"So, what line are you in, Falco?"
"Procurator of the Sacred Geese at the Temple of Juno." My ghastly sinecure did have some uses. It nicely gave the impression that apart from a dubious role cleaning out augurs' hen-coops, I was a feeble man of leisure who lived off his wife's money. "What about you?"
"You may not like this!" He had an honest charm. Mind you, I was no follower of honest charm. "I am in property."
"I have lived in rented apartments!" I returned, mentally scratching out "honest."
"I don't do domestic tenancies. Strictly commercial."
"So what is your field, Norbanus?"
"I buy up or build premises, then develop them into businesses."
"A big organization?"
"Expanding."
"How discreet. Still, no canny businessman reveals details of his balance sheet!" He only smiled politely, nodding in reply. "What brings you to Britain?" I tried.
"Sniffing the market. Looking for introductions. Maybe you can tell me, Falco. This is the big question: what does Britain want?"
"Every damned thing!" I laughed gently. "And first you have to explain to them how much they want to do it… The natives are still being tempted down from hilltop villages; some have only just come in from their round huts. You start by telling them that buildings should have corners."
"Gemini! It's more of a backwater than I thought." We were by now on friendly terms-two suave Romans among the naive barbarians.
I remembered that my job as a stand-in was to generate enthusiasm for this potholed byway. "Optimistically, if the province stays Roman, the potential must be enormous." Julius Frontinus would have applauded my two-faced bluff. "Anyone who finds himself the right trading niche could make a killing."
"You know the province?" Norbanus seemed surprised.
"Army." Another useful cover; all the better for being true. I see.
A slave brought us warm water and towels so we could rinse our hands after eating. The subtle hint broke up the party. Well, the Gauls might never have noticed that it was time to leave, but they were bored anyway. They bumbled off, discussing drinking dens for a late-night fling, with barely a nod to us. The British oysterman had already vanished. Norbanus bowed over the scented hands of the Three Graces in our good-bye lineup. He did thank Aelia Camilla and Helena perfectly civilly. It was to Maia that he stressed how much he had enjoyed the evening.
"Maia Favonia, goodnight!" Interesting. Maia moved in a small circle and rarely used her full two names. I wondered how Norbanus knew them. Had he made a special effort to find out? Had I been jumpy, I might also have asked why.
I saw the guests off the premises. I made it look like a courtesy rather than a ploy to ensure they stole nothing.
Exhausted, I was longing for my bed. It was not to be. As I returned down a corridor of offices, I saw the centurion from last night's watch patrol hanging around.
XVI
Waiting to be seen by someone?"
"There's been a development in the Longus case." The centurion explained his presence only reluctantly.
"Petronius Longus is not an undesirable and it is not a case, Centurion. What's the development?"
I was about to have trouble. I knew this type. His normal manner was a mixture of fake simplicity and arrogance. For me he saved a special sneer on top. "Oh, are you Falco?"
"Yes." The bakery fire was only last night; he cannot have forgotten meeting me.
"It was your name on the information sheet?" My description of Petronius had gone out from the governor's office, but Frontinus was not name-proud and he had let it carry my signature.
"Yes," I said again, patiently He did not like me, by the sound of it. Well, I had some doubts about him. "And what's your name, Centurion?"
"Crixus, sir." He knew I had him now. If I carried any weight with the governor, Crixus was stuck. But he managed to stay unpleasant: "I don't quite remember what you said you were doing in the downtown area last night, sir?"
"You don't remember because you didn't ask." His omission was an
error. That evened things up between us. Why was he so bothered? Was it because he now realized I was not just some higher-up's domestic hanger-on, but someone with an official role that he had misinterpreted?
"So, you mentioned a development,' Crixus?"
"I came to report it to the governor, sir."
"The governor's in conference. There's a flap on. I signed the sheet; you can tell me."
Crixus reluctantly backed off. "There may have been a sighting."
"Details?"
"A man who resembled the description was observed by a patrol."
"Where and when?"
"On the ferry deck by the customs house. A couple of hours ago." "What? And you are only just here to report?"
He feigned a crestfallen look. It was sketchy and brazenly fake. This man wore his uniform smartly, but in manner he was like the worst kind of dreary recruit who can't be bothered. If he had succeeded in seeing Frontinus, I daresay things would have been different. Double standards are a bad sign in the military. "The info sheet made no mention of urgency."
"You knew its status!" It was too late now.
The centurion and I were fencing quite toughly. I wanted to extract what he knew, while instinctively withholding as much as possible about Petro or myself. For some deep reason I did not want Crixus to learn that Petro and I were close, that I was an informer, or that he worked for the vigiles.
"Finish your report," I said quietly. In my time in the legions I had never been an officer, but plenty of them had pushed me around; I knew how to sound like one. One who could be a right bastard if crossed.
"A patrol spotted a man who fitted the details. As I say, he was at the ferry landing."
"Crossing over?"
"Just talking."
"To whom?"
"I really couldn't say, sir. We were only to be interested in him." In the ten years since I left the army, the art of dumb insolence had not died.
"Right."
"So who is this person?" asked Crixus, with an air of innocent curiosity.
"Same as everyone who comes here. A businessman. You don't need to know more."
"Only I don't think he can be the right man, sir. When we asked, he denied that his name was Petronius."
I was furious and let the centurion see it. "You asked, when the sheet said don't approach'?"
"Only way we could attempt to discover if he was the subject, sir." This idiot was so self-righteous I barely refrained from hitting him.
"It's the right man," I growled. "Petronius Longus loathes nosy questions from stiffs in red tunics. He generally claims to be a feather-fan seller called Ninius Basilius."
"That's rather peculiar, sir. He told us he was a bean-importer called Ixymithius."
Thanks, Petro! I sighed. I had plucked a known alias of his from my memory-the wrong one. Any minute now, Crixus would decide it was a fact of note that the subject worked under cover using several false identities. Then the centurion would be even more nosy. If I knew Petro, he was just being rebellious; he had instinctively stiffened up when a strutting patrol apprehended him. On principle, he would lie to them. At least it was better than questioning their parentage, telling them to go to Hades in a dung cart, then being thrown in a cell.
"You're going the long way round to admitting that he gave you the slip," I warned. "The governor will not be pleased. I don't know why you're playing silly beggars over this. The poor man has to be told some bad news from home, that's all. Frontinus has a past acquaintance with him; he wants to do it personally."
"Oh well, next time we'll know he's the one. We'll pass the message to him, never fear."
Not now. Not if Petro saw them coming again.
XVII
King Togidubnus' long-term friendship with Vespasian went right back to when Rome first invaded Britain; Togi had played host to the legion that the young Vespasian had spectacularly led. That was over forty years ago. I had seen the King much more recently, and when we had our meeting the next morning we were comfortable together.