The Iron Hand of Mars Read online

  “Falco doesn’t need your Claudian anecdotes,” muttered Vespasian. “And I was there!”

  The clerk blushed; forgetting the Emperor’s history was a bad mistake. Vespasian had commanded the II Augusta at the Battle of the Medway, and he and the II had played a celebrated part in the conquest of Britain.

  “Caesar!” Canidius writhed in misery. “The Fourteenth’s roll of honour includes defeating Queen Boudicca, for which—along with the Twentieth Valeria—they were awarded the honorific title of ‘Martia Victrix.’”

  You may wonder why the II Augusta did not win that prestigious handle too. The answer is that due to the kind of mix-up which we like to pretend never happens, the wonderful II (my own legion as well as Vespasian’s) failed to show up at the battlefield. The legions which did face the Iceni were lucky to survive. That was why any member of the II needed to avoid the XIV Gemina, honorific titles and all.

  Canidius went on: “In the recent wars, the Fourteenth’s Batavian auxiliaries featured crucially. They had been separated from their parent legion and summoned to Germany under Vitellius. The Fourteenth themselves were devoted first to Nero—since after the Boudiccan Revolt he had called them his best legion—and then supported Otho. Otho brought them to Italy. This placed the legion and its native cohorts on opposing sides, and at the first battle of Bedriacum…” Canidius tailed off unhappily.

  He was intending to fudge the issue, so I barged in: “Whether the Fourteenth Gemina actually took part at Bedriacum is a moot point. Rather than admit they had been beaten in battle, they claimed they had not been there!”

  Vespasian grumbled under his breath. He must think they were simply covering up.

  Canidius rushed on again. “After Otho’s suicide, the legion and its auxiliaries were reunited by Vitellius. There was some rivalry,” the archive clerk said, with quaint discretion. He had no real grasp of what the Emperor required.

  “You’re leaving out the picturesque details!” I interrupted. “Be frank! The Fourteenth’s subsequent history involved squabbling and public scuffles with their Batavians, during which they burned down Augusta Taurinorum…” This episode at Turin placed the main question mark over their discipline.

  Wary of handling a sensitive issue, Canidius raced to finish. “Vitellius ordered the Fourteenth itself back to Britain, attaching the eight Batavian cohorts to his personal train until he redeployed them in Germany.” More politics. Canidius was looking unhappy again.

  “In Germany, the Batavian cohorts promptly attached themselves to Civilis. It gave the rebellion a tremendous boost.” I was still angry about it. “Since Civilis is their chief, the Batavians’ defection should have been foreseen!”

  “Enough, Falco,” rasped Vespasian, refusing to criticise another Emperor—even the one he had deposed.

  He nodded encouragement to Canidius, who squeezed out: “The Fourteenth returned from Britain again to assist Petilius Cerialis. They now occupy Moguntiacum.” He finished his tale with relief.

  “Only the Upper German forts survived,” Vespasian told me crisply, “so Moguntiacum is at present policing both parts of the territory.” Clearly while the fort where they were stationed had such a vital role, he needed to feel absolute confidence in the XIV. “My priority is to tighten up discipline and dissipate old sympathies.”

  “What happens to the troops who swore allegiance to the Gallic federation?” I asked curiously. “Which were they, Canidius?”

  “The First Germanica from Bonna, the Fifteenth Primigenia from Vetera, and the Sixteenth Gallica from Novaesium—plus the Fourth Macedonia from…” He had forgotten; it was his first sign of humanity.

  “Moguntiacum,” said the Emperor. It emphasised why he wanted loyal legions there now.

  “Thank you, Caesar. When Petilius Cerialis received the culprits,” the clerk informed me, “his words to the mutineers were…” Canidius for the first time referred to a note tablet in order to thrill us with the exact historical detail: “‘Now the soldiers who revolted are once more soldiers of their country. From this day you are enlisted in the service and bound by your oath to the Senate and People of Rome. The Emperor has forgotten all that has happened, and your commander will remember nothing!’”

  I tried not to sound too shocked at this enlightenment. “We call the circumstances exceptional, and give out lenient treatment, Caesar?”

  “We cannot lose four legions of crack troops,” Vespasian growled. “They will be disbanded, stiffened up, and reformed in different units.”

  “These new legions will be shifted from the Rhenus?”

  “No sensible alternative. The forces which Cerialis and Gallus commanded will guard the frontier.”

  “It won’t take all nine legions.” I could now see the options that were facing the Emperor. “So the Fourteenth Gemina could either be sent back to Britain or stationed at Moguntiacum permanently. I believe Canidius told us it was their original home base. What’s your plan, sir?”

  “I have not yet decided,” the Emperor demurred.

  “Is that my mission?” I like to be frank.

  He looked annoyed. “Don’t pre-empt my instructions!”

  “Caesar, it’s obvious. They served you well under Cerialis, but were highly restless beforehand. Ever since they defeated the Iceni, the Fourteenth have become a byword for wilfulness—”

  “Don’t decry a good legion!” Vespasian was an old-fashioned general. He hated to believe any unit with a fine reputation could deteriorate. But if they did, he would be ruthless. “Moguntiacum is a two-legion fort, but they are doubled up with some inexperienced troops. I need them—if I can trust them.”

  “The legion was raised there,” I mused. “There’s nothing like their own interested grannies living locally to keep soldiers meek … Also, it’s nearer than Britain, which makes supervision easier.”

  “So, Falco, how do you feel about making a discreet inspection?”

  “What do you think?” I scoffed. “I was serving in the Second Augusta during the Icenean thrash. The Fourteenth will well remember how we abandoned them.” I can handle myself in a street fight, but I shied away from taking on six thousand vengeful professionals who had good reason to thumb me out of existence like a woodlouse on a bathhouse wall. “Caesar, they are liable to bury me in quicklime and stand around grinning while I frizzle!”

  “Avoiding that should test your talents,” the Emperor sneered.

  “What exactly,” I queried, letting him see I felt nervous, “are you asking me to do, Caesar?”

  “Not much! I want to send the Fourteenth a new standard, to mark their recent good conduct in Germany. You will be transporting it.”

  “Sounds straightforward,” I muttered gratefully, waiting to discover the catch. “So while I’m handing over this token of your high esteem, I size up their mood and decide whether your esteem ought to last?” Vespasian assented. “With respect, Caesar, if you are planning to sponge the Fourteenth off the army list, why don’t you ask their commanding legate to report in suitable terms?”

  “Not convenient.”

  I sighed. “That suggests there is a problem with the legate too, sir?”

  “Certainly not,” replied Vespasian decisively. He would say that in public, unless he had firm grounds to cashier the fellow. I guessed I was supposed to produce grounds.

  I moderated my tone. “Can you tell me something about him?”

  “I don’t know the man personally. Name’s Florius Gracilis. He was suggested for a commander’s post by the Senate, and I knew no reason to object.” There was a myth that all public posts were awarded by the Senate, although the Emperor’s veto was absolute. In practice, Vespasian would normally suggest his own candidates, but he might sometimes flatter the Curia by allowing them to nominate some dumb cluck of their own. He seemed suspicious of this man—but did he fear blatant corruption, or everyday inefficiency?

  I let it lie. I had my own resources for boning up on senators. Gracilis was probably the
usual upper-class fool doing his stint with the legion because a military command when he was thirty formed a fixed step in the cursus publicus. He was bound to have been posted to one of the frontiers. Getting a legion in Germany was just his bad luck.

  “I’m sure His Honour is well up to the demands of his post,” I commented, letting the Emperor know that while I was squinting at the legion he could rely on me to cast my usual sceptical eye over Florius Gracilis as well. “This sounds like my usual complex mission, sir!”

  “Simplicity!” the Emperor declared. “While you are out there,” he added inconsequentially, “you can apply yourself to some loose ends that Petilius Cerialis was forced to leave behind.”

  I took a deep breath. This was more like it. The XIV’s loyalty could be assessed by any competent centurion on the spot. M. Didius Falco was being sent racing in circles after some other escaped goose.

  “Oh?” I said.

  Vespasian appeared not to notice my sour face. “Your written orders will cover what’s required…”

  Vespasian rarely skimped discussing business. I knew from the airy way he ducked out of giving details that these “loose ends” which I was inheriting from the fabled Petilius Cerialis had to be really filthy tasks. Vespasian must be hoping that by the time I read my instructions I would be safely en route and unable to quibble.

  He made them sound unimportant. But these unspecified items tossed after me like party gifts were the real reason why he was sending me to Germany.

  IX

  It grieved me to be seen in public with a wraith like Canidius. He looked as if he had lost himself going to the bathhouse and three weeks later was still too shy to ask the way.

  Still, I needed to pick his well-informed noddle. Stationing myself to windward, I led this sallow fellow to a wineshop. I chose one I rarely frequented, forgetting that the outrageous prices were why it had lost my patronage. I installed him on a bench among the desultory dice players, where he let himself be introduced to the warmth of an expensive Latian red.

  “You’ve slung me the official spiel on the Fourteenth, Canidius; now let’s hear the truth!”

  The archive clerk looked uneasy. His orbit involved only the manicured version of public events. But with a beakerful inside him, he ought to give me all the grubby, hangnail stories that are never written down.

  His eyes wandered slightly at the muffled sounds of commercial pleasure from the barmaids’ overhead bedroom. He must have been forty, but he behaved like an adolescent who had never been let out before. “I don’t involve myself in politics.”

  “Oh neither do I!” I retorted dismally.

  I chewed my winecup, pondering the mess I was in. Ordered to a province on the harsh rim of the Empire, at a moment when its prospects for a civilised future were bleak. A mission so vague it was like trying to pick burs off a rumbustuous sheep. No girlfriend to comfort me. Every chance I would find a hit man lurking in some way station, with orders from Titus Caesar to make sure that that was the limit of my trip. Every chance, too, that if I ever did reach Moguntiacum, the XIV Gemina would roll me into a trench like a foundation log and build their next rampart over my corpse.

  I tackled the archive clerk again. “Is there anything else I ought to know about Nero’s favourite legion?” Canidius shook his head. “No scandal or gossip?” No luck. “Canidius, have you any idea what special tasks the Emperor wants me to do out in Germany?” Ideas were not his strong point. “All right, try this one: what was the Emperor going to tell me about the rebel chief Civilis? He was interrupted in mid-flow when you arrived.” Hopeless.

  I had wasted both patience and money. There were plenty of facts I still needed; once on location, I would have to discover the gaps—and the answers—myself.

  Cursing myself for being gracious to this dim-wit, I left him with the flagon. Canidius let me pay, of course. He was a clerk.

  * * *

  Returning home, I brought in a loaf and some cooked sausage. Night was falling beyond my open window. The apartment block reverberated with distant knocks and cries as its occupants beat all Hades out of each other in various happy ways. The street below my balcony was full of oddly muttering voices which I preferred not to investigate. The night air brought a city cacophony of grumbling wheels, off-tune flutes, squalling cats, and dolorous drunks. But I had never before noticed how intense the silence was indoors when Helena was not there.

  Intense, until footsteps approached.

  They were light, but reluctant—tired out by the long haul upstairs. Not boots. Not slipshod sandals either. Too long a stride for a woman, unless it was a woman I would not welcome. Too casual to be any man I needed to fear.

  The feet stopped outside my door. There was a lengthy pause. Someone knocked. I leaned back on my stool saying nothing. Someone opened the door gingerly. The high-class odour of an extremely subtle unguent sneaked in and shimmied curiously around the room.

  A head followed. It had sharply layered dark locks, held in place by a fillet of braid. It was a haircut you were meant to notice. It looked clean, neat, well attended, and as out of place in the Aventine as bees in a feather bed. “You Falco?”

  My own scalp began to feel dandruffy and hot. “Who’s asking?”

  “I’m Xanthus. I was told you would be expecting me.”

  “I’m not expecting anyone. But you can come in now you’re here.”

  He came in. He was sneering at the place; that made two of us. He left the door open. I told him to close it. He did so as if he was afraid he would be grappled to the floor by a pair of wild centaurs and robbed of his manhood amid much whinnying.

  I gave him a rapid scan. He was a daisy. Not the usual Palace messenger, with a brain as thick as his bootsoles. This one had class—in his queer way.

  While I stared, the inappropriate shaving-lotion continued to make itself at home. The chin that was sporting the magic Eastern mixture had been bristling gently for about ten years. The messenger wore a white Palace uniform with gold on the hem, but the shoes I had heard on the apartment stairs were his gesture to personality: round-toed vermilion calfskin jobs that must have cost a lot of money, though they were in questionable taste. The sort of supple footgear a low-grade actor might accept in return for paying attention to a female devotee.

  “Letter for you.” He held it out: the papyrus I had come to dread, solid as piecrust, and weighed down with an ounce of sombrely embossed wax. I knew it contained orders for my German trip.

  “Thanks.” I sounded thoughtful. This odd bod in the lurid shoes already had me wondering. He was not all he seemed. Although that applies to most of Rome, with Titus Caesar jealously concerned about my private life I felt more nervous than usual about social frauds. I took the letter. “Hang yourself up on a cloak-peg, in case I want to send a rude reply.”

  “That’s right!” he ranted bitterly. “Give me your orders! My sole purpose is to dally on doorsteps while people read their correspondence.”

  Something was wrong here. I needed to probe. “You seem a restless sort of messenger. Are your corns worse than usual?”

  “I’m a barber,” said he.

  “Stick with it, Xanthus. There are fortunes to be made out of bristle for a man with a deft hand.” And other fortunes, too, for hired hacks who deftly applied sharp weapons to people’s throats. I checked him over discreetly; if he was carrying a blade it was well hidden. “Whose barber are you anyway?”

  He looked thoroughly depressed. “I used to shave Nero. He killed himself with a razor, I heard; probably one of mine. Since then they’ve all passed through my hands. I shaved Galba; I shaved Otho—I laundered his toupee as well, in fact!” For the first time it sounded like the truth: only a genuine barber would make so much of name-dropping eminent clients. “After that, when he remembered to let somebody attack his fortnight’s undergrowth, I even shaved Vitellius…”

  Distrust had struck again. I rasped bleakly. “You ever scraped Vespasian?”

  “No.”r />
  “What about Titus?” He shook his head. I was too old to believe it. “Know a man called Anacrites?”

  “No.”

  Anacrites was the official chief spy at the Palace, and no crony of mine. If anyone at the Palace was commissioning a private extermination, Anacrites was bound to be involved. Especially if they were exterminating me. Anacrites would enjoy that.

  I bit my lip. “So how come, when a clean shave is as rare as an emerald in a goose’s gizzard, an imperial razorman has been reduced to footslogging round the Aventine in his natty scarlet lace-ups?”

  “Demoted,” he said (unhappily).

  “To the seedier end of a delivery round? It’s hardly apt. I think you’re lying.”

  “Think what you like. I did my best to satisfy whoever turned up under the towel, but I’m told there’s no further call for my skills and since Vespasian hates waste, I’m reallocated to the secretariat.”

  “Tough!”

  “It is, Falco! The Flavians have a set of strong chins. I had been assigned to Titus Caesar—”

  “Nice mop of curls!”

  “Yes. I could have done decent work on Titus…”

  “But the victor of Jerusalem declines to trust his handsome epiglottis to a sharp Spanish blade in the hands of a man who has previously scratched Nero and Vitellius? Who can blame him, friend?”

  “Politics!” he spat. “Anyway, I’m now shoved off to tramp through the dung in stinking alleys and struggle up endless smelly stairs bringing so-called urgent despatches to unfriendly types who don’t even bother to read them when I arrive.”