'It casts interesting light on the British situation.' Helena was seated in a wicker chair, her favourite type. With her hands folded over her woven belt and her feet on a small footstool, she could have been modelling memorials for submissive wives. I knew better. Tall, graceful and grave, Helena Justina read widely and kept up with world affairs. Born to bear and educate senatorial children, she was giving culture and good sense to mine. And she kept me in hand.

'Representing progress we had the Great King: an ideal provincial monarch – civilised, keen to be part of the Empire, utterly go-ahead. Then there was Verovolcus, his closest aide, still at heart a tribal warrior. Murdering the Roman project manager was repugnant to the King, but Verovolcus honoured darker gods.'

'I never dwelt on his motives,' I admitted. 'So was it really just an artistic feud that blew up out of proportion – or more political? Was Verovolcus expressing barbarian hatred for Rome?'

'How did he react when you confronted him with the crime?' asked Aelia Camilla.

'Spat fury. Denied it. Swore he'd get me.'

'Just like any cornered suspect,' Helena observed. Our eyes met. Communal discussions made me ill at ease I would much have preferred a private boudoir exchange.

'So, Marcus, let me understand you,' her aunt pressed on intensely. She moved against the embroidered cushion at her back, so her bangles shivered and gold flickers freckled the ornately coffered ceiling. 'You told Verovolcus he would not be tried for the murder, but must go into exile. The punishment for a Roman would be exclusion from the Empire.'

'But for him I suggested Gaul.'

We all smiled. Gaul had been part of the Empire for longer than Britain, but we were Romans and for us even Gaul was backwoods territory.