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Chapters (65)
  1. COVER
  2. NEMESIS
  3. ROME AND LATIUM: SUMMER, AD 77
  4. 1
  5. 2
  6. 3
  7. 4
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  35. 32
  36. 33
  37. 34
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  65. 62

It was Albia’s turn to stand up, swishing her skirts to put them back in order. She kept out of reach. ‘I shall return myself, thank you. If we went back together, after so long away from the couches, my parents would be bound to think you had been making dreadful overtures.’

‘Your father makes his own crazy decisions about me—though I would hate Helena Justina to suppose I harbour guilty thoughts.’

‘You don’t?’

‘I do not.’

‘You mean, because you respect Falco too much?’

‘No, Albia,’ replied Anacrites, returning to his insidious smoothness. ‘Because I respect you.’

It was the perfect answer—if it was honest. Albia should be flattered, impressed and charmed. Producing that smooth reply just proved what I had always thought: Anacrites was deadly dangerous.

As he led her away, he looked back and his pale eyes swept the colonnades again. He was wavering, no longer certain whether I was hidden there. Knowing me, he just thought it must be likely.

Albia had kept him hopping. But much of what he said must have been aimed at me.

34

I let Anacrites and Albia go ahead. A tall, slim figure separated off from near another corner of the garden. A woman called in a low voice, ‘Marcus! Is that you?’

‘Helena!’ We met along one of the colonnades. My hand found hers. ‘So how long were you lurking there? Did you hear all of that?’

‘Most of it.’

‘I didn’t put her up to it—so did you?’

I felt Helena bridle. ‘I would never put her in such danger! I came to find her.’

‘Did you really tell Anacrites about her yen for Aulus?’

‘Of course not. Anacrites was lying, and I shall make sure she knows that. For one thing, whatever occurred between her and my brother—or whatever Albia thought at the time—she really has not talked about it. Besides, give me credit; I have more loyalty to her. Marcus, she’s just a girl. He frightens me.’

‘I was impressed by how she handled that.’

‘It’s not safe for her.’

‘We’ll have to see she never comes within his orbit.’

‘Too late! He knows about her,’ Helena told me morosely. ‘He knows he can hurt you—us—through her. And I’m afraid she, too, will be hurt in the process.’

As we went around a really dark corner, I pulled her close to kiss her and take her mind off her fears. It failed to work on Helena, though it cheered me up.

Temporarily.

We ran into Aulus and Quintus, chortling in a corridor. They admitted they had nipped off so Quintus could show his brother the cabinet of obscene statues. ‘How did you monkeys get in there?’