‘Is this the future?’ Petronius joked. ‘You swan off to your extravagant holiday home—while I get stuck here with a sordid serial killer?’

I grinned and told him to get used to it. He ought to know I wouldn’t change.

Albia and I went down to the sea on the Via Laurentina. All the best people have villas north of where that road hits the coast, turning towards Ostia. My father had his place a little to the south. He said he liked the privacy. There were reasons. They were mostly commercial, relevant to his dedicated avoidance of paying import tax.

Pa had left me a litter and bearers but I had forgotten I owned it. Automatically, I hired a donkey cart, which gave me an excuse to concentrate on driving. Albia sat bolt upright beside me. Throughout her childhood she had been a scavenger for both food and affection; she still had stick-thin arms and, when she was unhappy, a gaunt look. No fancy ringlets today; she had let her hair dangle loose, though Helena had run with a bone comb and tidied her up for the trip. Even though there was bright sun beating on the highway, the girl hunched in a shawl, making herself suffer.

We rode twenty miles in silence then Albia could no longer keep it up. She was bursting to accuse me of cruelty. ‘Why do I have to be dragged along with you? Am I forced to work in your business, like some horrible slave?’

‘No, I have a posse of grateful slaves and freedmen for that now. They may be Paphlagonian poltroons but unlike you, Flavia Albia, they are meek.’

‘I hope they all cheat you.’

I was the villain. Nothing new. ‘Bound to. So cheer up, will you?’

We drove on for a while.

‘I’d like to rip his head off.’ Aelianus deserved all he got, but I owed it to the senator and Julia Justa to preserve his well-barbered bonce. So I merely said Helena and I hated to see Albia so unhappy; we had thought she might appreciate a chance to avoid Aulus. ‘Yes,’ agreed Albia thoughtfully. ‘Then I’ll rip his head off—when he thinks he’s got away with it.’