It just wasn't fair. When you marry a man for his money, you expect him to leave you a shining pile of gold pieces. Not a crummy old wine business. How was the new young widow Claudia going to pay off her gambling debts now?

So when Eugenius Collatinus asks Claudia to chaperone his granddaughter to Sicily she jumps at the chance to escape Rome. It should be easy. Sabina Collatinus, she is told, has recently completed thirty years' service as a Vestal Virgin.

Or has she...?

Claudia suspects she is escorting an impostor. And then a woman's brutalized body is discovered...