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was. And a good man.’
    ‘If you serve in the legions once more, where would it be? Britain again?’
    He shook his head. ‘Britain has too many memories for me, so not there, at least for now. There is always trouble on the Rhenus frontier and a good officer would be welcomed, even with one arm. Or up beyond Illyricum fighting the barbarians on the Danuvius. But the most likely place would be Armenia, in the east, where General Corbulo is campaigning against the Parthians.’
    ‘So Armenia it is, my hero brother. Tomorrow you must petition Nero for a position on General Corbulo’s staff and’ – her voice took on a fair imitation of their father’s pompous tones – ‘do not return unless you add new laurels to the name of the Valerii.’
    He would have replied, but she lay back and closed her eyes. Within a minute she was in a deep sleep. He arranged her as comfortably as he could and kissed her gently on the forehead. Her skin felt fever hot against his lips.
    On the way to his room he met Julia in the corridor.
    ‘Is she …’
    ‘She’s asleep, but I think the medicine is wearing off.’
    Tears welled up in the slave girl’s eyes. ‘Please ask the barbarian doctor to help my mistress. If …’
    He touched her arm. ‘You can ask him yourself. He has promised to visit, but don’t call him a barbarian. He might turn us all into frogs.’ The old joke made her smile. ‘And Julia?’
    ‘Yes, sir?’
    ‘Mistress Olivia said she thought she heard a man’s voice today. Have there been visitors you haven’t told me about?’
    ‘No, master,’ she replied. But she took a long time to say it.
    Valerius rose before sunrise the next morning, the twelfth day of June and the third of Vestalia. At this time of the day the streets were cool, and by the time he passed the Temple of Vesta a long line of women were already waiting with their sacrifices to the goddess of the hearth. The festival was the only time the temple was open to any except the virgins who maintained the sacred flame, and then only to women and the Pontifex Maximus, Nero himself. The scent of baking reminded him he hadn’t broken his fast, but he smiled at the thought of eating the tasteless salt cakes the priestesses produced as tributes to the goddess.
    The gladiator school was on the flat ground known as the Tarentum, outside the city wall on the west side of the Campus Martius. He turned off the Nova Via on to the Clivus Victoriae and then across the open space of the Velabrum until he could follow the river round to the old voting grounds. The stench from the Tiber gagged in his throat, but he knew he would become used to it, just as he would become used to the sight of the bloated corpses of dead dogs and deformed newborns floating in its sulphur-yellow filth. The river flowed sluggishly on his left and to his right the fading grandeur of the Pantheon and Agrippa’s baths were highlighted by the early morning sunshine.
    By the time he reached the ludus a score of men were already sweating as they faced each other on the hard-packed dirt under the critical gaze of the lanista , the trainer who would hire out his troop to the editores who staged games for the Emperor or for rich patrons who wanted to impress their friends. Mostly they fought for show, but occasionally, if enough money was on offer, these men who shared barrack rooms and meals, and sometimes beds, would fight each other to the death. Valerius had once been a staunch supporter of the games, with his own favourite fighters, but now he stayed away. In Britain he had seen enough blood spilled for a lifetime.
    Most of the gladiators were slaves, former warriors swept up by the Empire’s wars and spared the living death of the mines and the quarries for the entertainment value they promised. A few were unblooded: troublesome farm slaves sold on by their owners because it was more profitable than killing them and bought by the lanista on the strength of their size and fighting