“Usual story. Family could only buy in the political votes once: elder son was put into purple stripes, younger foisted into commerce instead. Lucky old commerce! Is it true that you’ve lost her?”

I tried to grin. What a failure. Petro winced.

“She’s not lost. Come with me, Petro. If she’s where I think, I need your support…”

Sosia Camillina was where I thought.

X

Petro and I ducked down a tiled entry between a cutler’s and a cheese shop. We took the stairs before the elegant ground floor apartment that was occupied by the idle ex-slave who owned the whole block (and several other blocks too; they know how to live). We were in a flaky grey building behind the Emporium, not far from the river but not so near that it flooded in the spring. It was a poor neighbourhood, but there were green creepers wound round all the pillars on the street side, sleek cats asleep in windowboxes, summer bulbs brightening the balconies; someone always kept the steps swept here. It seemed to me a friendly sort of place, but I had known it a long time.

On the first floor landing we banged at a brick-red door, which I had under pressure painted myself, and were admitted by a tiny waif of a slave. We found our own way to the room where I knew everyone would be.

“Hah! Wine shops all closed early?”

“Hello, Mother,” I said.

My mother was in her kitchen, supervising her cook, which meant the cook was nowhere in sight but ma was doing something rapid to a vegetable with a sharp knife. She works on the principle that if you want anything done properly, do it yourself. All around were other people’s children, with their steely jaws clamped into loaves and fruit. When we arrived, Sosia Camillina sat at the kitchen table gorging a piece of cinnamon cake with a gusto that told me she was already well at home, as people in my parents’ house tend to be.

Where was my father? Best not to enquire. He went out to a game of draughts when I was seven. Must be a long game, because he still hasn’t come home.

I kissed my mother’s cheek like a dutiful son, hoping Sosia would notice, and was whacked with a colander for my trouble.

Ma greeted Petronius with an affectionate smile. (Such a good boy; such a hard-working wife; such a regular well-paid job!)

My eldest sister Victorina was there. Petronius and I both withdrew into ourselves. I was terrified Victorina would call me Trouble in front of Sosia. I could not imagine why he looked so worried.

“Hello, Trouble,” said my sister, then to Petronius, “Hello, Primrose!”