As the white cat scratched at the door, Squilla fetched it in. It seemed to be hers. Marcia made room, gesturing for Squilla to come on the cushions beside her, with the big cat in her arms. This at least meant Dolazebol could not snuggle next to Marcia. Heads together, the two women made much of the indignant cat, which was called Vindobona for some reason. Its white fur was thick, with a lion-like mane cascading over its front. Squilla told Marcia it was a gift from Dolazebol, the white cats of Ancyra in Galatia being more highly prized than the similar greys found in Parthia.

  She stretched and flexed her arm, where several bangles jostled, one of them exquisitely carved ivory. I wondered whose gifts they had been. The carved one could have been from Ritellius, whose wife was an artist in ivory. To a man, giving Ilia’s work to another woman would not seem a betrayal. Many lack sentimentality – at least when they are three thousand miles from home, and home is where the wife resides.

  Squilla relayed various tales of Vindobona’s cuteness: how he was once put in front of a cornered mouse but fled; how he liked to sit on the top of doors to survey what he considered his realm, then jump off on people; how he was sick in a tribune’s toga; the precious vases he had knocked over and destroyed … I concealed my boredom. We had to make friends with Squilla. Her light, sweet voice rose and fell while I sank my teeth into a date pastry.

  The white cat Vindobona stared at me as if he knew I was a dog-lover.

  ‘Ladies!’ cried the envoy eagerly. ‘What entertainment can we give you? Food? Drink? Acrobats? Poetry? Music? In Parthia we are extremely devoted to music.’ Was that why they liked Nero-pretenders?

  Music it was. Distractions would give him his best chance of assailing Marcia. As we waited for instruments to be brought and melodies chosen, Dolazebol eyed up Marcia while I, too, was considering manoeuvres: somehow I had to corral Squilla outside this room, to talk to her privately. That cascade of hair, pallid as oats in goat’s milk, made her very visible. Wherever she went people knew she was there. If she left, everyone would notice.

  She and the paramour were knotted too tightly for me. He had slid in beside her, the other side from Marcia, slowly stroking Squilla, as if she was his own pet white cat. It made me queasy.

  Having taken it upon ourselves to visit, we could hardly decline hospitality. The food and drink were tasty, the music easy on the ear. Drinks came in pure gold rhytons, horn-shaped cups that must have been fabulously expensive; I sipped very cautiously but the contents tasted mainly of honey. I noticed that, even in this intimate gathering, Dolazebol’s titbits were routinely sampled by a food-taster. I tipped my cup, showing I had seen it. ‘How sensible, sir. You wouldn’t want to go to bed after a hot garlicky broth, and be found in the morning poisoned!’

  He smiled vaguely as if my true meaning was lost on him. I wondered. Was he aware the third False Nero had died only yesterday, after eating broth? I felt he knew all about it; my Roman side came to the fore, full of indignation on behalf of the not-Nero.

  Musicians had been brought from Parthia; they gave us pleasant, rhythmic tunes on a variety of stringed instruments, long flutes and small pattering drums. Their presence made me assess how many retainers of various types the envoy possessed. The chief spy’s house was an old republican-era mansion, built atrium-style with a peristyle garden, but it had plenty of rooms in side wings where a large retinue could be housed.

  I watched how things worked domestically. The servers, guards and food-taster, the maids who slipped in to fan or titivate the women, were all the Parthians’ own. But I knew Trebianus had his man here. Where was he? What did he do? I guessed Rome provided the house with a skeleton staff who had to be accepted by the incomers. This was a glorified five-star mansion for overseas dignitaries, but Rome’s planted cache of slaves would closely observe its occupants. Their true purpose must have been obvious.

  Vindobona had tangled his claws in Squilla’s hair cascade. As he struggled in panic Marcia hastened to the rescue of both, the whites of their hair almost indistinguishable as she painfully freed Vindobona and Squilla from each other. The Parthian envoy leaned in to put Squilla’s locks into place again, with more disquieting stroking movements. Squilla tipped back her head like an animal that enjoyed petting.

  Dolazebol had seen my indifference to the white cat. Across Squilla and Marcia, he winked conspiratorially. We exchanged chit-chat. Learning my love of dogs, he clapped his hands. Not long afterwards a servant brought in a matched pair of tall-shouldered, extremely elegant hounds. The two had long silky fur that must have been a nightmare to groom (more retainers the Parthians had brought here: dog-handlers). Creamy gold, with black faces and dark tips to their fringed ear fur, the lovely hounds had incongruously thin tails that curled into rings at the tip.

  The Parthian women squealed and slapped a lid on their kittens’ basket, while Squilla clasped Vindobona to her shoulder. The two dogs were hunters.

  ‘My sighthounds!’ Dolazebol confirmed. Yes, this excellent pair were showing interest in the cat; I could imagine them taking off after it … ‘They are friendly, Flavia Albia. You may stroke them if they are interested, although they choose for themselves whether they wish it. Come, Tazi!’

  One dog stepped fastidiously up to him. The other came to me of its own accord, putting the top of its soft head against my hand and nudging. I stroked between its ears.

  ‘Ah!’ their master exclaimed, as the dog and I bonded. ‘I wish we had puppies. I would present you with one, Flavia Albia.’

  Beware Parthians bearing gifts …

  I shook my head. I had no time to exercise such fast-moving creatures, no wish to be beset by neighbours whose little pets they murdered. If ever I was to own a dog, it would need to be much less obtrusive than these. I could hardly conduct discreet surveillance in some Roman street with a long-coated mountain-leopard-hunter drawing all eyes. ‘Dolazebol, you are kind, but these are not for me. I am more of a scruffy-mongrel girl.’

  He pretended amazement. ‘Yet you are married to an aedile!’ Did he know that because he had eavesdropped the conversation when Marcia and I had first arrived – or had someone else told him about me?

  I laughed. ‘My man is somewhat unusual.’ Since we had been on the subject of gifts, I added, ‘Manlius Faustus is an organiser for the Roman Games. If you like, I can ask whether he can obtain good tickets for you.’ Special seats are made available for important foreigners; I felt safe taking it upon myself to suggest it.

  The idea went down well. It was unusual for me to have such a tempting bribe to offer. How strangely my life had changed.

  The musicians had been playing and singing, but now they took a break. To stop the dogs making the white cat and kittens restless, the aristocratic pair of hounds were fed titbits ceremonially then led out. Vindobona preened. Triumph is so unattractive.

  A hiatus was useful. ‘You and your dear ladies have been very gracious, Dolazebol, but I must go home to check on my poor husband. As you may have heard, he had a too-close encounter with a thunderbolt.’

  Amid cries of alarm on the invalid’s behalf, the roomful of strangers went into fervent well-wishing, as if they were all our cousins. But after fake pleas for us to stay longer, the Parthians agreed to let us go. They were tiring of us as much as we were tired of them.

  We had achieved too little. I fell back on the usual ploy: I asked to use the facilities. This enabled me to say that I already knew how to find them. Since I had been a guest in the house before, I wondered if on our way out they would allow me to show my cousin the interesting public rooms …

  33

  Marcia jumped up and, like any girlfriend, said she would join me on the toilet expedition. She urged her new crony Squilla to come on the room tour, saying she had heard there was once a rather naughty art collection here.

  True. Anacrites had shown me part of it, until the erotic content had hardened me against him. It made an excuse to lure Squilla, so I did not say that after the chief spy’s death his pornography was sent for sale; I knew, because it was disposed of through our family auction house.

  With many goodbyes and pledges of eternal friendship, we extracted ourselves from the silken salon.

  ‘I wonder who has the rude statues?’ Marcia burbled, pulling Squilla along with us, as we headed for the lavatory. I led us across the interior courtyard garden; this was virtually unchanged since I was last there, though perhaps a jasmine on a trellis was more neatly trimmed.

  I was heading for a corridor near the kitchen. As if he had heard unusual Roman voices, a polite man in a brown tunic appeared. With a napkin over one elbow and a serving tray under his other arm, he asked if we needed directions. There was braid around the tunic neck. He spoke in Latin, not quite meekly enough.

  I brushed him off, saying we could find our way and needed no one’s help to pee, so he retreated. I left Marcia in the colonnade with Squilla while I went first. I wanted to get comfortable. I could trust my cousin to whisper to the lush-haired femme fatale that I needed to speak to her.

  But when I came out, Squilla had gone. Marcia shook her head. ‘As soon as I broached your missing man Ritellius, Blondie blanked me and backed off.’

  Squilla had done more. She had gone straight to Bruzenus to reveal our true motive in visiting. He was shouting orders. I know an arrest command when I hear it.

  ‘Scram, coz! This way!’

  Grabbing Marcia’s hand, I hauled her down a narrow corridor in the service section that led to a back door. I had once escaped that way in Anacrites’ time. Whether the exit would be open was an unknown. If locked, we would be stuck in a dead end. Behind us a commotion confirmed we were being hunted.

  We rushed down, noises coming closer. From the colonnade behind, the guards would see us. Would Parthians risk chasing Roman women out into the Forum? I preferred not to test it.

  A door opened. The man in brown blocked our path.

  ‘In!’

  We had no choice. We jumped into the room he indicated, falling over each other. He stayed in the corridor. When the door closed behind us, the swine locked it.

  Since we were now prisoners in what seemed to be his bedroom, Marcia went over to his neat bed, where she sat down and began tidying her hair. Few things perturbed that girl.

  ‘Getting ready for when he comes back?’

  ‘He seemed nice,’ she answered, smirking.

  Interesting, anyway. When I applied my ear to the locked door, I could hear the man telling Bruzenus and the guards that no one had come that way. Given his Latin, his support for us was not entirely a surprise. ‘I think we are safe. Temporarily. He has popped us out of harm’s way.’

  ‘I can always spot potential,’ Marcia retorted.

  ‘No, I think what you spotted was the official Roman spy.’

  ‘Ooh, thrills!’

  ‘Shush.’

  The man in brown volunteered to help the Parthians look for us, though did not reveal our hiding place. I heard muffled sounds of searching through the other rooms nearby; at one point someone tried our door, rattling the handle briefly. I looked around for a weapon. Even Marcia paused in her hair-combing. But Brown Tunic’s voice said something; the room was not broken into.

  After a while all noises died away. We were left on our own, waiting.

  34

  ‘Is this how you always work, Albia? Find out nothing at all for your case, then end up stuck in trouble?’

  It had been known.

  I asked Marcia what she had said to alarm Squilla. She claimed that all she had done was ask if it was true Ritellius had come visiting. ‘I just told her we needed to know his whereabouts.’

  That was how I would have broached it myself. It was the only way to tackle it, so I had no complaint. ‘Fine. Judging by what we saw of her relationship with Dolazebol, an ex-lover barging in demanding to see her will have been hideous. It must have nearly wrecked her position as his love-conquest. I don’t imagine the other women would support her – she is the loathed intruder.’

  ‘That one knows ways to smooth things over,’ sneered Marcia.

  I shook my head. ‘They’re a bad fit. She drools over her awful cat; he is a dog-lover.’

  ‘He gave her the cat, Albia. And did you see her silver ear-rings? Outsize!’

  ‘She’ll develop holey lobes … He is a monster. Manipulative. He wanted to give me a valuable puppy. How was I supposed to explain that to my darling new husband? He showers presents around to buy people. I bet most are tempted.’

  ‘He’s a fool, then.’ Marcia remained good-humoured. ‘He wouldn’t need to bribe you with a pricey hunting hound. All he had to do was pick up the mangiest, ugliest stray from the next street corner.’

  ‘Turnips. I cannot be bought.’

  ‘One sad-faced mutt … Pushover!’

  I was silent, wondering if Dolazebol had ever loaded gifts on the third False Nero. And what riches had he, or his master the King of Kings, promised to our home-grown Palatine treasonist?

  Marcia and I gazed around Brown Tunic’s small, rather plain room. It was painted all over in fresco red, done years before. Previous occupants had knocked hell out of the surface.

  He had left us there; what we did in his room was his lookout: with one accord, we wedged a chair against the door, then started to inspect his private possessions.

  Trebianus’ man was not a slave. He kept his room too clean and sweet.

  He travelled light. If this was the only place he lived, he owned very little. I had been married to an ex-soldier; I recognised the way things were organised. Foldables folded. Packables packed away.

  The furniture looked as if it came with the house; there were no homely touches. The best piece was a marble-topped wine-table he was using as a nightstand. I bet he had pinched it from one of the good rooms. On it he kept a redware beaker, a folding knife with an antler-horn handle, a strigil. All typical, though good quality.

  The bed was basic. I said nothing to Marcia, but I feared it had been used years before by Anacrites’ henchmen. I could never have slept in that bed. But Brown Tunic would not know its sordid history.

  There were no under-the-pillow letters to him from lovers, male or female, and no half-finished duty letters from him home to Mother.

  His boots were excellent, the leather oiled and the feet kept in shape with stuffing. A spare tunic, in a different brown from the one we had seen him wearing, was hung up with a pole through the armholes so it kept its shape. But in a nearly-empty chest we found another. Tucked out of sight, this was good woollen material, in white with gold edging.

  ‘Palace livery! That absolutely clinches it. Your lover is the man Trebianus planted.’

  ‘He is not my lover, yet,’ Marcia answered demurely.

  ‘How were you so sure he had “potential”? He was gone in a flash. I barely saw enough to recognise him.’

  Marcia gave me a sickly smile. I raised one eyebrow.

  Marcia listed: ‘Medium height. Good build. Nice legs but such a shame about that limp.’ What limp? I never noticed – and I had once lived with a man with a damaged leg. ‘Brown hair, curly. Straight teeth, clean nails, strong hands, nice eyes. I liked his voice.’

  ‘You rascal. You took a full inventory!’

  ‘Certain items remain untested. You wanted me to take notes.’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking of male assets. Not Parthian?’

  We agreed that. ‘Never. Home-bred.’

  ‘Well, that’s good,’ I commended Marcia coolly. ‘I’m not telling Falco his most treasured niece is sleeping with the enemy. Even one with a romantic limp.’

  There was another small table, from which we had taken the chair to wedge the door. On it were note tablets. We opened the tablets and read them all. In firm, readable handwriting the man had started memos to himself. Recipes, shopping lists, to-do items of maintenance − Trebianus had him here as a steward.

  He wrote fluently. He could even spell.

  When Brown Tunic returned, he unlocked his door so quietly he might have intended we would not know he was coming. If he hoped to overhear anything indiscreet, he failed. Instinct, that great tool, had warned us when to call a halt to our merry banter and remove the chair. Marcia and I were sitting side by side upon his bed, as if we had been there quietly the whole time. We were as close as two podded peas – caused by the sagging mattress. Our expressions were as innocent as if we had never looked under that mattress for anything hidden.

  Even so, he glanced around, quickly checking. He saw no disturbance to any of his property. We were too good for that.

  Closing the door gently behind him, he laid a finger to his lips, warning us to speak quietly.

  ‘You took your time,’ I whispered.

  ‘Lulling their suspicions.’

  In answer to his querying look, I murmured introductions: ‘Flavia Albia, Marcia Didia. And you?’

  ‘Corellius.’

  ‘Don’t let’s muck about, Corellius. You are under cover for the Palatine?’

  He assented with a nod. ‘And you?’ he threw back at me neatly.

  ‘The same. Trebianus sent us.’

  He tutted. ‘How come he sanctioned this? The man must be flipping. You could jeopardise everything we have set up. Now I want you out.’ Irritably he acted as if we were invaders on his turf – and he thought we were idiots. No doubt because we were women, he viewed us as amateurs.

  ‘Bruzenus suspects you are still in the building. He has men on watch. With luck, by now they are growing bored …’ He took a cloak from a hook on the back of the door. ‘Come along, I really need to move you. At the end of this corridor there is a street door. When I tell you, follow me quickly and silently. I am going to take you down to the door, which I shall open for us. Once outside, immediately turn left and start walking with me. If we are pursued, I’ll tell you what to do. We need to put a safe distance between us and here. Obey my orders. Please,’ he added, although we understood the danger and neither of us showed any sign of arguing.