Part 25 (2/2)

Of Helena's two brothers, Aulus made me most wary. I never felt sure which way he would jump. Still, it was good to see him again. We had worked together; I had grown fond of him. He was about my height, st.u.r.dy, though with a young man's body - not so hard as me, and bearing fewer scars. He had the family looks, dark eyes and hair, plus the family humour and intelligence. Even in Greece, the land of beards, he had remained clean-shaven like a good Roman. He had always been conservative. Originally he had hated the thought of his sister living with an informer; later, I think he saw my good points. Anyway, he accepted that our marriage was a fact, especially after we had children. He was a cautious uncle to Julia and Favonia, still too raw to be comfortable with very young children.

There had been problems finding a career for him. He should have gone into the Senate; still could, if he wanted to. The Camilli had had a relative who disgraced himself, which by extension disgraced them. That did not help; then Aulus and his brother Quintus quarrelled over who would marry an heiress. Quintus won her. Aulus lost more than the rich wife, for bachelors don't win elections, so he sulkily gave up on the Senate. He was rootless temporarily, then surprised me by becoming my a.s.sistant. During a case where we acted as prosecutors in the Basilica Julia, he decided to become a lawyer. I joked that for a man who complained that my career was seedy, he had chosen one even more polluted. But a legal career would be better than none (and much better than mine.) The senator sent him off to Athens before Aulus had a chance to dither. But his reaction when he heard of the murders at Olympia showed that his time working with me had stuck him with a love of mysteries.

'Let's not talk about the murders until Helena returns. So, how is the academic life in Athens, Aulus?' He sat up slowly. 'This will be disgusting, I see.'

'Athens,' declared Aulus, working his brain into use, 'is absolutely full of pedagogues, all specialists. You can choose any branch of philosophy. Pythagorean, Peripatetic, Cynic, Stoic, or Orphic.'

'Avoid all of them. We are Romans. We despise thought.'

'I certainly avoid the dirty ones who dress in rags and live in barrels!' Aulus had always been fastidious. 'Men with big beards and big brains teach absolutely everything - law, literature, geometry - but what they are best at...' He slowed down again, lost for words temporarily.

I helped out. 'Is drinking?'

'I knew how to party already.' He closed his eyes. 'But not all night and every night!'

I let him rest for a moment. Then I asked, 'Want to tell me about your tutor? I gather he's called Minas, and has a stupendous reputation.'

'Stupendous stamina anyway,' Aulus admitted.

'Was that why you latched on to him?'

'He found me. Tutors lurk in the agora, looking for newly arrived Roman innocents whose fathers will pay fees. Minas chose me; next thing I knew he had persuaded Father's banker to pay him directly: leave it to me, dear Aelia.n.u.s; I will arrange everything; you will be troubled by nothing!'

'For heavens' sake!'

'I am just a lump of dough, thumped breathless daily.'

'Fight back before the pace kills you! He recognised your senatorial stripes; you should have travelled incognito.' I saw it all. 'He a.s.sumes your loving papa is a multi-millionaire. Now Minas can have a really good time - which Decimus is paying for.'

'I haven't worn purple stripes since I left Ostia. He can just spot a young Roman.'

'It's all in the haircut, 'I informed him sagely.

'He earns his money, Marcus.' Aulus grinned. 'He takes me to the very best dinner parties, sometimes several in an evening. He introduces fabulous women and exotic boys. He shows me drinking games, dancing girls, flautists and lyre-players - and then we talk. We talk at length, and about all moral issues - though in the morning I remember not a word.'

'I must point out, Aulus, your mother has paid for me to come here and see what you are up to.'

'Then I retract!' he chortled. 'I deny mentioning dancing girls.'

He subsided into a weak heap. I gazed at him, impressed. 'So, Aulus Camillus Aelia.n.u.s, son of Decimus, tell me: have you learned any law yet?'

Then Aulus Camillus Aelia.n.u.s, prospective top-cla.s.s barrister, looked at me without guile. Before he put his throbbing head back into his trembling hands, he just smiled regretfully.

LV.

Helena's foray into the markets produced an excellent Athenian breakfast of steaming hot honey-and-sesame pancakes. Those of us who were without a hangover tucked in, afterwards filling up any crannies with barley bread and olive paste, all topped off with pears.

'What's for lunch?'

'Anything you like, apparently - so long as it's fish.' That would explain why the Panathenian Way was so full of fish-heads, fish guts, crab claws, prawn sh.e.l.ls, and cuttlefish.

Aulus asked us to stop talking about food.

We propped him up, made belated introductions where necessary, and shared our various discoveries about the murders. Aulus had nothing to tell us about Marcella Caesia and little to add to the details we had learned for ourselves about Valeria Ventidia. But he could tell us more of Turcia.n.u.s Opimus, the invalid; he had met the man.

'He was desperately ill. It was horrible. He was being eaten up inside.'

'So you think his death was entirely natural?' Helena asked.

'I know it was.'

'You were with the group when they went to Epidaurus,' I chipped in.

Aulus looked embarra.s.sed. 'The others were all twittering on about their aches and pains,' he complained. 'They were booking themselves into dream cells - and when they came out next morning there was a big fuss because Marinus had been bitten by a dog. None of them seemed to realise that their little rheumatics - and even a few septic teeth marks - were nothing to what Turcia.n.u.s was going through.'

'So?' Helena, who knew her brother well, was watching him closely.

'Well, I just felt so sorry for Turcia.n.u.s. He was struggling to keep up a facade of jollity. He tried not to be a nuisance. But he must have been regretting that he ever came on that last journey, he was in so much pain. Keeping it all to himself, he must have been lonely, for one thing.'

'So?'

'When the medics had a.s.sessed him, they tipped me the wink he was on his way out. n.o.body else volunteered, so I sat by his bedside all that night. No one did anything to harm him. I was with him when he died.'

Aulus fell silent. He was about twenty-seven. As a senator's son, he had led a sheltered life in some respects. He would have lost grandparents and family slaves, maybe one or two men in his command while he was a tribune in the army. In Rome, he had once found a b.l.o.o.d.y corpse at a religious site. But n.o.body had ever died right in front of him before.

Helena put her arms around him. 'Turcia.n.u.s was dying, alone and far from home. I am sure he knew you were there; you must have rea.s.sured the poor man. Aulus, you are good and kind.'

Gaius and Cornelius were s.h.i.+fting about awkwardly at this sentimental moment. I saw even Albia raise her eyebrows in that sceptical way she had. She had a tomboyish relations.h.i.+p with Aulus, which certainly had not involved seeing him as a philanthropist. We all tended to think of him as a cold fish. I for one was shocked to imagine him sitting with a virtual stranger, murmuring supportive words through the small hours, as the man slipped away.

'Did he happen to say anything?'

'No, Falco.'

'Marcus!' Helena rebuked me. I bent my head and looked humble. I had known it was useless. Deathbed revelations do not happen in real life. For one thing, anyone with money makes sure his doctors provide oblivion by giving him a good tincture of poppyseeds.

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