I gave in. To be honest I was glad. He must have come straight from the Curia, so was still togaed up. It never does any harm to take a senator, with his full purple banding, when you venture into the offices of armed men who despise women. Besides, despite his snooty rank and mild demeanour, my uncle kept in shape; he always made handy back-up.

He had a couple of bodyguards following him about discreetly too. Because of the case, I took more notice of them than usual. They were his usual lost lambs – ex-legionaries who had been invalided out of the army, one with a paralysed arm, one who hadn’t actually lost an eye but might as well have done, he was so short-sighted – and he really did have an ear torn off, probably not in battle. This was typical of Uncle Quintus. His career posting as a military tribune had left him feeling responsibility towards the Empire’s damaged soldiers. He had felt sorry for my late husband in the same way.

Would these two squaddies, with not a whole set of limbs between them, be good enough protection today? Quintus probably had innocent faith in them, but I would avoid anywhere we might be mugged.

I was not accompanied by Dromo. He had been asleep with his mouth wide open and I had tiptoed past him.

Good work – until I ran into my uncle.

As we set off walking, I admitted that ‘winsome’ Myla was a lazy, lactating lump on whom Uncle Quintus would not want to waste his skills.

I also admitted I was going to see Titianus. My uncle declared the Second Cohort were donkey dung (which I told him was normal for the vigiles), and corrupt (which we agreed we also expected), and even more undermanned than the other cohorts – which last point showed Quintus Camillus Justinus in his true light. He had carried out useful research before he turned up.

Of course he was good. My father trained him.

The station house of the Second Cohort had been built down the highway from the Esquiline Gate. It was most fragrantly situated between the large Pallantian Garden, created by a freedman of the Emperor Claudius, and the even more elaborate, statue-crammed, water-featured, gazeboed and porticoed Gardens of Lamia and Maiana, with the Gardens of Maecenas adjacent, containing a fancy auditorium where my father in a misguided moment once held a public poetry reading. This area was a topiary seller’s dream. Lopsided sea monsters and one-winged phoenixes, clipped in laurel and box, watched your every move. In June you couldn’t breathe for poplar fluff. The vigiles were beset by elegant recreational facilities – which I bet they never even noticed. More importantly for their work as firefighters, they had easy access to aqueducts.