"What's the matter?" she said, yawning. "What are you doing here, Eco? Why is everyone up? And what's all the noise from the street?"

"Noise?" I said.

She cocked her head. "I suppose you can't hear it very well, here at the back of the house. You can certainly hear it from my room. They woke me up."

"Who?"

"People in the street. Running. With torches. Yelling something." She wrinkled her nose, which she does when she's puzzled. Seeing the blank look on my face, she turned to her mother, who stepped towards her with embracing arms. At seventeen, Diana is still enough of a child to appreciate such comforting. Meanwhile, Eco kept to one side, wearing the glum expression of a messenger in a play who bears ill tidings.

I finally realized that something must be truly, terribly wrong.

A short time later, I was dressed and walking at a fast clip through the dark streets at Eco's side, together with his four bodyguards.

I turned my head anxiously as a group of stern-looking young men came running up from behind and passed us. Their torches cut through the air with a whoosh. Our shadows danced crazily up and down the street, growing huge as the torches passed close by and then dwindling like wraiths into the darkness as the torchbearers left us behind.

I tripped against an uneven paving stone. "Numa?s balls! We should have brought torches ourselves."

"I'd rather my bodyguards keep their hands free," said Eco.

"Yes, well, at least we have enough of those," I said, eyeing the four formidable young slaves who surrounded us, one ahead, one behind, one to each side. They had the look of trained gladiators – stiff-jawed, flinty-eyed, alert to every movement in the street around us.

Good bodyguards are expensive to purchase and expensive to feed. My daughter-in-law Menenia had complained each time Eco added another to their household, saying the money would be better spent on kitchen slaves or a better tutor for the twins. "Protection comes first," Eco would tell her. "It's the times we live in." Sadly, I had to agree.