I’d taken to using Nonna’s special glass, an exquisite red Hungarian crystal tumbler, a gift from an admirer, she’d said. Apart from my grandfather, Euralbius, she’d rarely mentioned anybody else in that way. It was only when Sertorius opened and read her will in front of the witnesses and handed me a large sealed envelope with a pompous flourish that I’d discovered she’d been held in the grip of a ‘grand passion’ for nearly forty years. They’d met in Berlin, when she was in her twenties, then later in Vienna when she was in exile during the rebellion. He came back to Roma Nova with her but couldn’t settle. He left, but they met from time to time and he always gave her a red rose to bring back. She’d kept and pressed every one. The colour photo tucked inside the letter showed a younger, black-haired version of the man with Calavia at the funeral – the man who had thrown the red rose on Aurelia’s pyre. I needed to fix a time with Calavia for a serious talk about this.
