I.

I was busy rescuing a fly from the greasy sea of pork and cabbage Bilicho bought downstairs when the fat man wheezed in. He leaned against the door and panted a little. Bilicho looked over at me.

I put the fly on a small island of bread crumbs and stood up. The fat man didn’t look like he belonged to one of the patients I’d seen that morning.

“Was the door open?” I tried to make it sound sympathetic.

He wheezed a little more, a chubby, beatific smile stretching the sweat on his cheeks. “Just … just a little. I know it’s not the hour for calls. I’m not here for that, anyway.” He chuckled, while the wattle on his neck danced in tune to his stomach. “I need a special diet, I know—I’m too fat.” He slid across the floor like he was oiled. “Mind if I come in?”

“You already are.”

I thought he might fall down over that one. When he caught his breath again, he sank into an old basket chair that was too tired to protest and barely managed to keep him off the floor.

Bilicho took the food away. The fat man looked at me. His voice was as flat and shiny as a new sestertius.

“I understand you can find things. Solve problems.”

I scratched my neck and glanced at the bread crumbs. The fly was still gagging. “Yeah. Occasionally. I’m the governor’s doctor, now. That means I work on the respectable side of the street.”

“Oh, I completely understand, Arcturus—may I call you Arcturus?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I’m a respectable man myself. A banker. My name is Cornificus Niger.”

He said it like I might recognize it, so I nodded to keep him happy. He leaned back, gratified. One of the willow strands in the chair snapped with a hiss.

“I want you to find something that belongs to my wife, Ameana. It’s very precious.”

Ameana sounded like an incantation I’d heard before. “Letter? Jewelry?”

He stared at me solemnly. “Dinner napkin.”

Behind me I could hear Bilicho choking. I sank into the other chair.

“You want to hire me to find a dinner napkin?”

He chuckled again. “She’s been very brave, my Ameana. She searched the house from the slave quarters to the kitchen. It is a very special linteus.” He gave me owl eyes followed by a wink. “A present from me on our first anniversary.”

I chewed my lip. “Sorry, Niger. I’m too busy.”

“I’ll make it worth your time.”

I stood up and walked over to his chair and held out my hand to pull him up. “Sorry. Londinium is big enough. You can get someone else.”

His lips curled down peevishly, and he didn’t give me much help with the hauling. I just managed to keep my balance.

“You came recommended.” It was an accusation. I shrugged.

“Sorry. Governor’s business.”

Agricola wasn’t in town, but he wouldn’t know it. The mention of the governor plastered a smile on his face. He waddled toward the door, grasping my arm for support along the way.

“If you should change your mind—“

“—I’ll let you know. Vale.”

“Vale, Arcturus.”

When I shut the door he was still stumping down the stairs. I wasn’t sure whether the groans came from him or the wood.

Bilicho brought in the remains of the cabbage and set it on the table. It had been dead for a while. The fly took one look at it and flew across the room.

“Couldn’t you find anything better?”

He shook his head. “Not for what you gave me.”

I gave him a hard look. “Why can’t you cook?”

He stuck his chin out. “I’m a slave, not a magician. With what you spend on food—“

“—I have to buy supplies, you know that.”

“If you weren’t building a caldarium in your house we’d be there by now and you’d be growing your own goddamn herbs!”

We stared at each other. Then we grinned at each other. Then we pulled up two chairs to the table and tried to find some food.

 “It’s almost ready. We won’t be here long.”

“They said it would be done in the summer.”

 “You know what builders are.”

He snorted. “Goddamn thieves, is what they are. Speaking of which—“

“The linteus?”

“Yeah. Was that a joke?”

I shrugged. “Maybe. Dinner napkins used to be what you showed off at parties, along with your wife’s cleavage. Hispania linen, gold stitching, big enough to hold the host’s roast boar. The napkin, not the cleavage. That was a long time ago, but I guess Niger and his crowd are old-fashioned enough to still think it means something. ”

A loud bang made us both jump. It seemed to be coming from the door. For the second time, the leather hinge swung open with a shriek.

In the doorway stood a slim man in a pricey tunic, bordered with murex purple. His hair was curled and oiled, his hands small, white and delicate. One of them was holding up the door frame. His eyes wandered over to our table, and his nose curled up like a snail’s underbelly. A scented wave of expensive oil and Cypriot moss washed our upper lips. His teeth were white.

“May I come in?”

I gestured to the basket chair. He sank low enough in the fat man’s imprint for his knees to jut above his head. He pulled himself up to the edge and took a few minutes to regain some dignity.

“You are Julius Alpinus Classicianus Favonianus? The man some call Arcturus?”

I nodded. Bilicho circled around behind him and closed the door.

He placed his fingertips together, tapping them a little. “I thought you would live … somewhere else.” He looked around the room as if the cabbage were on the walls.

“There’s a housing shortage in Londinium. Maybe you didn’t notice. Maybe you’re from out of town—?” I let the question dangle where he was supposed to insert his name. He smiled instead.

“A man was here earlier. A fat man. He wants you to find something. I’m willing to pay you to forget about it.”

I scratched my ear and tried to look like I had known what he was going to say.

“Cornificus Niger—“

“—Is a silly man, provincial, and hopelessly gauche. He lives in the past. If he lives at all.”  The smile got wider. “A dinner napkin is hardly worth your time.”

“Then why are you offering to pay me?”

His teeth clicked together but the smile stayed in place.

“Let’s just say I’m sure it will be better that way.”

 “For Niger? Or his wife?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Both. Ameana can be quite hysterical. I’m sure she’ll find the napkin eventually.”

“You know the parties involved, then?”

“Socially. Enough to care that Cornificus’ money isn’t wasted.”

“So you’re willing to waste your own.”

 “It’s mine to waste.” He reached into a fold of his cloak and pulled out a leather pouch with an easy flick, deliberately exposing the contents. It was heaped with denarii. He plucked out more than a handful and let them fall through his hand like silver rain. The hard tinkles echoed in the room. He stood up.

“That should be enough.”

I followed him to the door and put an arm across the opening. “I like to know whose money I’m taking.”

He looked at me and this time meant it. The smile slid off his face and crawled down the stairs.

 “You’re a cheap, half-breed medicus, Favonianus. Pick up your dinner money and stay away from Niger. What I buy stays bought.”

He shoved me aside with his shoulder and glided down the stairs in a hurry.

Bilicho frowned, his wide mouth carving deep lines in his cheeks. “Was that a threat?”

“Probably.”

The door was still open, and the fly sensed freedom and buzzed by my ear. I shut the door, and this time worked the bolt.

We walked to the chair. There were at least twenty denarii on the floor. I picked up a few, weighing them in my hands. Bilicho watched me. I held one up to the light and looked at it. Then I shoved the rest in my tunic.

“What are you going to do?”

“Find a napkin for Cornificus Niger.”

II.

A small-time money-changer and part-time book-maker gave us directions to Niger’s house. I nodded at the old bronze scale on his counter.

“Still work—if it ever worked?”

He winked at me. “What you got?”

I handed him the handful of silver. His brow wrinkled, while he ran a dirty fingernail along the front of the coins. He tossed about half of them on the scale, frowned some more, and looked up at me.

“What you try? These phony. Bad money.”

Bilicho pursed his lips and whistled. I nodded again, and picked up them up. “Keep the good ones for your trouble.”

 He grinned and grabbed at the coins on the counter. They disappeared quicker than wine on election day, and we headed for the street.

“Arcturus—what’s going on? How the hell do counterfeit coins tie in with a linteus?”

I shrugged. “If the napkin’s big enough … it can hold a lot more than pork.”
We stayed quiet on streets loud and pushy with market sellers. The scenery ahead showed signs of better breeding. The Londinium sun was as coy as the kind of virgin you meet at a gladiator show. It lit up the busy city with an implication of more to come, but it was early spring, and not old enough yet.

Niger’s face shone when the door slave showed us in. “Splendid, Arcturus—I had a feeling about you. Ameana, dear, come meet Arcturus.”

From the dark end of the banker’s cavernous triclinium, I saw a pair of leather sandals, exquisitely worked, poised on the mosaic floor. When I looked up, I saw they matched everything else.

She was about twenty, with a body like one of the better statues of one of the more feminine goddesses. My eyes traveled up her tight, pale yellow stola, and rested in the brown-red hair for awhile, almost getting lost in the high-piled maze of curls. They landed on her face. She was staring at me. She didn’t look like a woman desperate to find a dinner napkin.

Niger beamed at all of us. “Have a seat. You’ll want to search—”

“No thanks. Just tell me how it was lost.”

He raised a furry eyebrow.

“Very well. Ameana, would you call for some wine, please?”

She clapped her elegant hands, and a serving boy came running in, wiping his mouth. He took a look around and scurried away. I wasn’t going to wait for the niceties.

“When and how did you lose it?”

The wattles on his neck waved at me while he chortled. “My, you’re all business. I like that in a young man.” He cleared his throat. It took him awhile.

“Last night we had a little convivium here. We keep the couches against the walls when it’s just the two of us.” He nodded to his right, and I saw a couple of large, old-fashioned dining couches, enough for three big men each or two midgets and Niger.

“How many?”

 “Eight, counting ourselves.”

“Names?”

“Oh, but I assure you—“

“You can assure me all you want, Niger, but if you want the napkin back I’ll have to talk to them.”

He frowned. “I don’t like it.”

I shrugged, and stood up. Niger was a nice old goat, but the counterfeiter was right about one thing: he lived in his own world. One where his friends were all honest, and his wife’s nipples weren’t poking through her dining clothes.

“Then I’ll go.”

Bilicho was waiting by the door when he called me back. His voice pleaded like a child’s.

“Remember these people are my friends.”

I didn’t bother to answer. Ameana’s sharp eyes darted into mine.

Niger sighed as deep a breath as his squeezed out lungs would allow. “All right,” he said again. “There’s Titus Octavius Crescens and his wife Claudia. He’s a banker, too. Mostly in lending. He asked me if he could come—my parties do have a certain reputation.”

He looked around the room, complacent, pleased and as dim as daylight in December.

 “Then there was Aulus Tremo and his wife Ipstilla. He’s a jeweler, friend of a friend. Don’t know much else about him. And of course Servius Julius Victor—he helped Ameana plan the guest list. He does things like that for her, kind man.”

I wondered what else Victor might do for her. And whether he smelled like oak moss. Niger was busy aiming infatuated looks at his wife, who was aiming other things at me.

“What does he do?”

“Victor?—he’s a trader, import and export—perfumes, spices. I haven’t known him long, but he is a dear man.”

“Who else?”

“That other young man—a poet I believe—what is his name?”

She stretched like a panther and leaned into Niger, making a cooing sound at him.

“Marcus Caecilius Rufus, darling. You remember.” She chucked him underneath a few of his chins while his body shook with delight.

 “What happened at the party?”

He shrugged. “Usual things. We drank, played games. Our cook is excellent, if a trifle on the rich side. Everyone had a good time. Ameana makes sure of that.”

“I bet. When did you notice the napkin was missing?”

Her voice came out low and soft. “The end of the evening. When the slaves were cleaning up.”  

“Anyone miss anything else?”

I felt her brown eyes on me and I didn’t like it. Not much. She spoke slowly.

“No one has said so.”

Niger squeezed her knee. “My Ameana helps me with everything. I know some people object to women in business, but—”

I interrupted before I threw up my cabbage.  “What was the seating arrangement?”

She stood up and bent over in front of me to pour more wine. The stola was made out of a very thin fabric, and was even tighter than it looked from five feet away. From two feet away it looked like skin. She was doing her best to show me what it looked like from no distance at all.

I craned my head around the view and focused on Niger, who was lost in a light haze of wine. “The seating arrangement?”

“Oh, yes. Let me see. Typical configuration. Crescens and Claudia were at the top—the seat of honor. I was on the side couch in the middle, with Ameana at my right and Victor on my left.” He gave me an embarrassed smile. “We had a couch especially made.”

That explained how two people—and his wife was no willow branch—could pile on with him.

“And on the bottom?”

“Ipstilla, Tremo and Rufus.”

“In that order?”

“In that order.”

So the poet was placed imus in imo—the lowest of the low. Poets were used to it.

“Did everyone stay in the same position all night?”

The banker’s eyes opened a little wider. “No—we changed seats. About half-way through the dinner. Part of a game someone suggested, like Saturnalia. We were all a little giddy, I’m afraid.”

He turned to his wife. “What was it, dear? Didn’t we all move to the couch on our left?” She smiled at him again, and found his earlobe and stroked it, but said nothing.

“That would put the people on the bottom on the middle couch, and the people on the top on the bottom.”

He nodded at me. “Yes—that was it, exactly. Then we laughed and looked around and moved back again.”

I stood up. “Thanks. I’ll let you know if I need anything else.”

He gaped at me like an extra-large tunny. “Don’t you want a description? There are special—”

My eyes climbed over his head and into Ameana’s. They told me the door was open. For a price.

“It’s not necessary.”

He was babbling thanks when we walked out of the room. The slave at the door timidly touched my arm.

“Wait, sir? The Domina would like to speak to you.”

Bilicho’s lips twitched. The slave melted away when she glided through another door I hadn’t noticed. She stared at me for a few seconds.

“Please don’t do this.”

“What’s wrong? You afraid I’ll search you for it?”

She got close enough to breathe on me. “You can search me if you’d like.”

Bilicho retreated into the shadows. I looked down at her.

“Your husband thinks you want the napkin found.”

 “I do. And it will be.”

“But not by me.”

She nodded, and tried to soften the blow by sitting on my knee while I was still standing.

“Don’t bother, honey. If I searched you I’d probably find something poisonous.”

Her eyes got wide and scared. She backed off quickly, and ran out of the room.

Bilicho shook his head and grinned. “Such a way with women.”

III.

Crescens lived in a nice little Roman-style house in a nice little street, not too far from the nice end of town, but far enough for the neighbors not to complain how shabby it looked.

His wife showed us in and told us to wait. If it wasn’t for the thick white makeup on her face and arms, I would’ve figured her for the door slave. The furniture had been expensive about fifteen years ago. Now it was just junk. When he came in, all teeth and business, I told him why I was there.

“I don’t know what I can do.” He shook his head and made a quick gesture with a meaty arm. “I make loans, not dinner napkins.” He seemed to think this was funny.

“Niger said you asked him for an invitation.”

His eyes flashed. “Goddamn cheeky of him to tell you. As a matter of fact, I wanted to make a few contacts. Business could be better. Claudia!” He bellowed for his wife like he was calling hogs. “Wine!”

She shuffled in, eyes too wide, and brought two chipped wine cups. He grabbed one out of her hand, and it sloshed on the table. She took a couple of steps backward, as if she’d spilled blood. His face turned red, and I watched the thick muscles in his neck tense.

I stood up. “Sorry to have disturbed you, Crescens.”

That pulled his eyes off his wife, who retreated to the kitchen. He fastened the smile back on. There was sweat on his forehead. “Not at all. I don’t know why you’re bothering. Niger’s wife probably lost it and doesn’t want him to know. If you ask me, she could use a little something she’s not getting.”

I murmured: “A good poke or a backhand?”

His eyes met mine and glinted a little. “Either one would do her good. She’s mixed up in his business, and it doesn’t help Niger any.”

When we got outside, Bilicho let out a breath. “Let’s find the goddamn napkin and the goddamn perfumer and get out of this. I don’t like these people.”

“Niger’s all right. We need to wait on Julius Victor, if he’s our forger. Find out what we can from the others first.”

The jeweler’s shop and home were nearby. The building looked disappointed, as if it had been neglected for too long and had given up hope.

Tremo wasn’t there, but his wife let us in. She was a tiny woman with a vague manner, and moved aimlessly, like driftwood on the tide. Her husband, she said, was at the Baths.

“Yes. I-I remember the game we played. Silly, isn’t it? Grown people acting like children.”

“Do you remember if someone—maybe Ameana—dropped her napkin? Maybe when you changed seats?”

Her hand fluttered up to her face like a lost butterfly. “I—I can’t really recall. She might have. I’m afraid I don’t have much of a head for wine.” She tried to make her laugh a tinkle, but it came out a bleat.

 “What sort of work does your husband do?”

The pin-pricks of her eyes got eager suddenly. “All kinds. Gold settings. Gem-cutting. He’s very good at carving portraits.”

 “Can I see?”

She took us into the cramped, dusty shop, and pulled out a few pieces. I picked up a ring with an incised profile of a woman. “Very finely done. Your husband is an artist.”

She glowed. “He trained in Rome. And Lugdunum, where we’re from.”

“Lived in Britannia long?”

“About seventeen years. We married here.”

I asked Bilicho when we were outside if he’d noticed her eyes.

“Yeah. You think opos?”

I nodded. “No children. Maybe a miscarriage, she took it for pain, and found the pain never went away.”

“That doesn’t mean she’d steal a napkin.”

“Not unless some opos was in it.”

Bilicho snorted. “Counterfeiting, drugs … what the hell else?”

It was past the fashionable hour for baths, so we cut across town to the not-so-nice section near our room, and found Caecilius Rufus in his.

He was one of those bright young talents that is about twenty years too late. He was good-looking in a bored and slightly scruffy manner that some women find attractive, especially when it accompanies a few hendecasyllables about how pretty they are.

He seemed preoccupied and out of breath, and not overly happy to see us.

“Why the hell are you trying to sniff up a dinner napkin? Ameana probably threw it away.”

 “Whatever the lady did with it, she doesn’t want it found.”

He glowered while I stretched my arms behind my head and made myself comfortable. “Nice place, Caecilius. You sell much poetry?”

“I thought you were supposed to be a medicus. I ask again: why the hell are you here and bothering me about a napkin?”

“Because people don’t want me to. I’m contrary that way.”

 He rubbed his nose viciously. “I can’t help you. We played a stupid game. That skinny woman—the jeweler’s wife—she dropped hers. Maybe she picked up Ameana’s.”  He looked up. “And that banker—not Niger, the other one—he needs money. Badly.”

 “Why would Ameana’s napkin be worth money to anybody—except her love-blind husband?”

His hand shook when he gulped the wine, and his voice was a snap. “Nothing. I’m just telling you what I know.”

“And how do you know this, Caecilius? Or is it just background for an epic you’re writing?”

He set his cup down slowly on the table in front of him, and stood up. “I think,” he said thickly, “I think you should go away.”

I smiled and rose. “I meant to say love poem. Catullus your favorite?”

He took a step toward me, his hands clenched, then with an effort turned his back. We showed ourselves out the door.

We’d seen them all except for Julius Victor, and by the time we reached his residence—luxurious in a petty way—we expected to find the man who tried to pay us off. And we did find him—dead on the floor.

IV.

The girl who showed us in screamed and tried to run away. After awhile I got her to talk.

There were three of them in the house. He’d told them to stay in the kitchen or in their quarters. They hadn’t heard anyone, seen anyone, smelled anyone. Victor was a perfume importer and  traveled quite a bit in his business. She kept staring at the body until Bilicho took her by the elbow and out of the room.

A small pool of blood had seeped out around the back of the head. A tributary from his left ear fed into it, tracing a route down his neck. He was still warm. Tight bruises spotted his cheeks and neck. He stared at the ceiling and waited for an answer.

The limbs were flung out, and his small white fists curled ineffectually, like a baby dreaming of its mother’s tit. I found more bruises, but not his wallet. He didn’t smell like oak moss anymore.

I pushed myself up from the floor. “Less than three hours.”

“Look at this.”

I walked to where Bilicho was standing. On top of a low table was a linteus, open and unfolded. Gold stitching formed an ugly flower. It looked like something Niger would buy for his wife.  In the middle of it was a small, circular metal die.

I picked it up. It was in the form of an aureus. A counterfeit aureus. Domitian’s face glared at me. I wrapped them up and stuffed the napkin in my tunic.

“I told you they make them big, Bilicho. Big enough for a shroud.”

 V.

I cut Niger’s ecstasies short by telling him Julius Victor was dead. It took him a few minutes to absorb what I told him. It took his wife no time at all. She covered her mouth and ran out of the room with big eyes.

“Were you doing business with him? Was he a client?”

The chins wobbled, while Niger tried to find his way in the dark. “I—He’s dead? Victor? I can’t believe—”

“He had your wife’s napkin. Somebody beat him up. I don’t have time to be your nursemaid, Niger—not if you want to stay out of this.”

He sucked in a little breath. “He—he did talk about doing business with me—small way, of course—said he’d be dropping by more often. He talked to Ameana about it. I—Ameana?  Ameana?”

We left him in the dark and she met me at the door. Her nails were like little knives in my arm.

“Victor’s really dead?”

“Yeah. But the partnership wouldn’t have worked. You know, how you were going to funnel his bad money into your husband’s business, trading phony for good until someone got caught—someone like your husband?”

She stepped back, her eyes wary. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, you do, sweetie. But don’t worry about it. I’m protecting Niger, even though I got the bad bargain of protecting you along with him.” I looked at Bilicho. “Keep an eye on her.”

I hurried and the jeweler was at home when I arrived. Small, spare, neat, and bald. A dry, precise little man. Ipstilla’s pupils were little pin-points, drowning in grey. I got to the point.

“I know you did some forgery work for Julius Victor. Money’s kind of tight, so why not make your own? Maybe it’ll help pay for your wife’s opos habit.”

He looked at me like we were discussing the weather. His wife was smiling, drifting again.

“I figure he wanted to check your work, and the plan was to use Niger’s dinner party to pass it to him. No personal connection, only a convivium at the fat man’s, arranged for that purpose by Victor and his other partner—Niger’s wife.

“So you made a die, and Ipstilla was holding it in her napkin. The plan was to accidentally-on-purpose leave her linteus at Victor’s seat. You probably suggested the game to make it easy. But Ipstilla’s kind of nervous when she’s not sucking poppy juice, and she dropped the napkin with the die in it and picked up Ameana’s napkin instead. So she left the wrong napkin with Victor. And when he unwrapped it he didn’t find what he wanted. And he got angry. What I want to know is whether or not you killed him.”

Her lips were open and pressed tight against her teeth, and her breathing was short and shallow. He reached over and held her hand and met my eyes.

“I’m no killer. And I’m not much of a crook. You figured right. Victor wanted a sample before I started to supply him. You go through dies, even iron ones, pretty quickly. I used to do work for the mint in Lugdunum, I know the business. He offered me a share of the profits—said he was cutting old connections and making new ones. I assume Ameana has the mold, since she set the meeting up and has Ipstilla’s napkin. Julius had hers. But of course I couldn’t ask her about it. I was waiting for Victor to tell me what to do next. Maybe you can do that.”

I rubbed my chin. “Get your wife off the opos, Tremo. When this is over, I’ll see if I can help.”

It was only a few minutes to Crescens’ house. A burly slave tried to block my way. There were sounds coming from the dining room, so I shoved him against a wall and ran.

Claudia was kneeling on the floor in a mess of wine and food. She was whimpering. Some of the white makeup had melted off, revealing the blue and purple splotches on her face and arms.

Crescens was standing over her, his fist ready, his chunky body a mass of nerves and twitches. I grabbed for his hand. His eyes were unfocused, his mouth a howl. I gut-punched him as hard as I could and watched him fold like a cheap fan. I picked Claudia off the floor and stroked her hair until one of the slaves came to take her. He was curled up and mewing in between the shudders.

“Get up, you miserable son-of-a-bitch. Get up.”

“I—I can’t—”

“Sure you can. It’s easy. Just like hitting your wife. And Julius Victor—let’s not forget him. He’s been using you for his counterfeit business, washing bad money clean, but he was cutting you out. For Niger and Niger’s wife. I figure you tried to corner him at the party. But it didn’t work, and you wouldn’t let go without a fight. The one-sided kind—the only kind you know. So you followed him home from my place a few hours ago. And you hit him, Crescens. Hit him so hard that the floor cracked his skull like a walnut. Get up.”

He got up. Slowly.

VI.

I took Crescens to the fort and handed him over to a friend. The Empire doesn’t like forged money. The Emperor was known to take it personally.

Niger paid me enough to keep us from eating cabbage and pork for a few months.  And I gave the fat man some advice.

“No more rich food, Niger. You want to be around for a long, long time.” Ameana’s eyes scorched my back when I left.

Bilicho and I walked toward home. One more knot to unravel. And Caecilius looked surprised to see us.

“You’re a lucky little bastard.”

“What—?”

“I got Crescens to admit it. But if he hadn’t, you wouldn’t have time to write your own goddamn epitaph. Ameana had Tremo’s coin mold, and gave it to you to handle for her. Because you got her what was in her napkin.”

He fell on the couch, and suddenly looked very young and very stupid. I was relentless. Poets bring it out in me.

“Victor figured out who had what and why. He was in the perfume business—he knew his plants. You paid him a visit and brought the coin mold with you. Then you traded it for something else when you saw he was dead. And I want what you took. Right now.”

He stared at me, his jaw a little slack. Then he went to a shelf with some scrolls, pulled one out, reached in, and handed me a pyxis. I opened it. Aconitum ointment.

“What are you going to do?”

“Nothing. Finding out his wife and her lover were eventually going to poison him would be an easy way to kill Niger.”

“I hadn’t made up my mind yet.”

“Let me make it up for you. She’s not worth it. No one is. Read your goddamn Catullus.”

VII.

The shadows were lengthening and Bilicho looked thoughtful when we left.

“How’d you know about the poison?”

“Ameana’s eyes. I think Caecilius passed it to her earlier that evening and she hid it in her napkin—which is how Victor wound up with it. She coordinated the dinner, remember, maybe got overly ambitious and figured she’d set her husband up for a double loss—in money and breath. She would’ve used the poison eventually—after stealing as much as she could with Victor. But Victor figured out what—and whom—the aconitum was for. He needed Niger alive. So he tried to bargain with the woman—and me—and maybe that idiot poet even went there with murder on his mind. Crescens saved him by getting there first.”

Bilicho shook his head and grinned. “Dinner napkins. I’m glad I use my sleeve.”

Another gift from Niger was waiting for us at home. He was a thin, aristocratic-looking, mournful sort of slave.

The note read: “Greetings, Arcturus, from your indebted friend Niger. I have taken your advice and therefore beg you to accept Venutius as a token of my deep appreciation. He is an excellent cook. Thanks and regards, Niger.”

I looked at the dark-eyed man in front of me.

“I hope you can make good, plain food. That’s what I like. No cabbage.”

“Certainly, sir,” he said.

The End