Anthony Riches - The Emperor's Knives

Rome, September AD 184

‘Excuse me for bothering you sir. Do I have the honour of addressing Sextus Dexter Bassus?’

The man in the doorway nodded, playing a forbidding look over the two men standing before him in the small but neat front garden of his house, rendered private from the main road that climbed the Aventine Hill by a substantial wall that ran all the way around the property’s modest grounds. His look of irritation was due in no small part to the fact that the unexpected callers had summarily dismissed the slave who had opened the door to them, peremptorily telling him to fetch his master on the apparent grounds of the matter at hand’s ‘sensitivity’.

‘You do. And you are?’

The taller of the two men, who seemed to be doing the talking for them both, smiled in a self-deprecating manner.

‘Me? A man of no great importance, although this may help to establish my bona fides in the matter I am desirous of discussing with you.’ The caller lifted the end of his belt to display a stylised tri-form spearhead decoration in polished silver. ‘This, Dexter Bassus, is the badge of a beneficiarius, a man chosen to give trusted service to one of his military superiors. In my own humble case I am just such a man, in the service of an extremely high-ranking military officer. His absolute need to stay nameless in this matter means that I am in turn required to nurture a similar desire for anonymity. I’m afraid that all I can tell you here, on your doorstep, is that my visit concerns events that occurred in the province of Britannia a little over two years ago.’

Bassus leaned forward, his eyes narrowing.

‘If this is about my brother-’

A raised hand stopped him in mid-sentence, the self-assured nature of the unnamed messenger’s gesture making him start backwards a fraction despite himself.

‘There’s nothing more to be said out here, I’m afraid, Dexter Bassus. If I might just come inside for a moment, I’m sure that everything will become clear …’

Bassus looked past the beneficiarius at the man waiting patiently behind him who was, if not completely ragged in his state of dress, demonstrating a robust attitude towards the requirements of both fashion and the regard of his fellow citizens. His eyes were roaming the modest garden with a faraway look, as if he’d never seen such a thing in all of his life.

‘And who’s this? Another one of your “high-ranking officer’s” men?’

The other man laughed, evidently amused with the idea.

‘Silus? Not likely! Silus is a man of the streets, and not accustomed to the workings of the Palatine, if you take my meaning?’

Bassus’s eyebrows raised at the mention of the hill upon which the imperial palaces and the throne’s sprawling bureaucracy had taken root.

‘The Palatine?’

The caller smiled thinly.

‘I can say no more. As to my companion here, I keep him handy whenever I travel through the city alone, especially at this time of the evening. And there are risks connected with my visit to your house that go well beyond the simple danger of robbery with violence. I can make it no plainer for you, I’m afraid — either we discuss this matter in a more private place, such as your study, or both Silus and I will simply vanish from your door, never to trouble you again. I will tell my sponsor that you chose to be uncooperative, and he in turn will resign himself to your never knowing the truth about what happened in Britannia. It really is very much up to you.’

Bassus thought for a moment, clearly torn between caution and curiosity.

‘You can come in, but that man has a look to him that I don’t care for. He can wait in the garden.’

Silus smiled, a disquieting vision given the state of his teeth, and his employer mirrored his expression with a nod of agreement that was almost a bow.

‘How delightful for him! Silus is enormously fond of gardens, given his rather plain accommodation in the Subura district. I’m sure he’ll be more than happy to enjoy the fruits of your gardener’s labour in this pleasant evening’s warmth, while you and I discuss our business with a little more privacy than can be achieved on your doorstep.’

Bassus waited until the bodyguard had strolled away to sit on one of his stone benches before ushering the mystery visitor through the doorway and into the cool of the house. The man took two steps and stopped, looking about him with evident approval.

‘Very nice, Dexter Bassus, very nice indeed! Someone in your household clearly has the most exquisite taste in interior decoration … The lady of the house, perhaps, or possibly a particularly talented slave? Whoever it is, you’re a lucky man!’

Bassus grunted a perfunctory agreement and ushered the visitor into his private office, scowling at the room’s door as it creaked loudly on its hinges. He indicated a chair facing his desk, behind which he installed himself while the other man lowered himself into a sitting position with a slight grimace.

‘My back isn’t all that it used to be, I’m afraid. All those years on horseback criss-crossing the empire at the emperor’s behest have quite taken the spring out of me, as you can see …’

He waited a moment, as if inviting Bassus into his conversation, but the other man only stared at him in bemusement.

‘I know, not the subject you invited me in to discuss, and I apologise. A man who has previously enjoyed robust good health does have the irritating habit of sharing the smallest aches and pains with all and sundry when they eventually catch up with him.’ He smiled into his host’s darkening frown. ‘Yes indeed, to business! You are, Sextus Dexter Bassus, the brother of one Quintus Dexter Bassus, are you not?’

Bassus shook his head, his voice laced with irritation.

‘We’ve already established that!’

The visitor leaned back in his chair with a smile, steepling his fingers.

‘Forgive my unavoidable disagreement, but in point of fact, Dexter Bassus, we have not . When I mentioned Britannia out there on your doorstep, you promptly asked if your brother was involved, but you didn’t ever actually mention his name. Precision is a quality for which I am known, and I cannot afford to allow that reputation to be sullied by a moment’s inattention. So-’

‘Yes! ’ Bassus sat forward, slapping the desk and fixing his guest with a hard stare, his patience clearly at its limits. ‘I am the youngest brother of Quintus Dexter Bassus, who was, before you spend another lifetime working your way around to the question, the tribune and commanding officer of the Second Tungrian Cohort in northern Britannia. He died two years ago in the uprising that overran the frontier wall built by the Emperor Hadrian, and he left me, his only surviving sibling, as the owner of this house. Does that cover all of your questions?’

‘Not quite.’

Bassus sat back again with an expression of dismay that was bordering on something more than irritation.

‘I think I should have you thrown-’

The messenger spoke over him without any change in his expression.

‘Yes, I think you probably should, Dexter Bassus, but you’re not going to show me the door, not yet. For one thing, you don’t know to which of the empire’s esteemed military men, a well-regarded senator by the way, you might be giving offence, and for another …’ He smiled faintly at the big man. ‘The circumstances of your brother’s death were never made clear to you, were they? Or, indeed what happened to his wife, your sister-in-law. You’ll remember her quite well, I’d imagine, given that this was her house?’