Domitian, Titus Caesar’s younger brother: the imperial playboy who was implicated in our plot.

XLIV

“That must have been a contest, brother!”

“Not all of life is a contest,” Titus calmly said.

For Domitian, the courtesy title of Caesar seemed a fragile irony. He had the family curls, the creased Flavian chin, the bull neck, square body and stocky build. Somehow he failed to convince. He was ten years younger than Titus, which explained both his resentment and his brother’s protective loyalty. He was twenty, his face still cherubic and soft.

“Sorry!” he exclaimed. My first impression was that he shared his brother’s ability to disarm. My second impression was, he acted well. “What’s this—affairs of state?” I remembered how Domitian’s role in the state had been terminated briskly by their imperial papa.

“Man called Didius Falco,” Titus told him, sounding the general. “Relation of a centurion in my legion in Judaea.”

It finally struck me that I owed this commission to my own brother. Vespasian and Titus knew Festus, so they trusted me. Not for the first time in my life, I viewed big brother with mixed feelings. Not for the first time in this case, I felt hideously slow.

As if it had been prearranged, a servant issued me with a sack of coin I could hardly lift. Titus declared in a measured voice, “That is my personal gift to your mother, Didius Falco, as commander of the Fifteenth Legion Apollinaris. A small compensation for the support she has lost. Didius Festus was irreplaceable to both of us.”

“You knew him?” I asked, not because I wanted to hear, but when I told my mother all this gilt-edged rubbish she would ask me.

“He was one of my soldiers; I tried to know them all.”

Domitian broke in, with a laugh that sounded genuine: “We are both lucky, Didius Falco, having brothers with such well-earned reputations!”

In that moment he enjoyed all the gifts of the Flavian house: grace, high intelligence, respect for the task in hand, sturdy wit, good sense. He could have been no less a statesman than his father or his brother; sometimes he managed it. Vespasian had shared his own talents with an even hand; the difference was, only one of his sons handled them with a truly sure grip.

Titus brought our interview to a close. “Tell your mother to be proud, Falco.”

I managed to keep my peace.

As I turned, Domitian stepped aside.

“Who’s the lady?” he asked me openly, when Helena Justina slipped to her feet in a sparkle of gold and a whisper of silk. His shameless eyes raked her, implying the wander of decadent hands.

Her discomfort made me so angry, I retaliated: “The ex-wife of a dead aedile called Atius Pertinax.”

And saw his flicker of anxiety at that name.