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mischief. Understand?”
    “Yes, Mistress,” he answered demurely. But I had the feeling even then that I might as well have told the wind to stop blowing, or the river to flow uphill.

Chapter IV
    Albia was in the bar-room, checking that we’d enough clean jugs and beakers, but her mind wasn’t on the crockery. “You know,” she remarked, “I hope that man in the guest-room really is the new cousin. He’s pretty fanciable.”
    “Oh? I can’t say I noticed.” I was looking at a nasty lamp-black stain, high up on the whitewashed wall.
    “Oh, of course not, Miss Couldn’t-Care-Less.” She frowned at a chipped mug and put it to one side. “So you didn’t notice his nice eyes?”
    “No,” I answered, but too quickly. She knows me well, my sister.
    “Unusual shade of dark green, I thought,” she persisted.
    “Dark blue,” I corrected, and she laughed when I blushed.
    The bar-room was filling up fast, so I escaped more teasing by chatting to the customers and making sure they were all happy, while the maids fetched jugs of wine or beer and brought plates of stew in from the kitchen. I like to supervise the bar myself when I can. Not that I need to, with Albia there, but it’s such a wonderful place to pick up the latest news. Couriers ride in from Eburacum or Derventio, locals bring the gossip from the surrounding woods and farms, the occasional long-distance traveller arrives from Lindum or Londinium, or even across the sea in Gaul. We get them all, and their news as well. Today, we were giving out as much news as we were getting, thanks to our mystery traveller.
    But eventually there was a lull, and I signalled to Carina, one of the senior maids, to take charge, so Albia and I could go into my study to talk privately.
    “Well then,” I encouraged, as we sat down on the reading-couch. “Come on, you’re dying to tell me about the new cousin. Quintus Antonius Delfinus, you said?”
    “Are you sure you’re interested?”
    “Definitely. Passionately…just get on with it, can’t you, before I die of curiosity!”
    “Well, if you insist. He’s from Italia. Campania somewhere, I think. I met him when I was down in Lindum, last summer, you remember? For Claudia’s wedding.”
    “I remember all right.” She’d gone for ten days and stayed a month. But I’d already done my share of moaning on that score.
    “Claudia’s sister introduced me to him at a dinner party. I remember because she fancied him, but he was flirting with a flashy Greek girl in red ear-rings and didn’t give her a second look.” She sniffed. “Didn’t give me a second look either, come to that! Anyhow, he said he was a surveyor, inspecting bridges. But really…” she dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “…he’s a spy, on secret work for the Emperor.”
    “Half of the Empire’s doing secret work for the Emperor.…”
    “…Spying on the other half.” She joined in the punch-line. “I know. But this one’s different. He’s not just a palace hanger-on. He gets sent into the provinces to hunt out traitors. He works alone, not with the usual military investigators, or the Governor’s agents. Claudia’s sister was sure of it.”
    “And you really think he’s the cousin Lucius mentions in his letter?”
    “Of course. Which is why someone tried to kill him.”
    “Yes, it could be. But—look, you know what Claudia’s sister is like. She’s got a pretty lively imagination, and she’d much rather have been turned down by a mysterious secret agent than a boring bridge surveyor any day.” The same went for Albia, of course.
    Then I realised I hadn’t got round to locking away his precious money-belt. “Maybe we can settle it,” I suggested, and fished the money-belt out of my own belt-pouch.
    She raised an eyebrow. “Aurelia Marcella! You’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking?”
    “I’m thinking,” I said, “that it must be our duty to find out as much as we can about this new