Pompeii

to life after the long siesta. The inns and the eating-houses would be coining it now as people poured into the streets ready for the sacrifice to Vulcan.
    Salve lucrum!
    Lucrum gaudium!
    He did not look up as he heard his visitor approach. 'So,' he said, 'it seems we have a problem.'

    Corelia had been given the finches not long after the family had moved into the house, on her tenth birthday. She had fed them with scrupulous attention, tended them when they were sick, watched them hatch, mate, flourish, die, and now, whenever she wanted to be alone, it was to the aviary that she came. It occupied half of the small balcony outside her room, above the cloistered garden. The top of the cage was sheeted as protection against the sun.
    She was sitting, drawn up tightly in the shady corner, her arms clasped around her legs, her chin resting on her knees, when she heard someone come into the courtyard. She edged forward on her bottom and peered over the low balustrade. Her father had settled himself on to the circular stone bench, a box beside him, and was reading through some papers. He laid the last one aside and stared at the sky, turning in her direction. She ducked her head back quickly. People said she resembled him: 'Oh, she's the image of her father!' And, as he was a handsome man, it used to make her proud.
    She heard him say, 'So, it seems we have a problem.'
    She had discovered as a child that the cloisters played a peculiar trick. The walls and pillars seemed to capture the sound of voices and funnel them upwards, so that even whispers, barely audible at ground-level, were as distinct up here as speeches from the rostrum on election day. Naturally, this had only added to the magic of her secret place. Most of what she heard when she was growing up had meant nothing to her – contracts, boundaries, rates of interest – the thrill had simply been to have a private window on the adult world. She had never even told her brother what she knew, for it was only in the past few months that she had begun to decipher the mysterious language of her father's affairs. And it was here, a month ago, that she had heard her own future being bargained away by her father with Popidius: so much to be discounted on the announcement of the betrothal, the full debt to be discharged once the marriage was transacted, the property to revert in the event of a failure to produce issue, said issue to inherit fully on coming of age...
    'My little Venus,' he had used to call her. 'My little brave Diana.'
    ... a premium payable on account of virginity, virginity attested by the surgeon, Pumponius Magonianus, payment waived on signing of contracts within the stipulated period...
    'I always say,' her father had whispered, 'speaking man to man here, Popidius, and not to be too legal about it – you can't put a price on a good fuck.'
    'My little Venus...'
    'It seems we have a problem...'
    A man's voice – harsh, not one she recognised – replied, 'Yes, we have a problem right enough.'
    To which Ampliatus responded: 'And his name is Marcus Attilius...'
    She leaned forward again so as not to miss a word.

    Africanus wanted no trouble. Africanus was an honest man. Attilius marched him down the staircase, only half listening to his jabbering protests, glancing over his shoulder every few steps to make sure they were not being followed. 'I am an official here on the Emperor's business. I need to see where Exomnius lived. Quickly.' At the mention of the Emperor, Africanus launched into a fresh round of assurances of his good name. Attilius shook him. 'I haven't the time to listen to this. Take me to his room.'
    'It's locked.'
    'Where's the key?'
    'Downstairs.'
    'Get it.'
    When they reached the street he pushed the brothel-keeper back into the gloomy hallway and stood guard as he fetched his cash-box from its hiding-place. The meretrix in the short green dress had returned to her stool: Zmyrina, Africanus called her – 'Zmyrina, which is the key to Exomnius's room?' – his hands shaking so much that when finally he managed to open the cash-box and take out the keys he dropped them and she had to stoop and retrieve them for him. She picked out a key from the bunch and held it up.
    'What are you so scared about?' asked Attilius. 'Why try to run away at the mention of a name?'
    'I don't want any trouble,' repeated Africanus. He took the key and led the way to the bar next door. It was a cheap place, little more than a rough stone counter with holes