Give that man every honour: I never saw him flinch.

Nobody would want the tasks Tiberius undertook for me. There was probably no one else on earth I would have trusted. He did whatever had to be done. He made no fuss. He worked fast. Called the Mythembal woman to bring him warm water, which luckily she always had. He could have asked her to help, but I know he did not. She stayed outside the door.

‘I’m dying, aedile.’

‘We’ll see. Hold on, hold on for me.’

He stood me up. Cleaned me down. Used the sponge as gently as he could, but thoroughly, absolutely everywhere.

When that was done, he walked me to the reading couch. That was just somewhere to prop me while he stripped off his own tunic. The undertunic came off as well, so for one strange moment we were both stark naked. I knew why, when he dropped the second garment over me; it was much softer material and warm from his body. I was shaking with cold and my skin could hardly bear touching. Any time nowadays that I want to define bliss, I call up that moment, being enveloped in softness, in comfort, in human warmth.

From him, I simply accepted everything. He lifted me over his shoulder, then carried me bodily upstairs to my own apartment. He had never been there with me. Rodan must have shown him today, and opened the door for him. Faustus must have come looking for me when I never appeared at the Stargazer. Who knows how he realised that I must be in trouble?

He put me to bed. Kept me warm. Rehydrated me. Watched all afternoon and all night. I grew worse after dark; for hours I was delirious, soothed only when he cooled me with wet cloths. He slept in a chair by lamplight, when he felt he could risk sleep. The next day while I was sleeping myself, he went down and cleaned the room or arranged for it to be done; maybe he gave Mythembal’s wife money. He somehow acquired broth and when I woke, warmed it and spooned it into me. When I was sick again, he cleaned up uncomplainingly.

I told him to leave, to go to his own life. He stayed, as I still hovered between life and death. He dragged, cajoled me, enticed me back to life.

He must have had help. People provided things. A cook with a delicate touch made those broths that appeared each day. Laundry came and went. I thought I heard Rodan’s voice, and Dromo’s, at the front door. They never crossed the threshold. No one was admitted to my rooms. That was a subtle respect for the privacy that Tiberius knew I guarded closely.

At length I was stable; I saw him relax.

Still he looked after me himself.

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘Friendship.’