There stood Lucio Claudio, called Fusco. “Good day,” Amanda said, meaning anything but. “What can I do for you?”

“I am looking for Ieremeo Soltero,” answered Gaio Fulvio's man of affairs.

“He's not here right now,” Amanda said. “Can I help you?”

“I doubt it,” Lucio Claudio said. Amanda glanced over at the iron bar she'd just put down. No, you can't hit him over the head with it, she told herself. People would talk. It seemed a great pity. The local, who didn't know she was contemplating his sudden departure from this world, went on, “It has to do with the official report he submitted.”

“Oh. Then I can help you.” Amanda stepped aside and gestured politely. “Won't you come in? Would you care for some wine?”

“It is written in the classical language. How could you-?” But Lucio Claudio caught himself. He'd already done business with Amanda. “No. Wait. You have already proved that you are familiar with it.”

“That's right. I have. And I am.” Amanda's smile was anything but sweet. She repeated, “Won't you come in?”

Lucio Claudio's face said mere females had no business knowing classical Latin. It also said mere merchants had no business knowing the old language. And if the merchant happened to be a girl, or the girl happened to be a merchant… “Very well.” He didn't sound any happier about being there than Amanda was to have him there.

When she took him back to the courtyard, she pointed to the hole in the kitchen roof. Jeremy had put boards over it, but the roofer hadn't replaced the shattered tiles. As she pointed, a cannonball thudded home somewhere not far away. She said, “At a time like this, don't you have more important things to worry about than official reports? We submitted it on time. It's accurate. Isn't that enough to satisfy you?“

The local's swarthy skin darkened further, probably with annoyance. He said, “What could be more important than keeping complete and thorough records?”

“You're joking,” Amanda said. Then she realized he wasn't. In Agrippan Rome, records were at least as important as people. Another cannonball landed somewhere a little farther away. She asked, “Don't you think you ought to be worrying about keeping the Lietuvans out of Polisso? Shouldn't everything else wait on that?”

“Certainly not,” he answered. She might have suggested that he ate with his fingers-except the locals did eat with their fingers, and had a complex set of manners for doing so. “Though besieged, we are still Roman. Life must go on as normally as possible.”

That could have sounded brave and noble. To Amanda, it sounded infuriating. But she didn't let her anger show. She would have to keep on dealing with Lucio Claudio and with people like him. Or, if she didn't, other crosstime traders would. If there still are other crosstime traders, she thought. If they ever come back to Agrippan Rome. She shivered. She doubted more and more that they ever would.

All she said, then, was, “Let me get you your wine, in that case, and you can go ahead.”

She poured a cup for herself, too. If she hadn't, Lucio Claudio might have thought she was trying to poison him. He spilled some on the paving stones and murmured a prayer to Dionysus. Amanda spilled some, too. She prayed for the Emperor's spirit, not to any of the gods. An Imperial Christian could go that far and no further.

Lucio Claudio's sneer said he didn't think it was far enough. But it was legal. He didn't complain, not out loud. Instead, he took out the official report Jeremy had written. “Some of this is not as clear as it ought to be,” he said.

Amanda knew her brother had written the report so it wouldn't be clear. She couldn't very well tell that to Lucio Claudio, though. “You must be mistaken,” she said.

He shook his head. “No, I am not,” he insisted. “Look here, where the report speaks of your sources for these remarkable trade goods you have…”

“May I see it, please?” she asked. Reluctantly, Lucio Claudio handed it to her. People were careful with papers here. This was the only copy of the official report. The only way to get another one would be to have a secretary copy it all out. She read the passage he pointed at, then said, “It seems plain enough to me.”

“Nonsense,” Lucio Claudio said.

“It is not nonsense,” Amanda said. “Don't they teach anyone in Polisso what an ablative absolute is and how to use it?” If she could argue about classical Latin grammar and how it worked, she wouldn't have to argue about what was and wasn't in the official report.

And she'd flicked Lucio Claudio on his pride. He took a big, angry gulp of wine. “We may be near the frontier here, but we have good schools,” he insisted. “We have excellent schools, in fact. Why, three hundred years ago the poet Settimo Destro, called Sinistro, had his verses quoted from one end of the Empire to the other. And where did he come from? Right here in Polisso!”

Amanda was happier arguing town pride than the official report, too. “Three hundred years is a long time,” she said.

“What have you done since your left-handed poet lived?” Sinistro meant left-handed. “Not much, if you don't understand what this means.”

“Suppose you explain it,” Lucio Claudio said.

“I don't need to explain it. It's as plain as the nose on your face. Let me read it to you, so you can see for yourself.” Read it she did, in classical Latin: “'They having secured the required articles from their suppliers, who, having taken all precautions to produce them with the maximum practicable degree of quality and artistic excellence, conveyed the aforementioned goods to those who would distribute them for retail distribution, they delivered these aforesaid articles of commerce to the famous metropolis for final distribution to and among its most excellent citizens.' There! Isn't that obvious?”

Lucio Claudio fumed. He'd wanted to talk about the official report in neoLatin. But if Amanda stuck to the old language, he had to do the same. If he didn't, he would lose face. He would sooner have been blown to bits by a Lietuvan cannon-ball than admit that a merchant's daughter knew more about classical Latin than he did.

Instead of admitting it, he snatched the official report away from her. He went through it till he found another passage he didn't like. Triumph in his voice, he said, “What about this? It does not explain why you have these remarkable goods and no one else does. That, after all, was the whole point of requiring an official report from you in the first place.”

“So you could steal our trade secrets, you mean,” Amanda said. That made Lucio Claudio look as if he'd bitten into a lemon. Everybody was touchy about trade secrets in Agrippan

Rome. With no patents or copyrights to protect knowledge, people had to be. Not even the government could poke at them too hard, not without risking trouble. Amanda held out her hand. “Let me see it, if you please. How can I answer when you keep taking things away from me?”

“Here,” Lucio Claudio said. “And no quibbles over ablative absolutes this time, if you please. The sentences are very straightforward.”

Even you understand them, you mean? It was on the tip of Amanda's tongue, but she didn't say it. A bureaucrat who was doing his job, going through the motions, was one thing. A bureaucrat with a personal grudge was something else again, and something much more dangerous. She read Jeremy's answer and nodded. “You're right. This is very straightforward. It says we get our goods from the finest suppliers in the Roman Empire. That's the truth. The quality of what we sell proves it.”

“But who are these suppliers?” Lucio Claudio demanded. “Why can't anyone else find them and deal with them?”

“That is our trade secret,“ Amanda said. ”If everyone knew where to get these goods, where would our living be?“ She smiled. ”Would you like some more wine?“

They went round and round for the next hour. Jeremy had done a good job of writing the report so that it sounded impressive but didn't say anything. Finally, Lucio Claudio gave up and went away. Amanda would have liked that better if she hadn't been pretty sure he would come back.