‘I have to disappoint you, sweetheart. That was not a contract, but a sale into slavery. Your people knew it too. Trust me, they understood perfectly what they were doing. When you ran away from Mucia Lucilia and came back to them, your relatives must have been terrified they would be accused of harbouring a fugitive slave, which is theft. For foreigners in Rome, that would be serious. No wonder they hauled you back to Mucia. In fact,’ I kept my voice grim, ‘in running away, you were a thief yourself, Olympe. The law says, you deprived your mistress of her property – I mean, you. Of all the people being held here, yours is the worst position. I may be able to extricate the rest, but a slave who is a known thief is almost impossible to save.’

‘I just want to go home!’

‘Poppet, you never will. Concentrate on ways to stay alive.’

Olympe quivered nervously, a petite, pretty lyre-player who had been betrayed by her family and could not accept that the world was so horrid. Now she was all puppy fat and panic. I knew men who would want to wrap their arms around this poor palpitating bundle, kiss her better and set her scurrying free into the world (well, after they had their way with her). Sadly for her, her fate lay in my hands instead.

I set aside my notes. I looked friendly – as friendly as a weasel, though not many of those can ever have strayed into the campfire light of the Lusitanian band. ‘Let’s have a talk, shall we, Olympe? See what I can do.’

‘What do you want to know, Albia?’ she replied, full of gratitude. I might have felt bad about cheating her, had I not been feeling seedy.

I shrugged. I was easy. She cheered up. She couldn’t see danger. ‘Not a lot left,’ I told her. ‘I do know it was Cosmus who did those awful things that night at the apartment.’

Olympe nodded. If I had realised before how naïve she was, I might have saved a lot of time. You don’t allow for anybody else being so completely daft. And this child played the flute and lyre, which demanded a degree of confidence …

‘So what did you all think,’ I asked, ‘when Cosmus started shouting?’

‘We were having our dinner—’

‘That was in the handsome room, the oecus?’

‘Yes. Cosmus must have come downstairs, like he often did, and he’d gone to see Myla. She was in the kitchen.’

‘Did Nicostratus let him in?’

‘Yes, Nicostratus was always getting into trouble with Polycarpus over it. Cosmus was supposed to stay in their apartment, except when he was collecting water, which he did in the mornings.’

‘But he kept coming back?’

‘He kept coming to see Myla. And of course she let him.’

‘That was because …’ I answered it myself: ‘Myla was his mother.’