Again Castus’s mind circled back to the dead man. It was possible, he told himself, that the death had been an accident. There were several thousand people travelling with the retinue, the population of a large town, and it was surely not impossible that one of them might suffer such an end. But his instincts told him otherwise. Fate sent a prickle up his spine: the man had died by violence.
He wondered if he should report it to Hierocles, but the chief of the Protectores was not easy to find with the retinue on the road. Besides, he had told only Hierocles about his previous meeting with the man. Again that prickle of apprehension, more insistent now. Hierocles had been a member of the hunting party back in February, when the killers had made an attempt on the emperor’s life. A traitor among the Protectores, Nigrinus had told him. Was it possible, Castus thought, that his own chief could be the guilty man? He fought down the notion; he had no proof, and if it were true then such knowledge could be lethal…
The carts and carriages were still streaming along the main street towards the south gate, wheels hissing in the mud. It had rained in the night, a heavy summer shower, and the thoroughfares of Colonia had been churned to a sucking morass by wheels and hooves and marching feet. As he nudged his horse back into the shelter of a temple wall to let the column past, Castus noticed the opulence of several of the passing carriages, the women’s faces at the slatted windows.
‘What are they doing here?’ he asked.
Sallustius reined in his horse beside Castus. ‘Didn’t you know?’ he said, twisting his squashed face into a smirk. ‘The nobilissima femina Fausta and her household joined the retinue last night. They’ll be with us for the next few days up the river, all the way to Confluentes.’
‘Why? Isn’t it dangerous here for them?’
‘But that’s the point!’ Sallustius said, cuffing Castus on the shoulder. ‘What could better demonstrate the sublime security of the empire, and the complete subjugation of the barbarians, than the emperor’s wife and her ladies parading up the bank of the fearsome Rhine? Let the Franks and Alamanni glower from their forests – Rome is untouchable, and the emperor supreme! Didn’t you even listen to that panegyric yesterday?’
‘My concentration slipped after a while,’ Castus said ruefully. Even so, it was, he admitted, quite a bold display. The Rhine frontier had been a military zone for generations, ever since the barbarians had first poured across the river in the days of the emperor Valerian. But there was little real danger now, he supposed – not with the Frankish and Alamannic chiefs defeated and under treaty, and thousands of armed men surrounding the imperial party. Since the campaign the previous summer the Germanic tribes had been quiet.
Even as he considered this, Castus was scanning the passing carriages for one particular face, not even sure if he would recognise her now. Likely she would be wearing the same yellow dress.
‘Who are they,’ he asked, ‘these women?’
‘Fausta’s ladies?’ Sallustius said with a dismissive air. ‘They’re the wives of officials in Rome, most of them. Sent up here with Maximian’s daughter to remind her what proper civilised company looks like. Not that she cares much about that, by the look of her. To act as hostages too, of course, against the good behaviour of their husbands and families. Although that leaves most of them a little uncomfortable these days, since Maxentius fell out with his father. They’ve rather ended up in the enemy camp.’
‘Maxentius isn’t our enemy yet,’ Castus said quietly.
Sallustius snorted down his nose. ‘Can’t have two cocks in the barnyard,’ he said. ‘Why ask about the women anyway? Fancy one of them, do you?’
‘No,’ Castus said, too quickly, and glanced away. ‘I’ve never spoken to them!’
‘Wouldn’t be surprised if you did,’ Sallustius went on in a worldly tone. ‘There are some peaches among them. And they’re no Vestals either, brother – I hear quite a few stories going around the palace. What do you expect? Stuck up here, far from their husbands. Those eunuchs they’ve got surrounding them can’t massage that itch away. Oh, make no mistake, they might be the daughters of senators, but between their legs they’re as hot as any Lupanar whore… And I speak from experience, brother.’
Castus gave him a sidelong look. Sallustius made much of his comprehensive, near-universal experience with women, but in this case at least his claim seemed doubtful. But what did Castus know – perhaps these things happened?
The last of the carriages had slipped past now, and the street was filled with the slow-moving train of ox carts and marching soldiers that formed the tail of the column. Castus sat and watched from his horse as the rearguard tramped by, then turned to follow them. Outside the southern gate of the city the road was a mire of mud and dung, and within a mile the rain started falling again. But the image of the dead man in the river would not fade.
For days the imperial retinue crawled southwards, along the narrow road that followed the western bank of the Rhine. Three miles it stretched, from the vanguard cavalry to the marching troops that brought up the rear. Over three thousand people, Castus thought to himself as he picked his way in the opposite direction along the verge of the road. Nearly two thousand horses; more than two hundred carts, carriages and wagons. The gods knew how many oxen. He had seen whole armies move with less. They were five days south of Colonia Agrippina now, and every town and fort and military settlement they passed was left stripped behind them, storehouses empty, nothing to show for the glory of hosting the emperor and his retinue but a vast amount of dung.
‘You’re going the wrong way!’ a wit called out to him from the marching ranks of the rearguard.
‘Forgot something, did you?’
Castus smiled tightly and urged his horse onward. An hour before, he had been summoned to speak to the Master of Dispositions, Nicomachus Cassianus: a consignment of despatches had been mislaid at Rigomagus and Cassianus badly needed them delivered to him at the next station, Antunnacum, by nightfall.
Six miles back to Rigomagus, twelve from there on to Antunnacum. Castus wished that Sallustius had been chosen for the task instead – he was still not comfortable in the saddle and he felt the rigours of many days’ riding in every bone and muscle. His rump was sore and his thighs ached, but he pushed himself onward, thinking only of whatever sort of bath he might be able to get when the day was done.
The river here passed between steep slopes, the trees rising on the far bank dense and green up to the crest of the valley. The road followed a narrow strip of level ground that traced the curves of the river, climbing in places to cut across a wide bend before descending again to the waterside. Now and again as he rode Castus glanced to his right, across the grey expanse of water at the stacked forests of the eastern bank. Had there been anyone in those trees, watching the progress of the emperor and his retinue? Was there anybody still there now, watching him?
It was late afternoon by the time he arrived back at Rigomagus, and after the turmoil of the imperial visit the town seemed to have slumped into an exhausted torpor. Castus was directed to an upper room of the praetorium, where a man sat lounging on a couch with his boots propped on a low table, eating walnuts.
‘Hope you’re not looking for dinner,’ he said as Castus entered. ‘Unless you like nuts, that is.’