Lindsey Davis - Alexandria

'Come here nicely and give your father a kiss -'

Neither stopped. Julia twisted madly as she tried to subdue her sister, while Favonia sturdily kept on roaring.

I had been spotted from within. Ahead lay a warm glow of lamps, a blur of conversation. I heard a familiar voice, loudly deriding my commission on the Theon death: 'Murdered in a locked room? You mean Marcus has convinced himself someone got a trained serpent to slide in and stab the man, using an ivory-handled dagger with a strange scarab on its hilt?'

Helena spoke calmly: 'No, he was poisoned.'

'Oh, I get it! A trained ape crawled down a rope from the ceiling, bringing a curiously carved alabaster beaker of contaminated borage tea!'

I exploded. Albia winced and held her head in her hands. I strode in. It was him all right. That voice and attitude could not be disguised: wide-bodied, grey-haired and well into a winecup but still capable of obnoxiousness, without the grace of slurring. He was tanked up and tearing into it – but he did stop when he saw me.

'Uncle Fulvius has a new house guest, Marcus!' Helena cried brightly. 'Just arrived tonight.'

'When are you leaving?' I snarled at him.

'Hades!' Albia, at my heels, hated trouble.

'Don't be like that, my boy,' he whined. Marcus Didius Favonius, also known as Geminus: my father. The curse of the Aventine, the dread of the Saepta Julia, the plague of the antique auction porticoes. The man who abandoned my mother and all his offspring, then tried to snare us back to him two decades later, after we had learned to forget he existed. The same father I had strictly forbidden from coming to Alexandria while I was here.

And there was more.

We were going to a party. It was diplomatic, at the Prefect's residence, the kind no one can escape. Fulvius had accepted for me, so failure to show would be remarked upon. We were all going. Helena, Albia and me, Uncle Fulvius and Cassius – plus Pa. There was no chance that bastard would plead weariness after long travel, not when there was free food, drink, company and entertainment on offer, in a place where he could show off noisily, try to sell the wrong people dubious art, be indiscreet, upset the top man and amaze the staff – and above all, cause me irreparable embarrassment.

Tiberius Julius Alexander, the previous Prefect of Egypt, helped the Flavians acquire the Empire nearly ten years ago. He then made sure Vespasian rewarded him with a really worthwhile sinecure back in Rome. Helena thought he led the Praetorian Guard, though it cannot have been for long, because Titus Caesar took that over. Still, it was good going for a man who was not just Jewish by birth but Alexandrian. Provincials usually struggle more.

Prefect of Egypt was not part of the senatorial lottery for governorship of provinces, but in Vespasian's personal gift. Private ownership of Egypt was a serious perk for an emperor. The intelligent ones took great care in appointing their Prefect, whose main job was to ensure that the corn flowed, to feed the people of Rome in their Emperor's name. Another vital task was gathering in tax money and the gemstones from the remote southern mines; then again, the Emperor would be loved at home because of his stupendous spending power. Vespasian's huge building programme in Rome, for example – most famous for its amphitheatre, though it also included a library – was financed partly from his Egyptian funds.

The current Prefect was a typical Vespasian man – lean, competent, a measured judge and very hard worker. I had heard no rumours of him being anything but ethical. His ancestors were new enough men for him to suit Vespasian's family, the equally new Flavians. He had a good past curriculum; a wife who was never named in scandal; health; courtesy; a brain. He went by three names, none of which I bothered to learn. His full title was Prefect of Alexandria and Egypt, which stressed that the city was mysteriously separate from the rest, sitting like a bunion on the north coast. You don't find a governor of 'Londinium and Britannia' – and if you did, a man of this intense superiority would still think the posting a cruel punishment. But the Egyptian job made him purr.

When we arrived at his bash, the Prefect headed a formal receiving-line, where he greeted Fulvius and Cassius like wholesome commercial visitors and seemed strangely taken with Pa. My father knew how to ingratiate himself. Helena and I were received with practised indifference. His Excellency must have been briefed by his bright-eyed boy assistants, but he could not remember who I was, what I had been sent to do for the Emperor (if anything), what his centurion had got me to take on at the Library instead, who my noble wife's noble father was and whether it mattered a green bean – nor indeed whether he had already been introduced to us last week. However, after thirty years of such bluffing, his act was oiled. He shook our hands with his limp, cold fingers and said how nice it was to see us here and do please go on in and enjoy the evening.

I was determined not to enjoy it, but we went on in.

The surroundings made up for everything. This was one of the Ptolemies' palaces – of which they had a glorious clutch, all opulent and intended to intimidate. Halls and doorways were graced with huge pairings of pink granite statues of gods and pharaohs, the best of them forty feet tall. Anywhere that could be approached by a wide flight of steps was. Marble pools of awe-striking dimensions reflected the soft glimmer of hundreds of oil lamps. Whole palm trees served as house plants. There had been Roman legionaries on guard outside, but in these halls where Cleopatra once walked, we were attended by discreet flunkeys in Egyptian kilts, characteristic head-dresses and glinting gold pectoral adornments on their oiled bare chests.

Everything was done to the highest diplomatic standards. The usual enormous trays of peculiarly concocted morsels. Civic canapes: a cuisine unknown anywhere outside the lukewarm ambience of large-scale catering. Wine that was all too familiar: from some unhappy Italian hillside which even though it was in our fine home country failed to get enough sun. This mediocre vintage had been carefully transported here – our dross, imported to this city whose own superb Mareotic wine was deemed fit to grace the gilt tables of the very rich in Rome. Always insult the people you are ruling. Never take advantage of their wonderful local produce, lest it seem you are rotting with unpatriotic enjoyment of your overseas tour.

Fulvius and Cassius soon went off to canoodle with businessmen. Traders always know how to angle for invitations. There were plenty here. We shed Pa – or rather, he shed us. It might be his first night, but he already had someone to see. My father possessed the knack, which my late brother Festus also mastered, of making himself seem an habitue of any place he found himself. In part, Pa was sufficiently insensitive never to worry about whether he was welcome; the rest was winning over startled locals with sheer weight of personality. Strangers took to him eagerly. Only his close relatives shrank away. Fulvius was one exception. The first time I ever saw them together I knew that Fulvius and Pa met on equal, equally shady terms.

I managed to identify the Prefect's admin staff. Most were clustered around Albia. They probably all kept mistresses locally, but a polite girl from home with flowers in her hair was a treat. She was telling them about the zoo. None had been there; they just assumed they would get around to it later. Who goes out to work in a foreign province and ever sees the sights? Each of the plump women for whom they bought flowers and fancy necklaces was after sex with some clean, virile youth, exciting because he was foreign and because he would be off home by the time they were bored with him. Going out to the zoo when they could be eating pastries in their apartment love-nests and complaining about the weather was beneath such cultured Alexandrians.