"Is she yours?" Helena asked me in a guarded tone.

It was my own affair if I let myself be used as a morning nursery school, so I just said, "No."

That was rude, even for me, so I condescended to add, "My niece." Marcia was the child my brother Festus never knew about.

"She's difficult because you spoil her," Helena commented.

I told her somebody had to; she seemed satisfied with that.

Marcia began to examine Helena's earrings, which had blue glass beads hung on gold links. If she pulled the beads off she would eat them before I could reach across the table and grab them back. Fortunately they seemed well-soldered together and firmly hooked onto her ladyship's delicate ears. I myself would have gone for the ears, which lay close to her head and were pleading to be nibbled. Helena looked as if she guessed what I was thinking. Rather stiffly I enquired what I could do for her.

"Falco, my parents are dining tonight at the Palace; you're wanted there too."

Trough with Vespasian?" I was outraged. "Certainly not; I'm a strict republican!"

"Oh Didius Falco, don't make such a fuss!" Helena snapped.

Marcia stopped blowing bubbles.

"Keep still!" I instructed as she suddenly rolled about, chortling with exaggerated glee; the child was as heavy and ungainly as a calf. "Look, give her back; I can't talk to you while I'm worrying"

Helena gripped her, sat her upright, dried her face again (identifying for herself the cloth I kept for this task) while competently straightening her earrings as she continued to do business with me. "She's no trouble. There's no need to talk; Falco, you talk too much."

"My papa's an auctioneer."

"I can believe that! Just stop worrying." I sealed my lips in a bitter line. For a moment she seemed to have finished, then she confessed, "Falco, I've tried to see Pertinax." I said nothing, since what I would have said was unfit for her respectable shell-like ears. The spectre of another girl in white, lying still at my feet, was strangling me. "I went to the house. I suppose I wanted to confront him. He was not there"

"Helena I protested.

"I know; I should never have gone," she muttered swiftly.

"Lady, never walk in alone on a man to inform him he's a criminal! He knows that. He's likely to prove it by coming at you with the first weapon to hand. Did you tell anybody where you were going?"

"He was my husband; I wasn't afraid"

"You should have been!"

Quite suddenly her tone melted: "And now you are afraid for me! Truly, I'm sorry." A sick shiver ran round me under my belt. "I wanted to take you"

"I would have come."

"Provided I asked you properly?" she teased.

If I see you in that kind of trouble," I said tersely, "you won't have to ask."

Her eyes widened, with a look of surprise and shock.

I drank my milk.

I was settling down again. Marcia lolled her tousled head against Helena's handsome bosom, watching us. I watched the child well that was my excuse as Helena cajoled me, "Will you come tonight? It's a free dinner, Falco! One of your employers has rushed from abroad to meet you. You know you're too inquisitive to let that pass."

"Employers plural!"

She said there were two possibly three, though probably not. I tried suggesting two meant double rates but she retorted: "Your rates are what my father agreed! Wear a toga; bring your dinner napkin. You might consider investing in a shave. And please, Falco, try not to embarrass me..."

"No need, lady you embarrass yourself. Give me back my niece!" I snarled venomously; so at last she did.

When she had gone, Marcia and I walked onto the balcony hand in hand. We hauled out the hot-wine waiter, who had been snoring in a loincloth on a pallet, and waited in his foul fug until Helena Justina emerged into the street. We watched her climb aboard her chair, her head far below like a shining teakwood knob amidst a foam of snowy veils. She did not look up; I was sorry about that.

"That lady's lovely!" decided Marcia, who normally liked men. (I encouraged that condition, on the premise that if she liked men when she was three she would grow out of it and leave me a lot less to worry about by the time she was thirteen.) "That lady has never been lovely to me!" I growled.

Marcia gave me a sideways look that was surprisingly mature.

"Oh Didius Falco, don't make such a fuss!"

I went to visit Pertinax myself. Everything I had told Helena was true; it was a stupid thing to do. Luckily the bullying lout was still not at home.

XLI.

As chance would have it, I met Petro the next day. He whistled, then held me gently at arms' length.

"Whew! Where are you off to, dazzler?"

In honour of dining with the lord of the civilized world, I was in my best tunic, buffed up in the laundry until all the old wine stains were almost invisible. I wore sandals (polished), a new belt (pungent), and my Great Uncle Scare's obsidian signet ring. I had spent all afternoon at the baths and the barber's, not merely exchanging the news (though I had done that too, until my head spun). My hair was shorn so I felt as light-hearted as a lamb. Petronius inhaled the unusual wafts of bathing oil, shaving lotion, skin-relaxant and hair pomade amongst which I was making my fragrant way, then with one careful finger he lifted two pleats of my toga a quarter of an inch along my left shoulder, pretending to improve on the sartorial effect. This toga originally belonged to my brother, who like a good soldier reckoned to equip himself with everything of the best, whether he needed it or not. I was sweating under the weight of the wool, and my own embarrassment.

I said, lest my sceptical crony should deduce something incorrect, "Just taking a rancid old vinegar pot to a party at the Palace."

He looked shocked. "Night assignments? Watch yourself, blossom! This could lead to trouble for a good-looking boy!"

I had no time to argue. I had spent so long at the barber's, I was already late.

The porter at the Camillus house refused to recognize me; I nearly had to thump him, ruining my good mood and neat attire. The senator and Julia Justa had already left. Fortunately Helena was waiting for me quietly in the hall, so she came out in response to the kerfuffle, already aboard her chair. She ran an eye over me through the window, but it was not until we reached the Palatine that I had a proper chance to inspect her in return.

She gave me quite a shock.

I suppose money makes its point. As soon as I handed her out, wreathed in her ladylike mantle with a half-veil demurely tucked from ear to ear, I started to get that sense of unease when someone you know is so dressed up they seem to be a stranger. Unwrapped, I found her mother's miserable maids had really done their duty by the daughter of the house. Once they worked her over with the manicure prodders and eyebrow tweezers, curling tongs and earwax scoops, left her fermenting all afternoon in a mealy flour face mask, then finished her off with a delicate sponging of red ochre across the cheekbones and a fine gleam of antimony above the eyes, Helena Justina was bound to be presentable enough, even to me. In fact she looked burnished from the glint of the filigree tiara clipped around her elaborate hair to the beaded slippers sparkling through the flounce at the hem of her gown. She was bare armed in sea-green silk. The effect was of a cool, tall, distinctly superior naiad.

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.

"I had some idea, sir, knowing him, that I would face him with what we believed. His people told me he was not there"

"No." In the Mamertine; already dead. Titus looked slyly at me. "So why did you go, Falco?"

"Stepping in, in case her man should turn uncouth."

At that he smiled, then turned back to Helena; she had whisked towards me with a jerk of her head so the beaten gold disks on her antique earrings trembled in a slight shower of rustling sound. Ignoring her reproach, I prepared to intervene if Titus overstepped the mark.

The Pertinax will has a codicil," he announced. "Written only yesterday, with new witnesses. It demands an explanation."

"I know nothing about it," Helena stated. Her face became tense.

Ts this necessary, Caesar?" I interrupted lightly. His jaw set but I persisted. "Excuse me, sir. A woman summoned to the law courts expects a friend to speak for her."