'We can omit the formalities!' snarled Pertinax, tight-lipped. I noticed a slight quiver beneath the refulgent saffron, though the bride maintained her modest silence. A tall, graceful girl, who moved well, glimmering in my sister's magnificent veil; it was fine enough for her to see her way, though it completely hid her from view.

'Very well. In marriage, as in death,' pronounced Gordianus sombrely, 'ceremonial can be optional. To satisfy the gods, the law and society, all you require is a sacrifice, a contract, and the bringing of the bride to her husband's house. The bride is already conducted here-unusual, but not an impediment. In the absence of her relations the lady had elected to give herself-'

'Trust her!' said Atius Pertinax. Those present who knew Helena Justina saw no reason to contradict. 'Shall we get on?'

Wreaths were handed round glumly. With impressive despatch, Curtius Gordianus covered his head and set up a portable altar in the empty atrium. The watchman had started the fountain before he slipped away-a single elegantly festive touch.

After a perfunctory prayer, the priest called his white-veiled assistant to lead forward the sheep. A second later poor lambkin was dead. Gordianus made a neat, untroubled job of it. His time at Cape Colonna had given him a good eye with the sacrificial knife.

He studied the organs, which looked distinctly seedy, then turned to the bride and announced without the slightest shade of irony, 'You will lead a long, happy and productive life!'

Pertinax looked nervous now, not without reason. If marrying for the first time is a drastic gamble, doing it twice over must seem utterly ludicrous. The priest had brought his contracts; Pertinax was induced to sign first. The priest's assistant carried the documents to the bride, who inscribed her name with maddening slowness while Gordianus engaged Pertinax in talk.

Signing the contracts completed this basic ceremony. Curtis Gordianus let out a short, grim laugh.

'Well! Time for the happy bridegroom to kiss his lucky bride…'

There were four yards between them when she lifted her veil and Pertinax braced himself for Helena's usual cool, reasoning contempt. He met a younger, brasher prettiness: huge dark eyes and tiny white teeth, clear skin, tinsel earrings, and an air of perfect innocence that was flagrantly false.

'Tullia!'

'Oh dear!' I exclaimed sympathetically. 'We seem to have brought his honour the wrong bride!'

•

As he started towards her, I threw off my white veil.

'Falco!'

'Always check a pre-written contract just before you sign it, sir. Some villain may have altered a critical element! Sorry; we lied about Helena Justina wanting to read through the documents, but then we had already lied about Helena agreeing to marry you-'

Tullia gathered up her skirts and scurried for the door. I whipped open the mysterious box which the priest's assistant carries at any wedding. In our family the joke is that the youth keeps his lunch in it-but I had a sword.

'Don't move! Gnaeus Atius Pertinax, I arrest you in Vespasian's name-'

His lip curled, revealing a dog tooth unattractively. 'Trust you!' Then he turned his head and let out a screeching whistle. 'Two can cheat, Falco-' There was a rush of feet, and out from a corridor burst half a dozen tall, bristly-chinned warriors in scale-armour trousers and glistening bare chests. 'Every bridegroom wants his own witnesses at his wedding!' jeered Pertinax.

His supporters were not rushing forwards with the aim of flinging nuts. Pertinax had obviously given them orders to kill me.

Luckily I had not expected the victim of a trick wedding to respond with graceful oratory. My first reaction was surprise. My next was to get my back to the wall, my blade up, and my eye on them.

From a man of his type, something of this sort was inevitable. Heaven knows where he found them. They looked like German mercenaries, big, long-haired, flaxen braggarts, originally hired by the dead Emperor Vitellius-now stranded in Rome after the civil war, with their fare home drunk in the stews along the Tiber and a new, more fastidious Caesar who would not be employing foreign auxiliaries within Rome.

They were heavy in the belly from too much beer and black pudding but they could fight, especially with the odds in their favour at an easy six to one. Some grim auxiliary captain on the Rhine frontier had put these hulks through several years of legionary drill. Their weapons were the huge, flat-bladed Celtic type which they swung over their heads and at waist height while I, with my short Roman stabbing sword, was hard-pushed to duck in underneath. Beneath my priestly costume I had a leather jerkin and arm guards-not enough against six skirling maniacs who were enjoying themselves with the threat of slicing off my salted crackling like a Black Forest pig.

Pertinax laughed.

'Keep smiling,' I seethed, watching the Germans. 'I'll deal with your guttural lap dogs, and then I'll come for you!'

He shook his head, making for the exit. But Tullia was there first. Her terror of him, now he knew she had deceived him, made her foot fleet and her hand sure. She darted down the porter's corridor, past the two empty cubicles, and dragged open the huge, metal-plated door. Out rushed Tullia-and in thundered Milo instead.

At the sight of our humourless monster Pertinax skidded to a halt and turned about. I saw him run lightly to the staircase. I was trapped, hard-pressed by half a dozen heavy blades whose force when they touched down wrenched the power from my wrist as I desperately parried them. It was Curtius Gordianus who took off after Pertinax-an ungainly, sack-like figure fired with the long-nurtured hope of vengeance, who blundered upstairs at an alarming pace. He was wielding the small, sharp knife he had used in the ceremony, still wet from the throat of our sacrificial sheep.

•

Milo was considering what he should do, all bovine stupidity: my favourite thug.

'Do me a favour, drop your flute and grab a sword, Milo!'

Milo acquired a sword by the simple method of seizing the nearest mercenary, lifting the wild man off his feet, and crushing him until his eyes bulged and he limply dropped the blade.

'Cuddle a few more!' I gasped, managing to disarm the next while my boot made an imprint on his ragged chainmail trews which if he was one for the women he would bitterly regret.

Now Milo and I could set ourselves back to back and work away from the wall. The opposition circled more widely, but we had more time to watch for them. When two charged from different directions we ducked by common agreement and let them impale themselves with an ugly crunch.

The crude fencing practice lasted less time than I thought. The last two who could run dragged off the wounded. To disguise their connection with the Pertinax house, Milo and I threw the dead outside in the street gutter opposite, like the dirty dregs of some drunken brawl the previous night.

'You caught it, Falco?'

Nothing hurt yet, but I was dripping badly: a long cut, down my left side. After five years as an informer I no longer felt the need to faint at the sight of my own blood but this was the last thing I wanted today. Milo was urging me to seek medical attention but I shook my head.

We hurried back, to look for Gordianus. No one answered when we called. I locked the street door and took the key. I found the spigot and turned off the fountain; as the water hung and then dropped, a nerve-racking silence fell throughout the empty house.