'Did you approach the auctioneer I recommended?'

'Yes. Geminus is very helpful.' That meant very undemanding about provenance and probate.

'Oh he's a good auctioneer,' I agreed wryly. Geminus was my absentee father. Apart from his habit of running off with redheads, he could pass for an excellent citizen.

The Senator smiled. 'Yes. The whole family seems to have an eye for quality!' That was a gentle poke at me. He pulled himself out of his gloom. 'That's enough about my troubles. How are you? And how is Helena?'

'I'm alive. Can't ask for more. Helena is herself.'

'Ah!'

'I'm afraid I brought her back fractious and full of foul language. It hardly fits the decent upbringing you and Julia Justa have given her.'

'Helena always managed to rise above that.'

I smiled. Helena's father enjoyed a quiet joke.

Women are supposed to behave demurely. They can be manipulating tyrants in private, so long as the good Roman myth of female subservience is sustained. The trouble with Helena Justina was that she refused to compromise. She said what she wanted, and did it too. That sort of perverse behaviour makes it extremely difficult for a man who has been brought up expecting deceit and inconsistency to be sure where he stands.

I liked it. I liked to be kept jumping. I liked to be shocked and astonished at every turn, even though it was hard work.

Her father, who had had no choice in the matter, often looked amazed that I had volunteered to take her on. And there was no doubt, he enjoyed seeing some other victim on the jump.

When we went in to dinner we found Helena glittering in white, with golden hems on elaborate swags of drapery; oiled; scented; necklaced and braceleted. Her mother's maids had as usual conspired to make their young mistress look twice my rank-which she was-and twenty times my worth.