“Sir, Camillus Meto’s daughter was no scribe. She wrote like a schoolgirl, pressing hard with her stylus. I had to show you the list, but if you agree, at the cost of destroying it—” I swallowed for I could not easily forgo anything Sosia Camillina gave to me. “If we melt the wax completely off the backing board, you may find she scraped right through into the wood.”

His glance hit mine; the man was as sharp as a Spanish sword.

“The missing name may still be visible?” Titus Caesar took decisions like the general he was. “Little to lose!”

He called back the thin secretary. Hollow-shouldered and slightly showing off, this ghoul soon tilted the tablet over a flame, turning his bony wrist to let the drips skitter into a chased silver bowl. He gave it back with a professional flourish.

Titus glanced at the scarred surface, then signalled the secretary to make himself scarce. For a painful moment we gazed at each other, then Titus quietly said, “Well, Didius Falco, how good an informer are you? Do you want to tell me, before I show you this, who you think it is?”

A military tribune, in the narrow purple bands of the second rank, tripped into the anteroom to meet some official appointment in connection with the Triumph: eyes bright, best boots, inlaid armour burnished to a gleam, and scrubbed from his straight-cut toenails to the red tips of his adolescent ears. Titus did not even look at him.

“Out!” he commanded, almost politely, though the tribune bolted without a second glance.

Once again the room was silent. Titus and me…Titus still holding the tablet, which I still had not seen.

My mouth felt dry. As an informer I was only middling good (too much of a dreamer and too chary of dubious commissions—the kind that pay); all the same I was good enough. I had vowed never to align myself with the establishment again; yet I gave my own kind of service to my city and the Empire. I would never accept any Emperor’s divinity, but I believed in my own self-respect and securing my fee.

So I told Titus Caesar who I thought it was.

“It must be one of the Camillus brothers, Caesar. But I am not certain which.”

LIV

Outside we heard an escort party assembling. Titus strode to the doorway and spoke. The agitation stilled; someone posted a guard.

My abdomen felt sore, as if I had been seriously bereaved.

Coming back, Titus seated me and took his own place on the same couch beside me, laying the tablet between us, face down.

“That poor little girl! Oh, Falco—that whole poor family! Well, it has to be done. Tell me your reasoning, please.”