Falco 17 - See Delphi And Die by Lindsey Davis

Author:Lindsey Davis
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2010-04-11T16:48:08.417000+00:00

XXXII

It had taken Aquillius and me a long time to find Phineus, and it had been a hard walk. Talking to him had scrambled my brain too. I knew he was bamboozling me. After I left him, I felt unsettled. Looking up at the crag, with its distant temples dreamily far off, I was filled with inertia. I lost interest in climbing the acropolis today.

I went back to the Elephant, learned that Helena had gone shopping, and fell back on an informer's honest standby. writing up my notes. (There are other excuses, less useful, though often more fun.) The good work just happened to occur in the courtyard of the Bay Mare, where eventually I was offered lunch. Since I was occupying their table, it would have been discourteous to refuse.

When Helena came and found me looking guilty with a bowl and goblet, I escaped censure due to guilt of her own. She carefully arranged the folds of her light skirt and graceful stole--a delaying tactic that I recognised. Then she admitted she had been purchasing ancient vases. We could afford these antiquities, for which Corinth had once been famous, but her intention was to export most back to Rome for my father's business. I said what I thought of that. Helena thought I was unfair to Pa. We had a satisfying wrangle about the meaning of 'unfairness', after which, since none of our party was around, we slunk off to our room, threw off our clothes, and reminded ourselves of what life together was all about.

Nothing that is anybody else's business.

Some time later, I remembered to give Helena the letter that Aquillius had brought from her brother.

Our vagrant scholar was as trusting as ever that we would have rushed out to Greece when he whistled. How he guessed we might come through Corinth was not revealed. Aulus wrote a blunt epistle, void of frills; explanations were not his strength. It boded ill for his career as a lawyer, should he ever take it up.

He must have reasoned we would go to Olympia because that was where the deaths took place, then since Corinth was roughly in a line with Athens, we would rest here on our way to see him. He had convinced himself that if we were in Greece we were coming to find him. That he, Aulus Camillus Aelianus the layabout law student, might not be my priority during a murder hunt never struck him. There was a time when I disliked this fellow; now I just despaired.

After hoping we were well (a courtesy which meant he must be running short of funds already, he dropped into cipher for a resume. Neither Helena nor I had brought codebooks with us, but apparently Aulus always used the same system and Helena Justina could work it out from just one or two points she remembered. I relaxed on the bed, playing fondly with parts of Helena that strayed within reach, while she frowned over the scroll and cuffed away my playful hands; she broke the code far too quickly for me.

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