I gave him a long stare, then scoffed, “So you go to your barber for his cutting!”

Titus Caesar had a vigorous bunch of locks, snipped to look smart below his gilded wreath, but long enough to keep the handsome curl. I hate good-looking men, especially when they keep glancing at the woman who came with me.

“What does that mean, Falco?” Titus asked, not amused.

“On the strength of his information, sir, your barber’s a villain.”

“Falco!”

That was Helena, trying to save me from drowning again, but I careered on. “He’s wrong for two reasons, as the fact that people felt it necessary to silence Pertinax should convince you.” Titus quite mildly encouraged me to continue. “Caesar, neither you nor I can let these traitors go. Even with Triferus cheating them, they hold a handy baulk of Imperial silver, which your father needs. Another reason, with due respect, is a bright, golden, loyal, sixteen-year-old girl called Sosia Camillina.”

Helena Justina was looking at me so steadily I felt odd. I stood my ground against them both.

Titus Caesar ran the fingers of both hands through his well-kept hair.

“You are perfectly right. My barber’s a villain,” he said.

He gazed at me for a moment.

“People underestimate you, Falco.”

“People underrated Vespasian for sixty years!”

“Fools still do. Let me tell you his instructions.”

They had tried to bamboozle me. Titus still wanted to shuffle me off and allow the case against Domitian to die quietly, but I noticed he had a speech ready in case the attempt should fail. He leaned forward earnestly.

“Omit my brother’s name from your enquiries. Find the silver—and the murderer of that innocent young girl. Most importantly, identify the man who planned all this.”

I suggested increasing my rates; he decided that for the same enquiry they would pay the same. Always a fool for logic, I accepted it.

“But I cannot omit Domitian—”

“You must,” Titus told me flatly.

Then the curtain behind us suddenly swung open. I began to twist round to investigate, when the person who had come in unannounced started whistling. With a shock, I recognized the tune.

It was a song about Vespasian; about Titus; about Berenice. Soldiers sang it with a slow, low, leery lurch at the end of the night. They sang it in bars and in brothels, with both envy and approval, but no soldier I had ever met would repeat it here. The words went:

Oh the old man—smiled!

Then the young man—smiled!

So the Queen of all the Jews

She really couldn’t lose

All she had to do was choose

When the old man,

And the young man—smiled!

Only one person would dare to whistle so outrageously in the presence of a Caesar: another Caesar. Vespasian was presiding over his banquet, so I knew who our rash visitor must be.