I replied briskly, for my own sake. “You won’t. In your sweet, sheltered life you have no need of anyone like me. And Sosia Camillina, I really don’t need you!”

I left quickly so I should not see her face.

I walked home. Rome, my city, which had been until then a never-failing solace, lay before me like a woman, secretive and beautiful, demanding and rewarding, eternally seductive. For the first time in my life, I refused to be seduced.

XVII

I did see Sosia Camillina again. She asked me to meet her. Of course I went. I went as soon as I could.

By then summer was nuzzling autumn’s neck. The days seemed equally long and hot, but towards dusk the air began to cool more quickly. I went out to the Campagna for a grape gathering holiday, but my heart was never in it and I came home.

I had not been able to shift the silver pigs from my mind. This puzzle had gripped my interest; no amount of raging at the way I had been teased along by Decimus Camillus could alter that. Whenever I saw him, Petronius Longus asked after my progress. He knew how I felt, but was too enthralled for tact. I started to avoid him, which depressed me even more. In addition, the whole world was watching our new emperor Vespasian. There was no possibility of gossiping at the barber’s or the baths, the racetrack or the theatre, without an awkward twinge because I could not forget what I knew.

For six weeks or longer I lay low. I bungled divorce cases, failed to serve writs, forgot the dates of court appearances, tore ligaments at the gym, insulted my family, dodged my landlord, drank too much, ate too little, gave up women for good. If I went to the theatre I lost the thread of the plot.

Then one day Lenia cornered me.

“Falco! Your girlfriend’s been.”

Out of habit I demanded which? I still liked to imply I was harassed by half-naked Tripolitanian acrobats every afternoon. Lenia knew perfectly well I had given up women; she missed the clip of their little sandals and the giggles on the stairs when I brought them in. She also missed the shrieks of indignation when my mother swept them out with the dust next day.

“Little miss dainty with the pedigree and bangles. I let her pee in the bleach vat, then she wrote a note upstairs…”

I took the stairs in a rush. I reached the apartment all asplutter with a hacking throat. My mother had been: a pile of mended tunics, a picture of a chariot drawn on a slate by my niece, a mullet in a covered dish. I flung these aside as I searched.