I suggested, 'There is something you can do, in fact. Petronius could survive a journey now; I need to get him home. Could you lend the family a couple of decent litters to travel comfortably? Even better, persuade your brother to supply an armed guard? He'll see the point. Then I can send Helena Justina back to the city in safety too…' Fausta nodded gratefully. 'Now, I need to move swiftly. "At sea" you say. Can you be more specific about this rendezvous?'

'Will you promise me Aufidius Crispus will be safe?'

'I never give promises that are outside my control. But my commission was to save him for Rome… So, where is the meeting?'

'At Capreae,' she said. 'This afternoon. Below the Imperial Villa of Jove.'

LXX

I needed a ship, fast.

I raced from the house. Outside, Nero, who had no shame, was making friends with a couple of lacklustre cheapskate mules who had been parked against a portico in a haze of flies. I knew the mules. Larius was leaning on a wall in the shade, chatting to their riders: a sinister hulk who was not safe on the streets and a whiskery midget with a furtive face. They both wore white tunics with green bindings; the livery was all too familiar: the Gordianus steward and his shrimpy sidekick.

'Larius, don't associate with strange men!'

'This is Milo-'

'Milo's bad news. Come on; we need to move. Gallop Nero to the seafront so I can commandeer a boat-'

'Oh, Milo's got a boat on the seafront-'

'That so?' I forced myself to sound polite.

Milo smirked at me. He gave me a pain in the head; the only consolation was that it could not be half as bad as the headache I had once given him with a certain piece of porphyry. 'Find out!' he threatened with a leer: Croton etiquette again.

'Let me ask politely: show me your ship and I promise not to tell Gordianus you refused to co-operate! Let's go-the magistrate's sister has come up with a lead on Pertinax-'

At the south end of town sea walls pierced with sturdy arches provided a vantage point where the citizens of Herculaneum on their way to the Suburban Baths could stroll above any shipping which braved their fierce waterfront regulations to tie up picturesquely on the wharf. The harbour facilities were not exactly throbbing with cranes and unloading pulleys, but provided a berth for the occasional tentative craft. Milo's shrimp took charge of Nero and the mules. 'He's good with animals-'

'That must be why he tags along with you!'

The ship Milo indicated was a chunky piece of timberwork called the Sea Scorpion. The crew were on watch for trouble and had seen us approaching; a sailor was ready to pull in the gangway as soon as Larius, Milo and I tumbled aboard.

The familiar unkempt, heavy shape of the Chief Priest Gordianus was waiting on deck, snuggling his huge webby ears in a long cloak as if since his brother's death he felt unable to get warm. He still looked unhealthily grey, though his bald skin had acquired patches of rose-coloured sunburn.

We shook hands like army commanders in the middle of a war: the same sense of a great deal having happened since we last met, and the same faint tinge of jealousy.

'Good to meet up with you, Falco! All well?'

'I've had some narrow shaves. Pertinax has just tried to murder me the same way he attacked you… Tell me, how did you discover he was still alive?'

'You were right, my brother had written to warn me. He had left the letter with his banker; after you left Colonna it came to me.'

'Any news of your wounded deputy, sir?' I was half prepared for the answer. Gordianus raised his eyes to heaven: the stand-in priest was dead. Another charge against Pertinax, though as usual without proof.

We put out across the Bay with a brisk breeze in the Sea Scorpion's favour. Gordianus asked if I recognized the ship. I thought not, and I was right because in fact I had never seen her, but when he called out to the captain to make for Capreae, I realized I had heard of her. The captain was a friend of mine: a lively, beady-eyed little fellow in a curly hat like an upturned field mushroom, who had been standing by rather sheepishly, waiting to be recognized…

'Laesus! This would be a happy moment on a better day!'

I introduced my nephew, who was craning to get an artistic perspective on my friend from Croton's strange two-sided face. Larius slouched up shyly, a suspicious beanpole in a grimy tunic, still wearing his satchel from when we were selling lead. Then I glanced sharply between Gordianus and the sea captain. 'Did you two know each other all along?'

Gordianus laughed. 'No; we met when I needed a charter to bring my household from Cape Colonna to Paestum. Your name came up later, and I heard about your adventures together then.'

'Bit of luck falling in with somebody reliable!'

'True. Laesus will stay until this business is settled. He helped me find Aufidius Crispus; then when Crispus confirmed the truth about "Barnabas", Laesus worked with Milo keeping track of Pertinax.' We leaned back against the ship's rail, as the crew adjusted the mainsail for a long haul out along the Surrentum coast. 'Tell me what you think of this man Rufus?' Gordianus abruptly asked. 'It struck me he had rather a casual attitude.'

'Oh, he's intelligent, and hard working in the community.' I knew better than to criticize a fellow senator to Gordianus merely for enjoying old wine and young waiters. On the other hand, the bungled attempt to arrest Pertinax was unforgiveable. 'His shambles at the Villa Marcella speaks for itself.'

Gordianus humphed. 'Self-centred and immature!' was his terse verdict on the magistrate. It explained why he had opted to continue his private search for Pertinax even after raising an official hue and cry.

Something struck me and I turned to Milo, who was slouching by the mainmast forestay. 'If you were trailing Pertinax, you must have been there when he bludgeoned my friend at the inn!' He was. Milo always made me angry-but never so angry as this. 'Jupiter and Mars! When Petronius Longus came to the doorway, why didn't you shout?'

'We had heard Pertinax ask for you!' Milo jibed unpleasantly. 'Sorry we couldn't stay to help; we followed him back to the yacht…'

I had to walk away by myself to the far end of the ship, to stop myself feeding the steward to the porpoises in shreds.

•

The journey out to Capreae always seems further than it looks. The sour old Emperor Tiberius chose himself a good sanctuary; plenty of time to prepare visitors a grim welcome before incoming ships berthed.

I was not seasick, though I thought about it uneasily.

'You all right?' Larius asked solicitously. I explained that making kind enquiries of people who had queasy stomachs never helps.

Larius, who loved ships and never felt ill at sea, leaned on the rail beside me, enjoying his trip. As the endless cliffs of the Lactarii peninsula eased slowly past he squinted against the breeze, happily absorbing the spray and the sunlit ocean scenery.

'Uncle Marcus, Helena suggests I ought to talk to you.'

'If it's about your bloody wall painting, I'm not in the mood.'

'It's about Ollia.'

'Oh, it's a joke!' He gave me a disapproving look. 'Sorry! Go on then.' Larius, the shocking romantic, adjusted his pose like a figure-head braving the storms of life, with his limp hair blowing back from his forehead and a stalwart expression. A sea trip brought out the worst in him.

'Ollia is not having a baby; that was Silvia's mistake. As a matter of fact, there was never anything between Ollia and the fisherboy-'