Helena 's errand required us to take a hired carrying chair for a distance that made me wonder if the sparse coins in my armpurse would cover the fare. First she dragged us to a warehouse that my auctioneer father owned near the Emporium. He allowed us to use the back end to store things that we had picked up on our travels which were waiting for the day when we had a decent house. I had built a partition to keep Pa out of our section of the warehouse, since he was the sort of entrepreneur who would sell off our carefully chosen treasures for less than we paid for them, then think he had done us a favor.

On today's escapade I was just a passenger. Helena made no attempt to explain. Various shapeless bales that were obviously none of my business were collected from store and piled on a donkey, then we skirted the Forum and headed over the Esquiline.

We traveled north for ages. Peering through the ragged modesty curtain of our conveyance I saw we were outside the old Servian Walls, apparently aiming for the Praetorian Camp. I made no comment. When people want to have secrets, I just let them get on with it.

"Yes, I've taken a lover in the Guards," said Helena. Joking, presumably. Her idea of a rough entanglement was me: sensitive lover, loyal protector, sophisticated raconteur, and would-be poet. Any Praetorian who thought to persuade her otherwise would get my boot up his arse.

We went right around the Camp, and came onto the Via Nomentana. Shortly afterwards we stopped and Helena jumped out. I followed, in surprise because I expected to find her among the winter brassicas in some out of season market garden. Instead, we were parked at a large villa just beyond the Nomentana Gate. It looked substantial, which was a puzzle. Nobody who had enough cash for a decent house would normally choose to live so far outside the city-let alone within spitting reach of the Praetorians. The occupants would be deafened when all those big bastards were drunk on payday, and the incessant trumpets and tramping would drive most folk demented.

The location was neither city nor country. There was neither hilltop panorama nor river view. Yet we were looking at the kind of high, blank walls that normally surround luxurious amenities owned by people who don't want the public knowing what they own. In case we doubted it, the heavy front door with its antique dolphin knocker and well-tended urns of formally clipped bay announced that somebody lived here who felt like quality (not always the same thing as actually being it, of course).

I still said nothing, and was allowed to stay helping to unload the bales, while my dearest skipped up to the forbidding portal and disappeared inside. Eventually I myself was led indoors by a silent slave in a firmly belted white tunic, then passed through a traditional short corridor to an atrium where I could hang about until required. I had been labeled a supernumerary who would wait for Helena as long as needed: true. Apart from the fact I never abandoned her amongst strangers, I was not going home yet. I wanted to know where I had come and what happened here. Left alone, I soon obeyed my itchy feet, and set off to explore.

It was nice. My word, it was. For once taste and money had combined successfully. Light-filled corridors headed in every direction to gracious rooms painted with decorous, slightly old-fashioned frescos. (The house seemed so quiet I brazenly opened doors and looked inside.) The scenes were architectural cityscapes or grottos with idyllic pastoral life. The rooms housed padded couches with footstools, side tables positioned for convenience, elegant bronze candelabra; the occasional statuary included one or two busts of the old unnaturally handsome Julio-Claudian imperial family and a smiling head of Vespasian, apparently predating his accession as Emperor.

I reckoned the place had been built in my lifetime: that meant new money. The lack of painted battle scenes, trophies, or phallic symbols, together with the preponderance of women's chairs, made me guess it could be a wealthy widow's house. Objects and furniture were expensive, though chosen for use rather than purely decorative. The owner had money, taste, and a practical outlook.

It was a quiet home. No children. No pets. No braziers against the winter coolness. Apparently almost unlived in. Nothing much going on today.

Then I caught a low murmur of female voices. Following the sound, I came to a colonnade of gray stone pillars forming an enclosed peristyle garden, so sheltered that the rampaging rosebushes still bore occasional flowers even though it was December. Four rather dusty laurels marked the corners and a huge stone fountain bowl stood silent in the center space.

Strolling out into the garden casually I came upon Helena Justina with another woman. I knew who she was; I had seen her before. She was just a freed slave, an ex-secretary from the Palace-yet potentially the most influential woman in the Empire today. I straightened up. If the rumors about how she used her position were true, then more power might be wielded on the sly in this isolated villa than in any other private house in Rome.

THEY HAD BEEN laughing quietly, two straight-backed, civilized, unself-conscious women braving the weather as they discussed how the world worked. Helena had the animated look that meant she was truly enjoying herself. That was rare; she tended to be unsociable except with people she knew well.

Her companion was twice her age, an undeniably elderly woman with a slightly drawn expression. Her name was Antonia Caenis. Though a freedwoman, she was one of grand status: she once worked for the mother of the Emperor Claudius. That had given her long and close connections with the old discredited imperial family and she now possessed even more intimate links with the new one: she was the longtime mistress of Vespasian. As an ex-slave she could never marry him, but after his wife died they had lived openly together. Everyone had assumed that upon becoming Emperor he would shed her discreetly, but he took her with him to the Palace. At their age it was hardly a scandal. This villa presumably belonged to Caenis herself; if she still came here, it must be to transact business of an unofficial kind.

I had heard that it happened. Vespasian liked to appear too straight to permit backstage machinations-yet he must be happy to have somebody he trusted negotiate discreet deals while he kept his distance and apparently kept his hands clean.

The two women were seated on cushions on a low stone seat with lion's paw feet. At my approach both turned and broke off what they were saying. I glimpsed mutual annoyance at my interruption. I was a man. Whatever they had been debating was outside my sphere.

That did not mean it had been frivolous.

"Well, here you are then!" exclaimed Helena, making me nervous.

"I wondered what I was missing."

Antonia Caenis inclined her head and greeted me without being introduced. "Didius Falco."

She was good; I had once stood aside for her when I was visiting Titus Caesar at the Palace, but it was some time ago and we had never met formally. I had already heard she was intelligent, and possessed a phenomenal memory. Apparently I had been well catalogued: but in which pigeonhole?

"Antonia Caenis."

I was standing, the traditional position for the servile element in the presence of the great. The ladies enjoyed treating me like a barbarian. I winked at Helena, who colored slightly, afraid I might wink at Caenis too. I reckoned Vespasian's dame would have handled it, but I was a guest in her house. Besides, she was a woman with unknown Palace privileges. Before I risked annoying her I wanted to assess just how powerful she was.

"You have presented me with a most generous gift," said Caenis. That was news. As it had been explained to me some months ago in Hispania, Helena Justina was proposing a private sale of some purple-dyed Baetican cloth that would be suitable for imperial uniforms. It was supposed to bring in goodwill, but had been intended as a commercial transaction. For a senator's daughter Helena possessed a surprising knack for bargaining; if she had now decided to waive payment, she must have a very good reason: something else was being brokered here today. I could guess what it was.