'Leave my orifices out of the orders of the day! Listen, centurion. I've just lugged an Iron Hand halfway across Europe and I'm intending to deliver it. I know the Fourteenth are a blasphemous, uncultured mob, but if your legate wants his consulship he's not going to let a drill-swank and an ink-swab reject an award from the Emperor-'
'Don't get clever,' the cornicularius warned. 'You can leave the trophy, and you can leave the sealed despatch. Maybe,' he speculated with his most cheerful expression yet, 'the despatch says ' Execute the messenger':'
I ignored that. 'I'll happily ground the ironwork, but I'm going to hand the confidential orders to Gracilis himself. Do I get quarters at the fort? Your accommodation must be flush now you're light of the loyal Batavians!'
'If that's a jibe at the Fourteenth's expense,' the primipilus snorted, 'make the most of it; you won't manage another!'
I said I wouldn't dream of insulting the victors of Bedriacum, and that I'd find my own roost.
As I shoved him down the corridor outside, Xanthus whined, 'What's Bedriacum?'
'A battle where the Fourteenth escaped being called losers by the simple trick of claiming they had never arrived for the fight.'
'I thought it would be something like that. You've upset them, Falco!'
'Suits me.'
'And they know you are working for the Emperor-'
'No, Xanthus; they think you are!'
'What's the point of that?'
'They appreciate they have a tricky record. They know the Emperor will send someone to look them over, but they reckon I'm the dregs. So long as I behave stupidly, they'll never believe I'm the spy.'
Fortunately, Xanthus didn't ask why I was so anxious to identify someone else as the Emperor's agent.
Or what I thought the Fourteenth Gemina might try and do to whoever they thought it was.
As we reached the exit, two tribunes came from another office, arguing in a gentlemanly way.
'Macrinus, I don't want to be a nuisance, but-'
'He's incommunicado; planning one of his forays against imagined troublemakers. Remind me tomorrow and I'll get you in to see him when he has some breathing-space.'
At first I listened because I guessed they were referring to the legate Gracilis. The young man speaking was the assured and stocky type that had never impressed me, with an athletic build, square head and a burnished tint to his tight curls. The one who seemed to be protesting struck me as familiar.
He must have been twenty, but looked younger. An ordinary, boyish face. A tall, slim frame. A quiet manner but a ready smile from a wide mouth.
'Camillus Justinus!' At my cry of recognition for his companion, the first tribune reacted deftly. Coming from a senatorial family, he had had a good education: he knew Latin, Greek, mathematics and geography, how much to tip a prostitute, where the best oysters come from-and the old forum art of escaping from someone he wanted to avoid. 'Sorry, Justinus. Were you in conference?'
Helena's brother growled after the gleamingly armoured and fast-retreating back. 'Never mind. He wasn't going to oblige me. It's Falco, isn't it?'
'Yes. Marcus Didius. I heard you were posted-not to the Fourteenth I hope?'
'Oh, I don't meet their high standards! No, I was persuaded to 'volunteer' for an extra tour with the First Adiutrix-they're a new outfit.'
'Glad to hear it. The Fourteenth are an impolite mob. I just brought them a trophy and they refused me a billet,' I hinted without shame.
Justinus laughed. 'Then you'd better stay at my house! Come on. After trying to wrestle sense out of this crew I need to go home and lie down in the dark.' We started to walk. 'What are you doing here, Marcus Didius?'
'Oh, nothing very exciting. Business for Vespasian. Mostly routine. One or two extra tasks to toy with in my free time-coercing rebels, that sort of stuff,' I joked. 'There's a missing legate to find, for instance.'
Justinus stopped in his tracks. He seemed amazed.
I pulled up too. 'What's up, tribune?'
'Does the Emperor have access to new kinds of Etruscan augury?'
'Something not right?'
'You flabbergast me, Falco! That was what I was trying to get straight with my oppo just now. I don't see,' he grumbled, 'how Vespasian could have known there was something fishy out in Germany in time for you to turn up here before my commander has even made up his mind that he needs to signal Rome!'
As he ran out of breath, I simply said, 'Explain?'
Camillus Justinus glanced over his shoulder then lowered his voice, even though we were crossing the empty parade-ground. 'Florius Gracilis has not been seen for several days. The Fourteenth won't admit it even to my own chief, but we in the First reckon that their legate has disappeared!'
XVIII
I set a warning hand on the tribune's arm. Then I told Xanthus to walk ahead and wait for us at the main gate opposite. He sulked, but had no choice. We watched him set off, scuffing his feet in the dust at first as a gesture, but soon preferring to save the turquoise leather of his nattily bethonged shoes.
'Who exactly is that?' queried Justinus in a wary tone.
'Not sure.' I gave him a stiff look, in case he thought it was a companion of my choice. 'If you want a boring couple of hours, get him to tell you why Spanish razors are the best, and the secrets of German goosefat pomade. He's a barber by trade-that's genuine. He forced himself on me as a tourist. I suspect there's a more sinister reason behind his trip.'
'He may simply have a yearning for travel.' I remembered that Helena's youngest brother had a touching faith in humanity.
'Or he may not! Anyway, I'm passing him off as Vespasian's nark.' Justinus, who must have known about my own undercover duties, or my past history anyway, smiled faintly.
As we waited for Xanthus to trot out of earshot, a slight breeze lifted our cloaks. It carried the characteristic aromas of cavalry stables, oiled leather and mass-produced stewed pork. Dust bowled across the parade-ground, stinging our bare shins. The hum of the fort reached us, like the low undernotes of a water-organ as it grinds into life: metallic hammering; rumbling carts; the clack of wooden staves as troops practised sparring against an upright stump; and the sharp cry of a centurion giving orders, raven-harsh.
'We won't find anywhere more private than here. Now Justinus, what's all this about? Tell me about Gracilis.'
'Not much to tell. He hasn't been seen.'
'Is he ill, or taking leave?'
'If so, it's highly impolite of him not to inform his senior colleague in the same fort.'
'Bad manners would be nothing new!'
'Agreed. What alerted the First to something peculiar was that even his wife, who is with him here, seems unsure where he is. She asked my legate's wife if there was a secret exercise going on.'
'Is there?'
'Joke, Falco! We have quite enough operational tasks without playing board-games or throwing up practice camps.'
I paused for a moment, considering him. He had spoken with a flash of authority. Last time we met he had been holding down a junior tribune's place, but now he was wearing the broad purple stripes of a senior-his legate's right-hand man. Those posts were mainly earmarked for senators designate; promotion to them while in service was highly unusual. Justinus qualified socially-he was a senator's son-but his elder brother was using up all the embalming oil. The family had long ago decided this one was destined merely for middle-rank bureaucracy. Still, he would not be the first young man to discover that the army lacks preconceptions, or to find that once away
