‘Isn’t that your own game plan? And,’ she added earnestly, ‘is it true that your Prophecy speaks of freedom? Was this unknown seer, the Weaver of time’s tapestry, promising the liberation of the western provinces from Constantine’s oppression?’

Thalius recalled Cornelius, whose dream of freedom was the freedom to be a traditional Roman; for this British woman it was the freedom to be loose of the centre, to be British-Roman, not Roman. But surely these were fantasies imposed on tantalising phrases in a document that was, after all, lost.

‘I wouldn’t know about freedom,’ he said dryly. ‘Or the Weaver’s intentions. Even the name “Weaver” is only a word that has come down from my own ancestor, as it has to you, a fragment of speculation. We know nothing about him, or her, if he even exists.’

She leaned forward. ‘Well, now we understand each other, won’t you bring me your slave with the tattooed hide?’

Thalius was hugely reluctant. Ever since he had met Cornelius he felt he had been taking one step after another along a very dangerous path indeed. And yet what choice did he have about it, even now?

He turned to his housekeeper, and called for the boy.

IX

IX

Two days later in the afternoon, Thalius invited Cornelius and Aurelia to his townhouse in Camulodunum. Thalius had arranged for his triclinium, his dining room, to be stocked with food, wine and water, so they need not be disturbed by service. He insisted his guests leave their attendants outside; he sent them off to the kitchen where they would be fed and watered. And he strictly ordered his housekeeper to keep everybody out of the room until he, Thalius, gave instructions otherwise - and that was to include the housekeeper himself.

Cornelius mocked him. ‘Oh, Thalius! You are a conspirator after all!’

‘No, I am not,’ Thalius said coolly. ‘But this is an age of spies. I want nobody in the room with us who I don’t know and trust.’

Aurelia smiled coldly. ‘But you don’t know us - and if you trust us you are a fool.’

‘But we are already locked together in complicity,’ Thalius said. ‘You will not betray me for to do so would be to betray yourself. Enlightened self-interest - was that your phrase, madam?’

Cornelius said, ‘And the boy, the slave on whom the destiny of an empire pivots?’

‘I have sent him to the kitchen with Tarcho - and, incidentally, I have instructed Tarcho to guard the boy as he has guarded me these last eight years.’

Aurelia said, ‘Why have you invited us, Thalius? What do you want to achieve today? Have you thought it through that far?’

Cornelius rumbled, ‘I doubt if any of us has.’

Thalius said, ‘We appear to have a common interest. We may uncover a common goal. Let’s leave it at that for now.’