Germanicus

Giton was grinning. He'd sat through Orosius's spiel like the guy was his own personal performing monkey. 'You see, Corvinus?' he said. 'I told you he was smart.'

'Yeah, he's smart, okay.' He was, despite the weasel face and grubby fingernails. Too smart for his own good.

'So.' Giton's grin broadened, and he held out his hand. 'Let's have the money.'

'Wait a minute.' My brain was still spinning. 'All this may be right but it's old history. Piso didn't get to Syria until after the kings were dead, and he's the guy I'm interested in. And if the plot was stone dead like you say then what did he and Vonones have on the boiler together?'

Orosius spread his hands. 'Nothing, lord.'

I frowned. 'Run that one past me again.'

'Nothing for the Lord Piso's part, in any event. Oh, Vonones believed that Piso was furthering his interests, and he himself was certainly still in touch with his Parthian allies. But I'm afraid that by this time he was…shall we say in a rather overoptimistic and unrealistic frame of mind, and too ready to catch at any straw that was offered. When a friend in Rome contacted him to say that the new governor would be…more amenable than the last it built up his hopes considerably. And out of all proportion.'

Yeah, that would fit. And the 'friend', of course, had been Crispus's middle-man Regulus. It fitted. Still… 'The guy couldn't've been that much of a fool,' I objected. 'Piso would have to give something in return for his bribes besides promises. Something more concrete.'

'Oh, but he did, of course!' Orosius sat up. 'You see, thanks to his imperial connections Piso was able to tell Vonones that the present situation was unlikely to last very long because the emperor had-'

The trees behind the shrine rustled. There was a sharp hiss and a dull thud. The guy jerked, his mouth still open and his eyes wide. Then, slowly, he fell forward to reveal the arrow-shaft buried in his back.

I threw myself to one side. Giton was slower: the second arrow caught him on the left shoulder and he screamed like a stuck pig. A third skittered over the rocky ground and broke against a boulder. By that time I was up and running, my knife out, keeping low and weaving. I'd got maybe ten yards when a fourth arrow stung my cheek and I caught sight of the bastard through the scrub. He lowered his bow and took to the mountain.

'Go left!' I shouted to Giton; he was on his feet now and he had his own knife out. 'Left, you bastard! Cut him off!'

Giton nodded. He was holding his arm but the wound couldn't've been serious because there was no sign of the arrow. I broke through the screen of bushes and found myself at the foot of a narrow ravine. The guy was about fifty yards ahead, his bow looped over one shoulder, clambering up the scree. He was fit, I'd give him that: my own chest was beginning to burn with the effort and I wasn't gaining any.

The ravine ended in a lip of rock, and that was where he was headed. Half way towards it I knew I was in trouble because he'd reach it while I was still struggling up the watercourse. There was no cover and no place to go except up and down, and whichever one I chose he'd pick me off as easy as a duck in a bucket. I swore hard and concentrated on closing the gap. I was still a good forty yards short when he swung himself over the lip, scooped the bow off his shoulder and fitted an arrow to the string. I waited, ready to dive whichever way it wasn't going; but the arrow never came.

The guy had been squinting down at me, waiting for a good line of shot. Suddenly he looked up and back. A second figure loomed behind him and he shouted and pitched backwards arse over tip. I went hell for leather up the scree, my head low and my lungs bursting, and threw myself across the lip onto the plateau.

I landed right on top of him. He was dead. Very dead; Giton's knife had all but taken his head off. His bow lay to one side. No sign of the arrow, so he must've loosed it after all and I hadn't noticed.

Giton was sitting on a boulder, staring at the corpse.

'Thanks, friend,' I said, when my ribs had stopped hurting and I could breathe again.

He didn't look up. 'Fuck that. You think I did it for you?'

I put my knife back into its wrist sheath and said nothing.

'He was smart, wasn't he, though?' Giton still wasn't looking at me. 'A right smart little bugger.'

'Yeah, he was smart.' I knelt down beside the dead man. He was a soldier, that much was obvious from his leathers and army boots. 'Hey, Giton. You know if the Third have an archer troop attached?'

He was quiet for so long I didn't think he'd answer. Then he said: 'Sure. The Seventh Cretans. Mostly from the west, around Mount Leuca.'

Uh-huh. I'd forgotten he was a Cretan himself. 'You know this guy, by any chance?'

Giton got up, walked over and spat very deliberately into the upturned face. 'His name was Lyncaeus. Julius Lyncaeus. I killed his uncle years back in Dictynnaeum.'

'Is that so?' I paused and touched the corpse with my foot. 'You want to help me bury him?'

But Giton was already on his way back down to the shrine. He didn't even look round.

'I owe you thirty silver pieces, friend,' I shouted after him; but I was talking to his back.

31

The Third's camp was five miles out the Beroea road. I could've gone back home to get my own carriage but that would've taken too long. Instead I picked up a public one from outside Caesar's Baths and left the driver twiddling his thumbs while I crossed the camp's main causeway and introduced myself to the gate guard.

'Yes, sir?' The guy in charge was a big decurion who looked like he'd been boiled in his leathers and then dried over an oakwood fire.

'Your legate on base at the moment, soldier?' I said.

The hard eyes raked me like I was a fifth-rate rookie who'd just fumbled his throwing spear at the present. Maybe I should've gone home first and smartened up after all, but I'd been too angry to put this off, and I'd hoped my patrician vowels and the purple stripe on what was left of my tunic would make up for appearances.

'Who wants him?' The guy was polite enough, but I noticed he'd dropped the 'sir'. I dabbed at the arrow scratch on my cheek. It'd stopped bleeding now but I'd bet good money my face didn't look too respectable either.

'The name's Valerius Corvinus. Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus. Rufus knows who I am. Tell him he's just lost himself an archer.'

The decurion stiffened, and I thought for a moment he'd have his squaddies throw me out. Then he nodded slowly.

'Wait here,' he said. 'Geminus!' One of the squaddies stepped forward. 'Message to the duty adjutant. Visitor for the legate at the main gate. Give him the b — ' He stopped himself. 'Give him the gentleman's name and ask for instructions.'

'Thanks, sunshine.' I sat down uninvited on the bench inside the gatehouse to wait.

Ten minutes and not a word of social chitchat later the guy reappeared, panting.

'The adjutant says I'm to bring him up, decurion,' he said.

'Do it, then.' The decurion turned his broad back on me.

When I strode into Rufus's office he was standing beside the desk, his face dark with anger.

'All right, Corvinus,' he said. 'What's this about an archer?'

'His name was Julius Lyncaeus. One of your Cretans. He shot one of the people I was with over by the Shrine of the Dryads, wounded a second and near as hell put an arrow through me. I thought maybe we should discuss it, Rufus.'

'Where is the Cretan now?'

'Last I saw he was lying on a plateau under the Capitol with his head hanging off. Pick him up any time you like.'