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I looked away. I looked back, clearing my throat.

I confessed somewhat hoarsely that I had never been out on the town with a naiad before. "If you were on the beach at Baiae, there would be a strong danger some salty old sea god would throw you on your back to ravish you on a mattress of bladder wrack

She said she would punch him in the fins with his trident; I told her the attempt would still be worth his while.

We joined the slow throng that was wending its way to the dining room. This procession passed through Nero's grotesque corridors where gold fretted the pilasters, arches and ceilings in such quantity that it merged into one glaring wash of paint. Meticulous fauns and cherubs pirouetted under pergolas where roses ran riot without season, in detail so delicate that once the artists' scaffolding came down from the high walls the frescos could only be appreciated by wandering flies and moths. I felt glassy-eyed with luxury, like a man who had lost his vision staring at the sun.

"You've had your hair cut!" Helena Justina accused, muttering at me sideways as we went.

"Like it?"

"No," she reported frankly. "I liked you with your curls."

Praise be to Jupiter, the girl was still herself. I glared in return at her modishly frazzled topknot.

"Well lady, since we're on the subject of curls, I liked you better without!"

Vespasian's banquets were extremely old-fashioned; the waitresses kept their clothes on and he never poisoned the food.

Vespasian was not a keen entertainer, though he gave regular banquets; he gave them to cheer up the people he invited and to keep caterers in funds. As a republican I refused to be impressed. Attending one of the Emperor's well-run dinners made me feel morose. I deny any recollection of what the menu was; I kept adding up how much it must have cost. Luckily Vespasian was seated too far away for me to tell him my views. He looked pretty silent. Knowing him, he too was totting up the damage to the privy purse.

Halfway through my refusing to enjoy myself, an usher tapped my shoulder. Helena Justina and I were slid out from the meal so skilfully I was still carrying a lobster claw and she had one cheek bulging with half-eaten squid-in-its-ink. A cloakroom slave whisked me into my toga, achieving in five seconds a dignified drape that back at home had taken me an hour; a shoe-boy had us respectably re shod an escort led us to a lavish anteroom, two spear-carriers gave way to a bronzed inner door, a doorman opened it, the escort announced our names to a chamberlain, the chamberlain repeated them to his boy, the boy recited them again in a clear voice with only the fact that he got both slightly wrong spoiling an otherwise portentous effect. We passed inside. A slave who until then had been doing nothing in particular accepted what was left of my lobster claw.

A curtain dropped, muffling the outside noise. A young man – a man my own age, not over tall, with a jutting chin that was sprouting marble copies throughout Rome bounded from a purple-draped chair. His body was hard as a brick; his energy made me groan. The gold braid acanthus leaves on the hem of his tunic rolled in padded waves an inch thick round a band four inches deep. He waved away the attendants and rushed forwards to greet us himself.

"Please come in! Didius Falco? I wanted to congratulate you on your efforts in the north."

There was no need for Helena to touch my arm in warning. I knew who he was at once, and at once I understood who both my employers were. I was not, as I had assumed until then, working at the direction of some snobbish secretariat of oriental freedmen lurking in the lower echelons of Palace protocol.

It was Titus Caesar himself.

XLII

He had just spent five years in the desert, but by Jove he was fit. He was bursting with talent. You could see at once how he carried off commanding a legion at twenty-six, then mobilized half the Empire to win his father's throne.

Titus Flavins Vespasianus. The back of my throat, which had been tingling from a fiercely peppered sauce, rasped with dry ash. Two employers: Titus and Vespasian. Or two rather important victims, if we got it wrong.

This cheery young general was supposed to be locked in siege warfare at Jerusalem; he had evidently dealt with Jerusalem, and I quite believed that he swept up in his conquest the fabulous Judaean queen. Who could blame him? Whatever anyone thought of her background and morals (she had once married her uncle and was rumoured to sleep with her brother the king), Queen Berenice was the most beautiful woman in the world.

"Helena Justina!"

My teeth ground on a fragment of lobster shell. Having pocketed a queen for himself, he need not have encroached so keenly on my personal naiad. I could tell he had impressed her by the quiet way she asked him, "You want to talk to Falco, sir; shall I withdraw?"

A pang of panic caught me when I thought that she might, but he waved us both rapidly into the room.

"No please; this concerns you too."

We were in a chamber twenty-foot-high where painted figures from mythology leapt lightly about fantastic panels beneath arbours of intricate flowers. Every conceivable surface was lacquered with gold leaf. I blinked.

"Sorry about the dazzle," Titus smiled. "Nero's obscene idea of good taste. My poor father is in a quandary, as you can imagine, whether to put up with it or commit funds to building yet another new Palace on the site."

I envied them the problem of whether to keep the Palace they already owned, or buy a new one.

Titus carried on gravely. "Some of the rooms are so disgusting we have had to seal them up. With a complex that sprawls across three of the Seven Hills we are still hard put to find modest family accommodation, let alone a really functional public suite. Still, more urgent projects first' I had not come here to bandy taste in decor but he changed pace, indicating business, so I relaxed. "My father has asked me to see you informally, because a public audience might be dangerous. Your news about the stolen ingots being stripped of their silver has been hinted to the Praetorians. They seemed interested to hear it, loyal as they are!" He was ironic without appearing cynical.

It still leaves the conspirators at large I replied.

"Let me bring you up to date. This morning we arrested Atius Pertinax Marcellus. The evidence was thin, but we must find out who else is involved. So…" He hesitated.

The Mamertine Jail?" I asked. The political cells?"

Princes had died in them; the cells were notorious. Helena Justina drew a sharp breath. Titus told her, almost without apology, "Not for long. He had a visitor quite against the rules don't yet know who. Half an hour later the prison guards found him strangled."

"Oh no!"

He sprang this news of her husband's death quite casually; Helena Justina was visibly moved. So was I. I had promised myself the pleasure of dealing with Pertinax. It seemed typical that he chose the kind of associates who robbed me of the chance.

"Helena Justina, did you and Pertinax remain on good terms?"

"No terms at all." Her answer was steady.

He stared at her thoughtfully: "Are you mentioned in his will?"

"No. He was generous when we divided our property, then he made a new will."

"You discussed that?"

"No. But my uncle was one of the witnesses."

"Have you spoken to Atius Pertinax since your return from abroad?"

"No."

Then will you tell me," Titus Caesar requested coolly, "why you went to his house today?"

The Emperor's son was landing the kind of shocks I like to use myself. He had slid from pleasantries into inquisition in one seamless move. Helena answered him in her calm, positive way, though this turn of events plainly caught her unprepared.