“I did, uncle.” He was stopped by Helena herself. “I found it today in your house. Oh Juno, you make me so angry! You think other people are completely insensitive. You kidnapped Sosia; your name was in the letter Uncle Gaius wrote to Vespasian. Today I watched you calmly stand here and let me blame papa—papa who has spent twenty dreary years covering up your disgrace! My Aunt Aelia Camilla told me the truth—your wild youth in Bithynia, that was too wild and went on far too long to be simple exuberance. Your public career in Mauretania that ended so abruptly for reasons that were never explained. Exiled from one province after another, and now from Rome. Political speculation, social scandal, riot, shady business deals, women—Sosia! Her mother the wife of a consul-designate, the husband so inconveniently abroad; you would rather the child had been exposed on a midden—but as always, father decently stepped in. Father’s life has been a misery—you even inveigled him into marrying me to a man he disliked so you could persuade Pertinax to help import the silver!” I had heard her rant before, but never with the passion she was demonstrating now. “You think nobody can know—”

“Even Sosia knew,” I slipped in. “Your name is on the list she gave to me. Condemned to a common informer, Meto—by your own child!” I saw no reason to tell him that Sosia scratched his name out.

He looked from Helena Justina to me, then laughed softly as he had never done before. It showed that momentary handsomeness I had noticed before at Sosia’s funeral; I could see how when he wanted to bother he must have drawn the women.

“Excellent team!” he applauded us. It was true. That was what we had always been. In this case we had formed a true partnership. We were fighting him together now. “Made for the middle rank,” he scoffed. “Not for me. Life with a high moral tone, and so little else! Trapped among third-grade tax collectors, freed Imperial secretaries, the Admiral of the British Channel Fleet! Hard work on a mean salary or struggling in trade. No ceremony abroad, no style or power at home—”

If this was his social grievance, it was not one that impressed me. I growled at him, with the full venom of a tired man from an Aventine tenement, “You never lacked; you had comfort and leisure all your life. What do you want?”

“Luxury and influence!” he admitted without flinching.

Helena Justina suddenly stood up. Her voice rang clear.

“Then take the silver. Let it be my gift for my poor beleaguered father. Take it. Go away and never trouble him or any of us again.”