Fulvia was not a great beauty, like Clodia, but her appearance was striking nonetheless. She was younger by at least ten years; I guessed her to be no more than thirty. As her little daughter clung to her, I saw where the child's curious, luminous brown eyes had come from; there was a sharpness in Fulvia's gaze that indicated a formidable intelligence. She lacked her mother's grim harshness, but one could see the seeds of it in the hard lines around her mouth, especially when she turned her gaze to Clodia.

I could see at a glance that there was no love lost between the two sisters-in-law. Clodia and her brother had long been famous (or infamous) for their mutual devotion; there were many who thought they were more like man and wife than siblings. Where did that leave Clodius's real wife? What had Fulvia thought of the intimacy between her husband and his sister? From the look that passed between them, I gathered that the women had learned to tolerate one another, but not much more than that. Clodius had been the link between them, the mutual object of their affections as well as the cause of their mutual animosity; perhaps Clodius had also kept the peace between them. Now Clodius was dead.

Quite dead, I thought, for beyond Fulvia I could see his corpse laid out on the long, high table. He was still dressed in winter riding clothes – a heavy, long-sleeved tunic cinched with a belt at the waist, woollen leggings, red leather boots. The filthy, blood-soaked tunic was torn open across his chest and hung in rags, like the streamers of a tattered red flag.

"Come," whispered Clodia, ignoring the other women and taking my arm. "I want you to see." She led me to the table. Eco pressed close behind me.

The face was undamaged. The eyes were closed and the bloodless Ups and cheeks were marred only by a few smudges of dirt and blood and a slight grimace, like that of a man suffering from a toothache or having an unpleasant dream.