“I met somebody yesterday who said that you help people.”

“Olympus! Who made that wild claim?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Who knows you are here?” asked Helena in a concerned voice.

“Nobody.”

“Don’t leave home without telling people where you are going,” I rebuked the child. “Where do you live? Is it far?”

“No.”

From indoors came a sudden loud cry from Julia. She had crawled away and disappeared, but was now in some urgent trouble. Helena hesitated, then went to her quickly in case the crisis involved hot water or sharp objects.

There was nothing that a child of six could need from an informer. I dealt with divorce and financial double-dealing; art theft; political scandal; lost heirs and missing lovers; unexplained deaths.

“Look, I work for grown-ups, Gaia-and you ought to go home before your mother misses you. Is that your transport in the street?”

The child looked less sure of herself and seemed willing to descend to the elaborate conveyance that I had seen waiting below. Automatically I started wondering. A rich and richly spoiled infant, borrowing Mama’s fine litter and bearers. Did this happen often? And did Mama know that Gaia had pinched the litter today? Where was Mama? Where was the nursemaid Gaia ought to have attached to her even inside the family home, let alone when she left it? Where, thought the father in me without much hope of a serious answer, was Gaia’s anxietyburdened papa?

“Nobody listens to me,” she commented. From most children of her age it would have been petulance; from this one it sounded simply resigned. She was too young to be so certain that she did not count.

I relented. “All right. Do you want to tell me quickly what you came for?”

She had lost faith. Assuming she ever had any in me. “No,” said Gaia.

I was several steps down from her, but I could still look her in the eye. Her young age would have been a novelty if I had been prepared to take her commission-but my time for pointless risks was past. With my new post from Vespasian, ludicrous though it was, my social status had improved dramatically; I could no longer indulge in eccentric decisions.