‘You would say that. He tells me he has looked into things further and the will’s rotten. It won’t hold up. My poor little one has been cheated—and he is not even born yet!’

‘I don’t know what you mean, Thalia.’

‘According to Parvo,’ she enunciated with high distaste, ‘if a legacy is given to a posthumous infant, the child must be born of a legal marriage.’ Thalia was a tall woman of majestic stature; as she rounded on me fiercely, I felt some alarm. ‘Geminus said Parvo would sort everything out for me. I know what’s gone on here. This is a fiddle. You bastard, Falco—you must have put him up to it!’

Not for the first time since my father died, my first thought was to lay wheat cakes on a divinity’s altar and exclaim, Thank you, for my good fortune!

Aulus leaned forward, his face serious. ‘Parvo is quite right, if you don’t mind me saying so.’

‘My brother Aelianus,’ Helena told Thalia helpfully. ‘He has had legal training.’

‘I don’t trust him then!’ Thalia scoffed. Aulus took it well.

‘There can be no doubt, I’m afraid, Thalia.’ What an excellent fellow Aulus had turned out to be. ‘Didius Favonius remained married to his wife of many years, the mother of his legal children.’ Helena may have discussed all this with Aulus. He was a better scholar than we expected, but only with advance warning. He must have looked up the law specifically. ‘Everyone at Geminus’ funeral saw Junilla Tacita taking her place as the widow. She was acknowledged as such by all those friends, family and business colleagues who knew her deceased husband. Moreover,’ Aulus continued relentlessly, ‘to become an heir, the child must be referred to in the will itself. I do not believe a codicil will count.’

‘All that is as may be!’ Thalia could be worryingly firm. ‘I am here to make arrangements. Things have to be set up properly.’

I gulped nervously.

‘Here is the deal, Marcus Didius. When this child is born, it has to be looked after. Don’t expect me to do it. I can’t take a baby on tour with the circus! My animals would be dangerously jealous, it’s not hygienic, and I don’t have the capacity.’

‘That’s very sad,’ Helena interrupted. ‘Children give so much pleasure and can be a comfort, Thalia.’

‘He’ll get in the way!’ Thalia replied, as riotously honest as when she discussed her sex life. Then she dropped me in the midden. ‘You will have to bring him up, Falco.’

‘What?’