Lindsey Davis - The Iron Hand of Mars

I smiled at her for becoming so passionate. 'From what I've heard about Florius Gracilis, we can't rely on him for a high moral tone. I know he's desperately short of cash.'

'You mean he's taking bribes?' Helena's parents' attempts to give her a sheltered life had been partially successful.

But since meeting me she had learned enough not to be surprised at any suggestion. 'Is Gracilis corrupt, Falco?'

'That would be a grave charge. I'm not making it.' Not at this stage, anyway. I turned to the potter. 'Julius Mordanticus, I work for the Emperor. Your problems ought not to be my business, but they may overlap with what I came to do.'

'Which is what?' he asked curiously.

I saw no reason to hide the truth. 'Principally, to liaise with Civilis. His current whereabouts are unknown, but I believe the legate may be searching for -him. On the other hand, Gracilis could have gone after Veleda, the Bructian prophetess.'

'If he has crossed the river, he's a fool!' Mordanticus looked at me as if I was mad merely for suggesting it. 'Don't say that. I may soon have to cross the river myself.'

'You're in for a wild time, then. And I should say it's death for Gracilis.'

'He may be travelling incognito.'

'A Roman official is pleading to be spotted. Is this something to do with the franchises?' Mordanticus demanded, single-mindedly.

'No, it's all about political glory for Florius Gracilis. But it means you and I have a shared interest. I don't like to make promises, but if I ever run across him I may well find an opportunity to discuss your franchise problem, and I may just make him believe that I am speaking for Vespasian.' For some reason, the Emperor's name carried weight. In a town that could compliment Nero on a civic column I should have expected it. Mordanticus looked as grateful as if I was signing his precious pots contract myself. 'Can you help me to arrange a meeting, Mordanticus? Do you know anything about the legate's recent movements, or even where I might find Julius Civilis himself?'

The potter shook his head, but promised to make enquiries. He still looked dazed. We left him to break the news of what had happened to his two colleagues. I did not envy him. He had told me there were young families involved.

I took Helena Justina to see the Jupiter Column so that I could talk to her in privacy. At least, that was my excuse.

We walked solemnly round, pretending to admire the four-sided obelisk which had been set up by two ingratiating financiers on behalf of the local community. It was a decent enough monument, if you like salutations to Nero. It pictured the usual plaques of Olympian deities: Romulus and Remus showing that having a peculiar mother need not hold a man back; Hercules doing his demigodly stuff with his usual hairy panache; and Castor and Pollux watering their horses, one each side of the column as if they were not on speaking terms. Up aloft stood a huge bronze of Jupiter Best and Greatest, all beard and big sandals, and wielding an extremely snappy thunderbolt that would be a hit at any fashionable soir The location of this edifice was too public for me to grab Helena in a clinch, though she knew that had been in my mind. I thought she looked disappointed. Since it was at least three hours since I had last touched her, I was too.

'I'll have to row you down the river with a picnic,' I murmured.

'Juno! Is that safe?'

'All right, I admit Germany isn't the place to come to at the moment if you fancy a quiet autumn cruise.'

'But you are going downriver, aren't you?' She asked it in an intensely level voice, which I recognised as anxiety.

'Looks as if I shall have to, my love.' She was upset. I hated that.

I had put Helena in a quandary. She never tried to dissuade me from work. For one thing, she was keen for me to earn enough money to buy myself into the middle rank so that we could be married without a scandal. To achieve that I needed four hundred thousand sesterces – an outrageous sum for a dusty lad from the Aventine. The kind of cash I could earn only by doing something illegal (which, of course, I could never contemplate) or something dangerous.

'Anyway,' she said brightly, 'you came out here on political business, but you seem to have stumbled into a straightforward ceramics war.'

'It looks like that.'

Helena laughed. 'When you agree so meekly I usually discover you mean the opposite.'

'True. I think the ceramics troubles are an incidental problem.' However, if I could help out the potters while achieving my own ends, I would. 'These potters have found themselves facing the usual administrative mess. The tendering process has been bungled by an idiot who is paid enough by the state to know better. It goes on everywhere. To have Florius Gracilis involved in that, and also poking his nose into what Vespasian sent me out here to negotiate with Civilis, is just my hard luck.'

But the last thing I wanted if I was going into a danger area was some senatorial buffoon who had shown himself unfit to handle even a routine kitchenware contract travelling the same route. Especially if, as now seemed likely, he reached the trouble spot ahead of me and started blundering about, making tribal sensitivities far worse.

'Do you ever have good luck, Marcus?'

'Only the day I met you.'

She ignored that. 'You were talking about Civilis. How do you intend to find him?'

'Something will turn up.'

'And what about the priestess?'

'Veleda?' I grinned. 'Justinus told you that one too, eh?'

'Sounds like another widow in Veii story,' Helena grumbled sarcastically.

'That's all right, then; I can handle her.'

Helena Justina called me a philandering gigolo; I told her she was a cynical witch with no concept of trust or loyalty, she thwacked me with the heavy end of her beaded stole; I trapped her against the column's plinth and kissed her until I had her more or less subdued and myself highly excited.

'I will not ask,' she said when I sadly released her before our sophisticated Roman behaviour caused a public outcry, 'what your plans are for discovering the fate of the legate from Vetera. I know he disappeared somewhere on the far side of the river.'

'He was being forwarded to Veleda as a goodwill gift.'

Helena shuddered. 'So that definitely means you have to journey into Germania Libera?'

'I won't go if you don't want me to.'

Her serious expression became even more intense. 'Don't say that – don't ever say it – unless you really mean it, Marcus.'

I always had to be straight with Helena. 'All right, I'll promise I won't go if I can solve the puzzle in any other way.'

'Oh you'll go,' she answered. 'You'll go, and you'll solve it and that ought to provide some comfort for the poor man's family at least. It's impossible, therefore, for me even to try to veto your trip.'

I could not have cared less for the feelings of the family of Munius Lupercus, who had been a rich senator in a career posting and who was probably as objectionable as the rest of that type. But when Helena spoke with such certainty I could never dispute the issue, so I kissed her again and took her home instead.

At the fort we found my niece Augustinilla terrorising the sentries at the Praetorian Gate. Luckily, they were so relieved to be rescued that they let me carry her off under one arm while she screamed abuse at all of us.

The rest of the day passed quietly. Justinus had found out about his broken urn, and his reaction was to disappear from the house. He was deeply annoyed, but too polite to say so.

'That brother of yours is going to spend his life being put upon.'

'I thought he was making his feelings clearly felt!' Helena was the same type, another vanisher when upset.

Before dinner I made Augustinilla go up to the tribune and apologise. Since no one had ever made her apologise for anything before, she went through it with a fresh pathos that worked on him in the same way as the distressed puppy he had rescued. While she gazed at him with adoring eyes, his protective urge rose. It was Augustinilla's first experience of a rich young man in an impressive uniform; I could already see her mother coming out in her.