'No thanks. I'll go on tending the hangover.'

He stayed his hand, without pouring for himself. For a moment he gazed at me. 'You don't give an inch, do you?' I understood, and glared back silently. 'I've managed to get you inside the door-but you're as friendly as a bailiff. Less,' he added. 'I never knew a bailiff refuse a cup of wine.'

I said nothing. It would be a striking irony if I set out to find my dead brother, only to end up making friends with my father instead. I don't believe in that kind of irony. We had had a good day getting ourselves into all sorts of trouble-and that was the end of it.

My father put down the flagon and his empty cup.

'Come and see my garden, then!' he ordered me.

We walked back through all the rooms until we reached the stairs. To my surprise, he led me up another flight; I assumed I was about to partake in some perverse joke. But we came to a low arch, closed by an oak door. Pa shot open the bolts, and stood back for me to duck my head and step out first.

It was a roof-garden. It had troughs filled with plants, bulbs, even small trees. Shaped trellises were curtained with roses and ivy. At the parapet more roses were trained along chains like garlands. There, between tubs of box trees, stood two lion-ended seats, providing a vista right across the water to Caesar's Gardens, the Transtiberina, the whale-backed ridge of the Ianiculan.

'Oh this is not fair,' I managed to grin feebly.

'Got you!' he scoffed. He must have known I had inherited a deep love of greenery from Ma's side of the family.

He made to steer me to a seat, but I was already at the parapet drinking in the panorama. 'Oh you lucky old bastard! So who does the garden?'

'I planned it. I had to have the roof strengthened. Now you know why I keep so many slaves; it's no joke carrying water and soil up three flights in buckets. I spend a lot of my spare time up here:'

He would. I would have done the same.

We took a bench each. It was companionable, yet we remained distinct. I could cope with that.

'Right,' he said. 'Capua!'

'I'll go.'

'I'm coming with you.'

'Don't bother. I can rough up a sculptor, however devious. At least we know that he's devious before I start.'

'Sculptors are all devious! There are a lot of them in Capua. You don't even know what he looks like. I'm coming, so don't argue. I know Orontes, and what's more, I know Capua.' Of course, he had lived there for years.

'I can find my way round some two-mule Campanian village,' I snarled disparagingly.

'Oh no. Helena Justina doesn't want you being robbed by every low-season pickpocket and picking up floozies-'

I was about to ask if that was what had happened when he went there, but of course when Pa ran off to Capua, he took his own floozie.

'What about leaving the business?'

'Mine is a well-run outfit, thanks; it can stand a few days without me. Besides,' he said, 'madam can make decisions if any snags arise.'

I was surprised to learn the scarf-maker commanded so much trust, or even that she involved herself. For some reason I had always viewed her as a negative figure. My father seemed the type whose views on women's social role were stiff and traditional. Still, it did not follow that the scarf-maker agreed with him.

We heard the door open behind us. Thinking about Father's redhead, I looked round quickly, afraid I should see her. A slave edged out with a large tray, no doubt as a result of Pa's talk with his steward. The tray went on to a bird-bath, creating a makeshift table. 'Have some lunch, Marcus.'

It was mid-afternoon, but we had missed other refreshment. Pa helped himself. He left me to make my own decision, so on that basis I conceded the issue and tucked in.

It was nothing elaborate, just a snack someone had thrown together for the master when he came home unexpectedly. But as snacks go, it was tasty. 'What's the fish?'

'Smoked eel.'

'Very nice.'

'Try it with a drop of damson sauce.'

'Is this what they call Alexandrine?'

'Probably. I just call it bloody good. Am I winning you round?' my father asked evilly.

'No, but pass the rolls, will you.'

There were two strips of eel left; we jabbed at them with our knives, like children fighting over titbits.

'A man called Hirrius had an eel-farm,' Pa began obliquely, though somehow I knew he would be working around to discussing our own precarious position. 'Hirrius sold his eel-farm for four million sesterces. It was a famous sale; I wish I had handled it! Now you and I could do with just one pool like that.'

I breathed slowly, licking sauce from my fingers. 'Half a million: I'll come in with you, but that's not much of an offer. I've been trying to raise four hundred thousand. I suppose I may have collected ten per cent so far.' That was optimistic. 'I refrained from pricing up your lovely chattels, but the picture's bleak for both of us.'

'True.' My father seemed surprisingly unworried, however.

'Don't you care? You have obviously assembled a wealth of good things here-yet you told Carus and Servia you would sell.'

'Selling things is my trade,' he answered tersely. Then he confirmed, 'You're right. To cover the debt means stripping the house. Most of the stuff at the Saepta belongs to other people; selling for customers is what auctioneering is about.'

'Your personal investment is all in this house?'

'Yes. The house itself is freehold. That cost me-and I'm not intending to mortgage it now. I don't keep much cash with bankers; it's vulnerable.'

'So how healthy are you on the sesterces front?'

'Not as healthy as you think. ' If he could seriously talk of finding half a million, he was filthy rich by my standards. Like all men who don't have to worry, he liked grousing. 'There are plenty of demands. Bribes and easements required at the Saepta; I pay my whack to the Guild for our dinners and the funeral fund. Since the store was raided, I've some big losses to cover, not to mention compensating the people whose auction was knocked apart that time you were there.' He could have added, I still give your mother an annuity. I knew he did. I also knew she spent his money on her grandchildren; I paid her rent myself. 'I'll have a bare house when I finish with Carus,' he sighed. 'But I've had that before. I'll come back.'

'You're too old to have to start again.' He must be too old to feel sure he could manage it. By rights, he should now have been able to retire to some country farm. 'Why are you doing it? For big brother's reputation?'

'My own, more likely. I'd rather sneer at a stick like Carus than let Carus sneer at me. What about you?' he challenged.

'I was the hero's executor.'

'Well I was his partner.'

'In this?'

'No, but does it matter, Marcus? If he'd asked me to come in on a Phidias I would have leapt at it. Let me handle the debt. I've had my life. You don't need to ruin your chance of making things legal with your senator's daughter.'

'Maybe I never had any chance,' I admitted dismally.

Another of the discreet house slaves paddled up, this time bringing us a steaming jug of honey and wine. He poured for us both without asking, so I accepted the cup. The drink was headily laced with Indian spikenard. My father had come a long way from the days when all we drank at home was old wine lees, well watered down, with the odd vervain leaf to disguise the taste.

Light clung to the distant sky with a fragile grip as the afternoon drew in. In the grey haze across the river I could just see the Ianiculan Hill running away to the right. There was a house over there which I once dreamed of owning, a house where I had wanted to live with Helena.

'Will she leave you?' Pa must have read my thoughts.

'She should.'