But when she dug her fingers into the thin layer of earth, she quickly came to hard, textured stone beneath. It must be the floor of the bathhouse. She put her flowers aside and scraped away the soil with her hands. She exposed little tiles, bright colors — a man’s face, picked out in bits of stone. She knew what this was; there was another in the living room. It was a mosaic, and these bits of stone, brick red and creamy white and yellow-gold and gray, were tesserae. She kept scraping, shuffling back on her knees, until she had exposed more of the picture. A young man rode a running horse — no, it was flying,

for it had wings — and he chased a beast, a monster with the body of a big cat and the head of a goat. Eager to see more, she scraped at more of the soil. Some of the picture was damaged, with the little tiles missing or broken, but -

“I thought I’d find you here. The one place you aren’t meant to be.” The deep voice made her jump. Aetius had come into the bathhouse through a rent in the ruined wall at the back. He stood over her, hands on hips. He wore a grimy tunic; perhaps he had been riding.

Cartumandua said, “Oh, sir, thank the gods. Get her out of there. She won’t listen to me.”

He waved a hand, and she fell silent. “You’ll be in no trouble, Cartumandua. I’ll be responsible.” He knelt down beside Regina and she peered into his face; to her relief she saw he wasn’t being too stern. “What are you doing, child?”

“Grandfather! Look what I found! It’s a picture. It was here all the time, under the soil.”

“Yes, it was there all the time.” He pointed to the young man in the picture. “Do you know who this is?”

“No …”

“He’s called Bellerophon. He is riding Pegasus, the winged horse, and he is battling the Chimaera.”

“Is there more of it? Will you help me uncover it?”

“I remember what was here,” he said. “I saw it before the fire.” He pointed to the four corners of the room. “There were dolphins — here, here, here, and here. And more faces, four of them, to represent the seasons. This was a bathhouse, you know.”

“I know. It burned down.”

“Yes. There was a sunken bath just over there, behind me. Now, don’t you go that way; it’s full of rubble now, but the bath’s still there, and if you fell in you’d hurt yourself and we would all be in trouble. We used to have water piped in here — great pipes underground — our own supply from the spring up on the hill.” He rapped at the mosaic. “And under the floor there is a hollow space, where they used to build fires under the ground, so the floor would be warm.”

Regina thought about that. “Is that how it all caught fire?”

He laughed. “Yes, it is. They were lucky to save the villa, actually.” He ran his finger over the lines of Bellerophon’s face. “Do you know who made this picture?”

“No …”

“Your great-grandfather. Not my father — on your father’s side.” She dimly understood what he meant. “He made mosaics. Not just for himself. He would make them for rich people, all over the diocese of Britain and sometimes even on the continent, for their bathhouses and living rooms and halls. His father, and his father before him, had always done the same kind of work. It’s in the family, you see. That was how they got rich, and could afford this grand villa. They were in the Durnovarian school of design, and … well, that doesn’t matter.”

“Why did they let it get all covered over?” She glanced around at the scorched walls. “If this bathhouse burned down all those years ago, why not rebuild it?”

“They couldn’t afford to.” He rested his chin on his hand, comfortably squatting. “I’ve told you, Regina. These are difficult times. It’s a long time since anybody in Durnovaria or anywhere near here has wanted to buy a mosaic. In the good days your father’s family bought land here and in the town, and they’ve been living off their tenants’ rent ever since. But they really aren’t rich anymore.”

“My mother says we are.”

He smiled. “Well, whatever your mother says, I’m afraid—”

There was a scream, high-pitched, like an animal’s howl.

Regina cried out. “Mother!”

Aetius reacted immediately. He picked her up, stepped to the doorway over the scattered dirt, and thrust Regina at the slave girl. “Keep her here.” Then he strode away, his hand reaching to his belt, as if seeking a weapon.

Regina struggled against Cartumandua’s grip. Carta herself was trembling violently, and it was easy for Regina to wriggle out of her grasp and run away.

Still that dreadful screaming went on. Regina ran from room to room, past knots of agitated servants and slaves. She remembered that her father had been in the living room with his tenant and his figures. Perhaps he was still there now. She ran that way as fast as she could. Carta pursued her, ineffectually.

So it was that while Aetius was the first to reach Julia, his daughter, Regina found Marcus, her father.

Marcus was still in the living room, on his couch, with his tablets and scrolls around him. But now his hands were clamped over his groin. Red liquid poured out of him and over the couch and tiled floor, unbelievable quantities of it. It was blood. It looked like spilled wine.

Regina stepped into the room, but she couldn’t reach her father, for that would have meant walking into the spreading lake of blood.

Marcus seemed to see her. “Oh, Regina, my little Regina, I’m so sorry … It was her, don’t you see?”

“Mother?”

“No, no. Her. She tempted me, and I was weak, and now I am like Atys.” He lifted his hands from his groin. His tunic was raised, exposing his bare legs, and a meaty, bloody mess above them that didn’t look real. He was smiling, but his face was very pale. “I did it myself.”

“You fool.” Aetius stood in the other doorway now, with his strong arm around Julia. Julia was hiding her face in her hands, her head bowed against her father’s shoulder. “What have you done?”

Marcus whispered, “I have atoned. And like Atys I will return …” His voice broke up as if there were liquid in his throat.

“Mother!” Regina ran forward. She was splashing in the blood, actually splashing in it, and now she could smell its iron stink, but she had to get to her mother. Still she kept on, running across the room, past the couch with the grisly, flopping thing that was her father.

But Julia twisted away and fled.

Aetius grabbed Regina and folded her in his arms, just as he had the night before, and no matter how she struggled and wept, he wouldn’t release her to follow her mother.

Chapter 4

I stayed in Manchester another seventy-two hours.

I retrieved my father’s boxes of business material from the loft, and found a few more files downstairs. He’d actually carried on working after his nominal retirement, doing bits of bookkeeping for friends and close contacts. Much of this work concerned small projects in the building trade.

I spent the best part of a day checking through all this material, trying to close down any loose ends. There were actually some bits of work my father hadn’t completed, a few fees he hadn’t collected, but they were all for small amounts, and everything was resolved amicably. I came away with a short list of requests for the return of some material. Most of the contacts were his friends — I knew a couple of them myself — and most hadn’t heard of the death. The round of calls was painful, and the friends’ reactions brought back the immediacy of it all.

I checked through Dad’s most recent bank statements. Most of the statement lines were unremarkable. But I did find a few orders for foreign checks. Some of these were for more than a thousand pounds, and they went out every month, usually in the first week. I had no idea what they were for. I considered calling the bank branch, and wondered if they would tell me what was going on.