Restlessness slowly overcame the rest of my party too. Nobody said it again, but most of us had decided that the client was a washout. If we abandoned this business, once we returned to the house all we had to do was pack. The adventure was over for all of us.

Turning to me suddenly, Camillus Justinus said in his low, understated voice, "If we are sailing west and have control of our own vessel, Marcus, I shall ask you to land me if possible at Berenice again."

I raised my eyebrows. "Giving up the idea of working in Rome?"

"No. Just something I want to do first."

Helena dug me in the ribs. Obediently I folded my hands together and continued to stare out over the theater, as if I were watching a really gripping performance by a first-class company of actors. I said nothing. Nobody moved.

Justinus then continued, "Claudia Rufina and I had had a plan which went uncompleted. I still want to look for the Gardens of the Hesperides."

Claudia drew a sharp breath. It had been her dream. She thought that he now meant to go there alone while she returned to Spain, a failed eloper in ignominy, nursing her private grief.

"You might like to join me," suggested our hero to his furious girl. It was a charming idea to take her after all; I wished I had thought of suggesting it. Still, when he decided to bother, Justinus seemed to be perfectly capable of taking the initiative. Turning to her, he spoke gently and tenderly; it was rather affecting."You and I came through a remarkable adventure together. We shall never forget it, you know. It would be a great sorrow if we both had to remember it in future in silence, when we were with other people."

Claudia looked at him.

"I need you, Claudia," he announced. I wanted to cheer. He knew just what he was doing. What a lad. Handsome, charming, utterly dependable (as he needed to be, since he was in fact penniless). The girl was desperately in love with him, and at the last minute he had rescued her.

"Thank you, Quintus." Claudia stood up. She was a tall thing, sturdily built, with a strong, serious face. I had rarely heard her laugh, except back in Rome when she first knew Justinus; she was not laughing now. "In the circumstances," said Claudia Rufina pleasantly, "I think this is the least that you could offer me."

Helena caught my eye, frowning.

Claudia's voice hardened. "So you need me?" What he needed was her fortune, and I suddenly had a bad feeling Claudia understood that. "You know, nobody has ever in my life bothered to consider what I need! Excuse me, Quintus: I can see that everyone else will think you have just done something wonderful, but I would prefer to live with a person who really wanted me."

Before anyone could stop her, Claudia whipped into the nearest aisle and set off down the rows. I already knew her propensity for bursting into and out of amphitheaters on her own. I rose to my feet, just ahead of Justinus, who was still looking stunned. Dear gods, he had done his best, and was now terribly upset. Women can be so insensitive.

Nux plunged off the seat and raced down after the girl, barking excitedly. Helena and I both called out. As Claudia turned down the passageway towards a covered public exit, a woman who had somehow gained access to the arena entered centrally and strode to a dominating position on the oval stage.

She was of medium height and haughty bearing: long neck, lifted angular chin, a foam of brown hair, and watchful eyes that followed Claudia curiously as the girl rushed down the aisle towards her and then stopped. The woman wore rich clothing in subtle shades, with a gleam of silk in the weave. Her light cloak was held on her shoulders by matched brooches, linked by a heavy gold chain. More gold shone at her neck and on her fingers. Long, elegant earrings dangled from her pale ears.

Her voice, calm, aristocratic-and Latin-carried easily from the stage: "Which of you is Didius Falco?"

If she had brought attendants they must be waiting elsewhere. Her solo appearance had been calculated to shock us. I raised my arm, still distracted. However, I was always perfectly capable of insulting a suppliant: "Dear gods, do the Cyrenian elite allow women gladiators into their arena?"

"That would be outrageous." Resplendent in her chic streetwear, the woman surveyed me coolly. She paused slightly, as people do when they know exactly what effect they will cause. "My name is Scilla."

Beside me, Helena Justina smiled faintly. She had been right. I would accept this client.

Forty-nine

"HOW DID YOU find me?"

We were strolling back along the warm, dappled path to the Sanctuary. Helena, my discreet chaperon, walked in silence beside me, holding my hand, and lifting her face to the sun as if absorbed in the beauties of the scenery. Gaius had taken the baby and Nux and rushed off home ahead of us. The young lovers, or whatever they turned out to be, had dawdled behind to tell each other firmly how there was nothing more to be said.

"I traced you eventually through your friend Petronius. Before that I spoke to a man called Anacrites. He said he was your partner. I didn't care for him." Scilla was forthright, a woman who made her own judgments and acted accordingly.

Letting the prospective client get the measure of me, I explained as we walked slowly, "I used to work with Petronius, whom I trusted absolutely." Knowing Petro, I did wonder briefly what he had made of my new client when she approached him. His taste ran to more fragile types, however. Scilla was slim, but she had sinewy arms and a firm spring in her step. "Unhappily, Petronius returned to his career with the vigiles. Now, yes; I work with Anacrites, whom I don't trust at all-so one thing is certain: he won't ever let me down."

Faced with the traditional wit of the informing fraternity, Scilla merely looked irritated. Well, that's traditional too.

"You have come a long way. So why me?" I asked her mildly.

"You have been involved already in what I need you to do. You came to the house."

"To see Pomponius Urtica?" For a moment I was transported back to the ex-praetor's luxury villa on the Pincian last December, on those two useless occasions when I endeavored to interview him after he had been mauled by Calliopus' lion. Had Scilla been in the house, or was she just told about me afterwards? Either way, I knew she lived there, a close member of the praetor's domestic circle. "I wanted to talk to Pomponius about that accident."

Her voice grated: "An accident that ought not to have happened."

"So I deduced. And how is Pomponius?"

"He died." Scilla stopped walking. Her face was pale. "It took until the end of March. His end was prolonged and horribly painful." Helena and I had paused too, in the shade of a low pine tree. Some of the story must have been relayed to Helena already, but she had left me to hear it in full for myself. Scilla came to the point briskly: "Falco, you must have worked out that I want you to help me deal with the people responsible."

I had indeed guessed that.

What I felt unprepared for was this expensive, cultured, educated-sounding woman. According to the gossip in Rome, she was supposed to be a good-time girl. A lowborn fright, a freed slave probably. Even if Pomponius had bequeathed her millions, it would have been impossible for a common piece like that to transform herself in a few weeks into a close match for a Chief Vestal Virgin's niece.

She noticed my stare, which I had made no effort to hide. "Well?"

"I'm trying to make you out. I had heard you had a ‘wild' reputation."

"And what does that mean?" she challenged me.

"To be blunt, I expected a slut of tender years, bearing evidence of adventures."

Scilla remained calm, though clearly gritting her teeth. "I am a marble importer's daughter. A knight; he had also held important posts in the tax service. My brothers run a thriving architectural fittings business; one is a priest of the imperial cult. So my origins are respectable and I was brought up in comfort, with all the accomplishments that go with it."