No slaves. I was not yet ready to treat a crowd of feckless strangers as extended family, with more domestic privileges than I allowed to my own relatives. I would house them, feed them, express gratitude and affection on a moderate scale—but no more. Nema, previously Pa’s bodyslave, commented that he was very surprised by my attitude.

‘We could have met at a bar,’ Quintus suggested.

‘Are you saying,’ demanded his sister in a voice like an ocean breaker as it stripped barnacles off rocks, ‘my house is badly run?’

‘No, Helena.’

A meeting convened. Katutis appeared with a bunch of note-tablets and a hopeful expression; he was upset when I told him not to take minutes. ‘Why else, Marcus Didius, would a man hold a meeting, but to have its conclusions recorded?’

‘This is confidential.’

‘Then good recording practice is to write “Confidential” at the head of the scroll.’

‘So the next time Anacrites raids my house, he sees that and backs away bleating, Oh I am not allowed to look at this! In fact that’s a certain way to make him grab it.’

Katutis slunk off, muttering like a malevolent priest.

The big, comforting presence of Petronius Longus soothed those of us who remained. Helena, whose meal had been interrupted by the various ructions, was still chewing flatbread. Dabbing chickpea paste ferociously on to her bread, she had the look of a woman who knew she would soon have heartburn. ‘Oh don’t wait for me to finish!’ she scolded Petronius, in a tremolo of agitated bracelets.

Petro cracked on smartly. ‘There is news. It’s good—though it will pose questions. Since Fusculus proved the link to Arrius Persicus, I let him call on the carter, and thump him until he squeaked—’

‘Can you not do anything without unnecessary violence?’ Not a good idea to remind Helena about our treatment of the agent.

Petronius had the grace to look guilty. ‘The carter now admits his spendthrift, two-timing client was indeed posting off a secret love token—and not for the first time. It was a routine arrangement. She’s a lucky little pullet. This is why the carter panicked when his courier vanished—he thought the newly-wed had gone bad now he had a wife to support, so he pinched the gem. Later the carter kept quiet about that, in a misguided attempt to protect his customer.’

‘Did the carter know what the hidden gift was?’ Helena asked.

‘A cameo on a chain. Persicus had bragged to him about it.’

‘The chain is news,’ I said. ‘It’s not been found. Who has got their sticky hands on that, I wonder? . . . Need we interview Persicus?’

‘Not at this stage. If we want a deposition for the Prefect later, Fusculus can go along and scare him shitless then.’