Germanicus

Hell. I was no beer drinker, and these buggers held two pints at least.

'Bet,' I said.

'Go for it, then.'

I picked up the beaker and took a deep breath. The stuff smelt like stale yeasty horse piss, and it had a head on it that sat and sneered. The taste was worse. Half way down I knew I wasn't going to make it. Then my eyes met his over the rim of the beaker and suddenly twenty generations of cross-grained, bloody-minded Valerii were in my head and yelling 'Screw you, pal!' So I finished it.

Carefully, my eyes still on his, I lowered the beaker and set it back on the table, topside down. Not a drip.

He clapped me on the shoulder. I belched.

'Not bad for a Roman,' he said. 'Maybe you can drink beer after all. You want another?'

No way. I wasn't doing that again, not even in exchange for a signed statement witnessed by the Wart himself. 'We had a bet,' I said. 'Remember?'

'Yeah.' He reached inside his tunic, brought out a letter and handed it over. 'This what you want?'

The seal had been broken, so I opened it. I didn't know what Piso's handwriting looked like, but it had his signature at the bottom and there was no reason why it shouldn't be genuine. The letter was the deed to a slaughterhouse near Tannery Row, made out to Gnaeus Calpurnius Carillus.

So we were stymied, I thought as I walked back through the Subura towards town. Letter B had turned out to be a red herring: a transfer of property from patron to client paid for fair and square out of the profits of the big German's butcher-meat business. Sure, it had been a coincidence that the deal was finalised the day Piso had died, but coincidences happen. Carillus was just lucky he'd got his deed before Piso was beyond signing it. There was only one thing that still bugged me, and that was why Regulus had lied when he'd said the freedman had brought the suicide note. Maybe I should have another word with the smoothie bastard, somewhere people wouldn't come running if the furniture got a little disarranged.

I found myself within two streets of the Shrine of Libera. I hadn't seen Agron in six months, not since the wedding when he'd hit me a smacker in the ear with a celebration walnut, so maybe a quick courtesy call wouldn't go amiss. Besides, after that German beer I needed a drink.

Agron was the big Illyrian who'd saved my life over on the Janiculum after pushing my face into a Suburan dinner service. He'd severed his connection with the bastard Asprenas, of course, but he still had his metalsmith's business near the Libera shrine. I suppose you could call him a kind of client of mine. Just. Real patrons have real clients. I'm stuck with stubborn, independent minded buggers like Scylax and Agron.

He was in, luckily, but he put up the shutters and we went round to a local wineshop and split a jug of half decent Massic with a dish of good cheese and olives on the side: Agron's got a weakness for cheese. We talked about this and that for a while — he's no bonehead, for all his barley-bread accent, and he can handle a conversation — and then he said: 'So what are you doing these days, Corvinus?'

Maybe it was the fact that I was on a downer after seeing Carillus. Maybe because I had a certain respect for the guy. Whatever the reason, I told him. Not everything, not about Livia, although he knew all about my past relations with that bitch. Just that I was interested in the Piso case, and in how Germanicus died.

'You ever serve under him?' I asked. Agron was ex-army. He'd been one of the few survivors of the Eighteenth Legion when it was massacred in the Teutoburg.

'No. He was after my time.'

'Know anyone who did?'

He grinned. 'Sure. Dozens. You can't talk to a Rhine squaddie for more than two minutes before he starts boasting how he served under Germanicus. Whether he did or not.'

'The guy was that good, eh?'

Agron spat out an olive pip into his palm. 'To the Rhine legions Germanicus is god, Corvinus. As far as they're concerned there's only ever been one General — capital G — between the Belgian border and the Elbe. And that's Germanicus.'

'Not the Wart?'

'Not the Wart. Sure, Tiberius was good, better in some ways, but he still isn't the General. Not to most squaddies, anyhow.'

'Better in what ways?' I speared a piece of cheese.

Agron's eyes narrowed. 'You got a reason for asking?'

'No. Not especially.' I didn't, but now the Carillus angle seemed to have fizzled out I was groping around for a new one. And if the Wart was involved then I needed to know more about the relationship between father and adopted son. 'Just curious.'

'Yeah.' The suspicious look changed back to a grin. 'That I'd believe. Your curiosity'll be the death of you one of these days. Okay. So maybe better's the wrong word. Germanicus and Tiberius were different characters, heart and head, with Germanicus being the heart. And heart'll win over head with squaddies every time.'

That made sense of a sort, although I didn't completely agree with his views. The Wart's campaigns in Germany had been slow and steady, while Germanicus's were flashier and covered more ground but in the end they got us nowhere. Still, like he'd said, it wasn't totally fair to compare the two as generals. Agron wasn't stupid, he just thought direct like the soldier he was…

Something tugged at my brain. I reached for it, but it wasn't there any longer. Never mind, it would come in its own time.

Agron was saying something. I switched my attention back to him.

'Of course the guy had a lot of points with the squaddies from the way he handled the mutiny after Augustus died. Agrippina too. That's some woman, Corvinus. Iron hard, army to the bone and with more sheer guts than a dozen first centurions. You ever meet her?'

'Agrippina? No. No, never.'

'Pity.' Not the word I would've used. 'If Germanicus is the General then Agrippina's his second. That kid of theirs is going to be a red-hot soldier, too. Young Gaius. Caligula.'

'That right?' I drank my wine. I could feel the faint prickling at the back of my neck that was telling me that something was important here if I could only put my finger on it.

'Yeah. It was a shame the poor guy died,' Agron shared the last of the Massic between our two cups. 'He'd've made an emperor. Drusus is okay, but he's no Germanicus. He's like his father, all head.' He pushed over the plate. 'Hey, you want some of this cheese before I finish it?'

'No. No thanks, you have it. I'm going…Shit!'

'You okay, boy?'

'No.' The thought hadn't anything to do with the Germanicus business. It was much more serious. 'I just remembered. We're going out to a birthday dinner tonight. Perilla and me. At my mother's.' Gods alive, Perilla would kill me! 'I shouldn't be here, friend.'

'Relax! It's hardly two hours past noon yet. You've got lots of time. Anyway, it's my shout.'

I shook my head. 'Helvius Priscus is old fashioned. He eats early. And I promised Perilla I'd look for an Etruscan relic for him in the Saepta.' Priscus is my mother's husband. He has this thing about tombs. 'Sorry, Agron. Some other time, okay?'

'If this is what marriage does to you then you can keep it.' Agron grinned. 'Yeah, okay. I'll see you around, maybe.'

I tossed the waiter a silver piece and took off at a run. I hadn't been kidding. Less than four hours to get all the way to the Saepta, find a second hand Etruscan tooth-mug for Priscus, then hoof it back to the Palatine in time for a bath and a change of mantle. And I'd better do it, too, or Perilla would kill me slowly with sarcasm. Nevertheless, I felt a lot happier for having seen the big Illyrian guy.

You see, I knew now why the Wart had wanted to murder his son.

10

By the time I got to the Saepta I was in a muck sweat, with my cloak and tunic in a state that would have Bathyllus climbing the wall when he saw me. Not the best condition for a visit to one of Rome's most exclusive shopping districts, but where the alternatives are keeping up my reputation as a narrow-striper and facing Perilla with a job undone then elegance loses hands down. Phlebas's was at the far end, just short of the Virgan Aqueduct, half way up a cul-de-sac whose entrance was an anonymous narrow gap between two fashionable goldsmiths. Not a prime site, in other words, but that meant nothing except that Phlebas was a smart cookie who watched his overheads and knew his market. His customers were rich oddballs like Priscus who'd rather collect than eat, and a clientele like that is a licence to coin money. The guy was already making enough to run a house on the Pincian and a fast mistress whose collecting tastes were as far from Babylonian clay tablets as you can get; which wasn't bad going for an ex-slave who'd started out selling junk from a stall in the Subura. But then, that's modern Rome for you. Give him another ten years and he'd probably be making the Wart an offer for his little place on the Palatine.