The formal meal was to be held in the afternoon, from the ninth hour onwards, in Verecundus’s largest reception room. This was a very grand, sprawling room that occupied almost the full length of one side of the atrium - ‘a veritable basilica’, Karus said. Brigonius got there late, but not as late as the Emperor himself, who was out hunting boar.

Brigonius found the room crowded. People lay on couches or strolled with a certain false casualness. The men were as carefully groomed as the women, their faces shaved and their eyebrows plucked. The women wore clothes in an explosion of rich colours, and the men’s togas were crisp and shone white. Music played, slaves circulated with trays of food and drink, musicians played lutes and Catuvellaunian pipes, and the conversation bubbled prettily. Oddly, much of the talk seemed to be in Greek. But there was tension under the politeness, and people watched each other with sharp eyes. They were like a flock of hungry birds, Brigonius thought.

And one or two guests were already the worse for wear. One fat, sweating man was rather obviously sliding his hand up the thigh of any slave who passed him, male or female. Brigonius wondered if the Emperor’s lateness was a deliberate ploy, so that drink or gluttony could weed out the less worthy of his petitioners.

When Brigonius joined the party Severa’s companions were already all here, Severa herself and her daughter, lawyer Karus and the architect Xander, with his model set out on a low table and covered with a sheet. Lepidina seemed cool, composed.

Brigonius sat down, trying to avoid everybody’s eyes. He had washed and changed since his tryst with Lepidina, but he was sure the smell of their love must still linger on him.

Sure enough, Karus leaned over. ‘Congratulations,’ he whispered, slightly drunk.

Brigonius cursed. ‘Is it that obvious?’

‘Your sheer animal joy is, yes. I congratulate you; she is truly lovely. But have no fear, I won’t take her from you, though of course I could. I told you, I only have eyes for the mother ...’

Severa’s gaze glittered, and she seemed secretly amused. Severa knew, of course; if Karus had detected it she would have. And Lepidina knew that she knew.

As for Brigonius, all he knew was that he was far out of his depth with these complicated women and their games. But Lepidina was worth it.

And beneath all this there was something oceanic in his mood. What he felt for Lepidina was not mere lust, had not been since the moment he met her. There was tenderness too. And now, after their hour together in the morning, was that tenderness becoming love? How vulnerable would he become then to Severa’s machinations?