'Who paid him?'

'I don't know!' His desperation told us this was almost certainly true.

'Let's get this straight,' Geminus nagged ominously. 'When Festus came to Rome looking for him, Orontes heard about it and deliberately skipped?' Manlius tried to nod. It was difficult in his position. Paint and wet plaster dribbled from his hair. He blinked his eyes fretfully. 'After Festus died, Orontes thought he could come back?'

'He likes to work:'

'He likes to cause a heap of shit for the Didius family! And now every time anyone else starts asking questions, your wily pal does another bunk?' Another feeble nod; more turgid drips. 'So answer me this, you pathetic runt-where does the coward run off to when he leaves Rome?'

'Capua,' groaned Manlius. 'He lives in Capua.'

'Not for long!' I said.

We left the painter hanging from his scaffold, though on our way out we did mention to the watchman that there seemed to be something odd going on in the Sabine triclinium and the white reception room. He muttered that he would go and have a look when he had finished his game of draughts.

Pa and I walked into the street, kicking pebbles morosely. There was no doubt about it; if we wanted to sort out this mystery, one of us would have to go to Capua.

'Do we believe that's where Orontes is?'

'I reckon so,' I decided. 'Manlius and Varga had already mentioned that they stayed in Campania recently-I bet they went down there to visit their pal in hiding.'

'You'd better be right, Marcus!'

In March, the long flog down to Campania just to wrench some sordid tale from a sculptor held no promise that appealed to this particular member of the rampaging Didius boys.

On the other hand, with so much at stake in my promise to Mother, I could not allow my father to go instead.

XLVI

We had been in the far north of the city; we made our way gloomily south. This time we walked at merely a brisk pace. My father was still not talking.

We reached the Saepta Julia. Pa carried on. I was so used to marching alongside him into trouble that at first I said nothing, but eventually I tackled him: 'I thought we were going back to the Saepta?'

'I'm not going to the Saepta.'

'I can see that. The Saepta's behind us.'

'I was never going to the Saepta. I told you where we were going when we were at the Carus house.'

'Home, you said.'

'That's where I'm going,' said my father. 'You can please your pompous self.'

Home! He meant where he lived with his redhead.

I did not believe this could be happening.

I had never yet been inside the house where my father lived, though I reckoned Festus had been no stranger there. My mother would never forgive me if I went now. I was not part of Pa's new life; I would never be. The only reason I kept walking was that it would be a gross discourtesy to abandon a man of his age who had had a bad shock at the Carus house, and with whom I had just shared a rumpus. He was out in Rome without his normal bodyguards. He was under threat of violence from Carus and Servia. He was paying me for protection. The least I could do was to see he reached his house safely.

He let me trudge all the way from the Saepta Julia, past the Flaminian Circus, the Porticus of Octavia and the Theatre of Marcellus. He dragged me right under the shadow of the Arx and the Capitol. He towed me on reluctantly, past the end of Tiber Island, the old Cattle Market Forum, a whole litter of temples and the Sublician and Probus Bridges.

Then he let me wait while he fumbled for his doorkey, failed to find it, and banged the bell to be let in. He let me slouch after him inside his neat entrance suite. He flung off his cloak, peeled off his boots, gestured brusquely for me to do likewise-and only when I was barefoot and feeling vulnerable did he admit scornfully, 'You can relax! She's not here.' The reprieve nearly made me faint.

Pa shot me a disgusted look. I let him know it was mutual. 'I set her up in a small business to stop her nosing into mine. On Tuesdays she always goes there to pay the wages and do the accounts.'

'It's not a Tuesday!' I pointed out grumpily.

'They had some trouble there last week and now she's having some work done to the property. Anyway, she'll be out all day.'

I sat on a coffer while he stomped off to speak to his steward. Someone brought me a pair of spare sandals and took my boots to clean the mud off them. As well as this slave, and the boy who had opened the door to us, I saw several other faces. When Pa reappeared I commented, 'Your billet's well staffed.'

'I like people round about me.' I had always thought having too many people around him was the main reason he had left us.

'These are slaves.'

'So I'm a liberal. I treat my slaves like children.'

'I'd like to riposte, and you treated your children like slaves!' Our eyes met. 'I won't. It would be unjust.'

'Don't descend to forced politeness, Marcus! Just feel free to be yourself,' he commented, with the long-practised sarcasm peculiar to families.

Pa lived in a tall, rather narrow house on the waterfront. This damp location was highly desired because of its view across the Tiber, so plots were small. The houses suffered badly from flooding; I noticed that the ground floor here was painted plainly in fairly dark colours. Left to myself, I looked into the rooms attached to the hallway. They were being used by the slaves, or were set up as offices where visitors could be interviewed. One was even stuffed with sandbags for emergency use. The only furniture comprised large stone coffers that would remain unaffected by damp.

Upstairs all that changed. Wrinkling my nose at the unfamiliar smell of a strange house, I followed my father to the first floor. Our feet trampled a grand Eastern carpet. He had this luxurious item spread on the floor in regular use, not hung safely on the wall. In fact everything he had brought home-which meant plenty-was there to be used.

We marched through a series of small, crowded rooms. They were clean, but jammed with treasures. The wall paint was all elderly and fading. It had been done to a basic standard, probably twenty years ago when Pa and his woman moved here, and not touched since. It suited him. The plainish red, yellow and sea-blue rooms with conventional dados and cornices were the best foil for my father's large, ever-changing collection of furniture and vases, not to mention the curios and interesting trinkets any auctioneer obtains by the crate. It was organised chaos, however. You could live here, if you liked clutter. The impression was established and comfortable, its taste set by people who pleased themselves.

I tried not to get too interested in the artefacts; they were astonishing, but I knew they were now doomed. As Pa walked ahead of me, sometimes glancing at a piece as he passed it, I had the impression he was secure, in a way I did not remember from when he lived with us. He knew where everything was. Everything was here because he wanted it-which extended to the scarfmaker, presumably.

He brought me to a room that could be either his private den or where he sat with his woman conversing. (He had bills and invoices scattered about and a dismantled lamp he was mending, but I noticed a small spindle poking out from under a cushion.) Thick woollen rugs rumpled underfoot. There were two couches, side-tables, various quaint bronze miniatures, lamps and log baskets. On the wall hung a set of theatrical masks-possibly not my father's choice. On a shelf stood an extremely good blue-glass cameo vase, over which he did sigh briefly.

'Losing that one is going to hurt! Wine?' He produced the inevitable flagon from a shelf near his couch. Alongside the couch he had an elegant yard-high gilded fawn, positioned so he could pat its head like a pet.