Oh Juno! I thought we had left all that nonsense behind," my sister Maia complained. All my sisters were renowned for despising my work. Maia might be a thousand miles from home, but she kept up Aventine traditions. "Marcus! Britain may be a small province in the rump of the Empire, but does everything that happens here have to be related to everything else?"

"It is rather unusual to be drowned in a wine barrel," said Aelia Camilla mildly.

"What barrel?" scoffed Maia. "I thought the man was shoved down a well."

"Same thing. Wine is a hugely popular import. From the River Rhenus area in Germany it often comes in enormous wooden casks which then make good well-linings at a small cost."

Aelia Camilla, the procurator's wife, was a calm, intelligent woman, the unflappable mother to a bunch of fearsomely bright children. Like her husband she was both more competent and much more approachable than she appeared. The self-sacrificing pair had been born to represent the Empire abroad. They were wise; they were fair. They embodied noble Roman qualities.

That did not make them popular with colleagues. It never does. They did not seem to notice, and never complained. Expertise in the British situation buoyed them up. Under a different Emperor they might well have dwindled into oblivion. Under Vespasian they flourished surprisingly.

The slight friction between Aelia Camilla and my favorite sister Maia was a sadness to Helena and me. Being mothers several times over was not enough in common to create warmth. Maia-fashionable, pert, angry, and outspoken-was a different type. In fact, Maia shone in a different sky from most people. That was her problem.