'I think not!' Helena was so definite I saw him backstep slightly. 'I am Helena Justina, daughter of the senator Camillus and niece to the procurator Hilaris. Not that this entitles me to interfere with military business-but I advise you to be cautious, Centurion! These are Didius Falco and Petronius Longus, engaged on vital work for the governor.'
'Move along,' repeated Crixus. He failed to note that she had noted his rank. His career meant nothing, apparently. 'My men are searching for two dangerous criminals.'
'Florius and Norbanus,' Helena sneered. 'These are not them-and you know it!'
'I'll be the judge of that.' Cheap power makes for obnoxious clich?s…
'He knows damn well,' drawled Petronius loudly. 'Don't worry about us, sweetheart. This is men's business. Falco, tell your bossy wife to hurry along home.'
'That's right, love,' I agreed meekly.
'Then I'll just go and feed the baby, like a dutiful matriarch!' sniffed Helena. 'Don't be late home, darling,' she added sarcastically.
As if huffiness was in her nature, she stormed off. Disposing of a senator's daughter was a problem the soldiers had not preconsidered, and even these renegades balked at it. They let her go. More fool them.
They were waiting until she was off the scene before they dealt with us. I watched her leaving. Tall, haughty, and apparently self-possessed. No one would know how much anxiety she felt. The soldiers had now brought up torches, so light gleamed on her fine dark hair as she stormed past them, with a toss of her head, flinging one end of a light stole back over her shoulder. An earring glinted, her garnet-and-gold drop. It had caught in the delicate fabric; impatiently she freed it with those long, sensitive fingers that our daughters had inherited.
My own stomach was in a brutal knot until she left safely. If this was the last time I ever saw her, our life together had been good. But my heart ached for the grief she would feel if she lost me now. If I were taken from Helena, my ghost would come raging back from the Underworld. We had too much living left to do.
It was never going to happen. Petro and I were finished. The mood had turned even more ugly. Young faces, dark with fright and false bravado, stared at us. These troops knew they were in the wrong. They could not meet our eyes. Crixus, the mad bastard in charge, must realize that if Petro and I survived and told the governor what went down here tonight, the game was up. He came and stood in front of us, baring his ugly teeth. 'You're dead!'
'If you're going to kill us, Crixus,' Petronius said quietly, 'at least tell us why. You're doing this for the Jupiter gang?'
'You're sharp!'
'Paid or pressured by Florius? So did he tell you to kill us? I thought that he wanted to finish me himself.'
'He won't object.' I reckoned Crixus was making up his mind as he went along. That meant rash decisions. Decisions that could only be bad for us.
It was no use consoling ourselves that if he killed us, he could never get away with it. Helena had gone to fetch assistance. In a moment even Crixus would work out that letting her go was a fatal error.
The centurion was crazy, and his youthful, inexperienced men were becoming hysterical. The Second Adiutrix were a new legion, cobbled together from scratch using naval ratings; they were a Flavian creation rushed into service to fill urgent gaps in the army after other, older legions had been massacred or corrupted to the point where they were past saving. These raw, mad boys were now jostling one another in what they mistook for camaraderie; then they barged forward and started pushing us around. We tried not to retaliate. They laughed at us. Disarmed, we stood no chance. They were taunting us to make a move so they could tear us to pieces.
We knew better than to hope for escape now. Sure enough, the situation grew a great deal worse. We heard the measured approach of yet more soldiers, and lest it raise our spirits, the Second Adiutrix greeted these newcomers cheerily. Crixus swore affectionately at that other lag of a centurion, Silvanus. Silvanus and his men scowled at Petronius and me.
And then the unexpected happened. I never heard an order given, but the new boys all whipped out their swords and fell on the careless bastards who were holding us. Next moment, we were being grabbed once again, but this time to be thrown from hand to hand up the alley, until we were clear of the conflict.
The fight was disciplined and dirty. The Crixus century gathered their wits and fought back. It all took longer than it should have done. Slowly, however, the Crixus men were rounded up and stripped of their weapons. Crixus himself, fighting like a beer-crazed barbarian, was overcome, grounded, and placed under arrest. Silvanus read him the order, which came straight from the governor. Crixus was the defaulter who had 'lost' Splice. He had been on the loose ever since, carefully avoiding barracks, but his good times were over. There are centurions who survive for years, famous for corruption and bribe-taking, but he had overstepped the mark by a mile.
Whether Silvanus himself had ever been on the take was unclear. He had made a choice today. We could only see it as a good one.
There seemed to be a reason for it. He came up and spoke to us. 'I hear you were in the Second, Falco.'
I took a breath. This was the big question, the embarrassment I had avoided when I first met him. Owning up to service in the Second Augusta, during the Rebellion, could lead to bitter accusations. 'Yes,' I said levelly.
But Silvanus gave me a rueful grin, full of shared grief. Wearily he put out an arm to grasp wrists in the soldiers' salute, first with me, then with Petronius. This was something I had not allowed for: Silvanus was in the Second Augusta too.
It was one of those moments when all you want to do is collapse with relief. Petronius and I could not even consider it. We still had to find and rescue Maia.
Petronius marched up to the prostrate Crixus. 'Do yourself a favor. Tell me what you were told to do. I am supposed to be a hostage exchange for Falco's sister. The whole point was for Florius to capture me and make me suffer-so why did he send you to do the job?'
'He knows I'm more competent!' sneered the centurion.
I elbowed Petro aside. He was too angry; he was losing control. 'You're so competent you're now in chains, Crixus,' I pointed out. 'So what was the intention here tonight?'
'I don't know.' I stared him out. He lowered his voice. 'I don't know,' he repeated.
I believed him.
LIV
We paused to reconsider. 'So where now? 'Caesar's Bar, after all?' Petro suggested.
'They are not at Caesar's,' Silvanus broke in. 'I just got dispatched from there by the governor after Falco's wife rushed up.'
Petronius grinned. 'Falco knows how to pick a woman with character.'
Silvanus pulled a face that told me the high style of speech my girl had addressed to Frontinus. 'What's she like if you fart in the bedroom or leave muddy boots on the table, Falco?'
'I've no idea. I don't try it. So where to?' I reiterated to Petronius.
The choice was decided for us. A soldier rushed up to tell Silvanus of urgent developments at the wharf. The customs men had spotted activity by the warehouse they were watching, the one where the baker was beaten to death. It had looked as if loot had been hastily assembled, ready to be shipped out, and they reckoned the gang were planning to flit. When they investigated, the gang had panicked and rushed them, seriously wounding Firmus. Then the gang had invaded the customs house, which was now under siege.
???
We went the way I knew, so we never did find out if that alley by the Shower of Gold really was a dead end. I wasn't going back there. Places where I have so nearly been killed repel me.
It was a short step. I wished we had come here first.
Down on the river, soldiers quickly took over from the embattled customs force. A long stretch of dockside was made off-limits to the public. They started moving ships out from their berths. Stores were searched. The ferries were beached. The bridge was cleared. Little boats in daily use for nipping about were taken upstream and moored. In streets all around the wharves, more troops arrived and waited patiently for orders.
Petronius and I stood on the heavily piled and banked wooden quay. We had our backs to the dark rippling
