Jupiter Myth

XVI

Waiting to be seen by someone?"

"There's been a development in the Longus case." The centurion explained his presence only reluctantly.

"Petronius Longus is not an undesirable and it is not a case, Centurion. What's the development?"

I was about to have trouble. I knew this type. His normal manner was a mixture of fake simplicity and arrogance. For me he saved a special sneer on top. "Oh, are you Falco?"

"Yes." The bakery fire was only last night; he cannot have forgotten meeting me.

"It was your name on the information sheet?" My description of Petronius had gone out from the governor's office, but Frontinus was not name-proud and he had let it carry my signature.

"Yes," I said again, patiently He did not like me, by the sound of it. Well, I had some doubts about him. "And what's your name, Centurion?"

"Crixus, sir." He knew I had him now. If I carried any weight with the governor, Crixus was stuck. But he managed to stay unpleasant: "I don't quite remember what you said you were doing in the downtown area last night, sir?"

"You don't remember because you didn't ask." His omission was an

error. That evened things up between us. Why was he so bothered? Was it because he now realized I was not just some higher-up's domestic hanger-on, but someone with an official role that he had misinterpreted?

"So, you mentioned a development,' Crixus?"

"I came to report it to the governor, sir."

"The governor's in conference. There's a flap on. I signed the sheet; you can tell me."

Crixus reluctantly backed off. "There may have been a sighting."

"Details?"

"A man who resembled the description was observed by a patrol."

"Where and when?"

"On the ferry deck by the customs house. A couple of hours ago." "What? And you are only just here to report?"

He feigned a crestfallen look. It was sketchy and brazenly fake. This man wore his uniform smartly, but in manner he was like the worst kind of dreary recruit who can't be bothered. If he had succeeded in seeing Frontinus, I daresay things would have been different. Double standards are a bad sign in the military. "The info sheet made no mention of urgency."

"You knew its status!" It was too late now.

The centurion and I were fencing quite toughly. I wanted to extract what he knew, while instinctively withholding as much as possible about Petro or myself. For some deep reason I did not want Crixus to learn that Petro and I were close, that I was an informer, or that he worked for the vigiles.

"Finish your report," I said quietly. In my time in the legions I had never been an officer, but plenty of them had pushed me around; I knew how to sound like one. One who could be a right bastard if crossed.

"A patrol spotted a man who fitted the details. As I say, he was at the ferry landing."

"Crossing over?"

"Just talking."

"To whom?"

"I really couldn't say, sir. We were only to be interested in him." In the ten years since I left the army, the art of dumb insolence had not died.

"Right."

"So who is this person?" asked Crixus, with an air of innocent curiosity.

"Same as everyone who comes here. A businessman. You don't need to know more."

"Only I don't think he can be the right man, sir. When we asked, he denied that his name was Petronius."

I was furious and let the centurion see it. "You asked, when the sheet said don't approach'?"

"Only way we could attempt to discover if he was the subject, sir." This idiot was so self-righteous I barely refrained from hitting him.

"It's the right man," I growled. "Petronius Longus loathes nosy questions from stiffs in red tunics. He generally claims to be a feather-fan seller called Ninius Basilius."

"That's rather peculiar, sir. He told us he was a bean-importer called Ixymithius."

Thanks, Petro! I sighed. I had plucked a known alias of his from my memory-the wrong one. Any minute now, Crixus would decide it was a fact of note that the subject worked under cover using several false identities. Then the centurion would be even more nosy. If I knew Petro, he was just being rebellious; he had instinctively stiffened up when a strutting patrol apprehended him. On principle, he would lie to them. At least it was better than questioning their parentage, telling them to go to Hades in a dung cart, then being thrown in a cell.

"You're going the long way round to admitting that he gave you the slip," I warned. "The governor will not be pleased. I don't know why you're playing silly beggars over this. The poor man has to be told some bad news from home, that's all. Frontinus has a past acquaintance with him; he wants to do it personally."

"Oh well, next time we'll know he's the one. We'll pass the message to him, never fear."

Not now. Not if Petro saw them coming again.