Later that day, Senator Carinus, one arm round his daughter, who now looked much refreshed, joined Claudia and the Augusta in a small enclosed garden. They sat in a flowered arbour. Carinus was eager to leave, but Helena was insistent that Antonia answer Claudia's questions. At first the young woman found it difficult to speak. She shook her head and blinked. Now and again she would lapse into silence or stare at her father as if recognising him for the first time. Claudia recognised the symptoms of shock, of sleep deprivation. She spoke softly, gently, pointing out that she needed Antonia's help, and at last the young woman, fortified by a cup of white Falernian, answered her questions, though she could give very little information. She had been taken from her father's garden, blindfolded, gagged, bound hand and foot and carried somewhere. It was always dark and cold. She was given food, something to drink and a slop bucket to serve as a latrine. She talked about one man fondling her and of him being killed; about her own terrors and fears. Helena intervened. Did Antonia know anything about the death of Chaerea, whose severed head had been placed in her lap? Antonia shook her head.

'There was some commotion last night,' she said, 'but they gave me some drugged wine. I woke once. Men were shouting and dogs howling, that is all I remember. This morning they came and told me that if I behaved I was to be freed. My father had paid the ransom. I was pulled to my feet and taken along tunnels. Some were narrow, others broad; now and again the stones scored my arms and feet, then I was out into the fresh air. It smelled so good, the sun was on my face. I was pushed ever so gently and taken to where you found me.' She gestured at Claudia, i was told to count to ten eight times, and only then was I to lift the blindfold. I was terrified, I don't know if I counted or not. I smelled the smoke, that hideous stench. Something was put in my lap. I could feel the wetness through my tunic' She stopped, fingers to her mouth. 'I thought it was a wineskin, something to drink or eat. I lifted my wrists and forced the blindfold off, and saw those dead eyes staring up at me, the gaping mouth.' Antonia staggered to her feet and ran off to retch and vomit behind a bush.

'I think she has said enough.' Senator Carinus leaned forward. 'Augusta, Claudia, I must take my child home.'

'In a short while,' Claudia murmured. 'There are other questions I must ask.' She got up, went over to Antonia and patted her gently on the shoulder. 'You've been very brave,' she whispered. 'It's all over now, but there are a few more questions I must ask. You know Theodore is dead?'

Antonia nodded, wiping her mouth.

'Come.' Claudia slipped her arm through Antonia's, but instead of returning to Senator Carinus, they walked across the lawns. 'Look around, Antonia: the plants, the roses, the flowers; see that peacock over there with its tail extended in such beautiful colours. Stare up at the sky. Don't you feel the evening breeze? It's all yours again.'

'Theodore,' Antonia asked. 'Was he killed defending me?'

'No, no.' Claudia swiftly described what had happened. Antonia began to cry again and Claudia hugged her close. 'I want to avenge his death as well. Tell me, Antonia, did Theodore remove the mask of one of your attackers?'

'No, no, he didn't!' Antonia replied. 'He leapt forward but was knocked down. By then I was seized and they were thrusting a gag into my mouth while the blindfold came down across my eyes, but no mask was taken off. Why do you ask?'

'Theodore claimed differently.' Claudia half smiled. 'He said that he removed one of the kidnapper's masks. That may be why he was murdered, because he recognised somebody'

'Well he didn't!' Antonia snapped. 'That was Theodore! He was forever telling stories, always telling lies.'

'What other lies did he tell you?' Claudia asked.

'Oh, where he'd been, where he came from.'

'Let me ask you another question.' They paused under the outstretched branches of a sycamore tree; above them songbirds in gilded cages sang hauntingly as if grieving over their imprisonment. 'Is there anything Theodore did not lie about, anything constant in his life, family or friends?' Claudia made the young woman sit down on a bench fitted against the trunk of a tree, and squatted before her. 'Please, Antonia, was there anything constant?'

'Theodore believed everybody loved him, including me. He was a ladies' man. He boasted about what plays he knew, which stage manager would help him, how one day all Rome would know his name, but yes, there was one constant. He had great devotion to the Lady of Gleefulness, of Joy, I forget her name.'

'Hathor of the White Walls.'

'Yes, that's it, Hathor of the White Walls. He was always talking about his devotion to her. How she'd favoured him in his career, how pleased he was that he had found a temple dedicated to her in Rome. He repeated that time and again.' She smiled ruefully. 'On reflection, perhaps that was the only truthful thing he said.'

'Thank you.' Claudia got to her feet, brushing twigs and grass from her tunic. 'One more question, Antonia.' 'Mistress, I am very tired.'

'You are sure that you were imprisoned in the catacombs?'

'It must have been.' Antonia shook her head. 'When I was freed, I only walked a short distance. Perhaps no more than from here,' she pointed across at the palace buildings, 'to there, then I was out in the sun.'

'Anything else?' Claudia enquired. 'Smell, taste, touch, voices?'

'Just one voice,' Antonia replied. 'I'll never forget it, threatening, telling me what to do.'

Claudia left the palace and made her way back into the city. Daylight was fading, traders were closing up shop, the taverns and eating houses were busy. Just as she entered the Flavian quarter, Claudia noticed a man dressed in goatskins, with unkempt beard, hair and moustache, standing on a stone plinth, in one hand a staff, in the other a crude wooden cross. She paused and stared at him. The man was addressing passers-by, few of whom paid him attention, but Claudia caught his words.

'Man is conceived with tainted blood,' this fanatic claimed, 'through the ardour of lechery.' On and on he ranted. Such preachers were becoming common in Rome, religious fanatics inveighing against anything and everything.

Claudia moved on, pushing dispiritedly through the noisy throng. At the corner of the street leading down to the She Asses tavern, Torquatus the Tonsor was busy putting his implements into a leather sack: razors, knives, hair-pluckers, whetstone, leather straps, oils, unguents, powders and creams. He stored these all carefully away. Claudia watched him neatly tie the string around the neck of the sack before clearing away the folding stool and table. 'Torquatus?'

He glanced up and peered at her.

'Why, it's Claudia, what do you want?'

'I'd like to buy you a drink.' Claudia indicated with her head towards the tavern standing on the corner of an alleyway, the House of a Thousand Dreams.

Torquatus grinned and, putting his fingers to his mouth, gave a sharp whistle. Two boys came hurrying over. He handed them his sack, table and stool and instructed them to remain under the sycamore tree until he returned, then he and Claudia entered the tavern, a dingy hole with narrow windows above the counter at the far end. It smelled like a stable. In the centre stretched a deep pit where two blood-spattered cocks, cheered on by their respective owners, fought like gladiators with beak and spurred claw; their screeching cut the ear as they turned in a whirl of feathers and puffs of dust. Torquatus led Claudia out through the rear door into a quiet garden with a range of drinking arbours tastefully fashioned out of pine logs and festooned with crawling ivy and wild flowers. A lawn stretched the full length of the garden. In the centre, a gracefully carved fountain displayed three marble dolphins, mouths open to the sky, through which water spurted.