Fourteen hundred miles: long, bruising days, then nights in identical foreign resthouses full of what she rightly thought were quite appalling men. She never complained. Bad weather, spring tides, the couriers a contemptuous bunch, me: not a moan out of her. By Massilia I was mildly impressed.

I was also concerned. She looked tired; her voice sounded colourless. The inn was crammed and by now I knew how much she would hate the crush. I went to her room to collect her at dinnertime in case she felt nervous. She hung back, reluctant, pretending she was not hungry, but my cheery visage managed to lure her out.

“You all right?”

“Yes. Falco, don’t fuss.”

“Look a bit poorly.”

“I’m all right.” One of those days. She was human after all.

I tucked a shawl round her; I’d cosset a prickly porcupine if it was paying me twice.

“Thank you.”

“All part of the service,” I said, and took her to dine.

I was glad that she came. I did not want to eat alone. It was my birthday. No one knew. I was thirty years old.

We stayed at Massilia at an inn near the port. It was no worse and no better than the rest of Massilia; it was terrible. Too many strangers do a town no good. I was stiff from the road, and worried about my aching ribs. I felt a constant prickle as if we were being watched. I hated the food.

The acoustics in the dining hall were appalling. It was deafening. At one point I was called away by our ship’s captain who wanted to make arrangements for embarkation. Quite straightforward: pay in advance, no frills, dawn start, bring your own baggage, find your own way to the docks or miss the boat. Thanks. What a wonderful town!

When I rejoined Helena she was driving off the innkeeper’s lurcher who had his muzzle in my bowl. It being southern Gaul, where they know how to make strangers suffer, we were eating fish stew—grainy stuff dyed red and full of broken bits of shell. I put my bowl on the floor for the dog. Few punishments match a birthday in Massilia, starving, and with a girl who regards you as if you had a niffy smell.

I persuaded Helena to sit out in the garden. That meant I went too, which was why I bothered to ask: I wanted some air. It was dusk. We could hear distant sounds of the port, there was running water and a fishpond with plopping frogs. No one else was about. Although it was cold, we sat on a stone bench. We were both tired, both allowing ourselves to relax slightly now Rome was only another sailing trip away.

“This is more peaceful. Feeling better now?”

“Don’t fidget me,” she complained, so I reproached her with my birthday.

“Bad luck,” was all she said.