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in the comparative comfort of her own room, lying wide-eyed on her back counting the stars through the open window, that Claudia wondered whether the night had been quite what it seemed.
    The carts blocking the road. The men who, actually, did no harm. And the escape, which—when you took a step back and thought about it—wasn’t really that difficult.

V
    Marcus Cornelius Orbilio stared up at the self-same stars twinkling high above Rome and decided he was glad to be home. Bloody glad, in fact. He was dog tired, he needed a bath and a shave and he had blisters on his bum, but every ache, every pain, every stiffened muscle was worth it. He called for a bowl of hot water and began to whistle as he threw off his dusty clothes.
    He could have taken his time had he wished, travelling in style and comfort instead of sitting astride one cantankerous bag of bones after another, except he chose to hurry.
    ‘You’d best bring me up to date, Tingi.’
    That was the thing about having a good steward, one you could truly rely on. He’d separate the important from the dross, the urgent from the trivial, and after several weeks away from home the last thing a man needed was a pile of rubbish to wade through. Tingi, whose face gave the impression he was pining for his Libyan homelands whereas in reality he was like a lamb in clover, read from the list he had prepared while his master splashed water over his face and a slave helped him into fresh clothes.
    ‘Splendid!’
    With nothing more pressing than an instruction to report first thing in the morning to Callisunus, his boss and head of the Security Police, on the outcome of the case he’d been investigating in Ostia plus a note to write to his sister, congratulating her on the birth of her second child, Orbilio felt life was rather less of a lemon now he was home.
    ‘I’ll have my supper, Tingi, then I’m off for a good, long soak at the baths. That’ll stop the old joints creaking.’
    ‘Very good, sir. I’ve asked the cook to prepare your favourite, the chicken in pepper sauce. It won’t be too rich, will it, after your ride?’
    ‘Rich? Never! After the pigswill I’ve been living on these past weeks, I never want to see plain food again.’ Orbilio ran a comb through his tangled mop and winced. ‘Take my advice, Tingi, never take a job as an undercover agent.’
    The Libyan smiled. ‘I think I might have difficulty passing the physical, sir.’
    Orbilio laughed aloud at the prospect of this African mingling unobtrusively among the Roman aristocracy… Yes, indeed, it was good to be home. It had been a damned nuisance, to say the very least, being posted to Ostia straight after that murder business. His boss, as he’d half expected, came away with all the credit for solving it, while he, Orbilio, had been lumbered with finding out who was fiddling a few measly sesterces in taxes. He’d spent six weeks, six rotten, godawful weeks, acting the part of tutor to two rotten, godawful boys before he got to the root of the problem.
    There was no thieving. Thanks to bureaucratic incompetence, five hundred citizens had been missed off the bloody register.
    ‘And the other matter, Tingi? That er, rather delicate issue I left with you?’ The smell of the chicken began to gnaw at his stomach. He hadn’t realized he was so hungry. Damn those wretched nags!
    ‘Ah!’
    He didn’t like the way his manservant said that. Come to think of it, he didn’t much care for the expression on the fellow’s face, either. A whole host of wild scenarios rushed into his mind. He’d been gone only a few weeks and…she’d married someone else, that was it. Would he be old and in the grip of terminal halitosis like her last husband, or would she have opted for a younger, more athletic model? How young? He was only twenty-four himself, the same age as she was. No, no, it was too soon, she couldn’t be married. Sick, then! That was it, she was ill. Nothing too serious or Tingi’s tone would