Pliny the Younger hoped to improve relations with his unpleasant wife and her mother by investing in a warehouse on the Tiber with them. Now the building has collapsed due to heavy rains. Pliny discovers several dead people inside, including a man with a narrow red "equestrian" stripe on his tunic, indicating aristocracy. He wasn't killed by the cave-in, however, but by a knife wound in his back. When Pliny gives the body a forensic examination, he finds two more puzzling things: a circumcision (unusual in Rome), and thirty pieces of silver in his sewn-closed mouth. To further complicate matters, Pliny's servant and lover, Aurora, finds a live baby in the wreckage. What connection does the funeral of a consul have with these events? Queen Berenice of Judaea, the mistress of the late emperor Titus, soon enters the story with her sons--one of whom is an assassin, a member of the Sicarii. He's determined to avenge the defeat of his people and the destruction of their temple--no matter who might get in the way....