I studied what remained of the face and was able to imagine a handsome man of middle age, greying slightly at the temples, with a strong nose and chin. The Lips were slightly parted, showing the gold coin that had been placed on his tongue by the anointers – the fee for the boatman Charon to ferry him across the river Styx.

'His death was not an accident?' I offered.

'Hardly.'

'An altercation that came to blows?'

'Possibly. It happened late at night. His body was found here in the atrium the next morning. The circumstances were obvious.'

'Yes?'

'A runaway slave – some fool following the example of Spartacus, it appears. Someone else will explain the matter to you in more detail.'

'This was done by an escaped slave? I am not a slave hunter, Faustus Fabius. Why was I brought here?'

He glanced at the dead man, then at the bubbling faun. 'Someone else will explain.'

'Very well. The victim – what did you call him?' 'Lucius Licinius.'

'He was the master of the house?' 'More or less,' said Fabius. 'No riddles, please.'

Fabius pursed his lips. 'This should have been Mummius's job, not mine. I agreed to escort you to the villa, but I never agreed to explain the matter to you once you arrived.'

'Marcus Murnmius isn't here. But I am, and so is the corpse of a murdered man.'

Fabius grimaced. Patrician or not, he struck me as a man used to being stuck with unpleasant jobs, and he did not like it. What had he called himself – the left hand of Crassus? 'Very well,' he finally said. 'This is the way things were with Lucius Licinius. He and Crassus were cousins, closely linked by blood. I gather they hardly knew one another growing up, but that changed when they became men. Many of the Licinii were wiped out in the civil wars; once things got back to normal under Sulla's dictatorship, Crassus and Lucius formed a closer relationship.'