'I wouldn't call him obsessed. He has a perfectly normal devotion to his wife's money. Common enough. Rome is full of wealthy provincials, and poor senatorial families need helpful alliances. Justinus and Claudia are close. He always liked her.' They flirted. They giggled together. He stole her from his brother… 'They are both devoted to their baby son.' 'He was fascinated by the priestess first -' 'Mars Ultor! You're the one with the obsession, Anacrites. That was absolutely normal too. Veleda was mysterious, beautiful, powerful – and he was a very young man, inexperienced, who was flattered when she took an interest. Anyone of us was ready to jump on her, but he was handsome and sensitive so she chose him. What counts is that once he left Germany, Camillus Justinus believed he would never see her again.'

'Anyway, why not dabble? Barbarians can be tamed, I believe,' Anacrites suddenly suggested crudely. 'To benefit the Empire, maybe every citizen should keep one in his household.' Albia. How did he know who lived in my household? Why had he bothered to find out? What was he implying or threatening? I took a deep breath, hiding it. 'Let's get to the point, Anacrites. We are working on the same side to find Veleda.' 'So what, Falco?' 'Tomorrow the Emperor will make you surrender your prisoner. You know me and I know you; I'm saying as a friend, give him up now. His father will keep him out of trouble. Or I'll stand parole myself ' Anacrites went rigid. Weak men are ridiculously stubborn. 'I need him.' 'What for?' I roared. 'He knows nothing!' 'That's not why I want him.' My heart lurched. 'I hope you have not harmed him.' 'He is in one piece.' The Spy's lip curled. Now he was making me seem crude. 'Why then?' 'It's the kind of scheme you would come up with yourself, Falco.' Helena always said this idiot wanted to be me. The concept sickened me. 'I'm using him as my entrapment device.' At last I was forcing him to come clean. I should have known his plan would be ludicrous and unworkable. 'To lure Veleda out of hiding: Camillus is my bait.'

I lost my temper. 'If I can't find where you've stuck him, how is she supposed to do so? It won't work! You would need him to cooperate and her to be stupid. How are you planning to bring this off, Anacrites? Tie Quintus to a post in a clearing by himself- then let the woman hear him bleat?'

XXII

I was so angry, I stormed out.

There was no chance of searching the endless rooms at the Palace, but I went to both prisons, the Tullianum where foreigners under suspicion were held, and the Mammertine political cells, sometimes called the Lautumiae. Anacrites had always favoured the latter. This damp hole was where Veleda would end up on the day of the Ovation, if we caught her. For various reasons that I preferred to forget, I was no stranger there myself Informers can find themselves in bad places. Hazard of the job. Normally it's temporary.

Hazards had brought me to grief so often in the past, the jailer even remembered me. 'I can't tell you who's in the holding cell, Falco. Security. You know the rules.' The rules were simple: it took more money to bribe this righteous public servant than I had on me that evening. 'Can't you take credit? Let me write an IOU.' 'Sorry, tribune. Been caught out that way before. You wouldn't believe the so-called respectable people who don't know how to honour a promissory note!' Since my banker would have left the Forum long ago, I had to give up. I went home. It was now extremely late. When I crashed in, I heard the low murmur of soldiers' voices as the troops waited up to report to me on their latest day's searching. I knew they would have discovered nothing. We were all on a fool's errand.

Clemens and one of the others looked out as I stomped upstairs holding a pottery lamp. They thought I was drunk. I didn't care what they thought. I needed a drink, but I was not going to confirm their views by getting one. None of us spoke.

All my family were in bed. Even the dog, curled up in her basket, barely tolerated me patting her. She humphed and turned away, letting me know I was a disreputable stop-out. Neither of my children stirred when I looked in on them.

Always anxious if I was out so late, Helena Justina was awake. As I undressed and had a cursory wash, I gave her a stripped-down version of the night's fruitless efforts. Helena sat in bed, with her glowing hair spread over her shoulders, hugging her knees. She knew how to listen. I tried to continue grousing, refusing the lure of a spirited woman who could be wonderfully peaceful in the presence of the stressed. Her calm wore me down. 'I did my best.' 'You always do, Marcus.' 'And it's never good enough.' 'Don't denigrate yourself You're tired, you're cold, and you had no dinner -' 'And I've a dirty great blister refusing to burst on my toe.' 'Do you want me to salve and bandage it, darling?' 'Don't fuss. I don't want tenderness and care. I'd rather suffer and look tough.' 'You're an idiot, Falco. Come to bed and get warm.' I went to bed, intending to get warm the lively way. I fell asleep. As I lay in her arms, I was faintly aware that Helena stayed awake long afterwards. She lay still, but her eyelashes were fluttering against my arm. Helena was thinking. If I had been less weary, I could probably have worked out where those busy thoughts were going. Then I might have worried too. Some time next morning I groaned and retreated under the bedcover, refusing to wake yet. For a moment I believed I was back in my old bachelor apartment in Fountain Court, where I could lie in all day and nobody loved or liked me enough to notice. I cared more about myself nowadays. My habits were decent, though I still enjoyed living controversially. And sometimes, when a mission was going nowhere and I had had a punishing day, I took time off to recover. That was when solutions sometimes came.

Dimly, I had heard Helena asking me to keep an eye on the children because she was going out. Well, I generally allowed that. I was a liberal husband and I had taken on a single-minded, independent wife. She had made me happy. I accepted that keeping a happy woman required time, the regular hire of a carrying chair with bearers, and permission to go where she liked so long as no aediles arrested her. She could shop, gossip with her friends, argue with her mother, argue with my mother, visit galleries and public libraries. She could walk in parks or make offerings at temples – though I advised against both, since public gardens are sordid places, haunts of rapists and rabid dogs, while temples are even more disgusting dives, used by purse thieves and pimps.

As a partner I was tolerant, affectionate, loyal and house-trained. She lived on a loose rein in all respects. However, there was one area where I thought I deserved to be consulted.

I did not expect Helena Justina to lean over me exuding a fug of her favourite perfume, amidst the tinkle that I recognised belatedly as her best gold ear-rings with the three rows of tiny spindle-whorls, to kiss me goodbye – knowing I was lost to exhaustion – and then to sail off on a visit to Titus Caesar. Without saying where she was going.

Titus had had his eye on her once. She knew how I still felt about that.

Finding myself fully awake about an hour afterwards, I suddenly remembered properly that heady scent of malabathron and those tuneful ear-rings – not to mention the innocent way she had murmured 'I'm just going out, darling'… I shot out of bed, conducted a lightning ablution and pelted downstairs.

I was formally dressed. 'Toga, Falco?' chortled the acting centurion, Clemens, acting amazement. He was leaning in a doorway with his arms folded. 'Running in a toga?'

'Seems like everybody's going to the Palace today!' commented Lentullus. So they all knew where Helena Justina had gone.