'Sometimes,' I answered unhelpfully. Most of my past clients were people I preferred to forget.

'You had a brother who was a military hero, I hear.'

'Didius Festus. He won the Palisaded Crown in Judaea.' My brother Festus would think it hilarious that I had gained status through being related to him. 'Did you know him?'

'No- should I?'

'A lot of women did.' I smiled. 'Sabina Pollia, I gather there is something I may be able to help you with?'

These doll-like creatures whip to the mark like artillery bolts. 'Why, Falco- what are you good at?'

I decided it was time to reassert my grip on the situation. 'Lady, what I'm good at is my job! Can we proceed?'

'Not before time!' Sabina Pollia retorted.

Why do I always get the blame?

'If I understood Hyacinthus, this is a family problem?' I asked somewhat dourly.

'Not quite!' Pollia laughed. She gave me the vulnerable pout again, but I had never been fooled by it; the lady was tough. 'We need you to keep the problem out of the family!'

'Then let's describe the "family" first. Hortensius Novus lives here; and who else?'

'We all live here. I am married to Hortensius Felix; Hortensia Atilia is the wife of Hortensius Crepito -' Slaves intermarrying: a common development.

'Novus sits among this brotherly triumvirate, still a happy bachelor?'

'So far,' she replied, with tension in her voice. 'But they are not brothers, Falco! What gave you that idea?'

I was thrown off balance slightly. 'The set-up; same names; you call yourselves a family-'

'We are none of us related. Though we are one family. Our patron's name was Hortensius Paulus.'

So to add to the normal inconvenience that every Roman is reverently named after his father, as are his brothers and sons, here I had a whole gang of ex-slaves, each bearing their old master's patronymic now they were free. Females too: 'Hortensia Atilia must be a freed-woman of the same household?'