about the way she wore it said not. All this in the time it took for an arrow to leave the bow, or a shot the sling. As he stared into them the eyes changed shape and became serious and he realized the military commander Falco was talking to him.
‘… And this is Lucullus, our foremost Briton, a lord of the local tribe, the Trinovantes, and a longtime friend to Rome.’
A short, rotund man bowed and smiled ingratiatingly. Valerius would have moved on — the local Britons were of little interest to him except as potential enemies — but Lucullus stood his ground and waved the girl forward.
‘My daughter, Maeve,’ he said.
Maeve?
Valerius turned to acknowledge her but she was already walking towards the gate of the temple complex. He stared at the slender retreating figure and was rewarded with a venomous backward glance aimed, fortunately, at her father. He felt an almost unstoppable urge to follow her, but Falco took his arm and steered him round the still smiling Lucullus with a sniff of irritation.
‘Tiberius Petronius Victor, whom I understand you have already encountered.’ Valerius’s mind remained focused on the girl but he noted the hint of disapproval in Falco’s voice. ‘He is Colonia’s senior magistrate, the procurator’s personal representative here and one of our leading citizens.’ The militia commander gave a brittle smile. ‘And he has a tight grip on the town’s purse strings.’
Petronius produced a laugh equally devoid of humour. Clearly little love was lost between the two men. ‘Each of us has our priorities, Quintus. Mine is to ensure we create a Colonia worthy of the Emperor’s name it holds. We have real soldiers, like the tribune here, to keep us safe in our beds. Why should we spend a king’s ransom so that your little army can strut the streets like peacocks?’
Valerius expected the insult to provoke a violent reaction, but it seemed this was an argument so well rehearsed it had lost its power to inflame.
‘Come.’ Falco led him away from the quaestor. ‘I will introduce you to the head of the ordo, our council of one hundred leading citizens.’ When they were out of Petronius’s earshot, he explained. ‘He means why should we have shields that don’t splinter at the first blow and why must we complain when we wear the same rusty swords we carried all the way from the Rhenus to the invasion all those years ago.’
‘Every army has supply problems… even little armies,’ Valerius said. He recognized the older man’s frustration. Shortages were part of life in the legions. A soldier, even a Roman soldier, had to fight for everything he could get.
Falco looked at him sharply, wondering if he was being made fun of.
Valerius smiled. ‘Perhaps while we are here we will lose a few shields and a few spears. My men are sometimes careless.’ There would be no shortages for a unit taking part in the governor’s campaign against Mona, that was certain, and in any case he would be back in Rome before the legion’s quartermaster worked out what had happened.
The militia commander slapped his shoulder. ‘Now I understand why Julius likes you. Come, we will share some wine. You should have been with us on the Tamesa: Catuvellauni warriors seven feet tall who took a dozen cuts and still wouldn’t fall. I have nightmares about them even now…’
Still talking, he led the way into a long, narrow room with a patterned mosaic floor and walls painted with lifelike scenes of an emperor, who must be Claudius, carrying out his imperial duties as fawning courtiers looked on. Two of the paintings immediately caught Valerius’s eye. In the first, the Emperor was depicted sitting high on the back of a gold-clad ceremonial elephant as a dozen splendid barbarian figures bowed before him. He realized this must be the surrender of Britain, which had taken place close to this very spot. The second took up an entire end wall and showed Claudius standing proudly on a hill above a broad river surveying the crossing of his legions and the hazy battle beyond.
‘The Tamesa,’ Falco whispered. ‘Claudius wasn’t even there. Didn’t arrive until the next day. He was a fraud, old Claudius, but we didn’t love him any the less for it.’
Valerius looked around to see if anyone was listening. Criticizing emperors, even long-dead emperors, was not something to be done lightly. But Falco only winked.
‘If he was going to strike me down he’d have done it long ago, lad. I sweated and bled for him and now he’s taking care of me in my old age. But he’s still an old fraud.’
The room had been set for twenty-four people, with couches round the walls and a gilt table in the centre. Valerius found himself between Falco and Petronius, and opposite the Briton, Lucullus, who called for wine to be brought.
One by one he was introduced to the men who ran Colonia; bland mercantile faces his brain refused to accept had once been seasoned soldiers of Rome’s finest legions. A few names stuck in his mind: Corvinus the goldsmith, wide-shouldered, dark-visaged and improbably handsome, who had turned his trade as the Twentieth’s armourer into a more profitable business; Didius, tall and thin and with shifty eyes that fitted all too well with his profession as one of Colonia’s foremost money-lenders; and Bellator, who seemed out of place because his exotic name and relative youth identified him as a freedman, and who now prospered by taking a cut of the rent from the insulae he administered for his former master. All had one thing in common. They were rich. They had to be, because membership of the ordo didn’t come cheap, as Falco explained in his dry monotone.
‘It has its compensations: prestige, which counts for little unless you are a certain type; access and patronage, which counts for more, particularly when that patronage comes from the Senate. We have our say upon who gets what contract, which buildings must be demolished and which must stay; we adjudicate in land and water disputes, all of which can be lucrative and creates a bank of favours which will one day be returned. But the cost…’
‘Yet not so onerous as election to the augustales,’ Petronius interrupted from Valerius’s left.
‘Easy for you to say, since a quaestor is above such lowly appointments,’ Falco huffed. ‘No payments to the treasury or public munificence from you, eh, Petronius?’
‘ Augustales? ’ Valerius enquired. The title was new to him. A slave brought wine in a silver cup and he accepted it, vowing only to sip, watered or not. The ripe, fruity scent reached his nostrils. No vinegar here. This was as good as anything that would be served at his father’s table.
‘The priests of the temple, those who officiate in the annual ceremonies central to the cult of Divine Claudius,’ Petronius continued airily, taking a deep draught from his cup. ‘It is a great honour… if you are a certain type.’ Valerius noted the repeat of Falco’s pointed phrase of a few moments earlier. ‘However, it also carries great responsibilities.’
Valerius knew that in Rome to be elected to the priesthood of one of the great temples — Jupiter Capitolinus or Mars Ultor — brought with it substantial power and that such an appointment was only open to the knightly classes. ‘Yet even at a price, it must be greatly sought after by the members of your council,’ he said.
Petronius laughed, but Valerius felt Falco shift uneasily behind him. ‘No Roman citizen would be foolish enough to accept it. We leave that honour to the Brittunculi.’ Falco drew breath and the conversation in the room went quiet. Valerius saw the smile freeze on Lucullus’s face, but Petronius carried on as if nothing had changed. ‘For them, it is as close as they will ever come to being a Roman. Ah, at last. The food.’
Valerius watched as the dishes were set on the table. In Rome, a banquet like this would be an opportunity to show a flair for the exotic; peacocks still in their livery, swans artfully displayed to seem almost alive. But this was wholesome, rustic fare. Sizzling cuts of beef, venison and suckling pig. Duck, pigeon and partridge, and birds smaller still which looked like particularly plump sparrows. A great fish, probably from the river below, and oysters and crabs from the coast, which he knew to be just a few miles downstream. He set to with a will. Army rations could always be supplemented, but somehow they were still army rations. It had been many months since he’d sat down to such a feast. His companions, too, ate greedily; all except Lucullus, who nibbled at the food, still wearing his fixed smile.
Petronius raised his cup theatrically. ‘Your health, sir. Would that we supped like this every day. No toast required with this wine.’ The comment provoked a burst of laughter. Toasted bread was often crumbled into inferior wines to disguise the bitter taste.
He saw Valerius’s look of surprise. ‘Oh, yes.’ He lowered his voice so the young tribune had to lean towards him to hear his next words. ‘Lucullus, our British friend, is responsible for everything you see around you. Food and drink, the couch you lie on and even the upkeep of the building. He is a fine fellow. A friend of Rome and an
