The Iron Hand of Mars

XIII

On the next leg of our journey things started to happen.

I was fast losing heart. Visiting the ceramics factory had served as a diversion, though one which produced its own anxieties since I had bought nothing and would be due for a drubbing back at home. Still, I gave no more thought to potters and their problems; I had troubles of my own. My real mission loomed. By Lugdunum we had put a third of the distance across Europe behind us, with the tiring sea trip from Ostia before that. Now we were on the final push, and the nearer we drew to the great Rhenus river, and to the ludicrous tasks Vespasian had set me, the more depressed I felt.

Not for the first time, I had become horrified by how far we had to journey in order to cross Europe, and by how long it was taking.

'More bad news, Xanthus! River travel's too slow. At this rate I'll hit winter before I finish my mission. I'm transferring to horseback, courtesy of my imperial travel pass, so you'll have to hire yourself a mule if you want to keep up.'

Don't imagine that Vespasian had kitted me out with the wherewithal to commandeer a horse from the state despatch stations because he wanted me to travel in comfort; he probably thought it more convenient for the Iron Hand.

The terrain looked decidedly foreign now. Instead of huge Italian villas with absentee landlords and hundreds of slaves, we were riding past modest tenant farms. Pigs instead of sheep. Fewer olive groves and thinner vineyards with every milestone. We were being held up at bridges by army supply convoys; it was definitely the approach to a military zone. Towns became a novelty. Everywhere was colder, wetter and darker than when we had left home.

As a traveller Xanthus was becoming more confident, which meant that as the idiot's nursemaid I had to be even more on guard. Explaining trivial regional habits every time we stopped to change horses was maddening. In addition, it had started to rain.

'I've been slipped some duff coins, Falco – cut in quarters and halves!'

'Sorry, I ought to have warned you: there's a long-term small-coin shortage. No need to show your ignorance by causing a fuss. Cut halves are accepted locally, but don't take any home. Assuming we ever go home.' I was so gloomy I doubted it. 'You'll adapt. Just try not to waste an as or a quadrans if you can pay with one of your larger coins, and pick up change for when we're desperate. If they run out of coppers altogether the barmaids use kisses, and when they run out of those. 2 I shuddered pointedly.

'Seems daft!' Xanthus moaned. A true barber. Jokes were lost on him.

Sighing inwardly, I supplied the sensible explanation: 'The army has always been paid in silver. Sesterces are easier to transport in bulk, so the Treasury never thinks of sending out a few chests of coppers for the lads to use as pocket money. There is a mint at Lugdunum, but civic pride seems to make them prefer turning out the big shiny ones.'

'I wish they'd cut their prices in half too, Falco.' 'And I wish a lot of things!'

I spoke with restraint, though I was near breaking-point. I wished it would stop raining. I wished I could find Helena. I wished I was safe in my own city, commissioned for a risk- free job. Most of all, as the barber prattled on relentlessly, I wished I could lose him.

We stayed the night in a village typical of that highway: a long skein of ribbon development with one main street devoted mostly to entertaining travellers. There were plenty of rest-houses, and once we found a clean one to dump our baggage at, there were plenty of taverns we could walk to for a change of scene. I chose one of the porticoed bars that was throwing light across the street, and we fumbled our way down into a back basement where other travellers were seated at circular tables enjoying cold meat or cheese with beakers of the local fermented beer. The scent of damp woollen cloaks and sodden boots hung everywhere as we all steamed after the day's wet ride. The bar was warm, dry and lit with reed tapers. It had a we-are-here-to-pleaseyou atmosphere which eased the strain of travelling even in those of us who were reluctant to be eased by anything too much in case Fate made us pay a sour penalty.

We drank. We ate. Xanthus perked up; I said nothing. He called for a drink again; I jingled my purse morosely. I would be paying as usual. Xanthus found plenty of ways to squander his holiday cash, but possessed a knack of digging deep only when I let him out by himself. He had cluttered us up with souvenirs – rattling lanterns, statuettes of muscular local deities, and chariot-wheel talismans – yet somehow funding our supper always seemed to be my responsibility.

This bar was casual about payment: you settled up at the end. It was a good way to part people from more money than they had intended, though in fact when I heaved myself over to sort out the reckoning, the extortion was not too painful, considering how much the barber had eaten and drunk.

A good evening – for a man who could feel free to enjoy it.

I told Xanthus to press on ahead while I waited for the usual scramble among the staff to find coins for my change. When I emerged on the main street my tame pest had already vanished. I was in no hurry to catch up. It was a dry night, with crazy stars dotting a black sky among a few fast, high clouds. Tomorrow we would probably have teeming showers again, but I stood for a while enjoying this fierce, dry wind on my face. The street was empty at that moment. I was suffering a pang of traveller's melancholia.

I turned back into the bar, where I ordered a dish of raisins and another drink.

The room had thinned out. Feeling independent, I changed seats. This allowed me to survey my drinking companions. Men were talking together in small parties; some were dining alone. Two caught my eye because they seemed to be together yet never spoke. There was no impression of a quarrel; they simply looked even more depressed than I had been before I shook off Xanthus.

A barmaid lit a new taper on their table. AS it flared, I recognised the pair; they wore high-necked tunics under blackberry-coloured Gallic wraps with pointed hoods. One was overweight and middle-aged; the other had reddish hair and a particularly florid crop of warts on his cheeks and hands. They were the two I had seen at the ceramics factory, arguing.

Had they looked more communicative I might have gone over and mentioned the coincidence. As it was, they were sunk in their thoughts and I was sleepy, enjoying my snatched period of privacy. I finished my raisins. The next time I looked up they were on their way out. Just as well, probably. I doubted if they had noticed me at Lugdunum, and in any case, they had been so angry there that they might not welcome a reminder of the scene. Tomorrow we would all continue our journeys to different destinations. It was highly unlikely another chance meeting would occur.

But it did. Well, I saw them.

Next morning, half an hour out of the village, while the barber was still maundering on about where I had disap- peared to for so long the previous evening, and I was ignoring the flow of complaint with my usual tight-lipped tact, we came across two tent parties of army recruits. There were no legions stationed in Gaul itself. These goslings must have been waddling towards the frontier. Now they had stopped. They were standing about the highway like spilled carrots, twenty seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds still unused to the weight of their helmets and only just discovering the drear boredom of a long march. Even the centurion in charge of them, who must have been around a bit, was inadequate for the crisis they had stumbled across. He knew he represented law and order, so he knew he had to do something. But he would rather have kept going with his eyes fixed straight ahead. Frankly, so would I.

The problem was that the recruits had spotted the bodies of two travellers lying in the drainage ditch. They had said out eagerly to the centurion, so he had bad it, so. Vibes we arrived he was not a happy man. As he had clambered down to investigate, his boot had skidded on the wet, slippery turf. He had twisted his back, soaked his cloak, and smeared mud all down one leg. He was cursing repetitiously as he tried to clean his leg with a bunch of grass. Xanthus and I reining in to watch made him even more upset. Now, whatever he decided to do about the problem would have critical witnesses.

We had ridden out north from Lugdunum, following the River Saone on the consular highway constructed by the army as a fast route towards the two Germanies. Maintained by commissioners at public expense, it was a top-quality piece of engineering: rammed earth, then a layer of pebbles, another of rubble, a bed of fine concrete, then squared paving with a camber that would shed water like a tortoise shell. The highway rode a little above the surrounding countryside. On either side were steep ditches to provide both drainage and security from ambushers. Looking down from the road, I had a perfect view.

The keenest young lads had slithered down after their centurion. This was the best thing that had happened to them since they had left Italy. They were rolling the fat corpse onto his back. I think I was ready for what was to follow even before I had a look at his face. It was puffed up from lying in rainwater, but I knew this was one of the two men from Lugdunum. I knew his stiffening companion, too, though he was still face down; I could see the warts on his hands. They were visible because before depositing him in the ditch-water, someone had bound his arms behind his back.

Whatever had made these two so angry, fortune had found a decisive way of helping them get over it.

The centurion tucked up the swinging, bronze-weighted ends of his groin-protector into his belt, then handed his helmet to a soldier, who held it gingerly by the carrying loop. The rain had stopped temporarily, but the officer's scarlet cloak twisted awkwardly against his silvered sword baldric, the cloak's woollen folds clinging to him with the dampness you never seem to lose when travelling. As his head lifted, I spotted weary resignation because our arrival had dispelled any plan he might have had for dragging brushwood over the bodies and hurrying off out of it.

Leaning on my horse's neck, I gave him a slight nod.

'Move the crowd on, soldier!' he called up. The recruits were so new to army life that instead of each stubbornly assuming the order was for the next man along, they all squared up to us. I stayed where I was.

'Show them your pass!' Xanthus hissed at me loudly, assuming we were in trouble – which, once he had spoken, we immediately were. I ignored him, but the centurion stiffened. Now he would want to make quite sure who we were, and if he was as thorough as he looked, where we were going, who had sent us, what we were up to out here in this wilderness, and whether anything in our business was likely to produce repercussions affecting him.

This seemed good for holding us all up for at least a couple of weeks. My dangerous stillness communicated itself to the barber, who subsided unhappily. The centurion glared at us.

By now I was more or less resigned to people concluding that Xanthus and I were two fancy boys out on a spree. Xanthus was unmistakably a barber – and I was just as obviously too poor to afford a personal attendant. Our horse and mules were drawn from the local stables who supplied the imperial despatch-riders, but there was nothing about the beasts to give that away. The basket with Vespasian's gift to the Fourteenth had a well-buckled, military air. My own luggage looked businesslike. Yet any hint of officialdom I managed to carry clashed heavily with the barber's daintiness. Like everyone else, the centurion assessed his Greek- looking cloak and violet tunic with saffron embroidery (it was probably a cast-off from Nero, but I had refused to enquire and give Xanthus the pleasure of telling me). The officer considered the brighter-than-life complexion, the fastidiously trimmed hair and today's shoes (hole-punched, purple-tasselled jobs). He took in the simpering, insufferable expression. Then he turned to me.

I stared back, uncombed and unperturbed. I allowed him three seconds of failing to explain me. Then I suggested quietly, 'One for the municipal police at the next town with a magistrate?' I was consulting my itinerary; I let him see it was army issue. 'We're three days past Lugdunum; Cavillonum should be only a cricket's jump ahead. That's a substantial town…

People are never grateful. Offering him a let-out only made him take an interest. He turned back to the corpses. I should have ridden on, but our previous contact with the dead men gave me some sort of fellow-feeling. I dismounted and half jumped, half slid down into the fossa too.

I felt no sense of surprise at finding them here, dead. They had carried the marks of men in the midst of crisis. Maybe it was hindsight, but what I had seen of them had seemed to forebode tragedy.

Signs of what had done the actual damage were minimal, but it looked as if both men had been beaten to subdue them, then finished off by pressure to the neck. Their bound arms proved pretty conclusively that the killings were deliberate.

The centurion searched them without emotion while his young soldiers stood back more shyly. He glanced at me. 'Name's Falco,' I said, to show I had nothing to hide.

'Official?'

'Don't ask!' That told him I was official enough. 'What do you think?'

He had accepted me as an equal. 'Looks like robbery. Horses missing. This stout party has had a pouch cut from his belt.'

'If that's it, report their positions as you pass through Cavillonum. Let the civilians deal with it.'

I touched one of the dead men with the back of my hand. He was cold. The centurion saw me do it, but neither of us commented. The clothing of the one they had turned over was wringing wet where the brackish bog at the base of the ditch had soaked right through the material. The centurion saw me looking at that, too.

'Nothing to show who they are or where they were going! I still put it down to thieves.' He met my gaze, daring me to disagree; I smiled faintly. In his position I would have taken the same line. We both stood. He shouted up to the road, 'One of you run back to the milestone and take a note of it.'

'Yes, Helvetius!'

He and I took a run at the bank and regained the road together. The recruits below had a last poke at the bodies for bravado, then followed us; most of them floundered and fell back a few times. 'Stop fooling!' Helvetius growled, but he was patient with them.

I grinned. 'They seem up to the usual dim standard of nowadays!' He hated them, as recruiting officers do, but he let it pass. 'What's your legion?'

'First Adiutrix.' Brought over the Alps by Cerialis as part of the task force that quelled the rebellion. I had forgotten where they were based presently. I was just happy not to hear he belonged to the Fourteenth.

Xanthus was asking one of the soldiers what fort they were heading for; the lad was unable to tell him. The centurion must have known, but he didn't say; nor did I ask.

We parted company from the soldiers and rode on towards the Cavillonum junction, where I was planning to fork south. After a while Xanthus informed me, with obvious pride, that he had recognised the dead men from Lugdunum.

'So did I.'

He was disappointed. 'You never said!'

'No point.'

'What will happen now?'

'The centurion will instruct a town magistrate to collect the corpses and organise a posse to search for the thieves.' 'Do you think they'll be apprehended?'

'Probably not.'

'How do you know he was a centurion?'

'He wore his sword on the left.'

'Do ordinary soldiers carry them differently?'

'Correct.'

'Why?'

'Keeps the scabbard out of the way of the shield.' To a foot-soldier unimpeded freedom of movement could mean life or death, but such details failed to interest Xanthus.

'You know, it could have been us!' he trilled enthusiastically. 'If you and I, Falco, had set out earlier than they did this morning, we could have had that chance meeting with the thieves.'

I said nothing. He assumed I was unnerved by the suggestion, so he rode on looking superior. It was another of his irritating habits; he could reason himself halfway through a problem, then his brain stuck.

Even if he and I had ridden out at dawn with clinking saddlebags marked 'Help yourselves' in three European languages, I did not believe that whoever killed the pair would have touched us. This was no straightforward highway robbery. There were oddities here which both Helvetius and I had spotted. For one thing, the two men from Lugdunum had not died that morning. The bodies were cold, and the condition of their clothing showed that they had been lying in the ditch all night. Who travels by night? Not even imperial despatch-riders, unless an emperor has died or they have details of a very lurid scandal involving people at the top. In any case, I had seen the victims at their supper. They had looked unhappy, but had given no impression of needing to dash on with lanterns. They had been resting as leisurely as the rest of us at the tavern that night.

No. Somebody had killed those two men, probably at the village not long after I saw them, then transported the bodies a fair distance in the dark. Perhaps if I had not lingered over my drink, I would have run into the fracas. Perhaps I might even have prevented it. At any rate, after I watched them leave the tavern they must have been sought out, beaten and throttled, then the murders disguised as a natural hazard of travelling so that no questions would be asked.

'All a bit of a coincidence, eh Falco?'

'Possibly.'

Possibly not. But I had no time to stop and investigate. The only question I could ponder as I rode through Cavillonum was, did their sad fate derive entirely from their personal business in Lugdunum – or did it have some bearing on my own task?

I told myself I would never know.

It didn't help.