“She’s going to know you better than anybody else. Or go see your sister in Texas.”

“Florida.”

“Wherever. Spoil your nephews a little.” She snapped her fingers. “Why don’t you follow up this business of your missing sister?” I’d told her about that. “A little mystery to solve to occupy that analytical brain of yours—and nice deep family connections to soothe your heart . . .”

I felt uncomfortable. “There’s probably nothing. Maybe she was adopted.”

“Why would that have happened?”

“Or maybe she died,” I said brutally. “And they wanted to spare me.”

“Well, even if so,” she said gently, “you surely want to know.”

“I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“Ask your sister in Florida,” she said. “She’s, what, ten years older? She ought to know something. And if this kid was three or four in the photo, maybe she’ll have been to school somewhere. A prep school maybe.”

“But which one?”

“I’d start with the one your older sister went to. Du-uh.” She rattled her fingernails on the table. “Come on, George, snap out of it; get that brain working again.”

“But it’s all a mess, Viv. Christ, families. They all lied to me throughout my life. Even Gina!”

“Unresolved issues,” she said. “So resolve them. Reconnect with the past.” There was an edge to her voice now. You’ve had as much sympathy from the world as you’re going to get, George; stop whining.

“You know, that’s pretty much what Peter said. That I should ‘reclaim the past.’ “

She frowned. “Who’s Peter?”

At that moment I found myself looking at the TV carrying the news channel. The pretty newsreader had gone, but the image of the Kuiper Anomaly remained. And there, beside it, was a chunky, high-browed face, talking rapidly. It was Peter McLachlan.

I pointed. “Him,” I said.

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Regina, her hand firmly clasped by Cartumandua, was allowed to attend the anointing of her father’s body.

Jovian touched the dead man’s eyes, formally closing them. Jovian was her uncle, her father’s brother, from Durnovaria. He was a big, doleful man, a bronze worker, with big hands scarred by splashes of liquid metal, and he wore a Phrygian cap, just as her father had done. As the body was washed and anointed, Jovian stood over it, singing a soft Latin lament. The air was filled with powerful scents, like very strong perfume. But Regina knew that somebody had already cleaned up her father’s body, for there was not a trace of all the blood she had seen before.

When the cleansing was done, Marcus was dressed in his toga. It took several men to lift him as the woolen sheet was draped over him, for his body was stiff, his limbs like bits of wood.

After that the funerary procession formed up. Eight men carried Marcus on a kind of litter. Musicians went before him. They played double pipes and a cornu, a kind of curved trumpet with a sweet, sad voice. Everybody else, including Regina, had to follow on behind. Lit up by candles and lanterns, the procession filed out of the grounds of the villa and over a hardened track through the fields.