‘Of course, sir.’ One thing Ferox knew had happened was that he had failed. He had saved the golden woman in this room, but the price had been the death of this unfortunate slave girl and maybe her mistress as well.

‘I shall stay and assist.’ Cerialis looked surprised when his wife spoke. ‘In case the centurion needs to ask about the household,’ she explained.

The prefect stared at her for a while and Ferox could not read his thoughts. Then Cerialis gave a gentle nod. ‘That is prudent.’

After he had gone Ferox went to the side of the big wooden bed with its high canopy.

‘Ugly old thing,’ Lepidina told him. ‘It was left behind by the previous commander and his family – and no doubt by everyone else back to the fool who bought it.’

The girl was young, fourteen or fifteen at a guess, and she had an unremarkable face. Her hair was dark brown and a little thin, her staring eyes small and grey in colour. Drained of blood her skin was white, but her lips were dark and mottled and stains on the bed beside her showed that she had frothed at the mouth. Ferox leaned over and sniffed, and heard his boot crush something. It was a piece of mistletoe, and when he smelled it there was the trace of other things as well. He guessed that one was nightshade, and that meant they had forced poison into the poor child.

The centurion pulled back the covers, grimacing at the stink of excrement. The corpse was naked, save for a bracelet of cheap stones, and there was no other trace of injury. Someone had drugged her, placed her in the bed and then slit her throat. She had not been dead when it had happened, so the cut had bled freely and she had fouled herself.

Sulpicia Lepidina had covered her eyes with one hand and sounded as if she was praying.

‘You should not be here, my lady,’ Ferox said.

She looked up, stern and proud again. ‘This is my house. I must know everything that happens here. Everything. Privatus?’

‘Mistress.’

‘Go and find out who saw the girl and our guest yesterday. We will need to see them.’

‘Yes, mistress.’ The chamberlain left, and Lepidina began to look at the clothes and boxes on a table in the corner of the room. Ferox wondered whether to talk to her about what had happened, but he did not know the right words, so got on with the matter in hand.