"No; he's out on the town with a friend." The Roman senator Quinctius interrupted with ill-concealed impatience. "You'd best find a perch, Laeta; the musicians are tuning up. Some of us have paid for them, and we want our money's worth!"

Laeta seemed satisfied that he had made his mark. He had certainly annoyed the senator. As we picked our way back across the room through the slaves who were lifting the food tables in order to clear a central space, Laeta muttered to me, "Unbearable man! He throws his weight about to a degree that has become quite unacceptable. I may ask you, Falco, to help me with my endeavors to deal with him…"

He could ask as much as he liked. Keeping members of dining societies in order was not my work.

My host had not yet finished bopping upstarts on the nob. "Anacrites! And who amongst our refined membership has deserved your attentions?"

"Yes, it's a working supper for me-" Anacrites had a light, cultured voice, about as unreliable as a dish of overripe figs. I felt bilious as soon as he spoke. "I'm here to watch you, Laeta!" To do him justice, he had no fear of upsetting the secretariats. He also knew when to thrust his knife in quickly.

Their warfare was pretty open: the legitimate administrator, who dealt in manipulation and guile, and the tyrant of the security forces, who used blackmail, bullying and secrecy. The same force drove them; both wanted to be the dunghill king. So far there was not much difference between the power of a well-honed damning report on first-quality papyrus from Laeta, and a snide denunciation whispered by the spy in the ear of the Emperor. But one day this conflict was bound to reach a head.

"I'm quaking!" Laeta insulted Anacrites by using nothing worse than sarcasm. "-Do you know Didius Falco?"