Lindsey Davis - The Iron Hand of Mars

Judging that my purse was now firmly closed, Dubnus turned his whining charm on Xanthus again. He was an artist. As an auctioneer's son, I almost enjoyed watching it. Luckily, we were not sailing all the way down to the delta, or the barber would have bought up the pedlar's entire stock. He did fall for the aurochs' horn, supposedly hacked by Dubnus himself from one of the wild Gallic oxen whose savage temper is legendary…

'I'd really like to see one of those, Falco!'

'Just be thankful it's unlikely!'

'You ever spied one on your travels?'

'No. I'm sensible, Xanthus – I never wanted to.'

His acquisition was a fairly useful drinking-cup, which didn't spill too much down his tunic neck when he attempted to use it. He managed to polish it up to a handsome shine. I never told him that aurochs don't have twisted horns.

As the wineship floated on to our destination, Dubnus slowly rewrapped his treasures. Xanthus began to handle a helmet. Partly to rescue him before he was bankrupt (because that would mean I'd have to pay for everything), I took the item away from him.

It looked like army issue at first, but with differences. The modern helmet incorporates a deeper guard around the baok, proteoting the neck and shoulders; it also has oheekpieoes and extra protection over the ears. I suspect the revised design was developed to counter damage from Celtic broadsword swipes. The original pattern had been superseded long before my time, but I was staring at one I now.

'This must be quite an antique, Dubnus.'

'I call that a relic of the Varus disaster!' he confessed amiably, as if owning to a fake; then his eyes met mine and he had second thoughts. I managed to stop myself shivering..

'Where did you get it?'

'Oh… somewhere in the woods.' His voice faded evasively.

'When?' I asked again.

'Oh… up in the north.'

'Somewhere like the Teutoburger forest?'

He was reluctant to clarify. I dropped to one knee, surveying his stock more attentively. He had marked me up as trouble, so he didn'r like me doing it. I ignored his agitation. That worried him even more.

Now I noticed a piece of old bronze that could have oome from a Roman sword pommel; clasps that resembled a set I had seen at my grandfather's house; a holder for a helmet plume – another discontinued line, now altered to a oarrying loop.

'Sell a lot of these "Varus relics", do you?'

'People believe what they want to.'

There was also a blackened object I refused to handle because I guessed it was a human skull.

I stood up again.

Augustus's stepgrandson, the heroic Germanious, was supposed to have found where the massacre had taken place, collected the scattered remains of the dead, and given the lost army of Varus some kind of decent funeral – but who believes that out in the hostile forest Germanicus and his nervous troops spent too much time offering themselves as another target? They did their best. They brought the lost standards back to Rome. After that we oould all sleep with clear consciences. It was best not to think that somewhere deep in the dark woods of unconquered Germany broken weapons and orher booty might still lie among unburied Roman bones.

The troops of today would buy this mouldy paraphernalia. Army lads love souvenirs that smack of manly deeds in dangerous venues. The grislier the better. If Dubnus really had discovered the old battle site, he must be coining it.

I avoided the issue by probing for my own purposes. 'So you go across the river, do you? In the north?' He shrugged. Commerce breeds daring. In any case, free Germany had never been a no-go area for the purposes of trade. 'How far do your travels take you? Ever come aoross the famous prophetess?'

'Whioh prophetess would that be?'

He was teasing. I tried not to look particularly interested, in case word of my mission ran ahead of me. 'Is there more than one sinister spinster wielding influence over the tribes? I mean the bloodthirsty priestess of the Bructeri.'

'Oh, Veleda!' sneered Dubnus.

'Ever met her?'

'No one meets her.'

'Why's that?'

'She lives at the top of a high tower in a lonely plaoe in the forest. She never sees anyone.'

'Since when have prophets been so shy?' Just my luck. A really weird one. 'I never imagined she kept a marble office, with an appoinrments secretary serving peppermint tea for visitors, but how does she communicate?'

'Her male relations carry messages.' Judging by the effeot Veleda had had on international events, her uncles and brothers must have busily trampled a wide swathe through the woods. It rather took the shine off her elusiveness.

The barber was wearing his excitable look. 'Is Veleda part of your mission?' he hissed. His wide. eyed simplicity was beginning to afflict me like a stitch in the side when you're running any from a mad bull.

'Women I can handle. But I don't do Druids!' It was a line. Two of us knew it, yet poor old Xanthus looked impressed.

I had to act fast. Our barge was approaching the great bridge at Moguntiacum; we would soon berth at the quay. I gave the pedlar a thoughtful glance. 'If somebody wanted to contact Veleda, would it be possible to get a message to this tower of hers?'

'Could be.'

Dubnus looked disturbed by the suggestion. I made it plain I was speaking with some authority, and told him not to leave town.

The pedlar assumed the air of a man who would leave town exactly when he wanted to, and without telling me first.

MOGUNTIACUM, UPPER GERMANY October, AD 71

Moguntiacum.

A bridge. A tollbooth. A column. A huddle of civilian huts, with a few handsome homes owned by the local wool and wine merchants. All dominated by one of the Empire's biggest forts.

The settlement stood just below the confluence of the Rhenus and the Moenus waterways. The bridge, which joined the Roman side of the Rhenus to huts and wharfs on the opposite bank, had triangular piers thrust out to break the current, and a wooden rail. The tollbooth was a temporary affair, about to be superseded by a massive new customs-post at Colonia Agrippinensium. (Vespasian was a tax-collector's son; as Emperor it coloured his approach.) The column, erected in the time of Nero, was a grand effort celebrating Jupiter. The huge fort declared that Rome meant business here, though whether we were trying to bluff the tribes or convince ourselves was open to debate.

My first disappointment was immediately thrust on me. I had been telling Xanthus he could busy himself setting up shop with his razors among the canabae. Most military establishments grow a thicket of booths, a shanty-town fringe that hogs the outer walls, offering the troops off-duty entertainment of the usual sordid kinds. It springs up when the baths are constructed outside the fortress as a fire precaution, after which breadshops, brothels, barbers and bijouteries rapidly collect – with or without licences. Then the inevitable camp-followers and the soldiers' unofficial families arrive, and soon the extramural clutter swells into a civilian town.

At Moguntiacum there were no booths.

It was a shock. We could see where they had all been cleared. The operation must have been swift and thorough. A mound of bashed-in shutters and splintered awning poles still stood nearby. Now bare ground surrounded the fort, forming a wide defensible berm from which the turf walls rose a clean eighteen feet to the watch-towers and patrol- track. Among the visible defenses I counted one more Punic ditch than usual, and in the midfield a fatigue party was planting what the legions call a lily garden; deep pits dug in a quincunx pattern, set with sharpened stakes, then covered with brushwood to disguise their whereabouts – a savage deterrent during an attack.