“Children exaggerate,” he declared, relieved that she seemed to understand.

“I hope that’s the case!” agreed Helena, with feeling. Then she faced him with it: “Gaia says someone in her family threatened to kill her.”

“Ridiculous!”

“Not you, then?”

“How dare you!”

“So who was it?”

“Nobody!”

“I do want to believe that is true.”

“Whatever you were told…” He paused, hoping Helena would tell him more details. No chance.

“You are requesting us not to interfere.” Helena’s tone was quiet. I knew what that meant: for her, this visit from the flamen made it look as if the child’s appeal for help might be justified.

“I am glad we understand each other.”

“Oh yes,” she said. Oh yes! She understood him all right.

“No one could possibly wish her harm. There are high hopes of Gaia Laelia,” concluded the Flamen Pomonalis. “When the ballot for the new Vestal Virgin is drawn…” He trailed off.

So a new Vestal was needed, and the little girl I met on my front doorstep had been put forward for the privilege. Could her uncle be suggesting to Helena that Gaia’s name was certain to be drawn by the Pontifex Maximus in the formal lottery? Impossible! Vespasian’s hand would have to dig around in an urn among a whole bunch of tablets. How could anyone know in advance which one would be gripped by the pontifical paw? I felt my face screw up in disgust, as I saw that the Vestal Virgins’ lottery must be fixed.

How could they do it? Easy as wink. Only one name written on all of the tablets. Or one tablet loaded, like a bad dice. Or quite simply, Vespasian would just announce the preselected name, without looking at the tablets at all.

Pointy-head was still enthusing. “It would be a new departure in the family-but a great honor. We are all absolutely delighted.”

“Does that include Gaia herself?” asked Helena coolly.

“Gaia is passionate about being entered.”

“Little girls do have such quaint ideas.” The Vestals were not Helena’s favorite women, apparently. I was surprised. I thought she would have approved of their honored role and status. “Well, let us hope she is successful,” Helena went on. “Then she will be taken straight to the House of the Vestals and handed into the control of the Pontifex Maximus.”

“Er-quite,” agreed the flamen, belatedly sensing an undercurrent. Presuming, however, that his appeals had been successful, he seemed to be about to leave. Taking a firm hold on Julia, I slid down the corridor and towards another room where I could conceal myself. I glimpsed Pomona’s priest, in his cloak and birchwood prong, with his back to me as he bade Helena farewell; he hid me from her view as I crept past.

I waited until I was sure he had left before I emerged.

As I opened the door behind which I had been hiding, a small determined figure blocked my way. Julia was whipped from my grasp. I groaned, but only quietly.

I was facing a tiny, frail old woman whose black eyes bored like bradawls. A bad conscience-for which I had no damned reason-pinned me to the spot.

“I suppose you have a good explanation,” announced the new arrival fiercely, “why you failed to come home for the little one’s birthday?” I did have. Famia’s funeral rites, such as they were, for the few scraps that had been left of him by the lion: an explanation, though not good. “And I do know what happened to Famia-though I had to hear it from dear Anacrites!”

“Hello, Mother,” I said. I made it sound meek. “We were forced to spend Julia’s first birthday becalmed off Otia… Are you going to congratulate me on my new status as a pillar of the state religion?”

“Don’t give me any of your silly nonsense,” scoffed Ma.

As usual, I had done what I thought she wanted, only to find her unimpressed.

VI

THIS HAD TURNED into a tiring day. First, I had had to dance around Petronius Longus while he showed his pique; now here was Ma. She had various complaints: primarily why I had let her favorite, Anacrites, come home from Tripolitania half dead from the wounds he acquired in the arena. Playing gladiators had been his own idea, but I would get the blame for it. Luckily, it meant he was back as a lodger at Ma’s house for further nursing, so she was not entirely upset.

“Why are you letting the poor thing go back to his job at the Palace?”

“Anacrites is grown up, Ma. His career decisions are nothing to do with me.”

“You two worked so well together.”

“We made a good pairing for the Census. That’s over now.”

“You could find other work to share.”

“Neither of us wanted to remain in partnership. I showed him up.”

“You didn’t like him, you mean.” Ma kept insisting that I did not really know Anacrites; that I had missed his fine sensitivity; that I belittled his talent. My own theory was that anyone who had tried to persuade an exotic foreign potentate to murder me should be allowed to run his own life-after being sealed in a barrel and dumped a thousand feet under the sea. Somewhere rough off Britain, preferably. “You never gave him a chance. Listen, Anacrites has his sights set on running a new branch of the security services. You could help him with that, Marcus-”

“Alternatively, I could rot in the Pontine Marshes, eaten by leeches and infected with fever. That would be a whole lot more fun.”

“And what about Petronius?” demanded Ma, changing tack to catch me out.

“Petronius belongs in the vigiles.”

“He belongs with his wife!”

“The wife who has decided that she now belongs with a potted-salad seller.”

“I blame you,” said Ma.

“Not guilty. I wouldn’t shove even Silvia into a life of pressed tripe and lettuce leaves. Petronius looks respectable, but he’s a wandering dog who never saw where his best interests lay until it was too late. Of course the mere fact that I told him all along that he was stupid need not prevent people placing the blame on me!”

“I don’t dare ask what you did to poor Famia,” Ma muttered darkly.

“He did it to himself. I brought home the remains, I’ll be a good uncle to the children, and I’ll try to look after Maia.”

“She won’t thank you.”

“No, Ma.”

My mother’s eyes narrowed, and we shared one of our rare moments of sense: “So how is she, son?”

“Too quiet. When I told her the news, she showed almost no emotion.”

“That won’t last.”

“I’m keeping an eye out for when she breaks down.”

“Just don’t you go upsetting her!”

Helena Justina, who had observed this conversation in silence from her wicker chair, holding the dog on her lap while allowing Julia Junilla to sit on her feet, smiled at me tenderly.

She was no help. What was more, I faced dinner with her parents that evening, where I would have to stand up to further inquisition about their family problems.

“You ought to be around at your sister’s instead of loafing here,” ordered my mother. I intended it; I wanted to ask Maia about the reception for Queen Berenice and how would-be little Vestal Virgins fitted into it. “Oh, don’t bother-I’ll go!”

Ma had forestalled me. The Virgins would have to wait. Petronius Longus would say virgins never do that. Still, the kind of virgins Petro joked about were never just six years old.

After Ma had gone, I waited for Helena to tell me about the Flamen Pomonalis visit. I had to pretend that I had come home right at the end of it, not that I overheard the whole interview. Helena could play up to me as a hidden accomplice if a conspiracy had been agreed on beforehand, but she hated to be spied on secretly. For one thing, she resented being supervised.

Obviously now deeply troubled, she gave me a succinct report.

“What exactly was Gaia’s story yesterday when you saw her alone before I came home, Helena?”