He was a strange mixture of competence and ineptitude. Undoubtedly intelligent, he was an able public speaker; I had heard him spout excuses like any clerk covering up his failures. There was no need for him to endure a tiny office and low-grade agents; his was a high public position, attached to the Praetorians; he could have conjured up a decent budget if he had applied himself.

His next foray was to say to Helena, ‘I hear your brother is back from Athens—and married! Wasn’t that unexpected?’

This was typical. Laeta had said Anacrites only returned to Rome three days ago, yet he had already discovered private facts about my family and me. He pressed too close. If I complained it would sound paranoid, yet I knew Helena saw why I loathed him.

‘Who told you that?’ She sat up abruptly.

‘Oh it’s my job to know everything,’ Anacrites boasted, giving her a significant smile.

‘Surely you should only watch the Emperor’s enemies?’ Helena retaliated.

‘Helena Justina, you were pregnant!’ Anacrites exclaimed, wide-eyed, as if it had only just struck him. ‘Has the happy event occurred?’

‘Our baby died.’ I bet the bastard knew that too.

‘Oh my dears! Again, I am so sorry . . . Was it a boy?’

Helena bridled visibly. ‘What does that matter? Any healthy child would have pleased us; any lost child is our tragedy.’

‘Such a waste—’

‘Don’t upset yourself over our private troubles,’ Helena said coldly. He had pushed her too far. ‘I suppose,’ she jibed, ‘a man in your position does not know what it is to have family? You must always have looked intelligent. When some unknown slave girl bore you, were you taken up as soon as that was spotted, to be regimented in a soulless stylus-school?’

Anacrites relied on pretending we were all best friends; otherwise, I fancied there might have been real venom in his expression. ‘As you say, they could spot potential. I was indeed favoured with government training from a young age,’ he replied in a quiet voice. Helena refused to show shame. ‘I knew my alphabet at three, Helena—both in Latin and Greek.’

Though she did not remark on it, Helena had already taught our Julia both alphabets, plus how to write her name in rulered lines. Perhaps she relaxed slightly, however. For one thing, Helena always enjoyed sparring. ‘And what else did they teach you?’

‘Self-reliance and perseverance.’

‘Is that enough for the work you do now?’

‘It goes a long way.’

‘Do you have a conscience, Anacrites?’

‘Does Falco?’ he countered.

‘Oh yes,’ replied Helena Justina sternly. ‘He leaves home with it daily, along with his boots and his notebook. That is why,’ she said, fixing him with a steady gaze, ‘Marcus was so interested in working on the Julius Modestus case.’

‘Modestus?’ Anacrites’ bafflement seemed genuine.