I went to the Embankment. Up past the shuttered shapes of the puppeteers’ booths onto the deserted promenade.

This was where I walked once with Helena Justina. It was a place where I went sometimes, by myself. Now it was dark, but I wanted the dark. I hunched into my toga, listening to Rome at night, fighting back my panic at what I had done.

I stood completely alone in that high place above Rome. A wind was blowing chilly. From the distance came intermittent strains of music, the stamping of sentries’ feet, wild gusts of laughter and occasional sinister cries.

When I was calm again, which was when I was very, very cold, I came down.

I went back to the Palace. I asked to see Titus again. It was now very late. In the corridors tall shadows veered, while the few attendants I could find were gossiping and looked up, startled, when disturbed by my white-faced ghost.

No one seemed to find my presence odd. No one seemed to mind. Sometimes it is like that in official places when the night squad comes on duty; so little happens normally that they are glad of a change in routine.

They passed me in through various apartments dripping with drapery to a rather plain anteroom I had never seen before. Someone went into an inner room where I heard my name spoken in a low, incurious voice. After a moment a cheery old cove came out in his slippers, followed at a placid amble by the man who had brought me in, who then disappeared. The old cove scrutinized me.

“Both the young Caesars are tucked up in bed. Will I do?”

He wore a rumpled purple tunic, with no belt. He was a big, solid man about sixty years old, square-built and healthy, with a deeply lined forehead and an open stare. Somehow his very lack of ceremony lent his presence weight: over the years he had grown used to carrying men with him through sheer personality. He did it well. Damn the bastard from his great toes to the thin hair on his head, I liked him at once.

I knew who he was; the Emperor, Vespasian.

I thought it was best to answer politely that he would do.

He gazed at me with amused indulgence, then motioned me in. He had been working in a small area, made cosy with well-placed lamps. There were two neat piles of correspondence undergoing his attentions. It looked a disciplined scene. It was the sort of office I should like to work in myself.

“So you’re Falco. You look a bit peaky. Want a cup of wine?”

“No thanks. I’m just a bit cold. Please don’t trouble.”