He had a face like a root vegetable at the end of a hard winter. His humanity was just as shrivelled. The man was a plebeian, no doubt of it. That meant he came from the same rootstock as my father or Manlius Faustus. Their ancestors used their wits to build up businesses – warehouses and auctioneering. These were businesses where they could keep their hands fairly clean while generating filthy lucre from the uppercrust who sneered at them for being in trade – all of whom, it is fair to say, were themselves as bent as a discarded nail.

Fundanus had stuck at the filthy end of society, in a profession where everybody hated what he did. He had a stroppy attitude, and clearly enjoyed being awkward.

It is perfectly possible even Fundanus thought his job was a boil on the world’s bum. Still, he put up with it, never thinking of retraining in some more pleasant area – say, as a tunic-maker, a poet, or in the pastry trade. The man was overweight, under-endowed with muscle or brains, and outclassed by every sewer-rat who ever poked his nose out of a drain.

I noticed that his warts looked as if they had been infected with putrefaction from a long-time dead body. I told myself not to be squeamish, then told him my connection with the Aviola slaves.

Fundanus explained his own interest, a man who liked to hold forth. Yes, he was a funeral director, but he had a lucrative sideline in punishing and executing slaves.

‘This is for private customers?’ I asked.

‘Can be. Someone has a slave who needs keeping in order, kindly chastisement, we can supply the necessary.’

‘What would that be?’

‘Posts, chains, ropes. Floggers too – my operatives can work with the cross or the fork.’ I did not need to ask; the slave victims would be either nailed to a wooden cross or hung on a very ancient device called the fork. Then they would be flogged to as near death as their owner chose – or actually until they died. They were property. An owner could dispose of his slave; killing them was frowned upon nowadays, but theoretically it could still happen. ‘We make one charge, applies across the board − four sesterces each man, whether for a fork operative, a flogger, or an executioner.’

‘That’s fair.’

‘I don’t muck about,’ claimed Fundanus smugly. ‘Of course on a public contract, different rates apply. A magistrate gives the orders, we supply crosses as standard, plus free nails, pitch, wax, tapers, anything else required. All covered by our retainer. Copy of the rules hung in the premises.’ He gestured to it.

I admired his certificate and said I was glad to see a public role being properly administered. ‘This is not an area where sloppiness can be tolerated.’