'Do you have any children?' I asked, fumbling for a way to reach him.

'Four. Plus my brother's two now.'

'Your wife?'

'Dead, thankfully-' Any woman with much about her would want to kick his anklebone; I was thinking of one in particular. Perhaps he saw it in my face. 'Are you married, Falco?'

'Not exactly.'

'Someone in mind?' When the people who asked were not entirely cynical, it was easiest for a bachelor to pretend. I paused, then nodded. 'No children then?' he went on.

'Not as far as I know-and that's not flippancy. My brother had a child he never saw; it won't happen to me.'

'What happened to your brother?'

'Casualty; Judaea. A hero, they tell me.'

'Was this recent?'

'Three years ago.

'Ah… you can say then: in this situation, how do we cope?'

'Oh, we tolerate the crass intrusions of people who hardly knew them; we set up expensive memorials which fail to impress their real friends! We honour their birthdays, comfort their women, make sure their children grow up with some parental control-'

'Does this help?'

'No, not really… No.'

We both smiled grimly, then Gordianus turned to me.

'Evidently Vespasian sent you because he considers you persuasive,' he sneered. I had won his confidence, though what happened to my brother in the desert was nothing to exploit. 'You seem to be genuine; what do you recommend?'

Still thinking of Festus, I did not answer at once.

'Oh Falco, you cannot imagine what has been going through my head!' I could. Gordianus was the sort of tormented defeatist who could easily put his whole brood to the sword, then persuade some loyal slave to butcher him too. I imagined it clearly; everyone sobbing and making a mess of good floor rugs with their pointless blood-his type should never attempt treachery. If he brazened this out, he had done no worse than many senators contemplate every day over lunch.

Of course, that was why these people mattered. That was why the Emperor was treating them so carefully. Some plots are dreamed up over Tuesday's cold artichokes but fade out by Wednesday's anchovy eggs. Curtius Gordianus displayed a mad insistency. He had ganged up with amateurs who were pressing on in defiance long after self-preservation would steer anyone else back to respectable pastimes like drinking and gambling and seducing their best friends' wives.

'So what alternatives are left, Falco?'

'Vespasian will not object if you withdraw to your private estate-'

'Retire from public life!' A true Roman, the suggestion shocked him. 'Is he ordering that?'

'No. Sorry-'

Caught out by my mistake, I was starting to lose patience. He shot me a quizzical look. I remembered his brisk attitude when he first greeted me as Chief Pontiff; I decided this squashed pillow needed plumping up with a public role.

'The Emperor was impressed by your adopting a religious post, though he would prefer you to accept a more demanding place-' I sounded like Anacrites; I had been working at the Palace far too long.

'Such as?'

'Paestum?'

Now Gordianus sat quiet. After exile on this bleak shore, the mighty complex of temples at Paestum represented sheer luxury. 'Paestum,' I continued seductively. 'A civilized city in a delicate climate, where the violets are the sweetest in Europe, and all the perfumers' roses bloom twice every year…' (Paestum: on the west coast in Campania-well within Vespasian's reach.)

'In what position?' Now he was talking more like a senator.

'I have no authority to confirm that, sir. But during my journey here I did learn they have a vacant post at the great Temple of Hera…'

He nodded at once.

I had done it. Everything was over. I had hooked Curtius Gordianus back from his exile, and with luck earned myself a contract bonus. (Or, being realistic, I would earn it if Vespasian agreed to the solution I had suggested, if we ever managed to agree what that solution was worth to the Empire-and if he paid.)

I stood up, easing my spine. I felt grimy and tired; familiar hazards of my trade. Lack of decent conversation had left my speech sluggish. I became aware of countless scratches stinging my legs from forging through maritime brushwood at the whim of my goat. I was a wreck. I had ten days' ferocious stubble; I must look like a mountain bandit. My hair had coarsened and my eyebrows stiffened with salt.

While I watched Gordianus beginning to gloat at his own good luck, I blotted out the irony of my own predicament. If I did earn this bonus, it would be one small instalment towards the four hundred thousand sesterces that might have helped me approach Helena. Informing is a drab old business. The pay's filthy, the work's worse, and if you ever find a woman you don't have the money, or the time, or the energy… And she leaves you anyway.

I told myself I would feel better once I enjoyed a long and steamy hour, with decent hot water in ample quantities, in the pontiff's private baths. A good bathe when you really need it can get you over almost anything.

Then I remembered that clumsy bastard Milo had broken my favourite oil flask at the Croton mansio.

I was clean at last, well scraped and starting to relax, when the commotion occurred.

As the bath-house was private, several glass and alabaster jars of interesting oils lived permanently on a marble shelf. I dipped in discreetly and had my eye on a particular green flagon of hair pomade for a final therapeutic touch…

As I unwound in the luxurious hot steam room, I felt I had the measure of what had been going on. The Curtius brothers owned a family tree so ancient that Romulus and Remus had carved their names in its moss. To them Vespasian was a nobody. His good generalship meant nothing; nor the forty years of service he had already given Rome. He had no money and no famous ancestors. You cannot let people who own nothing but talent rise into the highest positions. What chance is there then for the upper-crust bunglers and fools?

Longinus and Gordianus, two impressionable boobies with more status than sense, must have been easy prey for stronger men with wickeder ideas. Longinus had paid for it cruelly, and all Gordianus really wanted now was an escape he would be able to explain away to their sons-

At this point heavy running footsteps interrupted my reverie.

As I rushed out with the slave who had come to fetch me, a stricken figure was being carried from the Temple to the house on a makeshift sling. Milo was arguing fiercely with Gordianus in the porch; when I appeared, all wet curls and wonderful unguents, and wrapped in a skimpy towel, the Chief Priest exclaimed icily, 'Falco was in the bath-house!'

I said, 'Thanks for the alibi; so what was the crime?' Gordianus, whose normal greyish pallor had become a sickly white, nodded as the unconscious man was hurried past us indoors; the deputy priest, the one who had been in charge while the pontiff was in mourning. The veil that would have covered his head at the altar was still tangled round him, soaked in crimson.

'Poor fellow was found bleeding from a head wound. He had been felled with a lampstand. Someone had left your goat there in the Temple-'

'If that was an attempt to implicate me, it's clumsy!' I interrupted angrily. 'I never take her inside the Lady's sanctum, as you well know!' A slave had brought me a tunic so I fought my way into it, with some difficulty since I was still wet.

'Falco, the blow was badly aimed; he may live-but if so he will be fortunate-'

'Stop wondering; the blow was meant for you!' I plucked at my clinging tunic as I turned from Gordianus to his steward, who was giving me a cross-eyed scowl. 'Milo, I kept away from the Temple while pilgrims were there. Were you on watch?' The huge oaf looked uncooperative, still remembering how I had brained him at Croton. 'Think, Milo! This is urgent! Has there been anyone who looked less than genuine? Anyone asking questions? Anyone who for any reason sticks in your mind?'