`She knows she's his mother.' I felt thrilled. `Look, he's starting to suckle. Helena, come and look at this!'

Marius tugged at my tunic. `Come away, Uncle Marcus. We have to leave her quiet now. She must not be disturbed, or she might reject him. There must be no parade of nosy sightseers, and I think your baby had best stay in another room.' Marius, an intellectual at heart, had gone into this. I knew Helena had lent him a compendium of animal husbandry. Flushed with knowledge and ownership, he refused to entrust his precious pet to amateurs. `I'll feed Nux for you when it is needed. You two,' he told Helena and me balefully, `are rather too excitable, if you don't mind my saying so. By the way, Nuxie seems to have given you a problem…'

How right he was. Despite all my efforts to find her an attractive basket in a dark nook where she could have her grotesquely oversized pup in privacy, Nux had chosen her own spot: on my toga, in the middle of our bed.

`Let us hope,' said Helena, fairly gently, `you are not required at any formal dress functions in the next few days, Marcus.' Well, at least that was unlikely; August has some advantages.

H

ELENA AND I had to make up a bed that night on my old reading couch. This, it has to be said, was so much of a squash for two of us that we did start behaving like infants and were without doubt what Marius would pompously call too excitable.

`Does Nux having a puppy make you want another baby of your own?' I giggled.

`You want an invitation to do something about it?'

`Is that an offer?'

That was when Helena told me she was expecting for the second time – and when we both grew still and a good deal quieter.

All the time Helena had been pregnant with Julia, she had been terrified the birth would be difficult. It had been. They both nearly died. Now neither of us was able to talk about our fears for the next baby.

The following day Marius spent most of his time with us. Sitting cross-legged near his puppy, anyway. The presence of Helena and me was irrelevant to him.

I was at home, writing up records for the vigiles of the debtors Aelianus had interviewed. As a senator's `son, documentation was beneath him; if he continued to work with me, I would have to teach him better habits. He expected me to provide a cohort of secretaries to make sense of his notes.

Well, I would give him advice. If he ignored it, then some day when he was in court with a client (some client I did not care for; there were plenty of those), a barrister would demand written evidence and the noble Aelianus would come sadly adrift.

In the afternoon Marius disappeared, but he was back again that evening, this time carrying a rolled blanket and his personal foodbowl.

`Joining us as a lodger? Does your mother know?'

`I told her. The puppy has to stay with Nux for several weeks.'

`Nux and the puppy are fine, Marius. You can come and see them whenever you want. You don't need to guard them all night long.' 'Arctos.'

`Who's that?'

`I'm going to call him Arctos. The Great Bear. He doesn't want a stupid name like "Nux".'

`It sounds as if you don't trust us with little Arctos,' Helena said. `Nux will take care of him very well, Marius.'

`Oh, this is just an excuse,' Marius replied offhandedly. Helena and I were taken aback. 'I prefer to be at your house. It is such a bore going home after a long day's heavy work in the warehouse' – I knew from Pa that Marius only did light duties, and he only turned up when it suited him. As he moaned about his labours, I could hear his late father in him, different though he and Famia were – only to find that man Anacrites is always there.'

`Oh yes?' I said, stiffening. `What does "always" mean?' `Most evenings,' Marius confirmed glumly. `Is that all?'

'He doesn't stay the night. It has not come to "This is your nice new father" yet,' my nephew assured me, with the astounding selfconfidence Maia's children had always possessed. For nine, he was quite a person of the world. A fatherless boy has to grow up fast, but this was frightening. `Cloelia and I would do our best to put a stop to that.'

`I recommend you not to interfere,' I told him, man to man. `You're right! When we tried, we had Mother snivelling. It was horrible.'

`Your mother is allowed to do what she likes, you know,' I said, biting my lip and thinking, "Not if I have any say in it." (Mind you, those idiots who write treatises on a Roman's patriarchal power have evidently never tried to make a woman do anything.)

`Yes, but it will go wrong, Uncle Marcus. Then he will go away, but we shall be left with the mess he has caused.'

Helena appeared to be hiding a smile; she started to prepare dinner, leaving me to cope.

I dropped my voice conspiratorially. 'So what's the score on the dice, Marius?'

`Mother says Anacrites is her friend. Ugh!'

'What does she want a friend for? She has you and me taking care of her.'

`Mother says she enjoys having someone to talk to – an outsider,

who does not always believe he knows what she thinks and what she wants.'

Marius and I sat side by side on a bench, thinking about women and their menfolk's responsibilities. `Thank you for telling me all this, Marius. I shall see what I can do.'

Marius gave me a look that told me to leave it to him.

I came from a family whose members saw it as life's greatest challenge to be first to interfere in any problem. I went to see my mother first. I explained the reason for my visit, becoming nervous as I did so. She was surprisingly calm. `Has Anacrites made a move?'

`How would I know?'

`Maybe he's biding his time.'

`You are gloating over this!'

`I would never do that,' said Ma primly.

I glared at her. My mother continued pinching together the edges of little pastry parcels. She still did it dextrously. I thought of her as an old lady, but she was probably younger than Pa, who boasted of being sixty and still able to drag barmaids to bed. Mind you, the ones who agreed to it now must be a bit on the creaky side.

My mother had always been a woman who could whop three naughty children back in line while stirring a pot of tunic dye, discussing the weather, chewing a rough fingernail and passing on gossip in a thrilling undertone. And she knew how to ignore what she did not want to hear.

`I hope that's not his dinner you are making,' I muttered. `I hope he is not receiving his starters and entrees from my sister, then coming back for dessert from you.'

`Such nice manners,' retorted Ma, obviously meaning Anacrites. She knew mine were not worth complimenting. `Always grateful for what you do for him.'

I bet he was.

I then forced myself to visit Maia. I was dreading it.

He was there. Just as Marius had said. They were on her sun terrace, talking. I heard their low voices as I let myself in with a spare latch-lifter I had for emergencies. Anacrites was sitting in a wicker chair, leaning his head back in the last rays of sunlight that day. Maia was even more relaxed, with her legs stretched out on cushions and her sandals off.

He made no attempt to explain himself, though he soon got up to leave. I had destroyed one tryst anyway. Maia simply inclined her head and let him see himself out. They parted formally. I was not obliged to witness anything embarrassing. I could not even tell whether things had reached that' stage. Were they alone, would he even have kissed her on the cheek as a goodbye?

I tried to carry on as if the Chief Spy had never been there. `I just came to say we have acquired young Marius. He is concerned about his pup.'