"Well, here we are again. Londinium. This bloody place."

"Next time we'll know to stay away."

"I'll just be happy if there is a next time for anything."

"You optimist!" Petronius grinned. Then all at once some hidden device in his soul triggered him; he squared his wide shoulders, touched my elbow in an informal farewell, and set off.

He walked on light feet, constantly looking everywhere. He kept moving, but he made a gentle pace. Halfway to the bar, he crossed from left to right and paused, turning sideways to scrutinize the house walls opposite. I saw the pale gleam of his face as he glanced my way, then it changed and I knew he was staring down to the far end of the alley. I moved to the corner, intending to scan the other street side.

Something exploded from a ledge beside me. Brushing my face, I felt air, heard noise, knew abject fear. An old, squalid, horrible gray pigeon had flown up, disturbed, from a window ledge.

Petronius and I stayed motionless until our panic died.

I raised my arm. He signaled back. If they were going to rush us in the alley, it had to happen now. But nothing moved.

Petronius walked silently to right outside the bar. He paused again. He tried the door handle. It must have given. He pushed gently, so the door swung open. A dim light flowed out around him. Still nobody aimed a spear or threw a knife.

"Florius!" Petro had let out an enormous bellow. It must have been heard three streets away, but nobody dared peer out to see who was challenging the mobster. "Florius, this is Petronius Longus. I'm coming in. I have a sword but I won't use it if you keep faith."

Desperately nervous, I kept my eyes swiveling everywhere for trouble. Now, I thought, now they will emerge from cover, trapping him. I waited for the thonk of an arrow or the streak of a shadow as some unseen watcher jumped. Nothing moved.

The door to the wine shop had begun to swing closed. Petronius pushed it open again with his foot. He looked back at me. He was going in. This could be the last I would ever see of him. Stuff that. Keeping close to the wall, I set off down the alley after him.

Petro had disappeared inside. Suddenly he was back again, outlined in the doorway, close enough to see me coming. "There's no one here. Absolutely nobody. I bet Maia's never even been here. We've been set up like idiots-"

Hardly had he spoken when he knew how true that was. Like me, he must have heard that sound we knew so well from the old days: the well-oiled hiss of many sword blades, drawn from their scabbards simultaneously.

Neither of us supposed for a moment that this was a convenient rescue.

LIII

If there's one thing I enjoy, it's being stuck up a blind alley in a grim province on a gloomy evening, while an unknown number of the military prepare to disembowel me.

"Shit," muttered Petronius succinctly.

"Shit on a stick," I qualified. We were in big trouble. No doubt of it.

I wondered where in Hades they were hiding. Then I didn't bother. They came swarming out of nowhere until they filled the alley. The big boys in red raced up in at least two directions. Others piled in on us through the back of the bar. Some leaped over barrels showily. A few squirmed around on their bellies. None of these tough lads felt it necessary to drop from the eaves or swing on a lintel, though to my mind it would have made the picture prettier. Why be restrained? With only two targets-both of us caught out and startled-their officer had had scope for dramatic effects. Properly stage-managed, the demise of M. D. Falco and L. P. Longus could have been a feast of theater.

Instead of which, lazily, the soldiers just flung us back against the wall, yelled at us, and made us keep still by applying swords to places we preferred not to have cut. I mean, all over us. Petronius and I endured it patiently. For one thing, we knew this was a big mistake on their part, and for another there was not much choice. The legionaries were menacing; they all clearly hoped for an excuse to kill us.

"Steady on, lads." I cleared my throat. "You're making asses of your whole damned cohort!"

"What legion?" Petro asked the nearest one.

"Second Adiutrix." He should have been told not to communicate with us. If he had, he was shamefully forgetful. Still, every cohort carries some dopey boy who spends his entire service on punishment, eating barley bread.

"Very nice." Now Petro was being sarcastic. They were amateurs. Amateurs can be very dangerous.

Whatever their outfit, they knew how to invest a quiet night in a dead-end town with the urgency factor. Petronius and I watched and felt like jaded old men.

Our backup arrived. Helena Justina had emerged angrily from her chair and was demanding to speak to the officer in charge. Helena did not need to mount a tribunal to sound like a general in a purple cloak. Petronius turned to me and raised his eyebrows. She weighed straight in: "I insist you let these two men go at once!"

A centurion emerged from the scurrying mass: Crixus. Just our luck. "Move along there, madam, or I shall have to arrest you."

"I think not!" Helena was so definite I saw him backstep slightly. "I am Helena Justina, daughter of the senator Camillus and niece to the procurator Hilaris. Not that this entitles me to interfere with military business-but I advise you to be cautious, Centurion! These are Didius Falco and Petronius Longus, engaged on vital work for the governor."

"Move along," repeated Crixus. He failed to note that she had noted his rank. His career meant nothing, apparently. "My men are searching for two dangerous criminals."

"Florius and Norbanus," Helena sneered. "These are not them-and you know it!"

"I'll be the judge of that." Cheap power makes for obnoxious clich?s…

"He knows damn well," drawled Petronius loudly. "Don't worry about us, sweetheart. This is men's business. Falco, tell your bossy wife to hurry along home."

"That's right, love," I agreed meekly.

"Then I'll just go and feed the baby, like a dutiful matriarch!" sniffed Helena. "Don't be late home, darling," she added sarcastically.

As if huffiness was in her nature, she stormed off. Disposing of a senator's daughter was a problem the soldiers had not preconsidered, and even these renegades balked at it. They let her go. More fool them.

They were waiting until she was off the scene before they dealt with us. I watched her leaving. Tall, haughty, and apparently self-possessed. No one would know how much anxiety she felt. The soldiers had now brought up torches, so light gleamed on her fine dark hair as she stormed past them, with a toss of her head, flinging one end of a light stole back over her shoulder. An earring glinted, her garnet-and-gold drop. It had caught in the delicate fabric; impatiently she freed it with those long, sensitive fingers that our daughters had inherited.

My own stomach was in a brutal knot until she left safely. If this was the last time I ever saw her, our life together had been good. But my heart ached for the grief she would feel if she lost me now. If I were taken from Helena, my ghost would come raging back from the Underworld. We had too much living left to do.

It was never going to happen. Petro and I were finished. The mood had turned even more ugly. Young faces, dark with fright and false bravado, stared at us. These troops knew they were in the wrong. They could not meet our eyes. Crixus, the mad bastard in charge, must realize that if Petro and I survived and told the governor what went down here tonight, the game was up. He came and stood in front of us, baring his ugly teeth. "You're dead!"

"If you're going to kill us, Crixus," Petronius said quietly, "at least tell us why. You're doing this for the Jupiter gang?"