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coming. To make sure, I had fastened my belt around the handles of the double doors, and stood the side-table right against them.

6
     
    I started awake.
    Furniture was being scraped across the mosaic floor. The doors were being forced inwards.
    I had slept longer than I thought; there was sufficient daylight for me to interpret this and woozily decide to put a stop to it. Bloody Dromo. He had worked his matted head through the crack between the doors, ignoring any risk to his brain. Not wanting to desecrate my favourite knife, I threw a pillow at him.
    ‘Can I go out for my breakfast?’
    ‘For one happy moment, Dromo, I thought you were bringing me some.’
    ‘I’m a messenger, that’s not my job.’
    ‘What happens normally about your breakfast?’
    ‘I get it in our kitchen of course. Our house is proper. That’s if I don’t have to drag out after my master and get thrown an old crust at that horrible place he hangs around with you.’
    ‘It’s the Stargazer. And your master does not “hang around”, he drops in for business occasionally.’
    ‘I thought the pair of you were smooching.’
    ‘I do not smooch magistrates; I have more class. And you ought to know the aedile better.’ I wondered if Dromo had ever seen Faustus dally with women. I couldn’t imagine it, but men who seem moral can be a disappointment. In fact, from experience I would say they generally are. ‘Go on then. Use the bar directly opposite the house; don’t wander off.’
    ‘I haven’t got any money.’
    What a whiner. Still, it was not his fault. Slaves have to be trusted first; I could see why Faustus would avoid giving this back-chatting boy any petty cash. I answered mildly, though won no thanks for it. I told Dromo to go ahead and I would come to fix up a daily tab for him.
    Faustus could pay. I would eat separately at a better-looking bar further down the street, then Faustus could pay for that too.
     
    Service was slow on the Clivus Suburanus. Eating was slow too, since even the apparently superior bar served very hard bread. Lucky for them that I had grown up in the hopeless backstreets of Londinium. I had known far worse.
    By the time I returned to the apartment, the freedman Polycarpus was tapping his foot, delighted to look down on me because I had kept him waiting.
    Whatever he thought, I know my job. I became impressively businesslike. I marched him to a pair of seats that I had already put out in the courtyard. I had clean waxed tablets ready. I had planned my questions. I drew out the background information I wanted, giving Polycarpus no chance to bluster that he had to keep confidences.
    Valerius Aviola had been in his early forties. His money came from land; he owned productive country villas, which either brought in rent from tenants or he ran them himself and took all the profits. Mucia Lucilia, the new trophy wife, was fifteen years younger; she came with attractive inherited wealth. They had known one another socially, an acquaintance that matured naturally into a convenient marriage. They shared friends, who were delighted for them.
    I nearly asked if they had previously been lovers, but it seemed irrelevant and I chose a different question. ‘Did you think they would be happy?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Polycarpus.
     
    The wedding ceremony took place where Mucia had lived on the Quirinal Hill, then Aviola brought his bride home for their first night. A feast for friends was held here the following evening. It ended at a reasonable hour, because the couple were planning to travel to Campania early next morning. They retired to bed. Polycarpus saw the borrowed kitchen staff off the premises, then checked everything was in order before going home. The slaves were well behaved, he told me, and not given to rioting; so he assumed the household would settle down quietly when he left.
    The intruders battered their way in through the front doors. They surprised and severely beat the duty night porter, who was Nicostratus