“Vespasian hates informers. I operate for sad middle-aged men who think their wicked wives are sleeping with charioteers, and even sadder ones who know their wives are sleeping with their nephews. Sometimes for women.”

“What do you do for the women—or is it indiscreet to ask?”

I laughed. “Whatever they pay for!”

I left it at that.

I went inside and tidied away various items I preferred her not to see, then I set about preparing my evening meal. After a time she followed me in and inspected the bleak hole Smaractus rented me. For the price it was an insult—but I rarely paid his price.

There was an outer room in which a dog might just turn round, if he was a thin dog with his tail between his legs. A wonky table, a slanty bench, a shelf of pots, a bank of bricks I used as a cooking stove, a gridiron, winejars (empty), rubbish basket (full). One way out to the balcony for when you got tired of stamping on the cockroaches indoors, plus a second opening behind a curtain in bright, welcoming stripes—this led to the bedroom. Sensing it perhaps, she did not ask.

“In case you’re used to all-night banquets that run through seven courses from eggs in fish pickle sauce to frozen sorbets dug out of snow pits, I warn you on Tuesdays my cook goes to see his granny.” I had no cook, no slaves at all. My new client was beginning to look unhappy.

“Please don’t trouble. I can eat when you take me home—”

“You’re going nowhere yet,” I said. “Not until I know what I’m taking you back to. Now eat!”

We had fresh sardines. I would have liked to provide something more exciting, but sardines were what the woman who took it upon herself to leave my meals had left. I made a cold sweet sauce to liven up the fish: honey, with a dash of this, a sprinkle of that, the normal sort of thing. The girl watched me do it as if she had never seen anybody grinding lovage and rosemary in a mortar in her life. Perhaps she never had.

I finished first, then leaned my elbows on the edge of the table while I gazed at the young lady with a frank and trustworthy face.

“Now, tell your Uncle Didius all about it. What’s your name?”

“Helena.” I was so busy looking frank, I missed the flush on her own face that ought to have told me the seed pearl in this oyster was a fake.

“Know those barbarians, Helena?”

“No.”

“So they grabbed you where?”

“In our house.”

I whistled slowly. That was a surprise.

Remembering made her indignant, which made her more talkative. They had snatched her in broad daylight.