Lindsey Davis - Scandal Takes a Holiday

'Was it the first time you had been used in intelligence gathering?'

'No.' A horrid thought struck.

'Who asked you to do it? You don't work for Anacrites?' Uncle Fulvius uttered something quiet and crude.

'I do not.' Interesting. He obviously knew who Anacrites was, though.

'Who commissions you then?'

'Who wants the seas kept sweet and clean?'

'The Emperor?'

'I suppose so, though we try to ignore that dreary aspect.'

'We, is you and Cassius? And who pays you two?'

'You don't need to know, Marcus.' If I was ever to trust him, I did need to know.

'Don't treat me like a lad. I've done enough stinking official missions of my own.'

'We are not offering you a partnership.'

'I would not take it!' We both seethed quietly. It was like a low moment at a family birthday party. After a while I asked the inevitable professional question.

'So what is the going rate for intelligence, with the Ravenna Fleet?'

'More than you get, probably.' His arrogance was hard to take. Now I knew why, in the family, Fulvius had always been unpopular.

'Don't be too sure of that!' I said. The discomfort was getting to me.

'What's happened?' I wondered restlessly. 'Mutatus set off hours ago from the temple with the money. If this is the rendezvous, where has he got to?'

'Fake trail,' Fulvius said curtly. 'According to Zeno, Mutatus has been sent to a series of false drop sites. He'll get about three messages until he is passed here. It's to unnerve him, and perhaps shake off any followers. By the way,' said my uncle offhandedly. 'I may have let you reach the wrong conclusion earlier. It wasn't Caninus who locked us in; that was Cassius.'

'What?'

'If Caninus sees the door locked, he will never suspect that anyone is down here listening. I need to overhear what happens. He is an official; we have to trap him with hard evidence.'

Oh great. So Fulvius and his life's partner were not just government agents, they were a pair of idiots. I should have foreseen this. I was not sharing a well-planned exercise with a master spy; I was stuck in a hole with my mother's elder brother. Fulvius was a sibling of Fabius and Junius. It followed that he was a lunatic.

'Clever?' asked Fulvius, condescendingly.

'Not clever! At least Cassius is still at liberty, on the outside.'

'We can't rely on the navy. He's gone to fetch the vigiles.'

'And I suppose,' I said viciously, you and Cassius think that they live in an old shop by the Temple of Hercules Invictus?' That caused a silence.

I just had to hope Uncle Fulvius was deliberately riling me. Fulvius complained of swollen ankles. I too had aching legs and feet, plus a pain in my back as I tried to avoid collapsing on my uncle.

Suddenly we heard noises above us. Footsteps. We strained our ears to work out who was now in the shrine. It could be a priest, unconnected with our mission. I was hot and increasingly uneasy. None of my own associates knew where I was. Our only back-up was Cassius.

Thrills. Faintly audible, someone paced about. I was all set to risk calling up to ask if it was Mutatus, when a new person joined him.

'Where is the money?' Caninus, muffled, but recognisable. Not close; probably near the shrine door. Fulvius nudged me excitedly. Mutatus, closer and louder, answered.

'The money is safe.' He must be right beside the floor grille, immediately above our heads.

'Where?'

'I can get it. Falco was right. We don't believe you have Diocles, but if you really can produce him…'

'Falco, hah!' There came an abrupt movement.

Things went wrong. We heard an angry shout. Caninus, closer, exclaimed, 'You fool!'

Something clanged and skidded, like a weapon falling on the grid. Down in our vault, Fulvius shouted out, but went unheard. Feet went pounding away from the shrine. Two sets? I thought so.

'All you had to do was hand over the money!' Caninus, voice retreating, somewhere outside. A short scream, then more sounds of pain and fear. In the distance the sacrificial bull started bellowing, agitated by the commotion. Someone returned to the shrine, moving slowly. Filled with dread, Fulvius and I kept quiet. There were three awkward footsteps, a thump directly above us, then footsteps running out. The trace of light that had once penetrated the tauroboleum pit through its upper grille had vanished.

'I have a bad feeling,' I said softly.

Fulvius listened.

'Something is dripping down on us…' Then he added in horror, It feels like blood!'

It was not the bull. We could still hear him bellowing… Fulvius and I realised the terrible truth. Just above our heads lay Mutatus, either finished already, or now bleeding to death.

My uncle groaned once and called out to the scribe. There was no answer. We could do nothing to help Mutatus, and I knew it was probably all over. For the scribe's sake, I hoped so. Like Diocles, he must have owned a sword and brought it here, in a crazy act of defiance and bravery.

Unbelievable. We seemed to be there for hours. Eventually we heard Cassius arrive. He cursed, then hastened to release us.

We fell out through the opened door, gasping, and he dragged us up the steps. Light and air dazzled us. Wiping sweat from my brow, along with who knows what, I stumbled to the body. It was Mutatus of course… and, of course, dead.

I pulled him off the grid; he was not some damned cult sacrifice. I straightened him up on the floor of the shrine. His fingers had been shredded where he had tried to fend off blows from his own sword. Caninus had carved him as crudely as a raw recruit. Trust the damned navy not to know how to handle weapons. I knelt down in the pool of blood and closed the old scribe's eyes. Then I shut mine, genuinely grieving.

When I stood up, the other two were watching me. Cassius, looking familiar now, must be fifteen years my uncle's junior. He had shed the beggar's rags and wiped off some of the grime, though he still had dirt camouflage stripes blackening his face.

What a poser. I had not filthied up my face for an action since I stopped creeping around northern forests as an army scout. With only a bunch of toadstools to hide behind, at least there was some point. Grey-sideburned as he was now, in the straight nose and brown eyes I could still trace the handsome younger man for whom Fulvius had fallen. Biceps strained against the tight sleeves of his tunic, his big calves were muscular, and there was no fat on him. I had seen him before: he was the fourth man from the public latrine where only yesterday Caninus had taunted me about Fulvius.

Together, they were as noncommittal as a married couple; they would share a commentary later, in bed, possibly. I preferred not to think about that.

'He managed to avoid me,' Cassius complained. The action man in the partnership, not doing much to help us.

'I found a blood trail leaving the sanctuary, but he slipped past me somehow.'

'Damned amateurs!' I was angry. At my feet lay a scribe who had exceeded his remit in the bravest way. Mutatus should have been pensioned off with honour, not crudely slain, with four or five ragged strokes, because this pair of incompetents could not round up one ageing corrupt attache who had already been wounded. Fulvius and Cassius exchanged glances.

'I'll go after him,' offered Cassius. I pushed him aside.

'No, go!' But it was no longer necessary. Passus and a group of vigiles rushed into the shrine. They had men out already searching for Caninus, closer on his tracks than we would ever be now. Passus bent and inspected the departing trail of blood spots.

'I'll get a scent dog in.'

'You know it's Caninus we're after?'

'Brunnus had told us. He's been checking up in Rome. The Ravenna boys are trying to keep it all quiet, but the big epaulettes in the Misenum Fleet overruled them. A full-scale hunt is on, but you know Rubella; he intends the Fourth to get all the glory.'