As I approached, he was talking to another man whose identity I also knew: about the same age but neater build and more diffident in manner (I knew from recent experience how that was deceptive!) When they noticed me, the second man stood up from the wine-shop table. He may have been leaving anyway, though my arrival seemed to cause it. I felt they should have kept their distance, yet they had been chatting like any old friends who worked in the same district, meeting regularly for a mid-morning roll and spiced Campanian wine at this streetside eatery. The crony was Paccius Africanus, last seen as opposition counsel in the Metellus case.

Curious.

Silius Italicus made no reference to Africanus. I preferred not to show I had recognised my interrogator.

Silius himself had ignored me on the day I attended court but I had seen him at a distance, pretending he was too lofty to take notice of mere witnesses. He had a heavy build, not grossly fat but fleshy all over as a result of rich living. It had left him dangerously red in the face too. His eyes were sunk in folds of skin as if he constantly lacked sleep, though his clean-shaven chin and neck looked youthful. I put him in his forties but he had the constitution of a man a decade older. His expression was that of someone who had just dropped a massive stone plinth on his foot. As he talked to me, he looked as if it was still there, trapping him painfully.

'Didius Falco.' I kept it formal. He did not bother to return the courtesies.

'Ah yes, I sent for you.' His voice was assertive, loud and arrogant. Taken with his morose demeanour, it seemed as if he hated life, work, flavoured wine, and me.

`No one sends for me.' I was not his slave, nor did I have a commission. It was my free choice whether to accept, even if he offered one. `You sent word that you would appreciate a discussion, and I have agreed to come. A home or office address would have helped, if I may say so. You're none too easy to find.'