Lindsey Davis - Shadows in Bronze

Still, the knees she was down on were lusciously dimpled, she had fluttery black eyelashes and slender little hands-so I had no objection to spending a few moments with her on the floor. Aemilia Fausta played her harp more vigorously. The maid and I managed to find most of her pins.

When I got up, the noble lady dismissed her maid.

'Alone at last!' I cried gaily. Fausta humphed. I stopped her in mid chord and lifted the harp away with an air of suggestive, tender concern which was part of my stock in trade. She looked alarmed. I gazed deliberately into her eyes (which were, to be frank, not the best eyes I ever gazed into in the line of work). 'Aemilia Fausta, I must ask, why do you always look so sad?'

I knew perfectly well. The magistrate's sister spent too much time dreaming bitterly of lost opportunities. She lacked confidence; probably always had. What really annoyed me was the way she let her dresses paint her twenty-year-old features with a forty-year-old face. For all the silver hand mirrors in her well-stocked bower, she could never have looked at herself properly.

'I'm happy to listen,' I encouraged smoothly. My pupil allowed herself a poignant sigh which was more promising.

'The fellow is not worth it if he brings you such unhappiness… Will you talk about it?

'No,' she said. My usual measure of success.

I sat quietly, looking snubbed, then pointedly offered the harp again. She took it, but made no move to play. 'Happens to everyone,' I assured her. "The ones who hang around are deplorable dogs, while those you want won't look at you!'

'That's what my brother says.'

‘So what's our hero's name?

‘Lucius.' Keeping me in suspense while she pretended to misunderstand my question almost made her smile. I braced myself for those heavy layers of red ochre to crack, but her normal spiky melancholia took charge. It is Aufidius Crispus. As you well know!'

I ignored the indignation, and let her settle down. 'So what went wrong? I asked.

'We were to be married. He seemed to be delaying for a long time. Even I had to accept the delay would be permanent.'

‘These things happen. If he was unsure-'

‘I do understand all the arguments!' she declared in a light, too rapid voice.

‘I'm sure you do! But life's too short for suffering-'

Aemilia Fausta gazed at me, with the dark, tired eyes of a woman who had been unnecessarily miserable most of her life. I really do hate to see a woman as sad as that.

‘Let me help ease your troubles, madam.' I gave her a long, sad, significant look. She scoffed wryly, under no misapprehensions about her own allure.

Then I dropped into the silence, do you know where Crispus is?

Any sensible woman would have brained me with the harp.

There was no need for drama; I could see she really did not know the yachtsman's whereabouts.

I don't. I wish I did! If you find him, will you tell me? she pleaded.

'No.'

'I have to see him-'

'You have to forget him! Play your harp, lady!'

The lady played her harp.

She was still playing, and there was still a slight atmosphere which a stranger might misinterpret, when a cheery voice cried, 'I'll see myself in! and Helena Justina arrived.

I was demonstrating fingering. The best way to do that is to sit beside your pupil on a double seat, and put both arms round her.

'Ooh, lovely! Don't stop!' cooed Helena in a facetious tone which nearly made me choke. Aemilia Fausta played on stolidly.

It was a warm day so I and my pupil were casually clad in a few light drapes of nothing much. For my musical role I always adopted a laurel wreath; it tended to slide down over one eye when I bent towards my pupil (as a harp teacher has to). Helena Justina was sensibly wrapped in several layers, though with a rather odd sunhat on (it looked like a folded cabbage). She let the contrast between herself and us speak a lot.

She leaned on a marble pediment oozing queenly distaste. 'I never knew you were musical, Falco!'

'I come from a long line of self-taught struminers and squeakers. But actually this is not my instrument.'

'Let me guess – panpipes?' she mocked derisively.

Feeling left out, Aemilia Fausta twanged into her rather stately version of a whirling Bacchic dance.

I assumed the ladies wanted to gossip so I waited long enough to show it was my own decision, then I left. I returned to my menial's cubicle and did some desultory reading for Fausta's lesson the next day. I could not settle, knowing Helena was in the house.

Feeling peckish, I set off in search of sustenance. The food here was poor and pedestrian. On the other hand, the food was free, and if your stomach could take it they let you eat what you liked. (The magistrate kept a personal physician, in the event of really serious after-effects.)

I came into the hall, whistling breezily since I was employed to bring music to the home. An old crone with a mop fled to complain about me to Fausta looking appalled. The ladies were in the inner garden; I could hear the chink of spoons in pretty custard bowls. No place for me. I decided to go out.

Life is never all black. As I went past the porter's corridor, Aemilia Fausta's maid pushed her hand out through the curtain and slipped me a note.

I stood in the street, reading my message with a faint smile. ‘You look shifty!' Camillus Verus' stately daughter, at my back.

‘Trick of the light… I lifted my shoulder to stop her looking over it, then managed to screw up and drop the note as if that was what I had intended all along. I grinned at her. 'Aemilia Fausta's waiting maid has just made me an offer I shall have to refuse.'

‘Oh shams! ' mouthed Helena gently.

I hooked my thumbs in my belt and slowly swaggered off, letting her come if she chose. She did.

‘Thought we were strangers; can't you leave me alone?'

‘Don't flatter yourself, Falco. I wanted to see Rufus-'

‘Bad luck. He's deploying the fabulous Apollonian profile in court. Two sheep rustlers and a slander case. We reckon the sheep stealers did it, but the slander's a put-up; plaintiff's nephew is a barrister who needs to show off-'

'You're well at home! I would not have thought Aemilia Fausta was your type,' she found it necessary to add.

I walked on, replying peacefully, ‘She has a scrawny appeal. I like blondes… And there's always the maid.'

'Oh, you won't see her again!' chortled Helena. 'If Fausta spots her girl making overtures, she'll be sold before you get back from our stroll.' I gave her my hand into a colonnade as a handcart laden with marble creaked past. 'Don't waste your time, Falco. Aemilia Fausta never notices rugged types with wicked grins.' She jumped off a pavement with an impatient twirl. 'Fausta only likes pomaded aristocrats with mattress stuffing between the ears.'

'Thanks; I'll load on more attar -' I hopped after her, brightening up as we bandied words. 'I feel sorry for the lady-'

'Leave her alone then! She's vulnerable; the last thing she needs is to find you with that soft look in your lying eyes, pretending you can't keep your hands off her-'

We were standing on a corner glaring at each other now. I tweaked at a strand of Helena's new hair. 'Been through a sheep dip, or are you starting to rust?'

‘It's called Egyptiau Russet. Don't you like it?'

'If you're happy.' I loathed it; I hoped she could tell. 'Trying to impress someone?'

‘No; it's part of my new life.'

What was wrong with your old life?'

'You, mostly.'

'I like a girl to be frank – but not that frank! Here's the court,' I growled. 'I'll nip in and tell the judge an Egyptian carrot wants him, then I'm off to flatter his sister with my Lydian arpeggios!'

Helena Justina sighed. She put her hand on my arm to stop me turning away.