Lindsey Davis - The Iron Hand of Mars

He was older than me. Taller and much more solid. Probably even more depressed than I was. He wore leather trousers to just below the knee and a cloak trimmed with strands of raddled fur. He was heavily scarred and moved stiffly, like a man who had fallen from a horse once too often. His missing eye looked as if it had been taken out by something like an artillery bolt, leaving a deep twisted seam. His good eye was sharply intelligent. He had a beard down to his cloak-brooch and long strands of wavy hair; both were red. Not the bold red I had been promising myself; but a sadder, more faded colour that seemed to mirror what was left of the rebel's life. That too was showing grey at the roots.

He let me introduce myself. 'So this is what it feels like meeting a footnote to history!'

'Less of the footnotes!' he growled. I found myself liking him. 'What do you want?'

'Just passing through. I thought I'd look you up. Don't be surprised. A child could find you here. In fact a child did – a mere eight-year-old, and not very bright, though she had help from a much cleverer Ubian. Worried?' I asked gently. 'You know what it means. If a child can find you, so can any smouldering legionary whose mate you killed at Vetera. Or any disgruntled Batavian, come to that.'

Julius Civilis told me what he would like me to do with myself; it was wittily devised and succinctly phrased. 'You say that in much the same terms as the famous Fourteenth Gemina, who also think I stink. Must be the Roman influence. Do you miss all that?'

'No,' he said, but jealously. 'The Fourteenth? Those braggarts!' He himself had commanded an auxiliary detachment in Germany before he had tried for glory; he would have heard about their parent legion from his kinsmen in the eight famous Batavian cohorts who deserted. 'I suppose we have to talk. Do you want the story of my life?'

He had the right background; this interview would be businesslike. I could have been dealing with one of our own. Well, I was really. 'Sorry.' I hoped he could hear that my regret was genuine. I would have given a lot to hear the full story from the rebel's own lips. 'I'm due in Moguntiacum for the Emperor's birthday parade. I've no time to listen to the drivel about twenty years in the Roman camps, then your only reward being Imperial suspicion and the threat of execution… Let's get down to it, Civilis. You took the money. You enjoyed the life. You were grateful to be exempt from taxation and gain the benefits of a regular income and a structured career. If things had been different, you would have taken your discharge diploma and retired as a Roman citizen. Right up to the moment when Vespasian became Emperor you could have basked in his friendship and been a great force locally. You threw it away for a dream that became pointless. Now you're stateless and hopeless too.'

'That's pretty bilge! Have you finished?' His single eye regarded me with more good judgement than I liked.

'No, but you have. Events have passed you by, Civilis. I see here an exhausted man. You're saddled with a large family; so am I. Now that your stand against fate is in tatters I can guess how you must be being nagged. You're suffering earache as well as backache and heartache. You're sick of trouble and tired of the campaign – '

'I'd do it again.'

'Oh I don't doubt that. In your shoes, so would I. You saw a chance, and made the most of it. But the chance is over. Even Veleda accepts that.'

'Veleda?' He looked suspicious.

I said smoothly, 'Imperial agents have just interviewed the lady in her signal-tower. Incidentally, my own view is we ought to charge her rent for that… She concedes the peace, Civilis.'

We both knew the Batavian's independence movement was nothing without support from Free Germany and Gaul. Gaul had long been a lost cause for rebellion: too comfort-loving by half. Now Germany was opting out too.

'So much for freedom!' murmured the red-haired man.

'Freedom to run wild, you mean? Sorry. I sound like every father there ever was berating a child who wants to stay out late in unsuitable company.'

'You can't help that. Rome,' he replied drily, 'is a paternalist society.' It felt strange to be addressed in refined, lightly satirical Latin by a man who looked as if he had spent a month huddled up against a gorse-bush on an open moor.

'Not always,' I confessed. 'My father ran away from home and left the women to get on with it.'

'You should have been a Celt.'

'Then I'd be fighting with you.'

'Thanks,' he said. 'Thanks for that, Falco. So it's parole again?' He was referring to the times other emperors had pardoned him. I hoped he realised this emperor was here to stay. 'What am I required to do?'

'You and your family will live in Augusta Treverorum at a fixed address. Protection will be arranged at first, though I reckon you should soon be assimilated into the local community.' I grinned. 'I don't feel Vespasian will want to offer you a new legionary command!' He was too old to care. 'Apart from that, here comes somebody whom I asked to meet us specially…'

A familiar figure had approached, incongruous among the run-down hovels where Civilis had lain up. He had a haircut that shrieked quality, and unacceptable shrimp-pink shoes. Undeterred by his own dramatic turnout, he scrutinised Civilis with visible pity.

'Falco! Your friend has a florid crop of foliage disfiguring his pediment!'

I sighed. 'This character has developed a putrid line of rhetoric since he met me. Julius Civilis, prince of Batavia, may I introduce to you Xanthus, one-time barber to emperors – and the best barber on the Palatine at that. He has shaved Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and probably Titus Caesar, though he never reveals the names of current clients. He has something in common with Celts, I think; he collects celebrity heads. Xanthus,' I announced gently to the rebel chief with the ghastly locks, 'has come to Augusta Treverorum all the way from Rome in order to give you a snappy trim and shave.'

I managed to speak to Helena Justina during the parade. I hoped that in a public place politeness would oblige her to restrain her reaction to what I had in mind. Well, it was worth a try. I expected trouble anywhere I broached the tender issue. She would never like what I now had to say, even though I told myself she would have to accept that I was right.

The Fourteenth had made it pretty plain that this, like everything else at Moguntiacum, would be their show. It was the usual tiresome business. Lack of cash and too much cynicism meant there were hardly ever decent spectacles, even in Rome. Here we were in Europe, and seventeen days into November was no time to be holding outdoor festivities. It ought to be a rule that no one can qualify for emperor unless they can claim a midsummer birthday. The only exemption might be for people born on the Aventine thirty years ago in March…

As I expected, both the crowd and the glitter were spread far too thinly; the weather was freezing; and the catering was terrible – where you could find any. The formalities took place on the parade-ground, which unlike a decent amphitheatre had no easy exit gates. The few women of Roman extraction who attended were of course subject to strict public conventions. Three of them, along with a couple of guests, had to sit on a dais wrapped in jewelled silks while twelve thousand hairy males stared at them pointedly. Nice work, if they liked it. I knew one lass who was hating it.

The event was due to last all day. I only felt obliged to stay for the presentation of the Hand. Once we had dealt with that, I intended to say my piece to Helena – assuming I could get near her – then slip away.

Both legions were actually taking part, which slowed things to a leaden pace. Patterned marching, even by men in dress uniforms with helmet plumes, has never been my idea of stimulating theatre. The action drags, and the dialogue is terrible. The promoter here had even failed to provide an orchestra; all we had was military silver and brass. Seeing everything twice over so that both sets of troops could affirm their loyalty to the Emperor increased the tedium to torture. I had been miserable enough in the first place.