As I glanced back, Claudia had taken over as nurse. I saw her stationed at her husband’s side, patient, brave, disposing herself to the will of the gods, not allowing herself to cry because that would be no help to anyone.

Uncle Quintus lay with his eyes closed. He showed few signs of being in our world. But I noticed that he moved his right hand and covered one of Claudia’s. She shed tears then, though silently and without moving a muscle, so as not to disturb him.

25

Claudia was clearly wrong to worry. I would not go wandering corridors that night, looking for the aedile.

I was a free woman. I was twenty-nine years old, so people had no obligation to tell my mother what I got up to. But in the homes of close relatives, you are never truly independent. If I was seen chasing a man around my uncles’ two houses at midnight, not only would both my parents hear about it (and my sisters, and my young brother), but the story would be retold to innumerable other relatives every Saturnalia for the next four decades …

I was twenty-nine, which is old enough to know when to follow their rules for a quiet life.

26

Well, all right, I did go. But not immediately.

My niece took an age going to sleep. After that night’s upset, the house took what seemed like hours to fall still and silent. Even then, to be frank, I spent more time than you may think in deciding that looking for the aedile was what I wanted to do, plus even more while I plucked up courage.

I only went because I was worried that if he came looking for me, he would waken little Aelia.

He too had decided we should liaise. His timing matched mine too. We met one another half way. It is true we had exchanged a glance when Claudia packed us off to our rooms, but there was no pre-arrangement. And we certainly made no bedroom assignation. Barefoot and each carrying a tiny lamp, Manlius Faustus and I came face to face in a colonnade beside a small garden, just this side of the link between the Camillus brothers’ two houses. Neither of us remarked on the other being there. No explanation was needed. He steered me to a bench beneath some fancy wickerwork, where we sat with our heads close, whispering.

Forget intrigue. For heaven’s sake. If he was weary before, the man was completely past it now. I was drained by tension myself. We were not seeking thrills like adolescents on holiday. We just both needed to talk about what had happened.

‘What do you think?’

‘This was to warn us off, Tiberius.’

‘Arising from our enquiries of the vigiles – and you tackling that man, Gallo.’

‘If Gallo took offence at the bar, it could have been me who ended up being hammered.’