Her tone was enough to make the boys of the First shuffled closer together nervously. Even the centurion stepped away slightly. He stopped short in wondering if he dared bully the householder and quickly adopted a respectful hangdog mode. How wise.

I kissed Helena's cheek formally, looking deep into those fabulous brown eyes with mischief and lust in equal measure.

Helena Justina managed to remain calm. 'This is Clemens, an acting centurion. He has explained about the soldiers.' I held her closer than a senator's daughter expects to be clutched, while in close view of a bunch of surly legionaries; then I smiled at her with so much affection she blushed. 'Marcus Didius, I am quite happy living in a very large house with a very small staff' She tried to wriggle free surreptitiously. I held on. 'I will even entertain – with only a small staff – large numbers of relatives over the Saturnalia period. Relatives who make no contribution, and most of whom are yours. But – darling – I do now find myself wondering exactly how I am to manage here, if eleven -' Helena kept my accounts and business records. Believe me, she could count – 'hungry soldiers are to join us for the festival.'

'Twelve,' stated Clemens. 'I've got a little servant who will be along presently.'

'Twelve!' exclaimed Helena, in a voice that would unman Hercules.

I released her and turned to Clemens. 'As you see, my wife – the most hospitable of women – is delighted that you and your men are to join us.' A couple of soldiers sniggered. I folded my arms. 'Here's how it will work. Everyone in my household – right down to my dog – will be treated with respect, or the whole bunch of you will be hogtied and thrown off the Probus Bridge. Two soldiers and the acting centurion's servant will be on a roster daily to assist the noble Helena Justina. They will escort her to market – take handcarts – and help bring home provisions as she directs. They will work in our kitchen, under her supervision. Helena, sweetheart, all soldiers can make bread and scrub vegetables.'

'Don't you have a cook?' asked Clemens. He looked amazed. He was also worried; a true soldier, on making camp he thought first about his rations. 'You will meet Jacinthus,' I assured him, smiling.

Jacinthus was new. I had had him a week. He was one of two slaves I had recently forced myself to buy, aiming for a last-minute Saturnalia discount as the markets prepared to close for the holiday. The other acquisition was Galene, who was to look after my children. Neither slave knew anything, but they had both appeared clean and fit, which was better than most specimens on special offer in December. Julia (aged three and a half) and Favonia (aged twenty-one months), were teaching Galene Latin, and how they wished to be looked after with late bedtimes and rewards of sweetmeats.

'Jacinthus,' Helena explained, with her neck as stiff as a javelin, 'will no doubt produce exquisite pork loins in fig sap sauce one day. His baked quince will be a legend all over the Aventine. Women I scarcely know will beseech me for his recipe for mushroom bread…' 'Once he has learned his craft?' Clemens caught on fast. He would fit in here. You needed nifty footwork and a clear head. 'Exactly. In the meantime, Jacinthus spends his time asleep.' Clemens shot me a look as if he could guess which partner had purchased this treasure. He did not know it was my fifth attempt to buy us a cook. Sleeping was better than cooking, if Jacinthus cooked like his predecessors. All had been sold back at a loss within a month. 'I dare say my boys can help you wake him up,' offered Clemens. His tone had a pleasantly ominous timbre.

A small, shy voice now made itself audible: 'Hello, Falco. I bet you don't remember me!'

The soldier's name was Lentullus. Last time I saw him he was a raw recruit in his first posting in Germany. His most distinguished act on our expedition had been swinging on the tail of a giant bull while I tried to cut its throat with a small knife as the creature attempted to kill the rest of us. The youth had courage, but of all the ragged failures in all the least victorious legions, Lentullus was the daftest, silliest, clumsiest and untidiest. He had no idea. He had no luck either. If there was a large hole, with a great notice beside it saying Don'tfall in here; this means you, Lentullus! Lentullus would home in and tumble head first down the hole. Then he would wonder why he had been so unlucky. Any legion that included him had no hope. Sometimes in nightmares I heard his off-tune voice croakily singing an execrable and obscene ditty called the Little Mess-tin Song. I woke up shaking. It wasn't the Mess-tin Song that brought me out in a sweat. 'I bet I do remember,' I answered him. 'Have you learned to march yet?' 'No, he bloody hasn't!' muttered Clemens, with feeling. I already had a queasy-gut feeling. My house had been turned into a scene from some mythical nightmare. Then Helena smiled grimly and told me that my mother-in-law was in our best reception room in a foul mood, and wanted to speak to me.

'That's funny about you remembering,' burbled Lentullus. He had never known when to shut up. 'Because Veleda told me she remembered me too! I was hoping that if we all came to Rome, I'd see you, Falco – and the tribune too…'

The 'tribune' was Quintus Camillus Justinus. And while I was sure that the affable Justinus would be delighted to meet up with Lentullus again, my next task was to ensure that Julia Justa, my mother-in-law – a forthright woman, whose hearing was almost as good as my mother's – did not overhear that there was a soldier in my house who could tell her just what her favourite son got up to, back in the forest with Veleda.

IX

Had the soldiers not known more than was convenient, I might have taken them as an escort. I did try swinging into the room like a lad who had nothing on his conscience. Twenty years of practice should have taught me such a performance was ridiculous. My mother-in-law wanted somebody's liver chopped and fried – and the warm bread was already being sliced open to receive mine. She was accompanied by her daughter-in-law, Claudia Rufina, and if the rocks didn't finish me the whirlpool would.

The noble Julia Justa, wife of the most excellent Decimus Camillus Verns, was a Roman matron with the full rights of a mother of three children, an affiliate of the rites of the Good Goddess, the benefactor of a small temple in Bithynia and a confidante of one of the older, plainer, more prickly tempered Vestal Virgins. She ought to have expected a quiet life of luxury. Given that her husband tried to dodge his responsibilities, both her sons ignored suggestions to settle down respectably and her daughter had married an informer, Julia looked depressed. Only her little grandchildren gave her hope – and one of those was now at risk of being whisked away to Baetica by his angry mother.

Julia Justa owned outfits in all the colours in the fullers' dyeing range, but had chosen to come in crisp white robes that blazoned she was not in the mood for nonsense. These garments were held in place, as she swept up and down our salon, by exquisite jewellery. Julia's necklace, ear-rings and head-dress were heavy with Indian pearls of memorable size and lustrous good quality. Perhaps, I thought, this was an early Saturnalia gift. Probably, then, the gift of her younger son's extremely wealthy wife, Claudia Rufina. She was the only one in the family with real money, and the Camilli – though diffident people -were desperate to keep her married to their son.

Julia was venomous and sleek. Claudia enjoyed her wrath. While Julia prowled, Claudia sat very, very still. Claudia – aflame in saffron – had swapped her own favourite heavy emeralds for enough gold chains to shackle a complete set of galley-slaves. Clearly she wished her absent husband Justinus could be set to rowing on a trireme bench, under the lash of a very sadistic overseer.