`I'll take that as a threat! – Well if I do it, I don't want seven sleazebags invited to sit on the bed and watch.'

I waited around a corner, perching on a bollard. I might be banned from joining Helena in her visit to Calpurnia Cara, but I had brought her to the Metellus spread and I would walk her safely home. Rome is a city of dangers.

When she reappeared, looking thoughtful, I decided not to press her but to make the long hike home first. We had to traverse most of the length of the Forum, pass around the base of the Capitol and Palatine Hills, then skirt the end of the Circus Maximus. At least since moving to Pa's house, we no longer had the steep haul up the Aventine, but Helena looked tired when we finally staggered home. It was dinnertime, we had our children to attend to, and before we found a chance to talk the rest of the household was in bed. We went up to the roof terrace to watch the bright stars overhead and the dim lights down along the riverbank. A single oil lamp glimmered on a table among the trained rose trees. Insects plunged at it madly, so we sat a little apart in shadow.

`So,' I prompted. `You were welcomed in?'

`Well, I was allowed in,' Helena corrected me. `I pretended that my mother had sent commiserations. Calpurnia Cara knew she had never met me, but she may have been unsure who Mama was. In case they were old acquaintances who had talked for four hours at the last secret gathering for the Good Goddess, she felt obliged to be polite.'

I shuddered. Traditional religion has that effect. I was relieved that Helena had never expressed any interest in the notorious female goings-on in honour of the so-called Good Goddess. My own religious observance stopped short at the guano-spattered environs of the Temple of Juno, where I had duties as the Procurator of Juno's Sacred Geese – a merry jest of the Emperor's. `So what is Calpurnia like?'