Lindsey Davis - The Iron Hand of Mars

I had made it one stride nearer the door, but was trapping myself in a tighter wedge between two of them and the wall, while the third soldier guarded against flight the other way. It was time for some fast talking, but my mouth dried so that I couldn't speak.

Almost without planning it, I lunged at the single man, then changed direction and tackled the other two ferociously. Blades clashed with a screech that hurt my eyeteeth; sparks flew. I was working so hard I hardly noticed that in the remote depths of the tribune's house a woman's voice cried out. I barged an arm skywards, and heard steel skidding on masonry behind me. Light from above increased. I glimpsed faces more clearly. Another shadow came and went, but I was too preoccupied to shout.

My own dagger went home somewhere, but awkwardly. I wrenched my shoulder retrieving it as one of my two men cursed and hopped on the spot. Events were becoming too public; the second mugger was all for scarpering. The third had more guts – or less wits. He sprang at me. I roared with annoyance. Then, just as I had enough to do dealing with all three at once, the tribune's door burst open. Someone stepped out, framed in black by the light behind. Wrong build for Justinus; too slight for his guards. Whoever he was, a trimly sinister shadow came gliding out of doors.

Defending myself against my attackers as they put up a last furious struggle, I could hardly take in what happened. The shadow stepped straight past me, met one of the soldiers and pulled his head back with a disturbing action. The soldier folded noiselessly, and dropped to the ground in a manner that was unmistakable. There was a moment of stillness. The two survivors ran for it with the speed of troops who knew what they had witnessed. I knew too, though it was difficult to comprehend.

No time for pursuit. I was too winded, anyway. The tribune's guards now rushed out with torches, followed by Justinus. Chaos and commotion raged, then sank in a sickly diminuendo as light revealed the dead man.

It was a horrific killing. The amount of blood was unbelievable. The soldier's head had been nearly severed from his body by a blade sharper even than military steel.

I turned to the man who had done it. He stood motionless, the weapon still held in a workaday grip. One of the tribune's guards made a feeble attempt to remove it, without achieving much – his nerve failed. Another raised a flare slowly, as if afraid of revealing something supernatural.

No such luck. All we saw were the glazed and manic eyes of a tourist whose latest adventure had left him startled at his own bravado and ingenuity.

'Xanthus!'

Oh dear. Now someone was going to have difficult questions to answer before the hapless world-traveller was given back his passport and allowed to go home.

He still saw me as his protector, and turned to me with a worried bleat. I left him with the razor – he seemed to know how to handle it. 'I won't ask how many times you've done that before!'

'No, better not.' His voice sounded matter-of-fact, but I could see he was in shock.

'I always thought you'd been sent to assassinate me. Turns out I'm in more danger from my own past history…'

'I think I want to go home, Falco.'

'You're all right.'

'No, I wish I was in Rome.'

Justinus was taking charge. He had examined the scratched identity marks on the dead man's sword scabbard. 'One of the Fourteenth's hooligans…' He told one of his guards to fetch their senior tribune. 'Be discreet. Try to bring Aulus Macrinus by himself. I don't want their whole bloody legion turning up in high dudgeon.' He came to help me deal with the barber. 'Don't worry, Xanthus. You'll have to be interviewed by my commander, but that should be the end of it.'

'You sound confident!' I muttered in an undertone. 'Are you happy about explaining to your notoriously sensitive colleagues how one of their number came to be wiped out like this on the First's side of the fort?'

'I'll find something to tell them.' He responded well in a crisis. His eyes were bright with intense excitement, but he was planning coolly. His self-control calmed others in the vicinity too. 'Marcus, be prepared. Some things are worse than you think!' After teasing me with this mystery, kindness filled his voice. 'Let's move this poor fellow away from here…'

Xanthus had started trembling slightly. He stood transfixed by the corpse; nudging him indoors would need tact. In fact we all found it hard to avoid staring at the scene.

While we were still in the street, the guard returned with Macrinus. Even his aristocratic sneer paled slightly when we stepped back and let him see why he had been summoned.

'Is that one of ours? Dear gods, Camillus!'

'Aulus, hear the explanation '

'It had better be good!'

'Don't threaten us!' snapped Justinus, with surprising force. 'There's no argument. I have a reputable witness. Three of your rankers set on Falco -'

'A drunken prank.'

'No! It was unprovoked and planned. They had been dawdling outside my house for half an hour – my witness noticed them. And much more than a prank, Aulus! The night could have ended nastily – '

'I'd say it did!'

'The alternative was for my guest to be fatally stabbed.'

In the face of this, the Fourteenth's man pulled himself up. 'If what you say is true, the culprits will be found and disciplined. But I'm protesting about the secretive way this has all been handled. I don't care for the way you had me brought across here alone. I want my own observers present, I want one of my centurions to take notes at the scene of the crime – '

As he soared off into complaint, I broke in: 'There will be no cover-up. But no one wants another riot like your legion's public rumpus at Augusta Taurinorum!'

Macrinus ignored me. 'Who did it?'

'The barber.'

That set him back. We could see him remembering how Xanthus had been called the Emperor's hit man. We all stared at Xanthus. As a hit man he looked pretty meek.

'Some of us are going to feel uneasy the next time we need a shave,' I said. A fine spray of the dead soldier's blood disfigured the crisp white linen of the barber's tunic. As usual, he was turned out so smartly that away from the court his brilliant presence became embarrassing. The stains were doubly disconcerting, as if he had been careless during a routine shave.

'In my job,' he answered quietly, 'a man can become a target for abuse quite easily. I've had to learn how to defend myself.'

'That's no excuse for murdering a soldier!' Macrinus barked. He had no finesse.

"The soldier,' I pointed out rationally, 'had no excuse for trying to murder me!'

At this stylish rebuke he condescended to subside. It was apparent that Justinus intended to take control of any necessary enquiry, which, since the crime had occurred within the First's jurisdiction, was his entitlement. Macrinus grumpily fell back on one last jibe: 'You mentioned a witness. I hope it's one we can rely on!'

'Perfectly,' Justinus answered, with a faint impression of gritting his teeth.

'I think I must insist on knowing who.' Macrinus had sensed a joke, but was too crass to withdraw.

'My sister,' Justinus told him placidly.

I winced. He had been right earlier when he had teased me. Things certainly were worse than I had realised: Helena Justina was here.

We glanced up at the window above us. She was still standing there, as she must have been during some of my fight. Her face lay in darkness. Her unmistakable figure, the outline of her smoothly upswept hair and even the elegant pendant drops of her earrings sent down a perfect, elongated shadow that reached the corpse, hiding its ghastly wound in decent shade.

The tribune Macrinus straightened up, smoothed back his crisp, curly locks, and produced a salute suitably emphatic for a tribune who thought a lot of himself greeting the only unmarried senator's daughter this side of the Alps.