Like any young couple attempting to get established, we kept telling ourselves the struggle would be worth it, while all the time our dread slowly grew. We felt we would never escape from the drudgery. Our relationship had come under too much strain, just at the time when we should have been enjoying it most sweetly. I became bad-tempered; Helena was run down; the baby started crying all the time. Even the dog gave me her opinion; she made a bed under the table and refused to come out when I was around.

"Thanks, Nux."

She whined dolefully.

Then things really went wrong. Anacrites and I submitted our first major fees claim to the Palace; unexpectedly, it came back unpaid. There was a query against the percentage we had charged.

I took the scrolls up to the Palatine and demanded an interview with Laeta, the chief clerk who had commissioned us. He now maintained that the amount we were charging was unacceptable. I reminded him it was what he himself had agreed. He refused to acknowledge that and proposed instead to pay us a fraction of what we had expected. I stood there gazing at the bastard, all too well aware that Anacrites and I had no supporting contract document. My original bid existed, the inflated tender I had been so proud of swinging; Laeta had never confirmed in writing his agreement to the terms. I had never thought it mattered, until now.

Contractually, right was on our side. That didn't matter a damn.

To strengthen our case, I mentioned that our work had first been discussed with Vespasian's lady, Antonia Caenis, implying in the most delicate way that I was subject to her patronage. I still had faith in her. Anyway, I was certain she had taken a shine to Helena.

Claudius Laeta managed to disguise his undoubted relish and assume a suitable doleful face: "It is with regret that I have to inform you Antonia Caenis recently passed away."

Disaster.

For a moment I did wonder if he might be lying. Senior bureaucrats are adept at misinforming unwelcome suppliants. But not even Laeta, a snake if I ever met one, would compromise his professional standing with a lie that could be so easily checked and disproved. His deceit was always the unquantifiable kind. This had to be true.

I managed to keep my face expressionless. Laeta and I had a history. I was determined not to show him how I felt.

In fact he appeared slightly subdued. I had no doubt that cutting the rate was his idea, yet he seemed daunted by the personal damage to me. He had his own reasons: if he ever wanted to use me in future for off-color official work, this knock-back would inspire me to new flights of rhetoric in telling him to disappear up his own rear end-and without leaving a clue of thread to find his way out.

Like a true bureaucrat he was keeping options open. He even asked if I wanted to make a formal request for an interview with Vespasian. I said yes please. Laeta then admitted that the old man was currently keeping to himself. Titus might be prevailed upon to look into my problem; he had a sympathetic reputation, and was known to favor me. Domitian's name never even came up; Laeta knew how I felt about him. Possibly he shared my views. He was the kind of smooth senior politician who would regard the young prince's open vindictiveness as unprofessional.

I shook my head. Only Vespasian would do. However, he had just lost his female partner of forty years; I could not intrude. I knew how I would behave if I ever lost Helena Justina. I did not suppose that the grieving Emperor would feel in a mood to approve exceptional payouts to informers (whom he used, but famously despised), even if their rates had been agreed. I did not know for sure that Antonia Caenis had ever spoken to him about me; anyway now was the wrong moment to remind him of her interest.

"I can make you a payment on account," said Laeta, "pending formal clarification of your fees."

I knew what that meant. Payments on account are made to keep you happy. A sop. Payments on account are volunteered when you can be damned sure that is all that you will ever get. Turn down the offer, though, and you go home with nothing at all.

I accepted the stage-payment with the necessary grace, took my signed voucher for the release of the cash, and turned to leave.

"Oh by the way, Falco." Laeta had one final jab. "I understand you have been working with Anacrites. Will you tell him that his salary as an intelligence officer on sick leave will have to be deducted from what we pay to your partnership?"

Dear gods.

Even then the bastard had to have one more go at flaying us. "Incidentally, Falco, we must be seen to do everything properly. I suppose I ought to ask: have you completed a Census declaration on your own account?"

Without a word, I left.

As I was storming from Laeta's office a clerk rushed after me. "You're Didius Falco? I've a message from the Bureau of Beaks."

"The what? "

"Joke name! It's where Laeta pensions off incompetents. They're a pokey section who do nothing all day; they have special responsibilities for traditional augury-sacred chickens and the like."

"What do they want with me?"

"Some query about geese."

I thanked him for his trouble then continued on my way.

For once I turned away from the Cryptoporticus, my customary route down to the Forum. I was spurning public life. Instead, I worked my way through the complex of pompous old buildings on the crest of the Palatine, out past the Temples of Apollo, Victory, and Cybele, to the supposedly unassuming House of Augustus, that miniature palace with every pampering amenity where our first emperor liked to pretend he was just a common man. Devastated by the blow Laeta had delivered, I let myself stand high on the hill's crest above the Circus Maximus, looking across the valley, homeward to the Aventine. I needed to prepare myself. Telling Helena Justina I had worked myself into the ground just for a sack of hay would be hard. Listening to Anacrites whining was even worse to contemplate.

I bared my teeth in a bitter grin. I knew what I had done, and it was a grand old irony. Falco & Partner had spent four months gloating about the draconian powers of audit we could exercise over our poor victims: our authoritarian Census remit, from which there was so famously no appeal.

Now we had been shafted with exactly the same rules.

Thirty-eight

TO CHEER ME UP, Helena Justina attempted to distract me by using her own money to hire a lecture hall to stage the recital of poetry over which I had been dreaming for as long as she had known me. I spent a long time preparing the best pieces I had written, practicing how to recite them, and thinking up witty introductions. As well as advertising in the Forum, I invited all my friends and family.

Nobody came.