A social at-home in a guardpost, courtesy of an aedile called Atius Pertinax. I was expecting to be hauled off to prison, the Lautumiae, or even the Mamertine if my luck had completely run out. Instead, they trooped me all the way back east into the First. This startled me, since until that morning I had never done business in the Capena Gate Sector. I was astonished that I had offended the authorities in quite so short a time.

If there is one class of person I hate above all others, it is aediles. For the benefit of provincials let me say that in Rome the praetors govern law and order, senior senators elected six at a time, who divide the fourteen districts between them. Each has a junior to do all the legwork—these aediles, brash young politicians in their first public posts, filling time before the better jobs that bring in bigger bribes.

Gnaeus Atius Pertinax was typical of the breed, a short-haired pup yapping up the political ladder, nagging butchers to sweep clean their shopfronts, and beating the hell out of me. I had never seen him before. In retrospect I remember no more than a washed-out grey streak, half hidden by a shaft of dazzling sunlight. The greyness may be lost recollection. I think he had light eyes and a stiff nose. He was in his late twenties ( just younger than me), his tight nature reflected in a constipated face.

There was an older man, no purple on his clothes—not a senator—who sat on the sidelines and said nothing. A bland unremarkable face and a bald unremarkable head. In my experience, men who sit in corners are the ones to watch. But first, pleasantries with Pertinax.

“Falco!” he commanded, after brisk preliminaries established who I was. “Where’s the girl?”

I had a serious grudge against Atius Pertinax, though I did not know it yet.

I was wondering how to answer in a way that would be rude enough, when he ordered his sergeant to encourage me. I pointed out I was a freeborn citizen and that laying a fist on a citizen was an affront to democracy. It turned out neither Pertinax nor the bullyboys were students of political science: they set about affronting democracy without a qualm. I had the right of appeal directly to the Emperor but I decided there was not much future in that.

If I had thought Pertinax was being so violent out of affection for Sosia, it might have been easier to bear, but we shared no fellow feeling. The whole event troubled me. A senator might well have second thoughts, cancel our contract and report me to the magistrate, yet Decimus Camillus had looked a soft touch and he knew (more or less) where his missing miss was. So I braved it out, bruised but proud.