After seven days the torture ended. Saturnalia, I mean. Favonia recovered in five.

Then Julia caught whatever Favonia had had, after which naturally Helena was stricken with it. We had a British girl living with us, who looked after the children, but she collapsed too. Albia had led a troubled life and was normally withdrawn; now she also felt terribly ill in a strange, enormous city where everyone had gone mad for a week. We were responsible for placing her in this nightmare. Helena dragged herself out of bed to comfort the poor girl, while I curled up on a couch in my office with the little ones, until I was rescued by Petronius.

My old friend Petro was escaping from the noise at the house he now shared with my sister Maia. Most of the racket was not caused by rowdy children, but by my mother and other sisters telling Maia she always made bad choices with men. The rest of the rumpus was Maia losing her temper and yelling back. Sometimes my father would be lurking on the sidelines; Maia helped with his business so he reckoned he could irritate Petro by appearing at every possible awkward moment and eavesdropping. Petronius, who until then had always thought I was hard on Pa, now understood why the sight of his grey curls and sly grin could make any sensible man climb out of a back window and leave town for three days.

He and I went to a bar. It was closed. We tried another, but it was full of the relics of riotous behaviour. I had had enough of that, looking after my sick children. The third bar was clean but still had the rioters; when they started being cheerful and friendly, we left. The only place where we could be morose was the Fourth Cohort's station house. Not for the first time, we ended up there. After seven long days and even longer nights of dousing fires caused by sheer stupidity, and then dealing with rapes, stabbings, and persons who had snapped and turned into maniacs, the vigiles were in a grim mood. That suited us fine.

`Nightmare!' Petronius uttered.

`You could have stayed single,' I reminded him. His wife, Arria Silvia, had divorced him and for a short while he had enjoyed his freedom.

`So could you!'

`Unfortunately, I loved the girl.'

It would have been good to hear Petro assure me that he loved my sister – but he was pushed to the limit and only growled angrily.

We would have been sharing a drink but we had forgotten to bring any. He leaned back against a wall, with his eyes closed. I stayed quiet. A few months beforehand, he had lost two of his daughters. Petronilla, the survivor, had been brought up to Rome to spend Saturnalia with her father. The child was taking life hard. So was her father. Enduring bereavement among the festivities had been grim; the fun and games that were always arranged by Maia's thriving brood were not the best solution for anyone. What choice was there, though? It would have been a desperate week for Petronilla alone with her mother.

`I thought I would never get through this month,' Petro admitted to me. I said nothing. He rarely broke into confidences. `Gods, I hate festivals!'

`Has Petronilla gone back to Silvia yet?'

`Tomorrow. I'm taking her.' He paused. I knew that since he had had to admit to Arria Silvia that he was now sharing a bed with Maia, he found it easier to avoid his ex-wife. My sister had played no part in their separation, but Silvia accused Petronius of having always lusted after Maia – and he stubbornly would not deny it. `I'd better see for myself. Can't be sure what we'll be walking into.' He paused a second time, trouble heavy in his voice. 'Silvia had a bust-up with that lousy boyfriend of hers. She was facing Saturnalia alone and not looking forward to it. She threatened -' He stopped altogether. Then he said, `She made wild threats about killing herself.'

`Would she?'

`Probably not.'

We sat in silence.

It was Petronius who told me that when the courts reopened, Silius Italicus was to charge the apothecary with murdering Metellus. Petro had heard it from the Second Cohort. They were agog because not only was Rhoemetalces to be offered to the praetor as having a case to answer, but Silius was putting up Rubiria Juliana as his co-accused. Well, that mischief will have brought festival joy to yet another Roman family.

Io Saturnalia!

XI

‘SILIUS is doing this because he wants a Senate hearing,' Petro said.

He was a good Roman. Legal gossip excited him. `He's out to make his name. Parricide is a bloody good way to ensure it; the public will be avid for details. This Juliana woman is patrician, so it will go before the Curia. If the family have imperial influence it could be even better than that. To spare her the ordeal, Vespasian may himself take her case at the Palace -'

`He won't,' I disagreed. `The old man will distance himself from this family. Ordinarily, he might have rescued them from the ordeal of a public trial, but the corruption conviction will put them on their own.

`You mean he is an Emperor who won't fiddle things for the elite?'

`I mean, Petro, he won't want it to look that way.'

`Does he fiddle?' Petronius was certain that I had inside knowledge.

`Presumably. Don't they all? What's the point of ruling the world if you never fix things?'

`I thought Vespasian didn't give a toss about the upper class.'

`Maybe not. But he wants them in his debt.'

`You are a cynic,' observed Petronius.

`You get that way.'

`It's very hard for Juliana,' Helena reckoned when I went home and told her. `To be accused of killing her papa, when she bought the pills only because he sent her.'

'Silius will argue that Juliana is lying. Why send her? Why not send out his wife or a house slave?'

`She was his daughter,' Helena said. `She knew the apothecary. Metellus trusted her to make sure they were pills that would be quick and clean and painless.'

`Would you do it for Decimus?'

Helena looked shocked. She loved her father. `No! But then,' she reasoned, Juliana tried -'Helena learned fast; she quickly swung along with my caution. `Or she says she tried – to thwart her father's suicide.'

`I am sure the defence will parade that claim on her behalf.'

`I'm sure the defence will bungle it!' Helena was even more cynical than me. I was not sure whether this had always been so, or whether living with me had hardened her. `She's a woman. With scandal in the air, she will stand no chance. The prosecution will allude to the previous corruption trial whenever possible, implying by association that Juliana is corrupt too. Like father, like daughter. In fact yes, she did buy the pills – but her father had declared to all the family that he intended to commit suicide. That is a recognised device at his rank, sanctioned down the centuries. Juliana was simply his instrument.'

I sniffed. `He changed his mind.'

`So he was a vacillating coward! But Juliana had tried to save him, so that's a double tragedy for her. And to be then accused of murdering him is vile.'

We were sitting in my office at home, me on a couch with the family dog shoving at me to make more room available, and Helena sitting on a table swinging her legs. The scrolls she had moved to clear a space for herself were squashed against a wall cupboard. From time to time she fiddled with my inkwell, while I watched, waiting for it to go over. It had a non-spill device, supposedly, which I was curious to test. `You met the apothecary, Marcus. What did you think of him?'

I repeated what I told Silius: Rhoemetalces was a successful professional who seemed to know what he was doing. Even accused of murder, I thought he would hold up well in court. As well as he could, that is. He had sold the pills which killed a man, he could not alter that. Everything hung on the court's interpretation of Metellus senior's intentions. Suicide is not illegal, far from it. So could the apothecary be held liable for a man who changed his mind? I thought it would be unfair – but fairness and justice are two different bines on the hop.