‘Ah, that tricky situation! Almost certainly not understood by Aviola … I hope you were not expecting him to honour unspoken promises, Myla?’ She seemed silly enough.

‘Yes I was! I was going to be a freedwoman and then he would have married me. He was just waiting for the right time.’

‘Oh, Myla! And while he was waiting for this mythic moment, he happens to have married someone else?’ I did not believe Valerius Aviola ever made such a promise to Myla, or even hinted. I knew too much about the kind of women he chose as his wives; this slave was not what he wanted. Possibly Myla raised the issue and he avoided answering. Perhaps he answered bluntly but she would not listen. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. After so many years of you being a convenience, why had he never changed things before? Myla, you were fooling yourself.’

‘No! He said this baby would be born free.’

‘Did he really say that, or was it just what you wanted? I think you convinced yourself of something he never intended. If he had, he left the formalities dangerously late.’

A child follows the condition of its mother; when Myla gave birth as a slave, her daughter was a slave too. Many people take a lax attitude to this rule, but it is asking for legal problems in future. Of course many lawyers earn a good living from that. Informers too, frankly.

‘That was the wife, stopping him,’ Myla claimed. ‘The wife thought she had got rid of me, but she was wrong. I never would have gone away.’

‘I’m sorry, Myla, I think you would have done – but in any case you will be sold now.’

‘I won’t go!’

She was deluded. They had intended to sell her, and they would. If she refused to comply, force would be used. She would be dragged out, hysterical and screaming. Originally it was supposed to happen once Aviola and Mucia were safely travelling. Polycarpus would have organised her removal from the apartment, then a vicious slave-master at the market would have taught her the realities with a knotted whip.

‘How old are you, Myla?’

I could tell by her face that she was uncertain, but she said crisply, ‘Almost thirty.’

This was my own age; I had a year to go. The slaves who would soon be entitled to be given or to buy their freedom were at the same stage of life as me. I liked the ones who were determined to achieve something better, using their talents. Not this one.

All this woman had to show for her life was a string of children she could never see again and a man who, she really must know, had cared nothing for her. Myla might have been groomed to do his bidding when she was barely into puberty; she could have carried ten pregnancies by now, only to be dumped with a child at the breast.