Her uncle threw back that oddly ordinary head and commented in a heavy voice, “Oh Helena, Helena! I knew of course; I had known for a long time. I was not sure whether you had realized.”

I thought, if he was in the plot himself this man was acting extraordinarily well. If he was, Helena must know. But in that case, the lass was lucky I was here. Facing up to him alone was desperately dangerous…

LX

“What are you proposing to do?” Camillus Meto asked his niece in a cautious tone.

“If I can, put things right.” She spoke very crisply, without a second thought. That was Helena all over. I loved the poor deluded girl for her straightforwardness!

A tickle ran across my foot so insistently I lifted my leg and shook, though I knew that in this arid hole no creature was likely to live. The darkness pressed coolly on my prickling skin. The passage lay buried in thick silence, though far away I could hear a remote, single note of applause as the Triumph continued at the Capitol.

In the faint light of half a dozen small oil lamps, Helena Justina was half turned away, though I knew her so well I could tell her moods from the inflexion in her voice. She sounded wan, as she always did if she felt troubled and alone. I could not interpret whether she had confided the truth to her uncle, or was testing him. As for him, he looked like a man whose emotions were either very shallow or so deep you could never hope to fathom them.

“I would have expected you to suppose your father was too respectable!” he commented.

Helena sighed. “Isn’t that the point? The family rely on him to do everything that is noble. But when I was in Britain I had a long talk with my aunt. Aelia Camilla told me a great deal to explain all this. How Grandfather Camillus lived in Bithynia, partly to save money when the family’s financial resources were running low. How he nursed his wife’s dowry for twenty-five years in order to find funds to qualify father for the senate—”

“So how do you and sister Aelia account for this?” Publius enquired, sounding intrigued yet with the usual slight sneer in his tone.

“You know papa.” Helena spoke gravely. “Not one of life’s firebrands. Perhaps the strain of carrying responsibilities which he felt were above his talents drove him to some wild political gesture. If our Gnaeus, using his position as a son-in-law, applied any kind of pressure papa might be vulnerable. Perhaps Gnaeus used blackmail. My father then struggled to stave off family disgrace—as he did so, becoming inextricably drawn in. While I was still married, perhaps he hoped somehow to protect me. Every man has his weakness, Falco would say.”