Marilyn Todd - Black Salamander

‘Bollocks!’ His boss had sneered when Marcus voiced his anxiety aloud. ‘For any serious assault, you’d need the Germans banding together with the Helvetii, and even then they’d need the help of the Sequani who stand in between them, and the Sequani are our staunchest allies in the whole of Western Gaul. Or are you the only man on the earth not to have heard about that delegation to Vesontio to celebrate fifty years of harmony between our two nations?’

‘Of course, sir-’

‘Fifty years, Orbilio. Fifty years, in which they’ve grown fat on the land, working their vast tracts of forest in peace, churning out fruit presses and canoes instead of spears and javelins, and look at the quality of the stock they breed nowadays. Men will part with a small fortune to get their hands on a good Gaulish mule-’

‘Yes, sir, I’m aware of that-’

‘Are you?’ his boss snapped. ‘Their king, Oxi- Axi- oh shit, I can never get my tongue round those bloody Sequani names, but the point is, their king’s been afforded the title ‘Brother of the People’ by the Senate. The Senate, Orbilio. This is not a title either party takes lightly, and the Sequani are grateful-bloody grateful, I might add-that their cemeteries are filling up with the sick and the old, not young men butchered in inter-tribal skirmishes.’

‘I’m not suggesting King Axo- Ixo-’ (Orbilio couldn’t pronounce the names either) ‘is mounting an insurrection, but you know yourself, sir, what these petty chieftains are like. Ruthless and ambitious, keen to prove themselves. Suppose-’

‘Suppose, my arse, Orbilio! The whole idea of the tribes banding together and marching on Rome is preposterous, they’d be torn to pieces by our legions before they’d crossed into Italy, and in any case the Sequani are our buffer against such a contingency. One whiff of an uprising and King Ixi- Izi- Sodhisbloodyname will be selling them out as fast as he can. Trust me, the Emperor’s as safe as a Vestal Virgin’s virtue. Now get out of here and stop wasting my time.’

With that, Orbilio had been bawled out of the room, his misgivings stronger than ever. Looking at it objectively, he could see why his boss, even as head of the Security Police, had imagined him right off his rocker. A few power-hungry princes from a few branches of a few northern tribes marching on Rome? Put like that, it did sound preposterous. However, whenever he’d received wind of these secret alliances, will-o’-the-wisps as they were, the core of each rumour was identical-that any time soon, Augustus would be just a name in the history books.

There was only one logical conclusion, which turned Orbilio’s blood into ice.

The uprising was being masterminded from inside Rome. Someone here-someone high-ranking and influential-was plotting to kill the Emperor, quietly whipping up the northern tribes to act as the military muscle he’d need for his coup to succeed. Because not only would Augustus need to be eliminated, loyal generals, senators and magistrates would have to be taken out as well…

This someone had to be close to Augustus, a trusted friend, a senator, a general…the head of the Security Police? Orbilio knew he could not confide in anyone. Not if he wanted to live.

Meanwhile, in this subterranean rabbit warren, Big Buckle had almost nodded off. ‘This confession,’ Orbilio said, jerking him awake, ‘reads more like an official report.’

‘Well, you know what they’re like, these interrogations.’ Big Buckle yawned and rubbed his great belly. ‘Half lies, half gibberish, I simply tidy it up.’

‘In other words, this is nothing more than your interpretation of what was said?’

‘Exactly.’ The sarcasm scuttled right past him, and his chest puffed up like a cockerel’s at dawn. ‘Typical example in your hand there.’ He even crowed like the damned cockerel. ‘Here we are, trying to extract information about sedition and assassination, and all we get are ramblings about some sodding treasure map.’

The scroll tumbled out of Orbilio’s hand. ‘Treasure map?’ It was a credit to his upbringing, he thought, that he managed to keep the excitement out of his voice.

‘See what I mean?’ Big Buckle laughed. ‘They do it every damned time. Think they’re clever, they do, feeding us lines, setting us off on false trails in order to buy themselves time, but I’m wise to these scum. Trust me, we get to the truth in the end.’

‘Perhaps,’ Orbilio said mildly, ‘it would be a good idea if I interviewed the prisoner myself?’

Mother of Tarquin, this was the break he was waiting for! The tribes might want a share in the new order-but for the Treveri, historical enemies of the Helvetii, to unite, both sides would have to be bought, and the sum would not be small. (What price this new Republic?)

‘As you wish.’ It was no skin off Big Buckle’s nose whether the written confession was sufficient or not. His job was purely to make it available. ‘This way.’

Following him down the smoky corridor, Orbilio was uncomfortably aware of what his father would have made of a high-born patrician mixing with what he’d undoubtedly call lowlife and scum. The old man had taken as fixed that his sons would follow law as their route to the Senate, and Marcus knew he’d have reacted none too kindly to the news that one of his boys had taken up with the Security Police instead of the judiciary. An emptiness washed over him, the same as it always did when he thought of his father and the broad gulf between them, a chasm which could never be bridged, thanks to his father’s premature death.

So many issues unresolved. To explain, for instance, that by weeding out fraudsters, killers, assassins and thieves, Marcus was making the world safer, more stable. His mouth twitched at one corner. Never. the old man would have boomed. Prestige is what counts, lad. Prestige! And instead of letting him unburden himself by talking through his cases, he’d have questioned him about…well, the dinner to which Orbilio had been invited to tonight, for instance.

Oh, his father would have approved of that! Dining with Senator Galba, the chap who’d organized that illustri ous delegation to Gaul? Word’s finally got out about your successes, he’d have said approvingly. Play your dice right, lad, and your career will be taking off big time! Galba’s a serious player in the political arena, keep him sweet, because with the senator in your corner…

Perhaps it was as well the old man had gone early. Another flaming argument would have erupted, Marcus pitting ethics against self-interest, and the galling thing was, both father and son had the same ultimate goal. They both wanted Marcus to take his seat in the Senate-which would only have led to another contentious issue, of course. Marriage. His father citing Orbilio’s failure as a husband by letting his wife abscond with an impecunious sea captain to bring the shame of divorce on the family…instantly forgiven, of course, providing he married so-and-so, and off he’d go, the old man, trying to force his son into a second miserable alliance and riding, as always, roughshod over human emotions.

The next time he took a wife, Orbilio resolved, it would be no business merger. And there was only one possible candidate.

Yet no matter how many times their paths crossed, no matter how many adventures they shared, Claudia, goddammit, always pushed him away.

He spiked his fingers through his hair. For all her abrasive temperament, her confident exterior, one thing that woman was scared of-maybe the only thing-was love. She avoided it like a whale avoids fresh water, and Marcus knew the reason.

She’d been burned. An army orderly of a father, who walked out one morning and never came home. Death? Desertion? Only the father knew the truth, but the consequence was that the child who’d adored him had been left to care for a reckless, feckless, selfish mother who in turn had deserted her daughter in an alcoholic haze. What transpired between Claudia leaving her southern slums and her arrival in Rome five years later, polished and svelte, Orbilio, through the course of his investigations, had caught only glimpses. What he’d seen though were horrors enough-and as a result of her experiences, Claudia had turned herself into an island.