I assumed ‘going to the country’ was the way Myla’s previous offspring were removed. Some fathers do not mind their slave-born by-blows skipping around the house; others prefer to shed them. Aviola must have taken that view – or else he had it taken for him by his insensitive, unwelcoming, ‘legitimate’ family.

Country farms must be stuffed from oil-press to pigpen with inconvenient characters who have been dumped out of the way in infancy. No wonder they grow up believing they have been robbed of glittering inheritances by devious townies, so they start angrily cutting off each other’s legs with scythes and running over rivals with muddy onion carts (look up any legal textbook and you will find copious agricultural casework).

My late husband grew up on a farm, and assured me this is a true picture. My father has a whole cohort of peculiar country relatives whose lives are one unbelievable feud after another.

Graecina’s little boy and girl had gone with Galla’s maids temporarily, while their mother recovered from her fright. Graecina herself seemed not as badly hurt as had been at first thought, though she was shaken. Her resilience was at a low ebb because she was already grieving.

The attack could have been much worse. The water hurled at her had not been dangerously hot. Myla was a reluctant domestic and she was always letting the fire die down or pots go off the boil. So most of Graecina’s skin damage appeared to be on the surface, swelling and redness rather than deep blisters. The apothecary had applied a soothing lotion; he told her to keep the affected area in the air if possible and to rest for three days. No mother of infants can do that, which was why Galla Simplicia had insisted Graecina was relieved of the children at least for the rest of today.

Graecina was agitated because the apothecary removed her wedding ring in case it stuck. She was fretting in case she lost it. Clucking kindly, Fauna untied a hair ribbon, looping it through the precious object and hanging it around Graecina’s neck. The invalid’s anxiety subsided enough for her to sit with us quietly. Much of the time she hardly spoke. I wondered if she had been given a drug to dull the pain. But even when she seemed ready to nod off, she listened. I thought she was anxious about something.

We all slumped, relaxing: four women from very different backgrounds, drawn together by a series of tragedies. None of us wanted to sit in an atrium weaving. None of us felt like tidying our jewellery boxes or writing overdue letters to our aunts. Instead, Galla Simplicia made a declaration that would give traditional Roman men a fit, though it was very pleasing to us, brazen women all:

‘Well, girls, I don’t know how the rest of you are feeling − but I need a drink!’

48

I was starting to like her.