After a day of wandering, Poole met Luigi Frangipani. They went for a walk through the cork woods on Monte Mario.

Frangipani sketched in something of the background to his approach to Poole. “There is much tension in Rome,” Frangipani said, in lightly accented English. “It is a question of time, you see, of history. Rome is a place of great families.”

“Like your own,” Poole said politely.

“Some are prepared to accept the king as their sovereign. Others are prevented from doing so by loyalty to the pope. You must understand that some of the families are descended from popes themselves! Still others have made their fortunes more recently, such as from banking, and have yet a different outlook on developments …”

Poole thought all this talk of families and tradition sounded medieval — very un-British — and he felt oddly claustrophobic. “And what is it you want of me?”

They stopped at a wooden bench, and Frangipani produced a small map of Rome.

“We Frangipani, lacking the great wealth of some other families, are not so conservative; we must look to the future. Rome has been invaded many times. But now that it is the capital, a new invasion is under way, an invasion by an army of bureaucrats. The municipality was first asked for forty thousand rooms for all those teeming officials, but could provide only five hundred. To house its ministries the government has already requisitioned several convents and palaces. But much more housing is needed.

“So there is an opportunity. There is sure to be a building boom — and there is plenty of room for it in Rome. We believe the earliest developments are likely to be here—” He pointed at his map. “ — between the Termini station and the Quirinal, and perhaps later here, beyond the Colosseum.”

Poole nodded. “You are buying the land in anticipation. And you want me to work on its development.”

Frangipani shrugged. “You are a surveyor. You know what is required.” He said that Poole would be asked to survey the prospective purchases, and then lead any construction projects to follow. “There is much to be done. During their thousand years of control, the popes, while they ensured their own personal comfort, did little to maintain the fabric of the city concerning such mundane matters as drainage. Every time the Tiber floods the old city is immersed, and the fields beyond the walls are a malarial wasteland — why, the Etruscans managed such affairs better. We know your reputation and your experience,” Frangipani concluded smoothly. “We have every faith that you will be able to deliver what we require.”

Poole asked for time to think the proposal over. He went back to his hotel room, his mind racing. He was sure from his own reading that Frangipani’s analysis of the housing shortage was correct — and that this was a great opportunity for Poole personally. He could look ahead to an attachment here for years, he thought; he would have to bring the family out.

But he was a cautious man — he wouldn’t have become a surveyor otherwise — and he asked for reassurances about Frangipani’s funding before committing himself further.

Two days later he met Frangipani again, in a cafй near the Castel Sant’Angelo.

Frangipani brought a colleague this time, a silent slate-eyed woman of about forty. She introduced herself simply as Julia. She wore a plain white robe of a vaguely clerical aspect. Frangipani said she was an elder of a religious group called the Puissant Order of Holy Mary Queen of Virgins — “Very ancient, very wealthy,” Frangipani said with disarming frankness. The Order was the source of much of Frangipani’s funding.

Julia said, “The Order has a mutually beneficial relationship with the Frangipani reaching back many centuries, Mr. Poole.”

Poole nodded ruefully. “Everything in Rome has roots centuries deep, it seems.”

“But we must grasp the opportunities offered by the times.”

They talked for a while about the dynamic of the age. Julia seemed to Poole to have an extraordinarily deep perspective. “The harnessing of oil and coal is propelling a surge in the growth of cities not paralleled since the great agricultural developments of the early medieval days,” she would say.

Clearly the Order was not run by fools; they intended to profit from the latest developments, just as, no doubt, they had profited in one way or another from previous changes throughout their long history.

Poole had more immediate concerns, however. He began to talk of his tentative plans to bring his family to Rome, and asked about schooling. Julia smiled and said that the Order provided education of a very high standard, including classes in English for the children of expatriates. It would not be difficult to find places for Poole’s children, if he so desired.

After some days of further negotiation, the decision was made, the deal done.

George Poole would stay in Rome for twenty years, in which time he played his part in the advance of a great tide of brick, stone, and mortar over the ancient gardens and parks. His two daughters completed their education with the Order. But Poole found himself spending a good proportion of his income on relieving the conditions of his laborers and their families, part of a great throng of three hundred thousand in the growing city by the end of the century, who found themselves sleeping under ancient arches or on the steps of churches, or in the shantytowns that sprouted in many open spaces.

Even so he went back to England wealthy enough to retire. But one of his daughters, somewhat to her parents’ disquiet, elected to join the Order herself when her tuition was complete.

“And that’s how a Poole came to Rome,” Peter said. “George, you have roots in the Order on both your mother’s side and your father’s …

“This stuff is incredible. And I believe I still haven’t seen the half of it. I think there has been a relationship between the Vatican and the Order that goes back to the founding of them both. Surely the Order has provided funds to the popes over the centuries. Surely it has provided refuge or support in turbulent times — perhaps it has sponsored one candidate for holy offices over another.

“And in that great scrinium you describe, which unlike the Vatican Archive hasn’t been burned by emperors or chewed by rats or plundered by Napolй on, there are secrets that no pope could bear to have revealed, even in these enlightened times. George, no wonder your tame Jesuit hovered over me all day. This stuff is explosive — your Order has got the pope by the balls! … George, you have to go back down there.”

“Show me Lucia,” I said to my sister.

She shook her head. “George, George—”

“Never mind the bullshit. Show me Lucia. ”