Servilia rose from her couch, her gold bracelets chiming gently in the silence. The slave retired quickly and Servilia regarded the man she had summoned with careful interest. He was not richly dressed, though she knew he could mimic any one of the classes of Rome if he chose to.

“I have another task for you, Belas,” she said.

He bowed his head in response and she saw that he had grown bald on the crown. She remembered when he had worn his hair down to his shoulders in heavy blond locks, and she grimaced at the unfairness of it. Age touched them all.

“I am playing Dionysus for three more days,” he said without preamble. “The performance has been described as sublime by those who know the theater. After that, my time is yours.”

She smiled at him and saw to her pleasure that he was still a little in love with her. It may have been that he saw her through a gauze of memory, but he had always been faithful in his adoration.

“It will not be difficult work, Belas, though it will take you out of the city for a while.”

“Out? I do not like the towns, Servilia. The peasants would not know a fine play by Euripides if it ran around them shouting vulgar obscenity. I haven’t left the city for almost twenty years and why would I? The world is here and there are some who come to every performance that has a part played by Belas, no matter how small.”

Servilia did not laugh at his vanity. Though he claimed a genius as yet unrecognized, he could be a hard and cunning man and he had been reliable in the past.

“Not even the towns, Belas. I want you to watch an estate outside the city for me, a woman there.”

Belas took in a sharp breath. “Is there a tavern near this place? Surely I am not required to lie in stinking ditches for you? Dionysus should not be reduced to such a level.”

“There is no tavern, my fox, and I suspect you have already guessed the place I will send you. As I remember the play, Dionysus would lie anywhere for a few good pieces of gold as well.”

Belas shrugged and his face changed subtly, his features a mask for the man within. “It can only be this new wife of Caesar’s. The whole city is talking of the girl. No courtship, I noticed, or poems bought from the writers of such lines, not for him. He must have spent her weight in gold, judging by the estate her father is suddenly looking at buying.”

He watched her closely as he spoke and could not resist smiling smugly as her face showed the accuracy of his chatter.