“Oh I can live with it!” I was lying on a couch, making good use of a bowl of winter pears which the villa steward had carefully selected for me from the farm store. I took the opportunity to probe. “Your niece seems, let’s be polite about it, rather overwrought.” Flavius Hilaris gave me a stern glance. I added in a reasonable tone, “I’m not trying to gossip. If I do escort her, it will help if I know what the problem is.”

“That’s fair.” My new friend Gaius was also a reasonable man. “Well! When she came out to stay with us after her divorce, she seemed subdued and confused. I suspect she still is—only she hides it better now.”

“Can you tell me what went wrong?”

“Only hearsay. As far as I know, the couple were never close. Her uncle, my wife’s brother Publius, had known the young man; it was Publius who proposed the match to her father. At the time Helena described her future husband to my wife in a letter as a senator of standing, without indecent habits.”

“Pretty cool!”

“Quite. Aelia Camilla did not approve of it.”

“Still, safer than starting starry-eyed.”

“Perhaps. Anyway, Helena never expected a passionate meeting of minds, but eventually she found that for her a high position and good manners were not enough. She did confide in me recently. She would rather he had picked his nose and goosed the kitchen girls—then at least talked to her!”

We both laughed at this, though sympathetically. If I had liked women with a sense of humour, a wench who could say that might have appealed to me.

“Have I got it wrong then, Gaius, did he divorce her?”

“No. Once she found they were incompatible, Helena Justina wrote the notice of divorce herself.”

“Ah! She does not believe in pretence.”

“No. But she’s sensitive—so you’ve seen the results!”

By now it was obvious the procurator’s conscience was prickling him for speaking so freely. So, I let the subject drop.

The next time Gaius was going into town I tagged along. I took the opportunity to acquire twenty assorted pewter beakers, local products made from an alloy of tin and lead.

“Souvenirs for my nephews and nieces. Plus a few ‘silver’ porridge spoons for the new members of the family my sisters are bound to present to me proudly when I get home.”

“The Gauls should hear you coming!” Gaius scoffed. (My twenty beakers were rattling well.)

It was still difficult to think sensibly of going home.