"So may I ask a question, please?" I was calm. The mulsum boy should never be rushed, crushed or otherwise offended. You need him on your side. "What news?"

"Give me a chance, legate- today's big thriller is: Philocles just died."

XXIII

"DON'T you mean Blandus?" I corrected the mulsum boy. "He.Ly was in the fight earlier."

"All right. Blandus, then." All he cared was that he had one less beaker to brew.

"He got stamped on very badly so, what's happened?"

"I went in with his mulsum. He jumped up for it. Next minute he was falling down dead." Spleen, I thought. Internal bleeding, anyway.

"Wasn't Alexas watching him?"

"Alexas wasn't there."

I lost my temper. "Well, he damned well should have been! What's the point of taking people to the medical hut if they just lie on their board and die?"

"It wasn't in the medical hut," protested the mulsum boy. I lifted an eyebrow, restraining myself. "He was in the lockup."

I would have ground my teeth, but was treating the sore one tenderly. "In that case it is Philocles."

"That's what I said! You told me it was Blandus, chief

"Well, I don't know what I'm talking about, obviously…"

I got him to take me to the lock-up. It was a small, solid lean-to where the clerk of works held bloody-minded bingeing drunks for a day, or if necessary two days, while they sobered up. The interior looked as if it had been well used.

Alexas was at the scene now. Cyprianus must have sent for him.

"You seem to have more corpses than live patients," I said.

"It's not funny, Falco."

"I am by no means laughing."

Philocles was lying on some grass outside. He was dead all right. They must have towed him into the fresh air. Too late. As Alexas continued to rub his limbs and shake him, just in case, I looked over the orderly's shoulder; I could see a few bruises but no other marks. "It was Blandus who took the worst punishment. Philocles seemed fine." I bent and turned his skull, inspecting where I hit him. "He was fighting mad. I had to crack him one."

Alexas shook his head. "You've confessed sleep easy. Don't trouble your conscience over hitting his head. The way the boy described it, his heart stopped. Excitement won't have helped, but this would have happened anyway."

The mulsum boy did a dramatic show of clutching his side, staggering, then falling by stages to the ground. "Very good." I applauded him. "I look forward to seeing you play Orestes at the Megalensian Games."

"I'm going to be a cart driver."

"Good idea. Much better pay, and you don't have to fight off swarms of adoring girls." He shot me a disgusted look. He was about fourteen, a lad in a man's world, growing up fast. He was old enough for girls, but money matters did not yet trouble him. Still, the girls would see to that.

As the mosaicist's body was carried away, with Alexas in train, Cyprianus shook his head. "I'd better tell Junior that his father has died."

"Ask him if he knows what the fight was about."

"Oh we all know that!" Cyprianus snapped irritably.

"Jealousy, you said." I watched him.

"They had a war going back decades." Now Cyprianus spoke in a tired voice, telling me the sour site secrets he had previously tried to keep private from the Emperor's man. There was no point sheltering Philocles Senior now, and for joining in the fight Blandus must take his chance. "Most sites, the rule was if you employed Blandus, you had to forget Philocles and vice versa. This was the first time for years they had been on the same project."

"This being Britain, where your choices of craftsmen are limited, because nobody wants to come out here?"

"Yes." Cyprianus spoke with rueful pride. "And being the Great King's palace, where we want the best."

"Were these two warned before they came that they might meet up?"

"No. Of course warned them, when they got here, that I would not allow trouble. Pomponius had hired them. He awards the special sub-contracts. He either did not know they hated each other or he didn't care."

"Personal relationships are not his strong point."

"Tell me!" Cyprianus sighed wearily. "So now Philocles Senior is on his way to Hades, and Junior will probably walk out on us. Blandus is laid up and who knows if or when he'll be on his feet again…"

I thumped his shoulder. "Don't let it depress you. What I still don't see is what it's all about?"

"Oh you know painters, Falco!"

"Light-fingered?" I guessed.

"Fingers everywhere, you mean. Randy little beggars, the lot of them. Why do you think they become painters? They go into people's houses, with access to the women."

"Ah! So Blandus…?"

"Screwed the wife of Philocles Senior. The husband discovered them." I winced. "But don't tell Junior," Cyprianus pleaded. "He's a bit slow. We all think that he doesn't know."

A thought struck. "Blandus is not by chance his real father?"

"No. Junior was a baby." Cyprianus had thought about it too. Then he chuckled. "Well, I think he was… Let's pretend we're sure. He'd be torn whether to carry on floor-laying, or to take up marbling walls instead!"

"You need him piecing in the tesserae – I'll keep mum."

For a moment Cyprianus did gaze at me. "There's nothing else for you to do about this, Falco." He was either checking my opinion anxiously, or seeking to influence my actions if I wanted to cause trouble.

"Why should there be?" I answered him. "It's death from natural causes. He left us his creative work. Either Philocles Junior or some other humourless floor fixer will eventually lay those designs. Otherwise, it's Fortune. This happens all the time. You curse their timing, comfort any relations, fix up a funeral- then you move on and forget them."

Maybe Cyprianus thought me harsh. That was better than him thinking I would hold an enquiry. And, even though his work on building sites was dangerous, maybe I had seen more sudden deaths than he had. I was tough. Mind you, I could still get angry.

While the clerk of works went to break the bad news to the chief mosaicist's son, I tried to see Blandus. Alexas let me in to where he was lying, but he was snoring. He had been in so much pain the orderly had drugged him.

"Poppy juice?"

"Henbane."

"Careful!"

"Yes. I'm trying not to kill him Alexas assured me sombrely.

XXIV

this enquiry was making more demands than I expected. Today I had had a fall and a fight, then been involved in accidental death. I was shaken both mentally and physically. That's without counting toothache, hard work in the office, or personal matters that had more pleasantly drained my strength.

I was glad I had brought Helena and the others here, so I did not have to face an evening donkey ride before I found dinner and solace. Anyway, it was clear I now needed regular access to my clothes chest. During a case, I liked a change of venue. The trouble with provincial assignments was always the same: the place and the personnel stayed with you day and night. There was no escape.

I was missing Rome. Back there, after any long day working, I could lose myself in the Forum, the baths, the races, the river, the theatre and thousands of street gathering points which hosted many kinds of edibles and drinkables to take your mind off trouble. I had been here three days and I was already homesick. I missed the tall, teeming buildings in the slum areas just as much as the high temples, glinting with bronze and copper, which crowned those famous hills. I wanted hot streets full of cracked amphorae, wild dogs, fish bones and falling window boxes; itinerant sausage-sellers peddling lukewarm meats; line after line of washed tunics, hung between windows where ninety-year-old hags leaned out and cackled their disgust over girls who were flashing too much leg at slippery bath-oil salesmen who were probably bigamists.