I walked without noticing my journey. Exhaustion and elation were swamping me. I felt I had aged a generation in a single night. I was utterly happy—benign towards all the world. Although I was so tired, my maniacal grin glittered from ear to ecstatic ear.

Petronius was hovering outside Lenia’s laundry, with the pinkish face and limp hair of a man who had been steaming himself in a laundry for a long time. I felt a deep pang of affection, which he did not deserve and would never have understood. He thumped me in the stomach, then looked at me closely. All the strength had gone from my legs but I accepted the thump with only a faint blink.

“Marcus?” he demanded uncertainly.

“Petro. Thanks for your help.”

“Pleasure. Your mother wants to speak to you about that bag of gold. And this is yours, isn’t it?” He handed me my Uncle Scaro’s ring.

“You tracked down that runt Melitus?”

“No trouble. We know his haunts. I recovered some loot that belonged to your lady—her jewels. I took them round to her house this morning; the people said she wasn’t there…” His voice faded uncertainly.

“No. She is now. I told her if you managed to return her jewellery a reward would be polite. I suggested something nice for your wife!”

He stared at me. I regarded him with poignant tenderness. What a wonderful friend.

“Look, Falco, about last night—”

I chuckled dismissively. “Fate!”

“Fate!” he exploded. “What shit’s that?” A simple soul; with a sound philosophy! He was heartbroken to find me in this trouble. (He could tell I was in trouble by my ludicrously gentle smile.) “Oh Falco, you poor excitable devil—what have you done?”

Lenia came out. Behind her the dull boom of the washtubs throbbed before she swung her backside to close the door. After a lifetime of swaggering with armfuls of dirty linen, she did this as automatically as she opened the doors with her foot. Her arms were free now, but her lined forehead told me she had a headache from imbibing too much with Smaractus the night before. Her frock clung to her in twisted folds, eternally damp from the steam. For some reason, she had lately taken to flinging thin scarves back over her shoulders, in a travesty of refinement. She weighed up my condition as impartially as a stain on a bedsheet, then scoffed, “Soft as cake custard; the fool’s in love again.”

“That all?” Petro tried to reassure himself, though as usual when faced with one of my extravagant antics sturdy Petronius did not appear convinced. “Happens to Falco three times every week.”

He was wrong. I knew now: until that morning I had never been in love.

“Oh my Petronius, this is different.”

“Blossom, that’s what you always say!” Petro shook his head sadly.