Once inside, the youngsters clustered close to the man while all four children glared about, scanning the bar for undesirables exactly as he had done. He had them well drilled.

' Whoops? They had noticed Maia. This was more trouble than they had bargained for. "Look out, Uncle Lucius!"

Ancus immediately hurtled straight across the bar and threw himself into his mother's arms with a piteous cry. He was eight, but had always been a baby. Sensitive, she said.

Maia's eyes were slits. Carrying Ancus, she stepped towards the others and pointed to Petronius. "This man is not your uncle."

All four children stared at her.

"He is now!" decided Rhea. The brutal, forthright, open one. Aged almost five, she spoke her mind like a ninety-year-old matriarch. My mother must have started out in life just like Rhea.

"Let's face it, Maia," Petro drawled. "The very fact that they are yours makes the poor things uncontrollable." He bent down to the three who were still beside him. "Go to your mother, quick, or we're dead meat."

Marius, Cloelia and Rhea trotted to Maia obediently then held up their faces to be kissed. Maia stooped and put her arms around all of them. She turned her furious gaze on Petronius, but he got in first. "I did my best," he told her quietly. "I brought them to you safely, and as quickly as I could. We would have been here sooner, but we all fell ill with chickenpoxjust north of-'

"Cabilonnum," supplied Cloelia, who must be the keeper of their travel notes. "Gaul."

Maia was lost for words, though being my sister this did not afflict her for long. Sick with wrath, she accused Petronius, You have brought my children to a bar!"

"Settle down, Mother," advised Marius (the eleven-year-old authoritative one). "This is about the hundredth time. We're slightly short of funds, so we make do. Uncle Lucius has taught us how to behave. We never question the prices, we don't pull a knife on the landlord and we don't break up the joint."

LX

the tooth-puller had a strange attitude. I thought he was drunk.

I had gone with him alone. Had not Maia's children wanted feeding- urgently, they all insisted I could have escaped this. I would have preferred to exchange news with Petro, but he and I swapped a coded agreement to speak in private later. Since the tooth man seemed willing to deal with a patient, everyone insisted that while the children tucked in at the Nemesis, I had to submit to dentistry. Playing brave, I rejected company. It is bad enough yelling in agony, without a helpful audience. Helena wanted to come with me, but I knew my ordeal would upset her terribly. I could cope with pain, but not that.

The street outside the bar was oddly peaceful. Somewhere across town, I could hear raucous voices as the site team progressed between venues, but here by the Calleva Gate all was at rest. Cool air soothed my temper. There was rain drifting in fine gusts. It could be nowhere but Britain.

We entered the molar man's lair. It had wide doors, which he opened a bare crack, as if scared I would admit muggers with me. Inside, although he lit a lamp its dwindling flame scarcely reached any distance. I felt my way to the seat where he would operate. I had to put my head back against a block of something cold and hard.

"I heard you only opened up here recently?"

"That's right."

"You bought the place? Had it been some other business?"

"Believe so."

I wondered what.

He started to mix up a very large draught for me. Poppy juice in wine. Just looking at it made me feel I was bursting for a latrine visit; I managed to spill the beaker and avoid drinking most of it. He seemed anxious about that. The strong herbal scent of his medicine reminded me of the painkiller Alexas had prepared for Aulus with his dog bite

Tin tough. Just hurry, will you?"

He said we had to wait until the poppies took effect. I could understand that. He did not want his hand gnawed off.

I lay there in the semi-darkness, feeling myself relax. The tooth puller was pottering somewhere behind me, out of sight. Suddenly he reappeared to take a look in my mouth. I opened wide. He seemed awkward, as if I had somehow caught him out.

"It's the old story," he mumbled. "Too much grit in food. Breaks down the surface and trouble gets in. If you came to see me sooner, I could have filled the hole with alum or mastic but it never lasts." Even though what he was saying was all professional, I felt myself losing confidence in him. "Do you want a slow extraction?"

I gurgled, still with my mouth gaping. "Quick!"

"Slow is best. Causes less damage."

I only wanted him to get on with it.

Now my eyes were more accustomed to the Stygian gloom. The tooth-puller was a skinny stoat, with nervous eyes and thin tufts of hair. He had perfected a manner that must make his patients all terrified.

I remembered my great uncle, Scaro, who had once visited an Etruscan dentist whose skill impressed him enormously. Scaro was obsessed with teeth. As a small boy I had listened to many tales of how that man held his patient's head between his knees, rasping away with sets of files to remove the tartar and how he would create a gold band to fit over surviving teeth, into which replacements carved from ox teeth would be pinned…

I would not acquire a cunning gold brace and a workable bridge in Noviomagus Regnensis. The man was barely competent. He prodded a gum. I cried out. He said he should wait longer.

The medicinal draught was taking effect. I must even have dozed off briefly. Time shrank, so a few seconds passed, filled with a wide spanned dream in which I found myself reflecting on the new palace. I saw some fellow who was project manager. He costed the works, created the programme, negotiated supplies of precious materials and hired specialists. Around him a pall of stone dust hung over the largest mason's yard north of the Alps. He inspected marbles from every corner of the world limestones, siltstones, crystalline and veined. Columns were fluted; mouldings were polished; cornices were run off from hard templates. In join eries planes squealed, tenon saws rasped and hammers banged. Elsewhere, carpenters banging down floor302boards whistled piercing tunes to overcome their own racket. In forges, blacksmiths clanged incessantly, turning out window catches, drain covers, handles, hinges and hooks. They produced mile after mile of nails, which in my dream were all nine-inch monsters.

I saw the palace complete, in splendour. One day the King's quiet corridors would be trodden by businesslike feet, amid the murmur of voices from elegant rooms. One day…

I woke. Something was wrong in my darkened surroundings. I saw it blearily. A large interior with a workplace. Fearsome gadgets hung on walls. Pincers and hammers. Was this tooth-puller a torturer, or just provincial and crude? He owned one tool that was familiar: a joined set of clamps with cutting edges. The last time I saw anything like that, it was the most precious possession of Maia's dead husband Famia. He used it for castrating stallions.

The man approached me. He was holding a set of enormous pliers. He had watery eyes, in which I discerned evil intentions. Through my numbed brain the truth rammed home. He had drugged me. He was now going to kill me. I was a stranger. Why would he do that?

I stirred. I jumped up. He must have thought I was unconscious. He fell back indignantly. I threw aside the cloth he had used to cover me; it resembled an old horse blanket. I discovered my head had been resting uncomfortably on a smithy's anvil.

"This is some wayside blacksmith's haunt!"

"He left. I bought it'

"You're an amateur. And I fell for your story!"

This was not for me. I would make Cyprianus pull the damn tooth out with a set of nail-head pliers. Better still, Helena could take me to Londinium. Her uncle and aunt would produce some skilled specialist who could bore fine holes into abscesses and drain off the poison.