She grieved more closely for Sosia then I realized. When, in the shadowed corridor, I turned to say goodnight and finally looked at her, I could see that although in the garden I heard nothing, she had wept.

While I stood, helpless at this unlikely spectacle, she remarked in her usual way, “Thank you, Falco.”

I assumed my own normal face, a shade too humble to be true. Helena Justina ignored that, as she always did. Just before she turned away she murmured, “Happy birthday!”

Then because it was my birthday she kissed me on the cheek.

XXXVI

She must have felt me flinch.

“I’m sorry!” she exclaimed. She should have stormed off. We could have left it there. I really would not have minded; her gesture had been civilized enough.

The damned woman did not know what to do.

“I am so sorry—”

“Never apologize!” I heard my own voice grate. Since Sosia died, I had shrunk into myself. I could not deal with women any more. “Nothing new, lady. Rich piece of brisket looking for thick gravy—gladiators get this all the time. If that was what I wanted you’d have known long before now!”

She ought to have turned into her room at once. She just stood there looking anxious.

“Oh for heaven’s sake!” I cried irritably. “Stop looking at me like that.” Her great tired eyes were lakes of misery.

For two hours I had been speculating how it would feel to kiss her. So I did. Completely exasperated, I stepped up to the doorway then gripped her with my elbows, while my two hands spread either side of her bone-white face. It was over quite quickly, so lacking in enjoyment it must have been the emptiest gesture of my life.

She wrenched away. She was shaking with cold from the garden. Her whole face was cold, and her eyelashes still wet from when she wept. I had kissed her; yet I still did not know what it was really like.

I have known men who will tell you rough handling is what such women want. They are fools. She was distraught. To be perfectly honest, I was distraught myself.

Helena might have dealt with the situation but I allowed her no time. It was me who stormed off.

I did go back. What do you take me for?

I walked down that dark corridor as discreetly as a servant with some message he had forgotten to deliver before. I tapped at her door—my special knock: three quick successive little knuckle raps. We had never made a formal arrangment, it just developed as my sign. Normally she came at once to let me in.

I knocked again. I tried the latch, knowing it would not budge (I had shown her myself how to wedge a latch when she was staying at an inn). I leaned my forehead against the wood and spoke her full name quietly. She would not reply.