The Iron Hand of Mars

LXII

Moguntiacum.

A bridge, a tollbooth, a ridiculous column – and the girl I was longing to see.

The journey had taken sufficient time for us to start readjusting to the real world. However, it might take the world longer to adjust to us savages. Along the river had been civilised towns with baths and Roman food. Civilised contact, too, with men we understood, though for most of the journey we had found ourselves clinging in a tight clique of our own, quarantined by an adventure that seemed too big to discuss.

When we finally landed and returned to the fort we had started from, we took the centurion's ashes to rest in the Principia shrine. As we left the parade-ground, the recruits said goodbye. I would certainly be leaving soon, and their close contact with their senior tribune must also end when Justinus resumed the normal loftiness that was expected from his rank. Our tattered band left us on the Via Principia almost tearfully, but just then a group of passing comrades called out a welcome; we watched a swagger hit them, and they went off visibly boasting. Only Lentullus turned back at the last minute, with a shy wave.

Justinus was having some trouble with his throat. 'I hate to say I'll miss them.'

'Don't worry.' Even I felt subdued. 'You're back in harness, Quintus. There will be plenty of other annoyances…'

He swore cheerfully, in one of the several languages he had picked up for chatting to women.

He had the good idea of sending a message to his legate's secretary that there was so much to report he needed a proper appointment – later. This dodge left us free to go of to his house, pretending to stroll lazily as if we had nothing special in mind.

Helena was in the garden. It was too cold for her to be there, but it had ensured her solitude. She was grieving for us. Her brother and I came out into the portico side by side. Her face seemed to light with excitement almost before she heard our steps; then her only dilemma was which of us to rush to first.

We both held back, to let the other have her. I won in the politeness stakes. I intended to. I meant to let Quintus hug her once, then when he passed on the bundle I would feel free to keep hold of her afterwards. But Helena Justina careered past her brother and fell on me.

He had the grace to smile, before he sadly turned away. 'Stay, friend…'

Helena was very quick. As if she had always intended it, she broke from me and threw her arms round him joyfully. 'Falco, you horror, what have you done to my brother?'

'He grew up,' I said. 'An affliction most people manage to avoid, but when it does strike it tends to hurt.'

She was laughing. I had forgotten just how much I loved that laugh. 'How did this accident happen?'

'Don't ask. It must have been so terrible he won't say.'

Helena assumed the stillness that said young Quintus should resign himself because she had in mind that he soon would confess. She held him off for one of her fierce inspections. 'He looks taller!'

Quintus only smiled again, like a man who could keep his own council, and intended to do so.

That was when I realised I might have made a small mistake about the tribune's adventure in Veleda's tower. I had no chance to ask him, because my horrid niece and Little Flaxen Pigtails must have heard of our arrival. They galloped out screaming in a way that passed for greetings, then the tribune's dog made himself at home by biting a servant, and after that a message came that the First's legate was so delighted at our safe return he had cancelled the rest of his schedule and wanted to see Justinus straight away…

After he left, I waited for Helena to ask pertinent questions, but although he was her favourite and I knew she loved him dearly, for some reason she only wanted to involve herself with me.

I could have argued, but the girl was evidently set on hauling me off into a dark corner for a bout of something shameless, so rather than disappoint her I went along with it.

I had taken my mission as far as I could – and further than Vespasian had a right to expect, though I knew better than to persuade myself that that unreasonable tyrant would agree. The old miser expected to extract his full money's worth before he let me home; I still had coercing Civilis on my rosta for one thing. But I had done well enough to earn my fee. My curly mop would not be welcome back on the Palatine until the last possible moment now that more than basic expenses would be called for from the Treasury.

For reasons of my own I was in no hurry to shift from here. Decisions were looming painfully, all the worse because I already knew what the answer had to be. Since she refused to make her own decisions, I had to force the right ones on Helena.

I pretended I was staying on at the fort to complete my report on the Fourteenth. I made out that it was difficult. A credible plea. I hate reports. I was perfectly capable of producing it, but lacked the will to start.

I spent a lot of time in the tribune's study chewing the end of a stylus while I watched Helena Justina playing draughts against herself. I wondered how long it would be before she realised I had noticed she was cheating. In the end I felt forced to mention it. She flounced off in a huff, which was annoying because I much preferred dreaming and watching her.

I struggled on. The stylus was a digit shorter now. Bits of soggy wood kept breaking off and splintering my tongue. As I spat them out I registered that my niece and her friend were hanging round the door engaged in secret whispering. There had been efforts at obvious mystery ever since I had arrived back. I was so bored with the report that this time I crept up, jumped out with a roar, and grabbed the pair of them. Then I dragged them into the study and sat them down, one on each knee.

'Now you're captured. You'll sit there until you tell nice Uncle Marcus why you keep peering round the architrave. Are you spying on me?'

At first it seemed like nothing. I was today's suspect. They spent a lot of time playing at being informers. It was not a compliment; it was for the same reasons that Festus and I had always wanted to be rag-pickers: a dirty, disreputable existence, and our mother would have hated us doing it.

'But we're not going to tell you anything we've seen!' Augustinilla boasted.

'Suits me. That saves me having to do anything about it.' She seemed satisfied. It fitted the family view that her sordid Uncle Marcus would sooner lie in bed all day than exert himself turning an honest denarius. I grinned evilly. 'You'd have to be clever to produce anything useful. Most informers spend weeks on a stake-out and still never find out anything…'

I could see Pigtails feeling torn. Unlike my niece, she was clever enough to want to have her intelligence recognised – though not enough to hide it and make full use of her advantage. 'Tell him about the boy with the arrows!' she burst out.

Something struck a chord. I was interested now, so I tried looking bored. Augustinilla dealt with that. She shook her head vigorously. I asked Arminia directly where they had seen this boy.

'Augusta Treverorum.'

I was shocked. 'Whatever were you doing there?' My niece opened her mouth and pointed to a reddened hole where a tooth had been. 'Stop fooling. I can see what you had for breakfast wriggling through your gut. Who had you gone to see?'

'Mars Lenus,' she informed me, as if talking to an idiot. 'Mars who?'

'Mars the Healer,' Arminia consented to explain.

This was hard work. I filled in some gaps myself: 'Augustinilla had toothache – I remember that from before I went away.' The ladies looked unimpressed by this subtle reference to the forests full of fog and ferocious animals I had just endured. 'So Helena Justina took you to a shrine -'

'The tooth fell out before we went,' Arminia told me with some disgust. 'Helena made us go there anyway.'

'I wonder why that was.'

'To look around!' they chorused.

'Ah yes. How obvious! Did she see anything worthwhile?' No. Helena would have mentioned it, though she would not trouble me with news of a pointless trip. Not while I had my report to write. She regarded that as serious. 'But you saw this boy?'

'He was shooting at us. He said we were Romans and he was in the Free Gallic Empire, with permission from his father to kill us dead. So then we knew,' Arminia said.

'Tell me, Arminia.'

'Who he was.' That was more than I knew. She whispered nervously, 'The chieftain's son. The one who shoots real prisoners!'

I resisted the urge to grab them closer protectively. These were two tough women; neither needed me. 'I hope you ran away?'

'Of course,' Augustinilla scoffed. 'We knew what to do. He was pathetic. We shook him off, then doubled back and followed him.'

They cackled with delight at the ease with which they had bamboozled him. No boy was safe with these young hags on his tail. In different ways, they were both destined to be man-eaters.

I let them see me swallow. 'And then?'

'We saw the one-eyed man.'

'The man with the red beard. The beard that's dyed,' the little flaxen treasure specified. Just in case I had not realised what completely brilliant sidekicks I had somehow attracted to work with me.

Helena said she would write my report. 'You know nothing about the subject!'

'So what? Most men who write reports know less. How about: "The Fourteenth Gemina Martia Victrix are a sound operative unit, but they need a firmer hand than they received from their recent command structure. The appointment of a new legate with strong supervisory talents will no doubt be a priority. The Fourteenth appear amenable to relocation in Germany on a permanent or semipermanent basis. This option enables closer control of them; it will also permit full exploitation of their considerable experience with Celtic peoples, which should be particularly appropriate in the delicate political climate that exists in the Rhenus corridor…"

'This is rubbish!' I interrupted.

'Exactly. Just what a secretariat wants to hear.'

I left her to it. She reckoned she could rattle off and stitch together several pages on the same pretentious lines by my return. Her handwriting was neater than mine too.

I would have liked to take Helena with me, but Augusta Treverorum was ninety miles away and I had to ride hard if I wanted to be back at Moguntiacum by the Emperor's birthday and the coming parade.

A man needs a travelling companion, however, so I took someone else instead. Xanthus, who so loved to see the world, was the obvious candidate.