`Maybe you'd better leave my sister alone then,' Aelianus grappled himself back into the discussion even though unsure of its content.

`I note your advice,' I said pleasantly. Suddenly I was too angry to carry on fielding his jibes. `I'm sorry you're distressed. I can see it must have been difficult, coming home from abroad to find that the respectable family you had left behind was now tainted with scandal.' He began to speak. I stabbed the air with my finger. `The scandal I mean has nothing to do with your sister. I refer to the sad mess which brought me into contact with the Camilli in the first, place, when various of your noble relations – now fortunately dead – engaged in a treasonous attempt of staggering ineptitude! Camillus Aelianus, before you embark on public life I suggest you ask your father to explain just how much the Emperor allowed to be covered up.'

The jaw of the not so noble Aelianus had dropped open. Clearly he had not realised I knew about his family's near-disgrace.

`Excuse me,' I apologised briefly to his father, for I normally tried not to mention all this.

`Was the cover-up organised by you?' Aelianus was catching on. But now he assumed Helena Justina had been presented to me in return for my silence.

`My job is to expose things. Still, I'm glad we had this opportunity to clear the air… Philosophical insights are traditionally brought to light by men drinking at a symposium.' Trying to improve the atmosphere, I raised my cup.

Aelianus glowered at me. `What exactly do you do, Falco?' Sometimes I wondered that myself.

`Nice of you to ask this time, before condemning me! I do what's needed – what nobody else is able or willing to tackle.'

`Do you kill people?' He had no finesse.

`Not regularly. It's too much trouble making my peace with the gods afterwards.'

I avoided looking at the Senator. He was sitting very silent. The last time I remembered killing a man, it was a thug who attacked Helena on her father's own doorstep. Camillus saw me do it. But there were other deaths, closely connected to that, which the Senator and I never talked about.

`It's a glorious thought,' Aelianus was still sneering. `Some dogged lone operator attempting to right society's wrongs without praise or pay!'

`Pure foolishness,' I agreed briefly.

`Why do it?'

`Oh, the hope of gain.'

`Strength of character?' The family irony had not entirely bypassed Aelianus.

`You've found me out. I'm a soft touch for ethical actions.'

`And it's a short cut to the women too?'

`The very best of them… You'd better grit your teeth. I know I've found a good one, and I'm here to stay. My relationship with your sister is permanent. And you're going to be an uncle to an informer's son or daughter by next spring!'

Aelianus was still spluttering with disgust when Julia Justa and Helena sailed back to join us.

XLIV

REPAIRING TO THE dining room enabled me to lighten the mood with tasteful praise for a recent repaint (heavy stuff, black dadoes and perspectives in deep red and gold). They must have been taken in by a contractor who dreamed of decorating Oriental tombs.

The Senator's wife declared coolly that we would dine now, without Justinus. She showed no particular emotion after her conversation with Helena about our coming baby; she must have been prepared for it. So much so that she had taken over the skip orphan as if to accustom herself to playing with a child she would rather avoid. Her sole concern now was to get through the celebration without embarrassment. The noble Julia had the suffering air of a woman who was doing her best even though everyone around her seemed determined to ruin her carefully planned day.

She had a fine sense of decency. I made sure I stepped forwards and handed her kindly to her dining couch. In return, Julia Justa politely insisted that I took the couch next to her. I was assuming the air of a guest who was a very close family friend. One reason I did this was to annoy Aelianus by letting him think he had been superseded in his own home and in front of all the slaves and family freedmen and -women – by his sister's unsuitable lover flagrantly adopting the role of a respected son-in-law.

I managed to maintain the fraud of gravitas right up until I caught Helena's eye. I lost control when she winked at me.

Food and wine always help. Besides, it was Helena's birthday, and we were people who all loved her. (Even her tense brother must have cared for her as much as his own right to a scandal-free public life.

The food was probably better than that normally served in that cash-strapped household. I was particularly taken by the lobster dumplings, which came in the first course along with Colymbadian olives and various pork nuggets. Helena and I managed to put in a fair ration of travellers' tales concerning food, enabling us to sidestep the dubious theatrical aspect of our tour in Syria. The centrepiece of the main course was a small whole boar in nut sauce, a dish which I freely admitted rarely featured in the cook's repertoire at my own house.

`We don't often have it here!' admitted the Senator, helping me to a vintage that I described as `suave'.

`Don't you mean smooth?' Aelianus was still trying to be caustic even when he had the bright blue stains of peas indigo spilt down his tunic. I had already pointed this out, while passing on my tip that worldly diners refuse titbits served in squid's ink.

`No, I mean warm and sophisticated with a cynically dangerous undertone that may trip some of us down stairs before the night's up.:

'Are you a connoisseur, Falco?'

`No, but I drink with one. I know the rhetoric,' I said, warning him off if he meant to indulge in snobbery. `My friend Petronius Longus can convincingly distinguish between Falernian from the hilltops, the middle slopes and the plain. I can't, though I'm always pleased to let him serve me samples as he tries to train my palate. His dream is to get hold of some vinum Oppianum.'

Aelianus was sufficiently tipsy to admit his ignorance: `What's that?'

'It was a legendary year, named after the consul, of course:

Oppianus, the man who killed Gaius Gracchus.'

`Why, that must be nearly two centuries old!' exclaimed the Senator. `If he finds any, try to get me a taste!'

`It may happen. According to Petronius the vintage was so good stocks were hoarded and they occasionally surface.'

`Would it be drinkable?' Helena asked.

`Probably not. A buff like Petro would gulp down the sludge, and get drunk on the mere cachet.'

`Buffs don't gulp,' she laughed, correcting me. `Buffs breathe, savour, mull, then compete at producing flowery descriptions -' `And get very sick.'

The Senator laughed, enjoying our repartee. `Try this, Marcus. It's Guaranumn, only produced in a very small quantity from the ridge above Baia, where the air must be salty, the earth sulphurous, and the grapes encouraged by the happy screams of the girls being seduced by gigolos in the bathing spa.'

`Oh really Decimus!' mouthed Julia Justa, though her goblet was out for a refill. She graciously received her wine from her husband then returned her attention to the skip babe, whose quiet demeanour in public had endeared him to her. She was shaking his rattle, a pottery pig with pebbles inside that Helena had bought from a market stall.

`Oh Mama!' Aelianus shuddered. `He could have come from anywhere.'

Angry, I had to bury my nose in my cup. Luckily the Guaranum was rich and full-bodied, a consoling wine.

`His clothes were fine quality. We think he came from a good home,' Helena countered coldly. `Not that that's important; the child is lost, and something must be done for him.' Her mother, who had known Helena long enough, deftly ignored the implication that something should be done by the Camilli.