The grand old Temple of Claudius still stood, however, rising out of a sea of vacant lots, rotting houses, tatty public buildings and filth-strewn streets. As they passed the colonnade Thalius peered inside to see the great statue of the wily old fox, lit up by candles and lamps, his arm still raised in victory as it had been for three hundred years. But a small Christian chapel had been set up within this temple to a long-dead emperor, whose exploits had been forgotten by almost everybody who passed by this way.

Thalius was relieved to reach his own modest but well-maintained townhouse. He was too old for travelling, he thought, too old to be dealing with complicated and poisonous individuals like Ulpius Cornelius. At least within the walls of his house he could be in control of things for a while, and find some peace.

So he was dismayed to find he had a visitor, waiting for him in the living room. Sitting beneath his most expensive tapestry, a scene of a colonnaded courtyard under a bright Mediterranean sun, she was sipping watered-down wine served to her by the elderly freedman Thalius employed as a housekeeper.

She stood as Thalius approached. She was a woman of about sixty, Thalius judged, well-dressed and poised. Her cheekbones were high, her chin well-defined. Her complexion was dark, and she wore her grey-streaked black hair swept back from her face. She was unafraid of showing her age, then. She was immediately intimidating, with something of Ulpius Cornelius’s air of cold command.

And she was remarkably attractive. Despite her age, there was something sensual about her, even animal, and she seemed to use the fumes of her scents as a weapon to confuse him.

Thalius, still grimy from the road, felt inadequate in his own home. He was weakened by the helpless attraction he felt for her, which she must perceive, and had no doubt calculated to inspire. Suddenly his life had become even more complicated, he thought tiredly.

‘I think you know who I am, sir.’ Her voice was husky. ‘You must be Claudia Brigonia Aurelia. Your correspondence with Ulpius Cornelius—’

‘What a helpful man he is.’ She gazed at Audax, her eyes rheumy but bright. ‘And this must be the mysterious slave boy.’ She reached out a bony hand.

Audax cowered behind the massive form of Tarcho.

‘You’re frightening him.’

She looked puzzled. ‘Cornelius warned me about your sentimentality. You’re a Christian, aren’t you? A faith of soldiers and slaves, so they say.’

‘Madam, what is it you want here?’

‘Why, the same thing you do, I believe. To know the future.’ And she eyed the cringing boy as if wishing she could simply flay him and take his marked hide away with her.