Petronius Longus, my best friend, did not approve. Still, he was a misery these days. Having come out to Britain, either to see me or my sister, he had travelled to Londinium with us but apparently just wanted to go home. At present he was hunched on a stool looking bored. He was starting to embarrass me. He had never been anti-social or awkward in company before. Helena thought he was in love. Fat chance. At one point he had been after Maia, but they now rarely spoke.

'So, Marcus, Verovolcus was in trouble. Tell us about what happened to the architect,' Aelia Camilla prompted me. She behaved informally for a diplomat's wife, but she was personally shy and I had yet to deduce even which of her two names she preferred in private use.

'Confidential, I'm afraid.'

'Hushed up?' Helena's aunt leapt in again. Her great dark eyes were impossible to avoid. I had always found it difficult to play the hard man in her presence. While seeming gentle and bashful, she screwed all sorts of answers out of me. 'Well, we are all in government service, Marcus. We know how things work.'

'Oh – it was daft.' As I gave in, I sensed Helena smiling. She loved to see her aunt get the better of me. 'A clash of ideas. The King and his architect were daggers drawn and Verovolcus took it upon himself to defend his royal master's taste in an extreme way.'

'I met Pomponius,' Aelia Camilla said. 'A typical designer. He knew exactly what the client should want.'

'Quite. But King Togidubnus is now on his third major refit to the palace; he has strong opinions and is very knowledgeable about architecture.'

'Were his demands too expensive? Or did he keep making changes?' Aelia Camilla knew all the pitfalls of public works.

'No, he just refused to accept any design features he hated. Verovolcus bore the brunt; he was supposed to liaise between them, but Pomponius despised him. Verovolcus became just a cipher. He did away with Pomponius so a more amenable architect could take over. It sounds stupid, but I think it was the only way he could reassert his own control.'