There seemed to be a lot of noise. People of rank took charge, things became confused. Men who had played no obvious part in the afternoon’s events congratulated themselves on their handling of the affair. I walked slowly outside, feeling my eye sockets as hollow in my face as an actor’s mask.

The warehouse was being sealed, with the body still inside. The yard gate was being chained. Decimus was escorted off to explain at the Palace; I watched his daughter being led to a sedan chair. We did not speak. The Praetorians knew an informer—even the Emperor’s informer—has no business with the daughter of a senator. Meto had gashed me; she had my blood on her face. She wanted me, I knew she did. She was bruised, she was shocked, I could see that she was shaking; yet I could not go to her.

If she had made the slightest sign I would have pushed all the Praetorians aside. She never did. I stood at a loss. The Guards were taking her home.

It was night. Rome simmered with bad deeds and unholy cries. An owl shrieked above the Capitol. I heard the mean lilt of a sad flute piercing the city streets with man’s injustice to woman, and the gods’ injustice to men.

Petronius Longus stood at my shoulder without speaking a word. And we both knew, the case of the silver pigs was effectively closed.

LXIV

This was Rome; there were formalities.

That same night, while Vespasian entertained the favoured and fortunate at his own banquet in the Palace and all Rome dined by families and voting tribes elsewhere, I was hauled up to the Palatine for an interview with his son. Titus Caesar, famous for his graciousness, congratulated Camillus Verus, Petronius Longus, me. The senator was too deeply shocked to object. Helena Justina stood in silence beside her mother, both heavily veiled. Even so, Helena was as morose as a dead jellyfish, I could tell.

Speciality of the day was intended to be granting M Didius Falco the gold ring: four hundred thousand sesterces and promotion to the middle rank. A generous gesture from a young Caesar who liked to do good deeds.

M Didius Falco, famous for ungracious behaviour, lived up to his reputation with careless ease. I thought of what it meant—not simply the land and the rank, but the kind of life they enabled me to live. Like Flavius Hilaris, ploughing a useful furrow in his own way—so passionately—and enjoying quiet, comfortable houses with a wife he dearly loved; the life of my choice among people I liked, where I knew I could do well.