Читать онлайн «Iron Hand Of Mars»

'One thing is definite,' I told Helena Justina; 'I am not going to Germany!'

Immediately I could see her planning what to pack for the trip.

It was a place you could only laugh about, or the squalor would break your heart. Even the bed was rocky. And that was after I had pieced in a new leg and tightened the mattress webs.

I was trying out a new way of making love to Helena, which I had devised in the interests of not letting our relationship go stale. I had known her a year, let her seduce me after six months of thinking about it, and had finally managed to persuade her to live with me about two weeks ago. According to my previous experience of women, I must be right on target to be told I drank too much and slept too much, and that her mother needed her urgently back at home.

My athletic efforts at holding her interest had not gone unnoticed. 'Didius Falco… wherever did you… learn this trick?'

'Invented it myself…'

Helena was a senator's daughter. Expecting her to put up with my filthy lifestyle for more than a fortnight had to be pushing my luck. Only a fool would view her fling with me as anything more than a bit of local excitement before she married some pot-bellied pullet in patrician stripes who could offer her emerald pendants and a summer villa at Surrentum.

As for me, I worshipped her. But then I was the fool who kept hoping the fling could be made to last.

'You're not enjoying yourself. ' As a private informer, my powers of deduction were just about adequate.

'I don't think…'Helena gasped, 'this is going to work!'

'Why not?' I could see several reasons.

'One of us,' suggested Helena, 'is bound to laugh. '

'It looked all right as a rough sketch on the back of an old rooftile. '

'Like pickling eggs. The recipe seems easy, but the results are disappointing…'

I replied that we were not in the kitchen, so Helena asked demurely whether I thought it would help if we were. Since my Aventine doss lacked that amenity altogether, I treated her question as rhetorical.

We both laughed, if it's of interest.

Then I unwound us, and made love to Helena the way both of us liked best.

'Anyway, Marcus, how do you know the Emperor wants to send you to Germany?'

'Nasty rumour flitting round the Palatine. '

We were still in bed. After my last case had staggered to what passed for its conclusion, I had promised myself a week of domestic relaxation – due to a dearth of new commissions, there were plenty of gaps in the schedule of my working life. In fact, I had no cases at all. I could stay in bed all day if I wanted to. Most days I did.