Originally furious at the notice his wife afforded to a slave, as well as the nocturnal scrabblings it engendered, his natural pragmatism forced him to look at it objectively. Finally he came to see it as the solution to an intractable dilemma, and to relish the market-place joke that now attached to his name; that he took such a long view of everything that he had saved up his seed over all those years for one mighty endeavour.

‘In the end, you served me well, better than either of us could have imagined.’

Ragas held up the scroll that made him both a free man and a Roman citizen. ‘For this I would have done more.’

‘Will you stay in the city?’ That warranted a shrug from a man who now had the right not to respond. ‘A man of your abilities will prosper here and you always have my good offices to call upon should you need assistance.’

‘We have agreed many times, Lucius Falerius, that haste is fatal. I shall look around me, see what I see, then decide on my next course of action.’

‘I have one last job for you, tonight, if you wish to undertake it. Naturally should you do so there would be a fee.’ Lucius held up another small leather pouch. The Dacian took it and bounced the leather purse in his hand, causing Lucius to add, ‘Those men outside have been engaged for a very special service.’

‘The final reckoning. No more debates.’

That brought forth, from Lucius, a full smile. Proud of his own deductive powers he liked to observe them in a man he had some claim to have trained. No expression on his face betrayed the thought that he would miss Ragas, not for his insolence perhaps but certainly for his sagacity as well as his powerful physical and protective presence. But he had the good name of his house to consider, and closure, just as it was for Tiberius Livonius, was the best method of securing that.