People walked through, about their morning business. The huge rope-twister, a man I never spoke to, had lurched past looking as if he had just come home after a long night in some oily jug. Customers visited the stall where Cassius sold slightly stale bread rolls along with even older gossip. A water-carrier slopped his way into one of the buildings; a chicken in fear of the plucker set up a racket by the poultry pens; it was the school holidays so children were out and about looking for trouble. And trouble of some other sort was looking for me.

He was a fleshy, untidy lump with his belly over his belt. Thin, untrimmed dark curls fell forwards over his brow and twisted backwards over his tunic's neck in damp-looking coils as if he had forgotten to dry off properly at the baths. Stubble patchily decorated a double chin. He came wandering along the street, clearly looking for an address. He was neither frowning enough for the funeral parlour, nor sheepish enough for the half-a-copper hag who two-timed the tailor. Besides, that woman held her horizontal at-homes in the afternoon.

Petronius passed him, not offering assistance, though he eyed up the man with deliberate vigiles suspicion. The fellow was noted. To be picked up later by a hit squad, maybe. He seemed oblivious instead of terrified. Must have lived a sheltered life. That did not necessarily mean he was respectable. He had the air of a freed slave. A secretary or abacus louse.

`Dillius Braco?'

`Didius Falco.' My teeth met grittily.

`Are you sure?' he insisted. I did not answer, lest my response should be uncouth. `I hear you held a successful recital yesterday. Aurelius Chrysippus fancies we may be able to do something for you.'

‘Aurelius Chrysippus?’ It meant nothing, but even at that stage I had a dark feeling.

`I doubt it. I'm an informer. I thought you might want me to do something for you.'

`Olympus, no!'

'One thing you had better do is tell me who you are.'

`Euschemon. I run the Golden Horse scriptorium for Chrysippus.'

That would be some outfit where sweatshop scribes copied manuscripts – either for their owner's personal use, or in multiple sets for commercial sale. I would have perked up, but I had guessed that Chrysippus might be the Greek-bearded irritation who had taken over our recital. The wrong label he gave me in his introduction was about to stick. So much for fame. Your name becomes well known – in some incorrect version. It only happens to some of us. Don't tell me you've ever bought a copy of Julius Castor's Gallician Wars.

`Am I supposed to have heard of a scriptorium at the sign of the Golden Horse?'

`Oh, it's a top business,' he told me. `Astonished you don't know us. We have thirty scribes in full employment – Chrysippus heard your work last night, of course. He thought it might be good for a small edition.'

Somebody liked my work. Involuntarily my eyebrows raised. I invited him inside.

Helena was with Julia in the room where I interviewed clients. The child ceased her raving immediately, her interest caught by the stranger. Helena would normally have carried her into the bedroom, but since Julia was quiet she was left on her rug, absent-mindedly chewing her wooden stag while staring at Euschemon.

I introduced Helena, shamelessly mentioning her father's patrician rank in case it helped imply I was a poet to be patronised. I noticed Euschemon glancing around in astonishment. He could see this was a typical cramped lease, with one-colour painted walls, plain boarded floors, a meagre artisan's work table and lopsided stools.

`Our home is outside the city,' I said proudly. It sounded like a lie, of course. But we would be moving, if ever the bathhouse contractors managed to complete their work. `This is just a toehold we keep in order to be near my old mother.'

I explained quickly to Helena that Euschemon had offered to promulgate my work; I saw her fine brown eyes narrowing suspiciously. `Are you visiting Rutilius too?' I asked him.

`Oh! Should I?'

'No, no; he shuns publicity.' I might be an amateur but I knew the rules. The first concern of an author is to do down his colleagues at every opportunity. `So – what's this about?' I wanted to extract the offer, while pretending indifference.

Euschemon backed off nervously. `As a new author you could not expect a large copy run.' He had a merry jest all ready; he must have done this before: `The number we sell on your first publication may depend on how many friends and relatives you have!'

`Too many – and they will all expect free copies.' He looked relieved at my dry reaction. `So what are you offering?'

`Oh, a full deal,' he assured me. I noticed his kindly tone – leave all the details to us; we understand this business. I was with experts; that always worries me.

`What does the deal entail?' Helena pressed him. Her tone sounded innocent, a senator's daughter, curious about this glimpse into the world of men. But she always looked after my interests. There had been a time when what I was paid – or if I was paid – bore a direct relation not just to what we could put on the table, but whether we ate at all.

`Oh, the usual,' muttered Euschemon offhandedly. `We agree a price with you, then publish. It is straightforward.'

We both looked at him in silence. I was flattered, but not enough to grow stupid.

He expanded somewhat: `Well, we shall take your manuscripts, Falco, for an appropriate price.' Would I like it, however? `Then we make the copies and sell them from our outlet – which is attached directly to our scriptorium.'

`In the Forum?'

He looked shifty. `Near the end of the Clivus Publicius. Right by the Circus Maximus – a prime location,' he assured me. `Excellent passing trade.'

I knew the Clivus Publicius. It was a lonely hole, a back alley route down to the Circus from the Aventine. `Can you give me a realistic figure?'

`No, no. Chrysippus will negotiate the price.'

I hated Chrysippus already. `What are the options then? What kind of edition?'

`That depends on how much value we attach to the writing. Classics, as you know, are furnished with first quality papyrus and parchment title pages to protect the outer ends of the scrolls. Lesser work has a less elaborate finish, obviously, while a first-time author's work may even be prepared as a palimpsest.' Copied onto scrolls that have already been used once, with the old lines sponged out. `Very carefully done, I may say,' murmured Euschemon winningly.

`Maybe, but I wouldn't want that for my stuff. Who decides the format?'

`Oh, we must do that!' He was shocked that I had even raised the subject. `We choose the scroll size, finished material, decoration, type and size of the edition – all based on our long experience.'

I played dumb. `And all I have to do is write you something, then hand it over?'

`Exactly!' He beamed.

`Can I make further copies for my own use?'

He winced. `Afraid not. But you can buy from us at a discounted rate.' Buy my own work?

`Bit one-sided?' I ventured.

`A partnership,' he chided me. `We work together for mutual benefit.' He sounded as reliable as a cheap gigolo moving in on his mark. `Besides, we develop the markets and we carry all the risk.'

`If the work doesn't sell, you mean?'

`Quite. The house of Aurelius Chrysippus is not in business to provide kindling for bathhouse furnaces when we are forced to remainder failures. We like to get it right first time.'

`Sounds good to me.'

A harder note crept into his bland tone. `So I assume you are interested?'

I could see Helena, who was standing behind him, shaking her head passionately, with bared teeth.

`I'm interested.' I smiled blithely. Helena had closed her eyes. `I would like to see more of what you do, I think.' Where she might have looked relieved at my caution, Helena now acted out manic despair; she knew what I would be like if I was let loose at a scroll-seller's. She read as avidly as I did – though when it came to buying, she did not share my taste. As my taste had until recently depended upon what I could lay hands on in a limited comer of the second- or third-hand market, she was probably right to be sceptical. For most of my life I only ever had parts of scroll sets (unboxed), and I had to swap them once they were read.