‘My mistress was modest. I shut the doors for them. If the room became too airless, they could always be opened afterwards.’

Slave-owners barely climbed out of bed to pee in the pot. Their attendants put them to bed, where they generally stayed until the attendants got them up next morning. ‘Your master or mistress would call out for someone, if they wanted the doors to be opened?’

Amaranta had nodded before she saw the implication. ‘Libycus!’ She cheerily landed the master’s attendant in trouble. ‘He was supposed to stay within earshot, in case anything was wanted during the night.’

I dismissed her, and called in Libycus.

His black skin said he had been named for his country of origin, though he must have come here as a child or been born here because, like all the Aviola slaves, he was thoroughly Romanised.

Libycus had been as close to his master as Amaranta to her mistress, turning out Aviola smartly each day, having first listened to the man’s mental anxieties and washed his bodily crevices. He chose clothes. He acted as barber. He wielded the ear-wax scoop and toothpick, and applied pile ointment between the buttocks.

Yes, he was supposed to remain close, always on call. He, more than anybody else, should have been in a position to intervene when Aviola was attacked. He did not want to tell me why he had not done so. In the end, I squeezed it out of him.

‘I wasn’t there.’

‘Not nearby?’

‘Not in the house.’

‘What? Are you allowed to leave the house during the night?’

‘No.’

He hung his head while I absorbed this. Then Libycus mumbled his confession: thinking Aviola was unlikely to want anything, he had gone to one of the shops on the apartment’s street-side, where he sometimes met with friends. It was his last chance to socialise before he was taken to Campania for an indefinite period. He and two other men spent some time drinking, chatting and playing dice. When he came back, everything was over.

‘Did Nicostratus open the door for you to go out?’

‘Yes, he let me out, then he or Phaedrus was going to let me back in.’ Libycus pleaded, ‘I don’t suppose being somewhere else will get me off?’

‘You know the answer. Quite the opposite, Libycus. You had abandoned your master, against orders.’

I felt sorry for him. But the fact was, he was even more likely to be convicted than the others.

9

When I emerged into the courtyard, stiff limbed and boggle-eyed, I noticed that the slaves were being fettered and taken indoors, to stop them running away in the night.

Faustus was talking to Dromo. (No chance he might abscond.) I was so tired I lost my discretion and snapped, ‘Do you have a serious sinus condition, Manlius Faustus, so you can’t notice smells? Why don’t you send your messenger for a bath sometimes?’