“And madam here, who so admires an Emperor who will do the paperwork, yet seems magically eager to allow her noble father to diddle the Mint…Helena Justina, you know you can’t do it.”

“You know nothing about me, Falco,” she muttered in a low voice.

I whipped back, perhaps more intensely than I meant: “But oh my soul, I wanted to find out!”

I was desperate to get her away from here before things started getting rough—as I had no doubt they soon would.

“Sir, this is no place for a lady,” I appealed to her uncle. “Will you instruct your niece to go?”

“That is her decision, Falco.” His mouth compressed slightly in his practised, indifferent way. He had a strangely static face; I guessed he had always been self-sufficient, private to the point of being odd.

I was standing with my back to the cold bulk of the stacked lead bars, with Helena to my left and her uncle on the right. I could see he knew that whatever I was saying to her, I was always watching him. I tried again.

“Listen to me, ladyship. When you and I were in Britain you said Sosia had told me who the conspirators are. So she did.”

“Then you lied to me, Falco!”

“Not knowingly. But I know now, that before she died she identified the men involved. Titus Caesar is in possession of the evidence. So will you do as I say, Helena, I beg of you? What has happened here, and what happens today, need be nothing to do with you—”

Publius Camillus Meto finally broke in: “Wrong, Falco!”

Helena Justina was hugging her light mantle against the chill which lapped our skin. Wearing his toga, as a man of any standing would on a public festival, Publius held his arms folded just above his waist, like a soldier on a mission reassuring himself subconsciously that his dagger and his sword were still to hand. He was looking directly at me as he searched to discover the truth of what I really knew. I lifted an eyebrow, encouraging him to go on.

Then he said in a voice that became creamy with vindictiveness: “If you were properly informed, you would realize Helena Justina has been at the centre of this scheme since she was married to Pertinax!”

Odd how your mind works sometimes; before I even turned back to her, I had accepted that what he said was true.

My head spun. Our eyes met. She made no attempt to deny it. I ought to have known. With my brutal luck, I had bound myself to her wholeheartedly and until now had never doubted the lady’s honesty!