The undertakers must have brought equipment and, unnoticed, had already constructed a pyre. It was three levels high. Funereal odours soon covered the hillside: not just more myrrh and cassia, but frankincense and cinnamon. No one in Rome would be able to buy banquet garlands today; we had all the flowers. High on the Janiculan, a breeze helped the flames get going after I plunged in the first torch. We stood around, as you have to for hours, waiting for the corpse to be consumed, while people with no sense reminisced about Pa. The kinder ones simply watched in silence. Much later I was to drown the ashes with wine – just a mediocre vintage; in respect for Pa, I reserved his best for drinking. Though I was still not certain how much of the organisation was my responsibility, I invited everyone to a feast in nine days’ time, after the set period of formal mourning. That encouraged them to leave. It was a good step back down to Rome and they had gathered I was not offering overnight accommodation.

  They knew I had special troubles. They had all seen how, just before the undertakers opened my father’s eyes on the bier so he could see his way on to Charon’s ferry, I had clambered up and laid upon his breast the body of my one-day-old son.

  So on the sun-drenched slopes of the Janiculan Hill, one long, strange July evening, we paid our respects to Marcus Didius Favonius. Neither he nor tiny Marcus Didius Justinianus would have to face the dark alone. Wherever they were going, they set off there together, with my tiny son clasped for eternity in the strong arms of his grandfather.

  III

  I shed some tears. People expect it. Sometimes at the funeral of a reprobate it seems easier than when you are honouring a man who really deserved grief.

  Before they left, the jostling started. Relatives, business associates, friends, so-called friends and even strangers all made subtle or blatant attempts to find out whether they would receive a legacy. My mother stayed aloof from this. She and Pa had never declared themselves divorced, so she was convinced she had rights. She was waiting for my sisters to take her back to Rome, but they were queuing to come up and speak to me, showing affection that unsettled me. I could not remember the last time Allia, Galla or Junia had felt the need to kiss my cheek. One by one their feckless husbands each clasped my hand in strong, silent communion. Only Gaius Baebius came right out with a concern: ‘What’s going to happen about Flora’s, Marcus?’ He meant the Aventine bar that my sister Junia managed for our father.

  ‘Just give me a few days, Gaius –’

  ‘Well, I suppose Junia can go on running the place as usual.’

  ‘That would be helpful.’ I ground my teeth. ‘I hope it’s not a chore. Apollonius is a perfectly good waiter. Or if Junia really can’t face it, why doesn’t she just close up the shutters, until we know what’s what?’

  ‘Oh, Junia won’t give way to her grief!’

  Junia stood in uncharacteristic silence, forced by the situation to have her husband speak for her: he like a true Roman patriarch and she like an inconsolable bereaved daughter. Yes, the lies and deceit had started.

  I caught Maia’s eye and wondered again whether she had sneaked a look at the will. I could have unsealed the tablets. It is traditional to read a will in public straight after the funeral.

  Stuff that for a game of soldiers. I wanted to inspect and evaluate this dodgy document when I was safely by myself. It remained in my belt. Every time I bent a few inches, the chunky tablets stuck in my ribs, reminding me. Every time someone fished for information, I played at being too overcome with sorrow to think about it.

  ‘Cut that out!’ muttered Petronius Longus, while he acted out supporting me. ‘Some of us know you would have gone to live as a pork-chop trader in Halicarnassus if you could have escaped being your father’s son.’

  ‘No point. He’d only have turned up,’ I answered gloomily. ‘Offering me a cheap price for bones – and expecting me to leave the marrow in as a favour.’

  Petro and Maia stayed until last, helping to shepherd out the rest, then giving orders to the slaves. ‘Keep the house running as normal. Keep it clean and secure.’

  ‘You will have instructions later this week about the funeral feast, then you will be told where you will each be working afterwards …’

  I watched them, moving now like a long-established couple, although they had only lived together formally for one or two years. They had met after Maia was married and a mother, a status she respected with more diligence than her late husband deserved. Each now had children from first marriages, all of whom were currently outside in the portico, quietly occupying themselves. Throughout the day Petronilla, Cloelia, Marius, Rhea and Ancus had behaved in magical contrast to the brats my other sisters dragged along. They would have shown up my own pair, had I brought them. My daughters were cute but unmanageable. Helena said they got it from me.

  Petronius, tall and hefty, was not in formal funeral clothes, but had simply thrown an extra-dark cloak over the battered brown gear he usually wore. I guessed that back in Rome he was due at the vigiles’ patrol house for a night shift. I thanked him for coming all the more; he just shrugged. ‘We’ve got a really puzzling case, Falco. I’d welcome your advice –’

  My sister laid a hand on his arm. ‘Lucius, not now.’ Maia, with her dark curls and characteristic quick movements, looked odd and unfamiliar in black; she usually flitted about in very bright colours. Her face was pale, but she was businesslike.

  I would have hugged her, but now the house had emptied, Maia broke away and threw herself on to a couch. ‘Did you see this coming, sis?’

  ‘Not really, though Pa had complained of feeling off-colour. Your Egypt trip knocked it out of him.’

  ‘Not my idea. I had banned him. I knew he’d be a menace, and he was.’

  ‘Oh I realise. Look,’ Maia said, ‘I won’t annoy you with details, but I went quickly through the diary with Gornia. We will carry on with all the booked auctions but won’t take any new orders. You’ll have a lot of sorting out, whatever happens to the business.’

  ‘Oh Jupiter! Sorting out – what a nightmare … Why me?’ I finally managed to voice it out loud.

  Petronius looked surprised. ‘You are the son. He thought a lot of you.’

  ‘No, he thought Marcus was a self-righteous prig,’ my sister disagreed in a casual tone. She threw insults as if she had hardly noticed doing it, though her barbs were generally apt and always intentional. ‘Still, Marcus always does a good job. And apart from behaving like a bastard at every opportunity, Father was a traditionalist.’

  ‘Maybe all fathers are bastards,’ I commented. I like to be fair. ‘He knew what I thought of him. I told him often enough.’

  ‘Well, he knew you were honest!’ said Maia, laughing a little. She had faith in me. I had never felt certain just how she regarded Pa. We were the two youngest in our family, long-time allies against the others; she was my favourite and held me in great affection. She had worked with my father because he had paid her, at a time when she had been desperate financially. Newly widowed then – it was about three years ago – she appreciated being in a family business during that hard period. She needed the security. Pa, to do him justice, offered it. He railed against having a woman interfering yet he let her do much as she wanted as his office manager. He recognised how good she was at organisation. He also liked having one of his own privy to his secrets, rather than a hired hand or a slave. That was why he let Junia run Flora’s Caupona too, even though her attitude upset half the customers. And that, I suppose, was why he landed me with his will.

  I pulled it out. I held the tied and sealed tablets nervously between both hands, making no attempt to pull the strings undone. ‘So tell me about this, Maia.’ Maia just sniffed. ‘He rewrote it last week? Why was that?’

  ‘One of his whims. He sent for the lawyer straight after that drama-dealer, Thalia, came to see him at the Saepta.’

  ‘Thalia?’ That was unexpected.

  ‘You know the creature, I believe? She wears the shortest skirts in the Empire.’

  ‘And frolics suggestively with wild beasts.’

  ‘Who is this? Should I know her?’ Sitting on the end of Maia’s couch, his long legs crossed and his hands behind his head, Petronius showed himself keen for gossip. Maia kicked him, and he massaged the bare soles of her tired feet for her; neither really seemed aware they were doing it.

  I shrugged. ‘Have Helena and I not mentioned her? She’s a circus and theatre manager. Runs actors and musicians – does rather well. Her speciality is exotic animal acts. I do mean exotic! Her indecent dance with a python would make your eyes water.’

  A gleam came into Petro’s eyes. ‘I’d like to see that! But Marcus, my boy, I thought you gave up your fancy girlfriends!’

  ‘Oh I have; honest, legate! No, no; she’s a family friend. Thalia’s a good sort, though I hate her pesky snake, Jason. I could have done without her travelling to Alexandria with my damned father. She came to buy lions. Pa cadged a free ride on her ship. I believe that was the first time they met, and I can’t imagine they would have any business together back in Rome.’

  ‘Oh, they were close!’ Maia snorted. ‘They rushed into a closet with the door closed and there was some ghastly giggling. I did not take in a galley tray of almond fancies.’ She looked prudish. ‘When they emerged, Thalia seemed extremely happy with the outcome and our father positively glowed – the revolting way he did when some busty fifteen-year-old barmaid gave him a free drink.’

  Petronius winced. I just looked rueful. ‘Thalia’s a woman of the world, Maia, with her own money; she can’t have been scrounging. What she likes from men, insofar as she likes them for anything, is purely physical … What did Geminus say?’

  ‘Nothing. I could see he was bursting to make some grand pronouncement,’ Maia replied, ‘but the Thalia woman glared at him and for once he held his tongue. Immediately she left, the lawyer was booked, however. Next day Geminus went into a huddle with him. He couldn’t resist letting on he was playing with his will. Since he was dying to tell me the details, I refused to show any curiosity.’

  Like Maia, I hated to be manipulated into feeling any interest. I was exhausted. I decided I would have dinner here, sleep at the villa, then rise early to go home to Helena. I tossed the will on to a low table. ‘It will keep.’

  ‘My bet is, that will be a whole year’s work and twice as much trouble,’ Petronius warned.

  ‘Well, I’ll give it proper attention tomorrow. The timing must be a coincidence, Maia. I can’t imagine Thalia’s visit was connected.’

  Then Maia exclaimed, ‘Oh, Marcus. You can be such an innocent!’

  After Maia and Petronius left, the slaves found me something to eat and somewhere to sleep. I had to stop them putting me in my father’s room. Assuming his legal identity was bad enough. I drew the line at his bed.

  Food revived me. Pa always ate well. The excellent panpipe-player whootled gently for me too. I was ready to be irritated, but it was quite relaxing. He seemed surprised when I congratulated him on his arpeggios. It looked as if he was hanging around in case I required other services – not that my father would have stood for that. I dismissed the musician without rancour. Who knows what kind of debauched household he originally came from?

  Then, of course, I did what you or anyone else would have done: I opened up the tablets.

  IV

  My life changed for ever at that moment.

  My father’s will was quite short and surprisingly simple. There were no outrageous clauses. It was a routine family testament.

  ‘I, Marcus Didius Favonius, have made a will and command my sons to be my heirs.’

  So it was legally proper, but well out of date. Despite all the talk of revisions, this had been written long before he died – twenty years ago, to be precise. It was soon after my father returned to Rome from Capua, where he had originally fled with his girlfriend when he left home, and when he set up again as an auctioneer here, trading under the new name of Geminus. Flora, the girlfriend, never had children. At that time ‘my sons’ meant my brother and me. Festus later died in Judaea. Clearly Pa, who had been close to him, had never been able to face writing him out.

  The customary seven witnesses had signed. They ought to be present again when the will was opened, but to Hades with that. Some names were vaguely familiar, business contacts, men of my father’s age. I knew that at least two had died in the intervening period. A couple came to the funeral.

  As was customary, the tablet named some people who might have had a claim but specifically disinherited them as main heirs: Pa chose to dispense with the equal treatment that the law would have given his four surviving daughters if, say, he had died intestate. I could see why he had never made my sisters aware this would happen. Their reaction would be vicious. The bastard must have imagined with enjoyment my discomfiture when I had to pass on the news.

  He left no instructions about making any slaves free. They too would be disappointed, though executors can be flexible. They were bound to know that, so they would continue canvassing me. I would take my time over making decisions.

  Next came a list of specific annuities to be paid out: quite a high figure to Mother, which surprised and pleased me. There were smaller sums for my sisters, so they had not been ignored completely. It was usually assumed married daughters had received their share of the family loot in their dowries. (What dowries? I could hear them all shriek.) Nothing had been done for Marina who, well after the will was made, became my brother’s lover and mother of a child who was presumed to be fathered by Festus. An enormous sum was earmarked for Flora, Pa’s mistress of two decades, though since she had died that no longer counted. I would keep quiet about it; there was no point upsetting Ma. After that, the rest went to the specified heirs: ‘my sons’. So with Festus dead, everything else my father had owned would come to me.

  I was seriously shocked. It was completely unexpected. Unless I uncovered enormous debts – and I reckoned Pa was too canny for that – then he had bequeathed me a substantial amount.

  I tried to stay calm, but I was human. I began to reckon up mentally. My father had never owned much land – not land in the traditional Roman sense of rolling fields that could be ploughed and grazed and tended by battalions of rural workers, not land that counted formally towards social status. But this was a grand house in a splendid location, and he had owned another, even bigger villa on the coast below Ostia. I only discovered his place at Ostia last year, so there might be further properties he kept secret. The two I knew about were well staffed – and house-trained slaves were valuable in themselves. Above all, these houses were furnished expensively – crammed to the rafters with wonderful goods. I knew Pa kept instant-access funds in a chest bolted into the wall at the Saepta Julia and he had more money with a Forum banker; his cash flow rose and fell with the ups and downs of self-employment, much as my own did. However, throughout his life, his real investments followed his real interest: art and antiques.

  I looked around. This was merely a bedroom for casual visitors. It was lightly furnished, compared with the areas Pa used himself. Even so, the bed I was lolling on had intricate bronze fittings, a well-upholstered mattress supported on decent webbing, a striking wool coverlet and tasselled pillows. There was a heavy folding stool in the room, like a magistrate’s. An old Eastern carpet hung on one wall on a runner that had gilded finials. On a shelf – which was grey-veined marble, with polished onyx ends – stood a row of ancient south Italian vases that would sell for a figure big enough to feed a family for a year.

  This was one unimportant room. Multiply it by all the other rooms in at least two large houses, plus whatever stock was crammed into various warehouses and the treasures currently on display at Pa’s office in the Saepta … I began to feel light-headed.

  Complete upheaval faced me. Nothing in my life could ever be as I had expected: neither my life, nor the lives of my wife and my children. If this will was genuine, and it was the latest version, and if my brother Festus really had died in the desert (which was undeniable, because I had spoken to people who saw it happen), then I would be able to live without anxiety for the rest of my days. I could give my daughters dowries lavish enough to secure them consuls, if they wanted idiots as husbands. I could stop being an informer. I need never work again. I could waste my life being a benefactor of out-of-the-way temples and playing at patron to dim-witted poets.

  My father had not just made me his legal representative. He had left me a great fortune.

  V

  The morning after the funeral I returned home at first light.

  After only a few hours’ sleep I felt drained. My house still lay quiet. I crawled on to a couch in a spare room, unwilling to disturb Helena. It was still barely a day since her labour and loss. But by then she had been told about my father, so was on the alert. Just as she always heard my return from late-night surveillances, Helena roused herself and found me. I felt her drop a coverlet over me, then she slid under it too. She was still distraught over the baby, but now the greater need was to comfort me. Our love held strong. Extra trouble brought us back close. For a time we lay side by side, holding hands. Too soon, the dog snuffled in and found us, then we began the slow slide back to normality.

  When I told Helena she had married better than she thought and might be about to acquire a stupendous dress allowance, she sighed. ‘He never mentioned his intentions, but I always suspected it. When you raged at him, I think Geminus enjoyed secretly knowing that one day he would give you all this. Because you are a realist you would accept his generosity … He loved you, Marcus. He was very proud of you.’