He hammered on the iron gate of the house and waited while one of his wife’s staff peered at him through a slot. Two slaves went up to the wall to stare up and down the street before it was opened, an excess of caution, though there was a mood in the city that disturbed him, a sort of anger or frustration – or fear, which looked much the same.

Agariste came out at a run when she heard her husband had returned. She appeared in a dress of white hemmed with a thick green band, as if a snake had wound itself around her. She was twenty-five years old and her skin was clear and unlined. Yet her expression was dark with fear of what he would say. They had not exchanged a word since he had found her bleeding three days before.

‘Thank you for coming back, Xan,’ she said, her voice trembling. ‘Did the trial go well?’

‘I imagine you have been told,’ he said.

He saw a flash of anger come to her eyes then. She tilted her head, biting her lower lip for an instant as if to hold back words, then letting it go as she spoke them anyway.

‘You are still furious with me? Is that it? Will you divorce me, then? Or force me to endure more days of absence while anger eats at you? I am sorry! I have said it! Did you read the letter I sent?’ He shook his head and she flung up her arms in exasperation. ‘I have tried to apologise, but I cannot undo it. I cannot go back.’

He took her by the arm, ignoring the soft gasp she made as he force-walked her into a study and kicked the door shut on the cloisters and green garden. There would be slaves within call, of course. No doubt Manias would contrive some excuse to knock on the door and check his mistress did not require his presence. Yet for the moment, they were as alone as they could ever be.

Xanthippus released her arm. Agariste rubbed it as she faced him and he saw the pale marks of his grip on her skin. She was afraid, he realised. She was shaking with it, like a boy before his first battle. He struggled to control the anger that flared in him.

‘Were you pregnant, then?’ he said. ‘I assume that is why you took the drink.’

She nodded, wide-eyed and silent.

‘You cost me a child,’ he said, ‘perhaps another son. And you almost died. Have you any idea how close I came to losing you? For what? Is it such a burden to be a mother to my children? To bear one more? I cannot understand you!’

‘You don’t know,’ she said softly, ‘what it is like. To be filled and swollen with a child. I endured it three times! I gave you two sons and a daughter – that is enough! Each one pulled and tore me. You have no idea. I spent months vomiting so hard my skin mottled with tiny spots of blood. Yet I did it! I bore them all, in my innocence. Is it so hard to understand I might want another year, or two or three, without going through all that again? That I wanted to raise the ones I had, not see my breasts swell with milk once more, my back aching, my skin stretching? I have done my duty. The tea was … for me.’