The Iron Hand of Mars mdf-4 Read online

  I had a nasty premonition as I interposed: 'Would that have been to Lugdunum by any chance?'

  Helena Justina immediately retired from the debate and seated herself quietly. The potter, too, had noticed my tone. 'I came through Lugdunum on my way out to Germany,' I explained to him levelly. I breathed slowly, screwing my mouth. 'Would Bruccius be a thickset man in his forties, travelling with a younger fellow who has red hair and a fine crop of warts?'

  'His nephew. Sounds as if you saw them somewhere along the way.'

  Julius Mordanticus already looked worried. His friends' overdue return must have prepared him for bad tidings, but possibly not as bad as this. I kept it brief. When I told him about the quarrel I had witnessed at Lugdunum, then how I had later found the two bodies, he cried out in protest and covered his face.

  Helena brought him a wicker chair. We sat him in it and I stood with one hand on his shoulder while he struggled to accept my news.

  XXXII

  'Tim!' He spat out the Celtic name for Mars. 'Bruccius and his nephew murdered in Gaul…'

  'I'm sorry,' I said. 'It's not much help, but there was a centurion at the fort who was going into Cavillonum to report the bodies to a local magistrate, he could tell you who is in charge and what transpired. The magistrate ought to have arranged funerals, for one thing. When Helena and I go back I'll find the centurion and send him here to speak to you. His name is Helvetius.' Julius Mordanticus nodded dully. I had been talking in order to give him time to compose himself. Now that he seemed calmer I asked carefully, 'Have you any idea who might be behind the deaths?'

  He answered at once. 'Those self-seeking bastards at Lugdunum!'

  I was not surprised; I had seen that Lugdunum had a great deal at stake in this industry. I felt obliged to warn him: 'Your accusation may be hard to prove.'

  'If they show their faces here, we won't need proof!'

  'I didn't hear that! Would you tell me what it's all about?'

  Mordanticus had decided we were sympathetic; the whole story flooded out: "Things are not easy nowadays. Trade has been bad. We rely on the military to keep us in business, but with all the recent troubles…' He tailed off for a moment. Helena and I avoided prying into local sympathies, but he sensed us holding back politely. 'Oh we were on the side of Rome, I can assure you. There is a close relationship between our town and the fort.' He spoke didactically, like a local leader who has to justify some peculiar festival by a neat reference to history. 'Keeping the legions here on the Rhenus is entirely in our interest. The Roman general Petilius Cerialis put it correctly when he arrived: Rome occupied this region at our forefathers' invitation when they were being harried by other tribes looking for new territory. If Rome leaves, the tribes from east of the Rheims will sweep in and take everything.' All the more so, presumably, because these tribes on the west bank were now regarded as collaborators.

  'There is no love lost between you?' Helena prompted.

  'No. Civilis and his sort may have sounded off in the name of liberty, but they care no more for us than their ancestors cared for our fathers and grandfathers. Civilis wants to be king over the richest nations in Europe. His people would like to leave the Batavian marshland and move into lusher pastures here. The only German independence they believe in is their own freedom to push in wherever they fancy.'

  I thought this was one-sided. For one thing, my research in Rome among despatches about the rebellion had told me that Augusta Treverorum, the nearest tribal capital, had produced Julius Tutor and Julius Classicus, two of the most hotheaded rebel leaders after Civilis, so feelings ran higher here than our friend wanted to admit. But I didn't blame Mordanticus for taking the convenient view.

  I changed the subject. 'What I saw happening at Lugdunum smacked of commerce rather than politics. I gather there is a strong professional rivalry between you and the Gauls. Is it all to do with your military trade?'

  He nodded, albeit reluctantly. 'A big question mark hangs over who will win the contract for the new legions at the fort. Lugdunum itself is under threat from a big consortium in southern Gaul. Bruccius and I had been trying to persuade the new legate to re-award the franchise locally.'

  "That legate was Florius Gracilis?'

  'The same. The other man takes a much less prominent role.'

  'Yes, his troops were recruited from the navy, and are rather diffident. So, your people held the franchise previously, when the Fourth and the Twenty-second were the legions based at the fort?'

  'With reason! Our produce matches the quality of Italy or Gaul, and obviously distribution is easier.'

  If there was suitable clay here, Rome would naturally have encouraged a local industry, setting it up with official finance, no doubt, during the old campaigns under Drusus and Germanicus. Having established local production and persuaded people to make working for the legions their livelihood, it would then be hard to turn elsewhere. But Rome had never had much love of sentiment.

  'How do your prices compete?' I asked.

  He looked reproving. Tor a tender with the legions, our prices are set right! Anyway, we have no transportation costs. I refuse to believe Lugdunum can undercut our bid.'

  'Unless they cheat! Was Gracilis sympathetic?'

  'He never answered us directly. I felt our pleas were making no impression on the man.'

  I frowned. 'Had he been got at?' Mordanticus shrugged. He was the kind of ultra-cautious businessman who never commits himself to speaking ill of those he may be forced to deal with at a later date. It looked to me as if he would have to take a more robust line. 'Let's face it, Mordanticus,' I insisted. Florius Gracilis would have come out through Gaul this spring by the same route that I took. He has a young wife who probably wanted new dinner-party dishes and would have dragged him to the factory site at Lugdunum. He could easily have been nobbled by your rivals before he even arrived here. You know it, don't you? The big boys at Lugdunum had stitched the legate up.'

  Without directly answering, Mordanticus said, 'The potters here decided to make a last effort to sort things out, and Bruccius was elected spokesman for all of us. We sent him over to Lugdunum to try and reach a compromise. There's business for everyone. Those bullies in Lugdunum are just greedy. They already have a roaring trade in Gaul, all the legionary orders for Britain, plus Spain. They export from their southern ports all round the Ligurian Gulf and the Balearic Coast.' He spoke like a man who had eyed up the commercial possibilities carefully himself. 'They were always bitter that we were right here on the spot. After the rebellion, they saw their chance to muscle in.'

  'So, it seems likely that Bruccius and his nephew did what they could there, but received no help. Things looked to me on the verge of violence, but your friends showed no physical damage when I saw them having supper the night they were killed. They must have given up on the Lugdunum mob, and were coming home with the bad news. Mind you,' I said thoughtfully, 'it means the question of who gets the franchise cannot be settled yet.'

  'Why do you say that?' enquired Helena.

  'No point murdering two people if Lugdunum felt confident the future trade was theirs. It's my belief the potters from Gaul felt Bruccius could be far too persuasive. With the Rhine legions right on his doorstep and the relevant legate within daily reach, he and his colleagues could pose a serious threat. That was why Lugdunum wiped him out. Somebody tracked him and the nephew far enough to deter any magistrates from making a connection, and then killed them in a spot where they might never be identified at all.'

  'But why?' asked the potter. 'It still leaves plenty of us here.'

  'Mordanticus, for the oldest motive in the world! Killing two of your number – or better still, having them totally disappear – will intimidate the rest.'

  'No chance!' Mordanticus declared with a set face. 'We shall never give up, or let them get away with it!'

  'You're a strong-willed man, but I warn you, some people will soon quaver at bullying. Don't forget there are potters with wives who don't want
to be widows. Potters worried about the fate of large families if their breadwinner vanishes. Potters who just feel life has more to offer than a long- drawn-out feud which they may never win.'

  'It's criminal!' raged Helena. 'Rome shouldn't even appear to sanction business methods of this type. The legate ought to show his disapproval by barring Lugdunum completely, then awarding to Moguntiacum every franchise that's available!'

  I smiled at her for becoming so passionate. 'From what I've heard about Florius Gracilis, we can't rely on him for a high moral tone. I know he's desperately short of cash.'

  'You mean he's taking bribes?' Helena's parents' attempts to give her a sheltered life had been partially successful.

  But since meeting me she had learned enough not to be surprised at any suggestion. 'Is Gracilis corrupt, Falco?'

  'That would be a grave charge. I'm not making it.' Not at this stage, anyway. I turned to the potter. 'Julius Mordanticus, I work for the Emperor. Your problems ought not to be my business, but they may overlap with what I came to do.'

  'Which is what?' he asked curiously.

  I saw no reason to hide the truth. 'Principally, to liaise with Civilis. His current whereabouts are unknown, but I believe the legate may be searching for -him. On the other hand, Gracilis could have gone after Veleda, the Bructian prophetess.'

  'If he has crossed the river, he's a fool!' Mordanticus looked at me as if I was mad merely for suggesting it. 'Don't say that. I may soon have to cross the river myself.'

  'You're in for a wild time, then. And I should say it's death for Gracilis.'

  'He may be travelling incognito.'

  'A Roman official is pleading to be spotted. Is this something to do with the franchises?' Mordanticus demanded, single-mindedly.

  'No, it's all about political glory for Florius Gracilis. But it means you and I have a shared interest. I don't like to make promises, but if I ever run across him I may well find an opportunity to discuss your franchise problem, and I may just make him believe that I am speaking for Vespasian.' For some reason, the Emperor's name carried weight. In a town that could compliment Nero on a civic column I should have expected it. Mordanticus looked as grateful as if I was signing his precious pots contract myself. 'Can you help me to arrange a meeting, Mordanticus? Do you know anything about the legate's recent movements, or even where I might find Julius Civilis himself?'

  The potter shook his head, but promised to make enquiries. He still looked dazed. We left him to break the news of what had happened to his two colleagues. I did not envy him. He had told me there were young families involved.

  XXXIII

  I took Helena Justina to see the Jupiter Column so that I could talk to her in privacy. At least, that was my excuse.

  We walked solemnly round, pretending to admire the four-sided obelisk which had been set up by two ingratiating financiers on behalf of the local community. It was a decent enough monument, if you like salutations to Nero. It pictured the usual plaques of Olympian deities: Romulus and Remus showing that having a peculiar mother need not hold a man back; Hercules doing his demigodly stuff with his usual hairy panache; and Castor and Pollux watering their horses, one each side of the column as if they were not on speaking terms. Up aloft stood a huge bronze of Jupiter Best and Greatest, all beard and big sandals, and wielding an extremely snappy thunderbolt that would be a hit at any fashionable soir The location of this edifice was too public for me to grab Helena in a clinch, though she knew that had been in my mind. I thought she looked disappointed. Since it was at least three hours since I had last touched her, I was too.

  'I'll have to row you down the river with a picnic,' I murmured.

  'Juno! Is that safe?'

  'All right, I admit Germany isn't the place to come to at the moment if you fancy a quiet autumn cruise.'

  'But you are going downriver, aren't you?' She asked it in an intensely level voice, which I recognised as anxiety.

  'Looks as if I shall have to, my love.' She was upset. I hated that.

  I had put Helena in a quandary. She never tried to dissuade me from work. For one thing, she was keen for me to earn enough money to buy myself into the middle rank so that we could be married without a scandal. To achieve that I needed four hundred thousand sesterces – an outrageous sum for a dusty lad from the Aventine. The kind of cash I could earn only by doing something illegal (which, of course, I could never contemplate) or something dangerous.

  'Anyway,' she said brightly, 'you came out here on political business, but you seem to have stumbled into a straightforward ceramics war.'

  'It looks like that.'

  Helena laughed. 'When you agree so meekly I usually discover you mean the opposite.'

  'True. I think the ceramics troubles are an incidental problem.' However, if I could help out the potters while achieving my own ends, I would. 'These potters have found themselves facing the usual administrative mess. The tendering process has been bungled by an idiot who is paid enough by the state to know better. It goes on everywhere. To have Florius Gracilis involved in that, and also poking his nose into what Vespasian sent me out here to negotiate with Civilis, is just my hard luck.'

  But the last thing I wanted if I was going into a danger area was some senatorial buffoon who had shown himself unfit to handle even a routine kitchenware contract travelling the same route. Especially if, as now seemed likely, he reached the trouble spot ahead of me and started blundering about, making tribal sensitivities far worse.

  'Do you ever have good luck, Marcus?'

  'Only the day I met you.'

  She ignored that. 'You were talking about Civilis. How do you intend to find him?'

  'Something will turn up.'

  'And what about the priestess?'

  'Veleda?' I grinned. 'Justinus told you that one too, eh?'

  'Sounds like another widow in Veii story,' Helena grumbled sarcastically.

  'That's all right, then; I can handle her.'

  Helena Justina called me a philandering gigolo; I told her she was a cynical witch with no concept of trust or loyalty, she thwacked me with the heavy end of her beaded stole; I trapped her against the column's plinth and kissed her until I had her more or less subdued and myself highly excited.

  'I will not ask,' she said when I sadly released her before our sophisticated Roman behaviour caused a public outcry, 'what your plans are for discovering the fate of the legate from Vetera. I know he disappeared somewhere on the far side of the river.'

  'He was being forwarded to Veleda as a goodwill gift.'

  Helena shuddered. 'So that definitely means you have to journey into Germania Libera?'

  'I won't go if you don't want me to.'

  Her serious expression became even more intense. 'Don't say that – don't ever say it – unless you really mean it, Marcus.'

  I always had to be straight with Helena. 'All right, I'll promise I won't go if I can solve the puzzle in any other way.'

  'Oh you'll go,' she answered. 'You'll go, and you'll solve it and that ought to provide some comfort for the poor man's family at least. It's impossible, therefore, for me even to try to veto your trip.'

  I could not have cared less for the feelings of the family of Munius Lupercus, who had been a rich senator in a career posting and who was probably as objectionable as the rest of that type. But when Helena spoke with such certainty I could never dispute the issue, so I kissed her again and took her home instead.

  At the fort we found my niece Augustinilla terrorising the sentries at the Praetorian Gate. Luckily, they were so relieved to be rescued that they let me carry her off under one arm while she screamed abuse at all of us.

  The rest of the day passed quietly. Justinus had found out about his broken urn, and his reaction was to disappear from the house. He was deeply annoyed, but too polite to say so.

  'That brother of yours is going to spend his life being put upon.'

  'I thought he was making his feelings clearly felt!' Helena was the same type, anot
her vanisher when upset.

  Before dinner I made Augustinilla go up to the tribune and apologise. Since no one had ever made her apologise for anything before, she went through it with a fresh pathos that worked on him in the same way as the distressed puppy he had rescued. While she gazed at him with adoring eyes, his protective urge rose. It was Augustinilla's first experience of a rich young man in an impressive uniform; I could already see her mother coming out in her.

  Schoolgirl passions apart, I reckoned Camillus Justinus, with his quiet looks and reserved manner, could wreak more havoc than he knew. Women like someone deep. Someone sensitive. (Someone who looks as if he will pay large bills without arguing.) Justinus gave the impression he needed a nice girl with a generous attitude to bring him out of himself Back in Rome, if we were to put those thoughtful brown eyes around a few dinner parties, he might find nice girls – and equally helpful older women – bringing him out of himself three times every week.

  At Moguntiacum he only had to avoid an eight-year-old who had convinced herself he looked like a young Apollo. So far, Augustinilla was too much in awe of his status to start writing his name on walls. By the time she plucked up courage to leave lovelorn notes beside his breakfast bowl, the European winter would have frozen all the ink and spared him that.

  The next day began with two messages: the legate's mistress said her servants thought Gracilis had been frequenting the company of potters. And the potter was telling me there was a mistress in the case.

  'This is all pleasingly circular!' I murmured to myself.

  I assumed the mistress was telling me about the potters at Moguntiacum. The potter, however, meant a different mistress – his message stated that. I sent Julia Fortunata a politely grateful letter to say I would follow up her information when I could. Mordanticus seemed the best bet for a visit.

  Before I went I looked out the centurion Helvetius, whom I had last seen near Cavillonum. He was easy to locate, bawling orders wearily as he tried to drill the ham-fisted, bandy-legged, splay-footed, pigeon-brained band of uglymushed recruits whom I had seen him marching through Gaul. (His own descriptions.) It was his task to teach these ideal specimens how to run, ride, swim, vault, wrestle, fence, throw javelins, cut turves, build walls, plant palisades, aim catapults, form a testudo, love Rome, hate dishonour, and recognise the enemy: 'Blue skin, red hair, checked trousers, lots of noise, and they're the ones hurling missiles at your heads!' He had to weed out the lads who had cheated on the eye test and relocate them as hospital orderlies. He had to discover who couldn't count, or write, or understand Latin, then either teach them or send them home. He had to nurse them all through crying for their girlfriends, or their mothers, or their ship (the First Adiutrix was still taking navy cast-offs) or their favourite goat (second sons from farms had always formed the backbone of the legions). He had to keep them sober and keep them from deserting; he had to teach them table manners and help them write their wills. So far he had just managed to harry them into forming straight lines in three ranks.