‘I’ve lived. Still, we must be hopeful . . . How are the lovebirds getting on?’

Claudia lowered her voice. ‘They have separate bedrooms!’

‘How fashionable! Though not much fun.’

‘They will never have children.’ Claudia and Quintus had produced two small sons very quickly; she assumed everyone wanted the same. At home we joked that Quintus could get his wife pregnant just by kicking his boots under the bed.

Babies were still a painful subject with Helena and me. To stop Claudia detailing the wonders of their newest son, I turned back to Anacrites. Forcing Aulus to endure a bout of Minas, I grabbed our host’s attention. ‘So! Tell us all about the big secret mission. Where did you go? How long did you stay? How many barbarians tried to garrotte you? Do tell me some at least tried. And what were you doing abroad in the first place, acting as the Emperor’s messenger-boy?’

‘You’re just jealous,’ Anacrites replied coyly.

‘Cobnuts! Now, I don’t mind you playfully pretending it’s a state secret—just so long as you confess all.’

‘It was nothing.’ Everyone was now listening, so Anacrites had to answer. ‘It seems that when his mistress Antonia Caenis was alive, Vespasian managed to discover for her that her ancestors came from Istria.’ Minas looked puzzled yet again, so Anacrites explained that our affable old Emperor had lived much of his life with an influential freedwoman who filled a wife’s place. ‘Senators are forbidden to marry freedwomen. Apparently Caenis had not known her origins and I suppose it bothered her. Once Vespasian assumed power, he had access to the records. Someone finally looked up answers.’

‘That’s a romantic story,’ Claudia said.

‘It was true love.’ Helena supplied the fact that Caenis had managed to visit her homeland for nostalgic reasons before she died. ‘I met her; I liked her enormously. Did you know her, Anacrites?’

‘I knew who she was, of course,’ he said, in that careful way of his. From what I had seen, in a couple of meetings while she was alive, Antonia Caenis had more sense than to cosy up to the spy.

‘I wondered if your backgrounds were similar?’ Helena pressed. The spy, not deft with a spoon, concentrated on chasing a langoustine nibble around his foodbowl. I admired my sweetheart for many fine qualities, not least her ability to denude a silver comport of its most succulent seafood while seemingly engaged in chat. Helena served herself to three from the central table while he fumbled. If we had been seated together she might have passed one to me. ‘So what were your duties in Istria, Anacrites?’ Nobody else will have noticed, but Helena was aware of the way I was smiling down the room at her.