Actually, you can come back now. What happened was fairly satisfactory to a man who had been fighting off jealousy all night and morning-but what might have happened never did. Instead, we were interrupted by a wary slave of the procurator's, who knocked on the bedroom door extremely shyly, looking for me. It was unclear whether he expected to find a vicious marital tempest or widescale pornography.

"Can I help you?" I asked sweetly. I was fully clad and hardly blushed at all. I had of course spent my youth being caught almost in the act by my mother. I could look innocent in no time. Chloris could vouch for that.

Forget Chloris. (I was now seriously trying to.)

"Message." The slave chucked the tablet at me and fled.

It was from the customs officer, Firmus. He wanted me to come down to the ferry urgently. Somebody, the message said obliquely, had suggested that I would want to know they had found another corpse.

XXXI

The body was still lying on the deck. They were waiting for me before moving it: Firmus, a couple of his juniors, and a man who rowed the ferryboat to and fro on call. A silence fell, as I absorbed the sight. The others, having seen it once, stared at me rather than at the dreadful corpse.

They had fished it out of the river this morning, Firmus said. None of us thought the man had drowned, however. That surprised me. Somehow after Verovolcus I had expected a pattern. But there was no parallel with the well-killing: this man had been battered to death. Someone had set about him with professional cruelty. To judge from the massive injuries he suffered, it would have taken a long time. The beating may even have continued after he had died. There was no foam around the lips, though being in the river would have washed it off. I looked in his mouth and still found no evidence to suggest he had been alive when he was tipped in the water. Firmus, and the ferryman, seemed to find that comforting.

The body had tangled in the ferry; I thought this had happened very soon after its being put into the Thamesis. Death, too, must have taken place quite recently Only this morning, by the freshness of the corpse. He had had no time to sink properly and had not reached the bloated stage, full of gas. Though less hideous this way, the thought that he had so narrowly missed seeing the killers dispose of the body upset the ferryman more.

The last time I saw anyone murdered with such savagery it was in Rome. Gangsters had inflicted the battering on one of their own.

This dead man was fifty or sixty, thereabouts. I cannot tell you about his features; the face had been too badly damaged. Of modest build in most respects, he had quite strong arms and shoulders. His skin was ruddy, with no dirt on his hands, which had noticeably clean cuticles and fingernails. Along the inner side of both his arms were old healed marks, which looked like minor burns, the sort you obtain from a brush against a trivet or an oven edge. He was dressed in British clothing, with the neck flap that is common to the northern provinces. Under the blood lay a faint trace of something, a fine gray sludge that had thickened in the seams and braids of his brown tunic. He wore no belt. I guessed his tormentors had removed it and used it as one of the weapons to thrash him, its buckle causing some of those short cuts among his heavy bruising.

"Know him, Falco?"

"Never seen him before-" I had to clear my throat. "I can suggest who he may be, though. If this mucky deposit all over him was once flour-dust, that's a clue. A baker called Epaphroditus vanished and his shop burned down the other night. It's clear he had upset someone. Someone who must think that depriving him of his livelihood was not enough to punish him-or not enough to scare other people."

I straightened up and walked over to the still shocked ferryman. "What did you see?"

"Nothing. I just felt something binding on the boat. I guessed we had a floater; I rowed in gently and Firmus helped me free it. I've seen plenty, but I've never seen…" He tailed off in distress.

"Were you rowing over with a fare?"

His eyes grew wide.

I said quietly, "If it was the big man who is staying at the mansio, you can speak up." I knew Petronius Longus must have seen the corpse at some time; the message from Firmus had hinted it was he who had advised fetching me. "It's all right. He and I are a duo."

Firmus had been listening. "He's gone back over there," he intervened.

I told the ferryman he would do better if he kept working, and persuaded him to take me across to the far side of the Thamesis. As we looped over slowly, first veering upstream and then drifting back, I looked down the wide gray river and thought black thoughts.

The great river marked a geographic boundary. Even the weather seemed different; when we landed on the southern bank, the heat we had felt in the town was less oppressive. Mind you, it was now early evening.

The mansio lay a short walk from the islands with their reeded banks, along the left fork of the big Roman highway. This was a decent full-width military road that went, I knew, far westward beyond the chalky downs to the entry port at Rutupiae. It had been the first route prepared by the invasion force and still carried arriving armed forces and most goods that came into Londinium overland. The mansio was a brand-new establishment; it only looked about a year old. A sign warned people, LAST GOOD DRINK BEFORE THE COLONIA. I found Petro glumly sampling this beverage.

The landlord had been cagey, but must have been warned that I would be coming. I was led to a discreet table in a back garden where a second cup was standing ready. Petro quickly filled it for me.

"Thanks! I need a drink."

"I warn you, Falco, it won't help."

I drained the cup and started on a second one, this time adding water. That was a mess." The baker's pulped flesh kept revisiting my memory. I set my beaker on the table, as nausea threatened. "Familiar?"

"Took me right back to the Balbinus mob."

Petronius let out a grunt. He had a bread roll alongside him. He had managed two bites, automatically. Now it just sat there. He would throw it away.

"Those were the days!" He sounded bitter. "You took your time getting here."

"Busy day. I had to go out and see a bastard lawyer, for one thing. Anyway, I'm staying at the residence. You can send a message which reaches there in a few minutes. Then the slaves spend all morning and afternoon passing it between themselves. Saying it is urgent slows them down."

Petro lost interest in that. "This is grim, Falco." He must have been thinking for some hours. Now he plunged right in: "With your man, the drowned Briton, his fight could have been spur of the moment. There was a flare-up and he copped it. End of story."

"No, it was planned," I broke in. "Tell you in a minute. Go on."

"This death was deliberate slow torture. Its aim was systematic terrorizing of the whole community."

"And the body was meant to be found?"

"Who knows? If they want secrecy they should have weighed it down. They should have dumped it further downriver, away from habitation. No, they intend it to look as though they discarded him like rubbish. They want the next victims they lean on to have heard all about this… Did you talk to the ferryman?"

"He's gone into shock."

"Well, he told me the tide was on the turn. It looked as if the body had been chucked overboard to go downstream a bit, but it washed back unexpectedly."

"Chucked overboard-from what?" I queried.

"A boat went down. The ferry had had to wait for it while he was coming to get me."

"Why didn't you use the bridge?" I asked.

"Same reason as you, Falco. Hilaris warned me they don't maintain it."