The Iron Hand of Mars Read online

  The guard post was surrounded by a relaxed group of civil dwellings. On the water’s edge I found a tavern with fewer customers and higher standards than the Medusa, where I could sit and watch the solemn flow of the Rhenus and the last ships homing in at nightfall.

  I was thinking about my mission. Although developments were slow, I was beginning to feel much more assured of my role here—and aware of new drawbacks. I had a distinct sense of having discovered a rival. If Florius Gracilis had made it his mission to reclaim the chieftain Civilis—and whatever Julia Fortunata believed, that could well include a similar yearning to dispose of Veleda, too—I hoped he failed. Otherwise I could end up stuck in this backwater, a thousand miles from home and who knew how far from Helena, robbed of my task for the Emperor, and with it any chance to earn some cash. Vespasian was a snob. He would much rather handsomely reward a senator than find himself forced to hand out a few grudging sesterces to me.

  It certainly seemed possible that Gracilis had dashed off on a search. Maybe for once he had deemed it too secret to enlighten the forceful Julia. Maybe he had even felt a need to strike out independently. The XIV must be aware of what he was up to. It followed that once I let them know why Vespasian had sent me, they would have a double reason to act innocent, then interfere with my own plans. New broom or not, they would support their commander. And Gracilis himself was bound to consider this mission more suited to his elevated status rather than flung away on me …

  Tough luck, legate! If this was a race, then M. Didius Falco was determined to win.

  I had no idea how. But mere technical details can be worked out any time. All a hero needs is grit.

  Satisfied with the day’s progress, I enjoyed my drink. The night was calm. The atmosphere along the waterfront was pleasant and businesslike. Now I was thinking about women: barmaids, officers’ wives, mistresses … and finally a woman it was a more creative pleasure to dream about: Helena.

  That led me again into wondering where she was. Despondent, I made the dark trek home.

  * * *

  On the home side of the river, the provincial tradesfolk were promptly closing up, which reminded me that in four or five hours I might feel sleepy myself. If Argentoratum had been quick to draw its shutters, Moguntiacum made them look like degenerate owls. When the first man yawned in Moguntiacum, the whole town disappeared to bed. By the time a cosmopolitan Roman was just starting to feel hungry and ready for his evening’s entertainment, the eating-spots here had up-ended benches on all the tables and the besoms were sweeping out lingerers. Anyone who left too slowly risked having his tunic pinched in the folding door as it slammed shut.

  I crept through the sober streets hoping no one would notice me roaming about. I didn’t want them to be shocked.

  At the fort I hit a snag.

  “Password?”

  “How should I know? I’m just a visitor.” In Germany a year after the rebellion rules were rules. It was sound practice—and a thorough menace to free-and-easy types like me.

  Luckily the guard party belonged to the I and wanted to help. If they had been assigned from the XIV I would have had to camp out all night.

  I remembered my discussion with Justinus. “‘Mars the Avenger?’”

  “Try another.”

  “‘Pickled fish?’”

  “Yesterday’s.”

  “Oh Hades—what about ‘The camp surgeon’s middle name?’”

  “Spot on,” said the sentry, though he failed to readjust his speartip from its dangerous aiming point, dead centre on my throat.

  “So what’s the problem, soldier?” I croaked wearily.

  “What is it?”

  “What’s what?”

  “What,” he enunciated clearly, “is the camp surgeon’s middle name?”

  The XIV were right: the I Adiutrix were a gang of crass deck hands and rigging monkeys, with brains as dense as cork.

  * * *

  I got in eventually. Anyone who has bluffed his way into a brothel on the Via Triumphalis while attempting to rescue a fake virgin from Cyrenaïca—and got out again without losing his sense of humour or something worse—can deal with the simple-minded gateman of a frontier fort.

  Fuming, but fighting it back in case anyone embarrassed me by asking what the matter was, I stepped out briskly for my billet. There was a good chance that if I failed to turn up by dinnertime, Camillus Justinus would go out to eat with his fellow officers, leaving me to make the best of yesterday’s bread rolls. I lengthened my stride, oblivious to everything but my traditional obligation as a guest to eat my host out of house and home.

  The ambush was lying in wait for me four strides from the tribune’s door.

  XXVII

  Three of them. A trio of soldiers wandering down the Via Principalis in a sweet reek of recent barley beer, sufficiently affected by the drink to become dangerous, but not drunk enough for me to handle on my own.

  At first I thought they were just clumsy. They had lurched in my path, causing me to pull up short, like lads who were just too bad-mannered to notice my presence. Then they stumbled apart and regrouped: one either side of me, one behind.

  Experience gave me an instant’s warning that saved my life. I missed sight of the personal dagger, but registered the arm movement. I swung away sharply, crashing aside another assailant, but grabbing him to me like a bolster. For a moment he provided a human shield as I spun on the spot. His bristles scraped my cheek; his sour breath was disgusting. The moment of safety passed—he posed a greater threat if he went for me at close quarters. Loosening my grip would be fatal, but holding on was so bad I nearly opted for a one-way ferry ticket across the Styx.

  He jerked free. Somehow I sensed what was in his mind and seized the chance to scramble half backwards. There was a house wall fairly close behind me, which offered slight protection. Instinct said to huddle close, but then I would be lost if they all rushed me at once. I managed a shout—not loud enough. After that I was too busy. There were plenty of personnel in the vicinity, but this incident was being nicely choreographed to look like nothing in particular. Who expects to see a mugging outside the officers’ quarters? Come to that, who expects to be mugged?

  Me, was the answer. Anywhere and everywhere I prepared myself for the worst. Thank the gods, these thugs had assumed I was whistling homewards in a trance. They had planned to catch me out completely, but found themselves surprised.

  Quickly, I tried to take stock. I could see—there was a broad bar of light from an unshuttered first-floor window in the tribune’s house. Right at the start a shadow had wavered across that light from someone moving in the room behind. I glanced up, hoping to attract attention, but now there was no sign of life.

  My own knife was safely in my hand. Letting me get it had been a bad mistake. I was breathing hard with the shock of the first assault, but I was upright and mobile. Even so, the prospects looked gloomy. Every time I made a dagger feint, I tried to edge closer to the tribune’s portico. I stood little chance of reaching it. Every time one of them made a feint, I was at risk from the others while I parried. At least they stuck with their daggers—drawn swords would arouse too much public interest. As we sidestepped in all directions they were still laughing and nudging one another so that it would look like good-humoured jostling. I had no time to rouse help.

  I had made it one stride nearer the door, but was trapping myself in a tighter wedge between two of them and the wall, while the third soldier guarded against flight the other way. It was time for some fast talking, but my mouth dried so that I couldn’t speak.

  Almost without planning it, I lunged at the single man, then changed direction and tackled the other two ferociously. Blades clashed with a screech that hurt my eyeteeth; sparks flew. I was working so hard I hardly noticed that in the remote depths of the tribune’s house a woman’s voice cried out. I barged an arm skywards, and heard steel skidding on masonry behind me. Light from above increased. I glimpsed faces more clearly. Another shadow
came and went, but I was too preoccupied to shout.

  My own dagger went home somewhere, but awkwardly. I wrenched my shoulder retrieving it as one of my two men cursed and hopped on the spot. Events were becoming too public; the second mugger was all for scarpering. The third had more guts—or less wits. He sprang at me. I roared with annoyance. Then, just as I had enough to do dealing with all three at once, the tribune’s door burst open. Someone stepped out, framed in black by the light behind. Wrong build for Justinus; too slight for his guards. Whoever he was, a trimly sinister shadow came gliding out of doors.

  Defending myself against my attackers as they put up a last furious struggle, I could hardly take in what happened. The shadow stepped straight past me, met one of the soldiers, and pulled his head back with a disturbing action. The soldier folded noiselessly, and dropped to the ground in a manner that was unmistakable. There was a moment of stillness. The two survivors ran for it with the speed of troops who knew what they had witnessed. I knew too, though it was difficult to comprehend.

  No time for pursuit. I was too winded, anyway. The tribune’s guards now rushed out with torches, followed by Justinus. Chaos and commotion raged, then sank in a sickly diminuendo as light revealed the dead man.

  It was a horrific killing. The amount of blood was unbelievable. The soldier’s head had been nearly severed from his body by a blade sharper even than military steel.

  I turned to the man who had done it. He stood motionless, the weapon still held in a workaday grip. One of the tribune’s guards made a feeble attempt to remove it, without achieving much—his nerve failed. Another raised a flare slowly, as if afraid of revealing something supernatural.

  No such luck. All we saw were the glazed and manic eyes of a tourist whose latest adventure had left him startled at his own bravado and ingenuity.

  “Xanthus!”

  Oh dear. Now someone was going to have difficult questions to answer before the hapless world-traveller was given back his passport and allowed to go home.

  XXVIII

  He still saw me as his protector, and turned to me with a worried bleat. I left him with the razor—he seemed to know how to handle it. “I won’t ask how many times you’ve done that before!”

  “No, better not.” His voice sounded matter-of-fact, but I could see he was in shock.

  “I always thought you’d been sent to assassinate me. Turns out I’m in more danger from my own past history…”

  “I think I want to go home, Falco.”

  “You’re all right.”

  “No, I wish I was in Rome.”

  Justinus was taking charge. He had examined the scratched identity marks on the dead man’s sword scabbard. “One of the Fourteenth’s hooligans…” He told one of his guards to fetch their senior tribune. “Be discreet. Try to bring Aulus Macrinus by himself. I don’t want their whole bloody legion turning up in high dudgeon.” He came to help me deal with the barber. “Don’t worry, Xanthus. You’ll have to be interviewed by my commander, but that should be the end of it.”

  “You sound confident!” I muttered in an undertone. “Are you happy about explaining to your notoriously sensitive colleagues how one of their number came to be wiped out like this on the First’s side of the fort?”

  “I’ll find something to tell them.” He responded well in a crisis. His eyes were bright with intense excitement, but he was planning coolly. His self-control calmed others in the vicinity too. “Marcus, be prepared. Some things are worse than you think!” After teasing me with this mystery, kindness filled his voice. “Let’s move this poor fellow away from here…”

  Xanthus had started trembling slightly. He stood transfixed by the corpse; nudging him indoors would need tact. In fact we all found it hard to avoid staring at the scene.

  While we were still in the street, the guard returned with Macrinus. Even his aristocratic sneer paled slightly when we stepped back and let him see why he had been summoned.

  “Is that one of ours? Dear gods, Camillus!”

  “Aulus, hear the explanation—”

  “It had better be good!”

  “Don’t threaten us!” snapped Justinus, with surprising force. “There’s no argument. I have a reputable witness. Three of your rankers set on Falco—”

  “A drunken prank.”

  “No! It was unprovoked and planned. They had been dawdling outside my house for half an hour—my witness noticed them. And much more than a prank, Aulus! The night could have ended nastily—”

  “I’d say it did!”

  “The alternative was for my guest to be fatally stabbed.”

  In the face of this, the XIV’s man pulled himself up. “If what you say is true, the culprits will be found and disciplined. But I’m protesting about the secretive way this has all been handled. I don’t care for the way you had me brought across here alone. I want my own observers present, I want one of my centurions to take notes at the scene of the crime—”

  As he soared off into complaint, I broke in: “There will be no cover-up. But no one wants another riot like your legion’s public rumpus at Augusta Taurinorum!”

  Macrinus ignored me. “Who did it?”

  “The barber.”

  That set him back. We could see him remembering how Xanthus had been called the Emperor’s hit man. We all stared at Xanthus. As a hit man he looked pretty meek.

  “Some of us are going to feel uneasy the next time we need a shave,” I said. A fine spray of the dead soldier’s blood disfigured the crisp white linen of the barber’s tunic. As usual, he was turned out so smartly that away from the court his brilliant presence became embarrassing. The stains were doubly disconcerting, as if he had been careless during a routine shave.

  “In my job,” he answered quietly, “a man can become a target for abuse quite easily. I’ve had to learn how to defend myself.”

  “That’s no excuse for murdering a soldier!” Macrinus barked. He had no finesse.

  “The soldier,” I pointed out rationally, “had no excuse for trying to murder me!”

  At this stylish rebuke he condescended to subside. It was apparent that Justinus intended to take control of any necessary enquiry, which, since the crime had occurred within the I’s jurisdiction, was his entitlement. Macrinus grumpily fell back on one last jibe: “You mentioned a witness. I hope it’s one we can rely on!”

  “Perfectly,” Justinus answered, with a faint impression of gritting his teeth.

  “I think I must insist on knowing who.” Macrinus had sensed a joke, but was too crass to withdraw.

  “My sister,” Justinus told him placidly.

  I winced. He had been right earlier when he had teased me. Things certainly were worse than I had realised: Helena Justina was here.

  * * *

  We glanced up at the window above us. She was still standing there, as she must have been during some of my fight. Her face lay in darkness. Her unmistakable figure, the outline of her smoothly upswept hair and even the elegant pendant drops of her earrings sent down a perfect, elongated shadow that reached the corpse, hiding its ghastly wound in decent shade.

  The tribune Macrinus straightened up, smoothed back his crisp, curly locks, and produced a salute suitably emphatic for a tribune who thought a lot of himself greeting the only unmarried senator’s daughter this side of the Alps.

  I was wearing the wrong boots for heel-clicking. I waved at her, grinned at her brother, and strode indoors.

  XXIX

  “Fighting again, Falco?” Mild medicine from her.

  She was in long-sleeved wool, with rather sombre jet earrings. Her dark, silky hair had been caught up in combs either side of her head, perhaps with more care than usual, and I could detect her perfume from two strides away. But after travelling, or possibly after seeing me attacked, she looked washed out and tense.

  I was not in the mood for pleasantries. “I gather it tickled you to watch me suffering?”

  “I sent people to help.”

  “You sen
t me a barber!”

  “He seems capable.”

  “You weren’t to know that—I don’t think he knew himself.”

  “Don’t quibble. He was the first person I found … You kept us waiting for dinner!” she grumbled, as if that settled it.

  I threw back my head and commented to the gods, “Well, things seem to be normal again!”

  We always sparked like this after spending time apart. Especially when we met again with strangers watching us. For me, it held off the moment when I had to admit to missing her. For Helena, who knows? At least now she had spoken to me there was a spark in her eyes that I didn’t object to seeing there.

  * * *

  Her brother had brought Xanthus indoors and was shepherding us all into a reception room. He had refrained from suggesting that his tribunal colleague come and be introduced to the noble newcomer, so watching Macrinus showing off was one horror we were spared. Xanthus was kept with us to be applauded and cosseted after his ordeal.

  We found ourselves in the dining-room. A meal lay ready, which had obviously been set for some time. At this point I felt prepared for formalities. I would have marched over and kissed Helena’s cheek, but she plonked herself decisively on her brother’s dining-couch. Unless I offended Justinus by invading the host’s eating space, she was out of reach. It annoyed me. Failing to greet her made it look as if I didn’t care.

  I excused myself to clean up—some blood, but mostly dirt. When I returned I had missed the hors-d’oeuvres (my favourite course) and Helena was regaling the company with outrageous stories of her journey. I ate in silence, trying not to listen. When she reached the part about the wheel coming off her carriage and the chief of the mountain bandits kidnapping her for ransom, I yawned and went to my room.