you forgotten you do know him? For some reason you and he were cuddled up like long-lost cronies last year at that dinner for the olive oil producers-the night you took your big crack on the head."