I would have to do it all. This was typical of my father. I don’t know why I felt so unprepared.

The will was apparently hard to find. That wasn’t suspicious; Pa hated documentation. He liked to keep everything vague. If he had to have written evidence, he tried to lose the scroll among a lot of mess.

The slaves kept staring. I cleared my throat and gazed at the mosaic floor. When I was bored with counting tesserae, I had to look at them.

They were a mixed bunch. Various nationalities and jobs. Some had worked for Pa for decades, others I failed to recognise. It was unlikely he came by any of them in the usual way. Not for my father a trip to the slave market when he needed a specific worker, with genteel haggling then a routine purchase. In his world, many business debts were settled by payment in kind. Some executors find antique vases of great value, which have been payments in lieu of fees. But since my father dealt in antique vases anyway, he accepted other commodities. He had acquired a curiously colourful familia in this way. Sometimes it worked out well; he had a wonderful panpipe-player, though he himself had a tin ear. But most of the staff looked unimpressive. Bankrupts’ cast-offs. Two kitchen staff were blind; that could be entertaining. A gardener had only one arm. I spotted a few vacant expressions, not to mention the usual rheumy eyes, raw wounds and sinister rashes.

While we went on waiting, they plucked up courage to petition me. Very few of these frightened household members were already freedmen; Pa had made lavish promises, but never got around to issuing formal deeds of manumission.