fund my mission like he was supposed to,' the agent said, 'but he gave me a letter for this Claudius Zopyrion when I got to Rome. The guy was drinking when I got here - '
The aide knelt down by Zopyrion, keeping the hem of his tunic clear of the pooled ink and wine. He picked up the open tablet and skimmed it, keeping the wax side turned away from Perennius at his elbow, 'Ah, I looked at it after he fainted,' the agent said softly. 'I was horrified. What sort of punishment could be sufficient for an embezzler like that?'
'What happened, Anguilus?' demanded Calgurrio as he waddled into the room. The department head stared at Zopyrion in amazement. The eunuch was beginning to moan. 'Isis and the Child, what is this?'
Anguilus swung the door closed and handed the tablet to his superior. 'I think we have a problem with Zopyrion, sir,' the aide said. Calgurrio began to read the document to himself with increasing astonishment. To Perennius, Anguilus whispered, 'And just who are you, good sir?' The words were polite, but there was no deference in the aide's tone. His face was as blank as a sheet of marble and as hard.
The agent handed over the diploma with his orders. The clerks had returned to noisy confusion as soon as the door had closed them from Calgurrio's sight - or more probably, from Anguilus'. Using the hubbub to mask his words from everyone but the aide, Perennius said, 'If he were transferred to a garrison unit in the sticks - one of the little posts in Africa out on the fringe of the desert where the Moors raid every few months. He wouldn't be able to lie about how he split the money with his department head then.'
Anguilus closed and returned the diploma. His eyes were as chill as steel in the winter.
'Mother Isis!' Calgurrio blurted. 'Anguilus, did you read this? It says - '
The aide put a hand on his superior's shoulder. 'Yes, sir,' he said with his eyes still watching Perennius, 'but I think we can deal with the problem without it having to go beyond these walls.' He nodded toward the closed door and the commotion beyond it before he added, 'This gentleman is Aulus Perennius, one of the Bureau's top field agents, you may remember. We're very fortunate that the situation was uncovered by someone of his proven discretion.' Anguilus flashed a tight rictus, not really a smile, toward the agent.
Zopyrion moaned again. His eyes opened, though without any intellect behind them. The right pupil was fully dilated: the left was not. Anguilus glanced down at the eunuch. When he looked back at Perennius, his sour grin showed that the evidence of concussion only supported what the aide had known all along.
'Sure, I trust you to clean house yourselves,' Perennius said. 'Maybe the next time I'm here at Headquarters, I'll check just how it did come out.' He nodded toward Zopyrion. 'Until then, be well.' The agent turned and reached for the door's lever handle.
'It won't happen to you again, fellow-soldier,' said Calgurrio's aide. The Bureau's field staff was recruited from the Army, but Perennius would not have guessed that Anguilus had the right to use that particular honorific. 'Don't worry.'
Perennius turned again to look at the aide with his silk and his smooth hands and his eyes like a wolf's. They came from different backgrounds but the two of them recognized each other. 'I don't worry,' the agent said. 'I leave that to other people.'
As Perennius left the office, thrusting his broad shoulders through the press of clerks, he heard Calgurrio saying plaintively, 'But why did he put something like this in writing?'
CHAPTER THREE
One of the troopers muttered in disbelief. The decision, Ursinus, hushed the man, but Ursinus' face showed some doubt also.
'You don't mean here, Mother?' asked Sacrovir. He glanced toward the building they were passing on the way to what must be a brothel. The corner building had military guards, showing it had official status of some kind. That seemed a more likely resort of the 'source of power' they sought than did a whorehouse, even a whorehouse in Rome.
Julia nodded to her son like a bird bobbing its head. She wore an enveloping gray cloak, hooded and pinned shut in front. The garment was not for warmth but to hide from view the costume she wore beneath it. The seeress' breeches and long-sleeved shirt were a patchwork of skins from over a hundred species of animals and birds. Alone, the outfit was that of a tattered scarecrow. Those who saw Julia wearing the costume, moving in it, could not doubt that the garb had purposes beyond those of mere clothing. 'I know where I am being led,' the seeress said. Her voice, though distinct, had the unworldly quality of a distant echo. The soldiers, all but Julius Sacrovir, her son, stirred uneasily.
'Let's go, then,' Sacrovir ordered. He was slightly the youngest of the five-man escort, but he had been born to authority. Further, Sacrovir had a familiarity with his mother's work so that it did not make him uneasy as it did the others.
Sacrovir himself had sung the prelude to the rites in Trier from which this mission had sprung. The youth's clear falsetto had rung from the stone arches as dignitaries waited tensely and the Emperor Postumus shivered in the armor he wore as a public reminder of his military valor. On the feather-cushioned throne, Julia had begun to speak in a voice like the piping of birds. . . .
Now the little woman followed as if drawn by the wake of her tall, powerful son. The other troopers marched to either side of the seeress, pair and pair. They kept step by habit, unremarkable in this city of soldiers and troop- guarded administrators. If the entourage was unusual, it was for the fact that it surrounded a woman afoot.
It was too early in the afternoon for the brothel to be busy, though there was probably a back entrance and a latchbell for emergency service even during the hours the front doors were barred. Those doors were open now, however, and the madam was in her barred kiosk just within them. She looked startled by the size and ordered bearing of the party. A slave who had been mopping the gray and green terrazzo floor scampered off, perhaps to wake the bouncer. Alcoves led off the entrance hall. An open staircase led up to the rooms on the second story.
'How can I help you, gentlemen?' the madam asked brightly as her fingers clicked shut the cash box. Cartoons frescoed over the arch of each alcove suggested a variety of possibilities. In some cases, these official displays had been supplemented by notes and still cruder drawings added by customers waiting on a full night.
'There's someone here we need to see,' said Sacrovir, wishing he had more details.
'Why of course, honey,' the madam began with her false smile.
Julia reached out from beneath her cloak. 'Up there,' she said to her son. She pointed with a hand wearing a cat-skin mitten. The fur side was inward, but it spilled out in purest white where the mitten was drawn over the seeress' wrist. Sacrovir obeyed the direction, striding to the stairs without another glance at the woman in the kiosk. The young man was wired into another universe, though by no means as thoroughly as was his mother.
The madam paused with one hand on the door of her cage. Her mouth was open to cry out. Ursinus rang a coin on the travertine counter, silencing the alarm before it was uttered. 'Won't be any trouble,' the soldier said in his Gallic accent. He waved the other troopers by with his left hand. 'Kid's a little strange, you know, but it won't be any trouble.' Ursinus followed the rest of the group up the stairs, his hand close by the hilt of his cloak-covered sword. In the kiosk, the madam was looking with surprise at the face on the coin she had just been given.
Two girls were arguing over a bracelet in the upper hall. Their shrill voices softened quickly into overtures as the men and Julia pushed by. One of the troopers paused a half-step when the blond prostitute caught his eye and stroked her bare breast. A snapped command from Ursinus moved him on again.
'Here,' said Julia. She reached out and tapped a door. The usual price marker had been removed from its peg, leaving a lighter square on the door panel.
'Hey, you can't go in there,' called the blond girl who had tried to accost them. 'That's a special rental, sort of.'
Sacrovir knocked louder.
The latch snicked, allowing the door to open a crack. It would have closed again if one of the troopers had not blocked it with his foot. 'Go away,' rasped an indescribable voice. 'I am not to be disturbed.'
'We offer you help for help,' said the seeress. She shrugged and her cape dropped away. The different sheens and patterns of the costume beneath blended into an odd unity. Perhaps that was a trick of the uncertain light. 'The power of our Emperor, for the - power you control.'
The bouncer, naked except for breeches and a three-foot cudgel, pounded up the stairs. The oil with which he had been being massaged shone on his bunched shoulders. Ursinus motioned one of his men to his side, though neither Gaul drew a weapon for the moment.
The door opened fully. The figure within the room was short, caped and cowled as the seeress herself had
