T'd say I don't like him but I say that about them all."

I grinned. "Thank you! Look," I cajoled frankly, "what's the word on an ingot of government lead? This is unofficially official, if you understand what I mean." This was a lark. I didn't understand what I was saying myself.

He insisted he was under strict orders to say nothing. I chinked some coinage his way. Never fails.

"A drayman handed it in last week; turned up hoping for a reward. The magistrate himself came down to look. The drayman lives..." (Another magic chink.) Tn a river booth on the Transtiberina bank, at the sign of the Turbot, near the Sulpician Bridge..."

I found the booth, but not the drayman. Three days after his horse stumbled over the silver pig in the dark, he was dredged out of the Tiber by two men fishing from a raft. They took him to Tiber Island, the medical hospice at the Temple of Aesculapius. Most of their patients die. It didn't worry the drayman; he was already dead.

Before leaving the island I leaned on the parapet of the old Fabrician Bridge and did some hard thinking. Someone approached in that all too casual way, the way that is never casual at all.

"You Falco?"

"Who wants to know, princess?"

"My name's Astia. You asking about the man who was drowned?"

I guessed Astia was the drayman's floosie. She was a thin, bleached waterfront shrimp with a tired, hard waterfront face. Best to know where you are: "You his woman?" I asked her straight out.

Astia laughed bitterly. "Not any longer! You with the Praetorians?" she spat at me.

I played down my astonishment. "Life's too short!" I waited after that. It was the only thing to do, since I had no idea what I was waiting for. She seemed to consider whether I could be trusted, then after a moment, out it spilled.

"They came here afterwards. They didn't care about him, they only wanted information."

Tell them anything?"

"What do you think! He was good to me when he had any money... I went to the Temple; I buried him myself. Falco, he may have been found in the river, but I know he didn't drown. They told me at the Temple he must have tipped in when he was drunk. But when he was drunk that was probably quite often, but I had more tact than to ask "he used to lie down in the cart and let the horse walk him home."

"Anyone find the cart?"

"Left in the Cattle Market Forum, minus the horse." "Hmm. What did the Guards want, princess?" "He had found something valuable. He wouldn't tell me what, but it frightened him. He handed it in at the nearest lockup instead of selling it himself. The Guards knew he found it. They didn't know what he had done with it." So it was not the Guards who snatched young Sosia. Unlikely anyway; she would not have escaped so easily she might never have escaped at all.

"I'll have to speak to them. Any chance of a name?" Astia knew very little. Their captain, she told me, was called Julius Frontinus. As a member of an elite regiment, he undoubtedly possessed the full three names of a substantial man, but two were enough for me to pin him down. For the first time in my life I volunteered to face an interview with the Emperor's Praetorian Guards.

XV.

The Praetorian Camp was on the far side of the city. I walked slowly. I was expecting when I got there to be crushed like an eggshell beneath a Guard's heavy boot...

I recognized Frontinus at once. He wore an enamelled breastplate and a great silver buckle on his belt, but he had once learned his alphabet sharing a stool under the primary school awning at the corner of our street, side by side with a curly haired rogue called Didius Festus. To Julius Frontinus, therefore, I was a national hero's baby brother and since he could no longer take Festus to a tavern and get him joyously drunk because Festus was dead in the desert in Judaea he took me.

It was a discreet, well-run winery, way out in the northeast corner of Rome, near the Viminal Gate, full of soldiers from the city regiments and very businesslike. There was no food. There were no women. There was every kind of liquor, warm and cold, spiced or straight, charged well over the odds, though I was not allowed to pay. On my own I would never have got a foot indoors. With Frontinus, no one gave me a second glance.

We sat among a group of tall, well-padded men who openly overheard but never spoke. Frontinus must have known them; they seemed to know whatever he was going to say. Getting him to say it took a while. When a man like that invites you out drinking it is understood that prior to business there must be ceremonial. Ours, in honour of me and as a pleasure for him, was to discuss heroes and their heroism until we were both maudlin drunk.

After we talked about Festus and before I passed out, I managed to ask some questions. Before Frontinus sent me home in a builder's waggon with a load of ridging tiles, he managed to answer them.

"Whyever did he do it?" Frontinus was still musing. "First up the town wall at Bethel, so first dead. Nothing to do for the rest of eternity but let his gravestone whiten in the desert sun. Lunatic!"

"Wanted to cash his deposit with the burial club. Couldn't bear losing all those stoppages from his pay. So, patriotic brother, Hail and Farewell!"

It was two years since Festus died, towards the end of Vespasian's Galilean campaign, though so much had happened in the city since then that it seemed much longer. Yet I could not believe he had gone. In some ways I never will. I am still waiting for a message to say Festus has landed back at Ostia so will I please bring him a waggon and some wine skins because he's run out of cash but has met some lads on the boat that he'd like to entertain... I shall probably be waiting for that message all my life.

It was good to say his name, but I had had enough. Perhaps it showed. I had drunk enough too, and may have given the impression I was likely to be sick. Despite this, Frontinus refilled our cups. Then he hunched up on the bench, obviously ready to talk.

"Falco - Falco, what's your given name?"

"Marcus," I admitted. Same as Festus, as Frontinus must have known.

"Marcus! Jupiter! I'll call you Falco. How are you knotted up in this, Falco?"

There's a reward for the silver pigs."

"Now, laddie, that's not on!" He became wonderfully paternal. This is political; leave it to the Guards! Festus would tell you, and as he's not here, you take it from me. Listen, I'll spell it out. After four new heads of state in less than twelve months, Vespasian makes a relaxing change, but some odd types are still after him. You know how it is they come sidling up when you're off duty, little men with something big to sell"

"Silver pigs!" Everything fell into place. "Ex Argentiis Britanniae. Financing a political plot! Who's behind this?"

That's what the Guards want to know," Frontinus told me grimly.

I sensed a movement in the men around him. I said carefully, not looking at any of them, "Loyalty to the Emperor!"

"If you like..." Julius Frontinus laughed.

They pride themselves on loyalty. In their time the Praetorians have physically hoiked new Emperors onto the throne. They crowned Claudius that way, and in the Year of the Four Emperors even a barbered booby like Otho could snatch the Empire once he swung Praetorian support. To buy them would take a private mint. But someone had braved the British weather to arrange just that.

"When they approached me," Frontinus said, "I asked for proof. Stalling for time. They turned up two days afterwards with a hall marked bar. My troopers were tracking the weevils back to their biscuit when they scarpered and dropped the loot." Having tried to lift it, I could see why! "We lost them, and when we went back we had lost the bar too. Once we put spies into the waterfront drinking holes we soon heard of a drayman who was boasting he had found something that would win him a golden thank you from the Emperor himself. Someone less gentle than the Guards obviously heard of him too."

He gave me a heavy stare. There was a cold, wet patch on my under tunic against the hollow of my chest. It had nothing to do with the drink.

"Vespasian's no fool, Falco. He may have jumped up from nothing, but he did it on clever judgement and guts. We reckoned he must be onto this. And now here you are! You informing for the Palace, sunshine? You on some special payroll to cover Vespasian if the Guards let him down?"

"Not as far as I know, Julius..."

I was beginning to realize just how much I didn't know.

XVI.

I went back to see the senator next day. After my party with Frontinus it was an afternoon call; let's omit details of my morning. Most of it was spent in bed, though there were spasms of painful activity from time to time. When I arrived at his house the senator had mild indigestion after lunch. I had severe indigestion, though I had not been able to face lunch.

I stormed in. He was beginning to judge my moods by the suddenness of my arrival in his sanctuary. Today I popped up like a playwright's villain, cackling with malice which I was eager to share with an audience. Camillus Verus had the goodness to set aside his paperwork and let me spout my colourful spume.

"No silver bars, but I stubbed my toe on quite a plot! You lied to me, sir; more lies than a sick whore at the Temple of Isis, to much less good purpose, but just as expertly told!"

"Falco! Can I explain?"

No, he owed me a rant at least. My violent excitement held him mesmerized.

"Spare me, senator! I don't touch political work; I don't rate the risk. My mother gave one son to Vespasian in Galilee: I'm her only survivor, and surviving suits me fine!"

He looked tetchy. He considered I was belittling the political aspects. Since I considered he was, we were draughts men in stalemate.

"You'll see Vespasian assassinated? Oh Falco! Plunge the country back into civil war? Ruin the Empire? More fighting, more uncertainty, more Roman blood spilt on Roman streets?"

"People are paid heavy salaries to protect the Emperor," I rasped. "I'm paid with lies and promises!" Suddenly I lost patience. There was no future for me here. They had deceived me; they had tried to use me. Cleverer men than this had mistaken me for a country clown in a farce; cleverer men had discovered the mistake. More quietly, I brought the ridiculous piece of theatre to an end.

"Vespasian doesn't like informers; I don't like Emperors. I thought I liked you, but any poor sprat out of his depth can make a mistake! Good day, sir."

I stormed out again. He let me go. I had noticed before, Decimus Camillus Verus was a shrewd man.

I was striding angrily across the hall with its spluttery fountain when I heard a hiss.

"Falco!" It was Sosia. "Come into the garden; come and talk!"

It would have been incorrect to gossip with the young lady of the house even if I had remained in her uncle's employ. I try not to upset senators by meddling with their wards in their own front halls where the servants see everything that goes on. If I spoke to Sosia at all which I must do now, since her noble personage had spoken to me any chat must be quick. And we should stay in the hall.

I scuffed the marble floor tiles with my heel.

"Oh Didius Falco, please!"

From sheer spite I followed her.

She led me to an internal courtyard I had not seen before. Glaring white stonework fought the cold black-green of clipped cypress trees. There were cooing doves and a bigger fountain which worked. A peacock screeched behind one of the lichen covered urns, which were planted with stately white lilies. It was a cool, pretty, quiet place, but I refused to sink into the shade under the pergola and be soothed. Sosia sat; I faced her, on my feet, with my arms folded. In some ways this was just as well; however much I was tempted to slide an arm around her, I had denied myself the chance.

She was wearing a red dress hemmed with damson braid. It emphasized the paleness of her skin beneath the artificial colours she applied. Leaning towards me with a pinched and troubled face, she was for a moment a wan little creature. She seemed apologetic on behalf of her family, though as she tried to win me over she became more earnest than I had ever seen her. Somebody at sometime had taught her how to stand her ground.

"I overheard. Falco, you can't let Vespasian be murdered; he's going to be a good Emperor!"

"I doubt it," I said.

"He's not cruel; he's not mad. He leads a simple life. He works hard. He's old, but he has a gifted son This came out with spirit; she believed it, though I knew such a theory could not originate with her. I was surprised to find the Emperor could claim such support, for he lacked all the traditional advantages. None of Vespasian's family had ever held high office. I did not blame him for that; neither had any of mine.

"Who stuffed you with this horsehair?" I raged.

"Helena."

Helena. The cousin she had mentioned. The senator's daughter, the one some poor sap of a husband with a great deal of luck had managed to divorce.

"I see... So what's she like, this Helena of yours?"

"She's wonderful!" Sosia exclaimed at once, but then she decided with equal certainty, "You wouldn't like her much."

"Why's that?" I laughed.

She shrugged. I had never met her cousin, yet my instinct had been to resent the woman ever since Sosia first tried to use her name as a disguise when she would not trust me. In fact my only real grudge against Helena was that I could see she wielded considerable influence over Sosia Camillina. I preferred to influence Sosia myself. I reckoned Sosia was wrong anyway. I normally liked women. But if this Helena felt protective towards her younger relative, as I gathered she did, the chances were that she would not like me.

"I write to her," Sosia explained, as if she read my thoughts.

I said nothing. I was leaving. There was no longer anything to say. I stood, half aware of the clean scents of summer flowers and the lazy warmth beating off the stones.

"I tell Helena everything."

I stared at her more kindly, smitten with unease. It is an odd fact, you feel more ashamed when you have nothing to answer for than when you are disguising some brazen act of scandal.

Since I was still silent, Sosia continued to talk. It was her one annoying habit; she never could sit quiet.

"You're really going away? I won't see you again? There's something I want to say. Marcus Didius Falco, I've been wondering for days how to"

She had used my formal name. No one ever did that. Her respectful tone was more than I could bear. I had stumbled into a real emergency. My anger fled.

"Don't!" I exclaimed urgently. "Sosia, believe me, when you need to spend days composing your script, the reason is it's best to say nothing at all!"

She hesitated.

"You don't know"

I was a spare-time poet; there were many things I would never know, but I recognized this. "Oh Sosia - I know!"

For one fantastic moment I flashed into a dream where I took Sosia Camillina into my life. I flashed back. Only a fool tries to step across the barriers of rank in that way. A man may buy himself into the middle class, or have the gold ring donated to him for services to the Emperor (especially if the services are of a dubious kind), but so long as her father and her uncle knew what they were about and her uncle must, he was a millionaire then even with that queer problem of having no mother to name, Sosia Camillina would be disposed of in some way to enhance her own position and their family bank account. Our two lives could never converge. At heart she understood, for despite her brave attempt she stared at her toes in their knotted gold sandals, biting her lip but accepting what I said.

"If I need you she began in a subdued tone.

I replied briskly, for my own sake. "You won't. In your sweet, sheltered life you have no need of anyone like me. And Sosia Camillina, I really don't need you!"

I left quickly so I should not see her face.

I walked home. Rome, my city, which had been until then a never failing solace, lay before me like a woman, secretive and beautiful, demanding and rewarding, eternally seductive. For the first time in my life, I refused to be seduced.

XVII.

I did see Sosia Camillina again. She asked me to meet her. Of course I went. I went as soon as I could.