I would have to tell the family he was gone. That would cause all sorts of bad feelings.

This was turning into a bad year.

Officially, it was the year of the consuls Vespasianus Augustus and Titus Caesar (Vespasian, our elderly, curmudgeonly, much-admired Emperor, in his eighth consulship, and his lively elder son and heir, notching up his sixth). Later, ‘suffect’ consuls took over, which was a way of sharing the workload and the honours. The suffects that year were Domitian Caesar (the much-less-liked younger son) and an unknown senator called Gnaeus Julius Agricola—a non-notable; some years afterwards he became governor of Britannia. Say no more. He was too insignificant for a civilised province, so the Senate finessed him by pretending that Britain was a challenge where they wanted a man they could trust . . .

I ignore the civic calendar. Still, there are years you remember.

Duty began weighing on me. Death wreaks havoc on survivors’ lifestyles. For years I had been forced to play at being the family head, since my father reneged and my only brother was dead. Pa ran away with his redhead when I was about seven—an even thirty years ago. My mother never spoke to him again and most of us were loyal to Ma. Even after he returned sheepishly to Rome, calling himself Geminus as a half-hearted disguise, Pa kept apart from the family for years. More recently he did impose himself when it suited him. He was a snob about my connections to a senatorial family, so I had to see most of him. Recently my sister Maia took over his accounts at the auction house, one of my nephews was learning the business, and another sister ran a bar he owned.

Once the twittering slaves made their announcement, I foresaw big changes.

‘Who is going to tell me what happened?’

First spokesman was a wine-pourer, not quite as handsome as he thought, who wanted to get himself noticed: ‘Marcus Didius, your beloved father was found dead early this morning.’

He had been dead all day and I did not know. I had been struggling with the baby’s birth and death and all the while this had been happening too.

‘Was it natural?’

‘What else could it be, sir?’ I could think of a few answers.

Nema, Pa’s personal bodyslave, who was known to me, stepped up to give me details. Yesterday, my father came home from work at the Saepta Julia at a normal time, had dinner and retired to bed, early for him. Nema had heard him moving about this morning, apparently at his ablutions, then came a sudden loud thump. Nema ran in and Pa was dead on the floor.

Since I was known to spend my working life questioning such statements, Nema and the others looked worried. I suspected they had discussed how to convince me the story was accurate. They said a slave with some medical knowledge had diagnosed a heart attack.