The Iron Hand of Mars

LV

'What ho, Masinissa!' Justinus was too polite to tell me to remove my happy grin. 'I'm glad the amulet worked.'

'Oh it worked!' He said it in an odd voice.

I assumed my sombre uncle attitude: 'You look tired.'

'It's not serious.'

'Good. I was afraid it might be due to a broken heart.'

'How lucky we know that's not true,' he answered, much too quietly.

'She's too old for you, you have nothing in common, and your mother has enough to endure with Helena and me.'

'Of course,' he said. He might have argued the point about me and Helena.

'Well Quintus Camillus, I'm glad you can be philosophical. You're a decent lad and deserve some fun before you settle down to a dull old life as a senator, but we both know what happened back there had all the makings of a significant experience – the kind that has been known to bruise a thoughtful man's morale.'

'The Senate has been ruled out for me.'

'Wrong. You've rewritten that. I believe there are advantages, if you can tolerate the bores and hypocrites. You only have to attend the Curia once a month, and you get front-row seats in theatres.'

'Please don't jolly me along.'

'All right. As a matter of interest, did you escape or did the lady throw you out?'

'I meant my offer of an exchange. I said I had to stay.'

'Ah well. Some women can't stand pompous types who stick by their principles.'

He was silent.

'Do you want to talk about what happened?'

'No,' he said.

We watched the river slipping away behind us. We were travelling slower than I liked for safety, but it was too fast for the tribune. He had been overwhelmed, then wrenched away before he could adjust. Now he felt racked by the scale of his feelings.

'Be prepared,' I advised. 'People other than me will ask you – people in high positions. A junior officer who has talked to the enemy has a duty to explain.' I was turning to go.

Justinus asked suddenly in a wry voice, 'What happened to Masinissa?'

I stopped. 'After he threw away his princess? He lived with honour for many years, devoting himself to kingship and such.'

'Ah, yes of course!' I waited. He was forcing himself to complete the day's official business. 'When I went back upstairs she had already decided. She will tell her people that a free Gallic Empire can never be established. That Rome will not in our lifetime lose the western Rhenus bank. That liberty in their own territory is worth more than pointless war… Can she make them listen?' He sounded desperate.

'She never uses compulsion. Leaving people free to choose sometimes pressures them into choosing the harder course.'

'Oh yes!' he said, rather heavily.

'Was she upset?' A fleeting thought assailed me that he might have been consoling her.

He did not answer my question but asked his own: 'What will happen to her?'

'She'll either become a crazy wraith, or she'll marry some thickset red-haired hulk and have nine children in ten years.'

After a silence Justinus said, 'She prophesied to me that if the eastern tribes resume their nomadic life, invading each other's territory, the Bructeri will be wiped out.'

'It's possible.'

For a long time neither of us spoke.

We heard Ascanius calling that he wanted a relief. I had ordered Helvetius to rest so that he could take a later watch; I had to go. 'One thing puzzles me, Quintus. If Veleda had already decided, why did it take her until dawn to throw you out?'

His pause was almost undetectable. 'She was desperate for some decent conversation, as you said. So was I,' he added.

I laughed, then said he had a subtle knack of being rude, and that I could take a hint.

I loped back to supervise Ascanius. When Ascanius demanded for everyone, 'Did he, or didn't he?', I confidently answered no.

Justinus never did return to me the quartermaster's amulet. I was rather surprised he kept it. In fact sometimes, especially when he was wearing that painful expression he had brought with him to the boat, I almost thought he looked like a man who had given it away as a love token to some girl.

Fortuna had protected him. He was not in love; he had told me so. Quintus Camillus Justinus, senior tribune of the First Adiutrix, had proved himself one of the Empire's natural diplomats. Diplomacy involves a certain amount of lying – but I could not believe that Helena's brother would hide the truth from me.