Amaranta must have thought quickly – though not fast enough. ‘Myla.’

I laughed out loud. ‘Oh, come off it! Not only was she squeezing out another baby, foisted on her by who knows who, but the idea of Myla providing a meal for ten people is ludicrous. When I am there, I can barely get her to bring me a cup of water.’

The trio were silent.

I refused to accept their version. ‘No, Myla could not have produced your dinner.’

Libycus piped up. ‘It was not cooked food, just bits. We collected a few comports from the kitchen. The leftovers. Myla had scraped it together for us on serving dishes, that’s what Amaranta meant.’

‘Ah, a cold collage to mix and match …’ My favourite meal.

‘The master had never minded his slaves taking unwanted food,’ Libycus stressed, looking anxious.

‘I suppose, Libycus,’ I said encouragingly, ‘that was why you personally came home, after you went out and saw your two friends?’ He was eager to embrace the suggestion – and he was faking when he did so. Myrinus and Secundus had told me he was afraid to stay out longer, in case his master wanted something.

I was still thinking about how a group of slaves could take over the best space in the house and enjoy themselves there. How they did it, apparently, while terrible events happened right next door …

‘We were not doing any harm,’ Amaranta assured me, pleadingly. ‘The same thing used to happen in our old house, before Mucia Lucilia was married. She knew what went on. At our house, Onesimus used to arrange it, then he would be with us.’ I knew that Mucia’s steward was still a slave. ‘Just a meal, Albia. People have to eat.’

‘So you want me to accept that this nightly gathering was habitual?’ I was not intending to cave in too easily.

‘Well, some of us had only been at that apartment for two days.’

‘Yes, some of you came when Mucia Lucilia was married … So this kind of meal after hours was not yet a ritual for the conjoined households, but could have become one? You wait until your master and mistress retire for the night. Then you collect somewhere. Eat, drink a little too, if Amethystus can liberate a flagon from the household supplies. I imagine you would only be able to talk very quietly; no laughter, no music, no noisy tiffs.’ So very unlike dinner in most Roman families! ‘Passing bowls around in virtual silence. Not letting spoons knock on pottery. Putting things away and washing up afterwards extremely gently – but making sure you do it, so the mistress doesn’t take exception in the morning. Then you all went creeping off to bed, as if the house had never had its second life.’