‘I like her,’ Flora said after a moment. ‘She came here once – no, not in that way! You should be ashamed of yourself, you little beast.’ She drained her glass and wagged it at him reprovingly. ‘Not that there’s not some who would, but not that one. No, she sent a slave to ask for an appointment, then came and bid me good day and took my hand as courteous as you like.’ The brothel owner, former slave and whore, preened at the memory. ‘They were making a little bathing pool in the praetorium and the workmen were telling her that it couldn’t be done the way she wanted, so she wanted to see mine and ask whether I was happy with it.

‘Venus alone knows how she had heard about it,’ Flora continued. ‘Husband’s been in there often enough, but doubt he tells her!’ She sniggered for a moment, before resuming a dignified posture, her free hand in the air, fingers outstretched like a statue. ‘Took her there, and she didn’t bat an eyelid at the pictures.’

Ferox had not been in the bath here for some time, but could dimly remember walls covered in paintings of nudes and couples, of a whole wide and sometimes baffling array of lovemaking, some accurate, some mythical and some surely downright impossible.

‘Well, she asks precise questions, and I got the clerk who arranged it to answer. He turned to jelly under her gaze, but spoke up well enough. From what I hear she lectured the work party and now the prefect and his wife reckon they have almost as good a bath as mine.’

‘Perhaps without the pictures.’

Flora chuckled. ‘Perhaps without the pictures.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Might warm her up though, poor thing. Not a lot of joy in her life. As I say – emperor or slave, it doesn’t matter.’

‘Do you know much about her?’

‘You don’t give in, do you?’ She stared at him, glancing at the flagon of wine and then changing her mind. ‘If you weren’t a friend I’d let you wonder. Still, truth is that I don’t know that much, just bits and pieces I hear from the girls or when I keep my ears open. A blind man could see that the marriage is not founded on love, but then how many really are, especially with the rich?’

‘Keeps you in business.’

‘Cheeky lad, aren’t we?’ Flora glared at him and then tilted her head from side to side. ‘You know enough of the world to know that the likes of me will never be short of business. There are some, you know, who are happy, really happy. Take Aelius Brocchus and his wife. Not the brightest, either of them, but they’re well matched and content.’ Her admiration was mixed with wonder at such good fortune.

‘Do you know everyone, Flora?’