I now owned a dining room. The same week it was redecorated, I lost my best friend.

Petronius Longus and I had known each other since we were eighteen. We served together in the army- in Britain. We were naive lads when we joined up for the legions. We had no idea what we were taking on. They ted us, taught us useful skills and trained us to be well up in connivery. They also subjected us to four years in a faraway, undeveloped province that offered nothing but cold feet and misery. The Great Rebellion of the Iceni came on top of that. We crept home no longer lads but men, and bonded like a laminated shield. Cynical, grimmer than the Forum gutter tykes and with a friendship that should have been unshakeable.

Petro had now spoiled everything. He fell for my sister, after her husband died.

"Petronius hankered for Maia a long time before this," Helena disagreed. "He was married, so was she. He played around but she never did. There was no point in him admitting how he felt, even to himself." Then Helena paused, her dark eyes sombre. "Petronius may have married Arria Silvia in the first place because Maia was unobtainable."

"Cobnuts. He hardly knew my sister then."

But he had met her and seen what she was like: attractive, independent and subtly dangerous. Such a good homemaker and mother (everyone said) and what a bright girl! That double-edged remark always implies a woman may be on the lookout. I myself liked a hint of restlessness in a woman; Petronius was no different.

Around the Aventine he was held up as a model of steady fatherhood and virtuous hard work; no one spotted that he liked to flirt \with risk. There were girlfriends in passing, even after he married Silvia.