"You're sharp!"

"Paid or pressured by Florius? So did he tell you to kill us? I thought that he wanted to finish me himself."

"He won't object." I reckoned Crixus was making up his mind as he went along. That meant rash decisions. Decisions that could only be bad for us.

It was no use consoling ourselves that if he killed us, he could never get away with it. Helena had gone to fetch assistance. In a moment even Crixus would work out that letting her go was a fatal error.

The centurion was crazy, and his youthful, inexperienced men were becoming hysterical. The Second Adiutrix were a new legion, cobbled together from scratch using naval ratings; they were a Flavian creation rushed into service to fill urgent gaps in the army after other, older legions had been massacred or corrupted to the point where they were past saving. These raw, mad boys were now jostling one another in what they mistook for camaraderie; then they barged forward and started pushing us around. We tried not to retaliate. They laughed at us. Disarmed, we stood no chance. They were taunting us to make a move so they could tear us to pieces.

We knew better than to hope for escape now. Sure enough, the situation grew a great deal worse. We heard the measured approach of yet more soldiers, and lest it raise our spirits, the Second Adiutrix greeted these newcomers cheerily. Crixus swore affectionately at that other lag of a centurion, Silvanus. Silvanus and his men scowled at Petronius and me.

And then the unexpected happened. I never heard an order given, but the new boys all whipped out their swords and fell on the careless bastards who were holding us. Next moment, we were being grabbed once again, but this time to be thrown from hand to hand up the alley, until we were clear of the conflict.

The fight was disciplined and dirty. The Crixus century gathered their wits and fought back. It all took longer than it should have done. Slowly, however, the Crixus men were rounded up and stripped of their weapons. Crixus himself, fighting like a beer-crazed barbarian, was overcome, grounded, and placed under arrest. Silvanus read him the order, which came straight from the governor. Crixus was the defaulter who had "lost" Splice. He had been on the loose ever since, carefully avoiding barracks, but his good times were over. There are centurions who survive for years, famous for corruption and bribe-taking, but he had overstepped the mark by a mile.

Whether Silvanus himself had ever been on the take was unclear. He had made a choice today. We could only see it as a good one.

There seemed to be a reason for it. He came up and spoke to us. "I hear you were in the Second, Falco."

I took a breath. This was the big question, the embarrassment I had avoided when I first met him. Owning up to service in the Second Augusta, during the Rebellion, could lead to bitter accusations. "Yes," I said levelly.

But Silvanus gave me a rueful grin, full of shared grief. Wearily he put out an arm to grasp wrists in the soldiers' salute, first with me, then with Petronius. This was something I had not allowed for: Silvanus was in the Second Augusta too.

It was one of those moments when all you want to do is collapse with relief. Petronius and I could not even consider it. We still had to find and rescue Maia.

Petronius marched up to the prostrate Crixus. "Do yourself a favor. Tell me what you were told to do. I am supposed to be a hostage exchange for Falco's sister. The whole point was for Florius to capture me and make me suffer-so why did he send you to do the job?"

"He knows I'm more competent!" sneered the centurion.

I elbowed Petro aside. He was too angry; he was losing control. "You're so competent you're now in chains, Crixus," I pointed out. "So what was the intention here tonight?"

"I don't know." I stared him out. He lowered his voice. "I don't know," he repeated.

I believed him.

LIV

We paused to reconsider. "So where now? "Caesar's Bar, after all?" Petro suggested.

"They are not at Caesar's," Silvanus broke in. "I just got dispatched from there by the governor after Falco's wife rushed up."

Petronius grinned. "Falco knows how to pick a woman with character."

Silvanus pulled a face that told me the high style of speech my girl had addressed to Frontinus. "What's she like if you fart in the bedroom or leave muddy boots on the table, Falco?"

"I've no idea. I don't try it. So where to?" I reiterated to Petronius.

The choice was decided for us. A soldier rushed up to tell Silvanus of urgent developments at the wharf. The customs men had spotted activity by the warehouse they were watching, the one where the baker was beaten to death. It had looked as if loot had been hastily assembled, ready to be shipped out, and they reckoned the gang were planning to flit. When they investigated, the gang had panicked and rushed them, seriously wounding Firmus. Then the gang had invaded the customs house, which was now under siege.

???

We went the way I knew, so we never did find out if that alley by the Shower of Gold really was a dead end. I wasn't going back there. Places where I have so nearly been killed repel me.

It was a short step. I wished we had come here first.

Down on the river, soldiers quickly took over from the embattled customs force. A long stretch of dockside was made off-limits to the public. They started moving ships out from their berths. Stores were searched. The ferries were beached. The bridge was cleared. Little boats in daily use for nipping about were taken upstream and moored. In streets all around the wharves, more troops arrived and waited patiently for orders.

Petronius and I stood on the heavily piled and banked wooden quay. We had our backs to the dark rippling water of the great river, facing the long row of packed stores. Soon there was no shipping moored; it had all been moved off, both from the deep-water docking points where cargoes were unloaded, and even from out in the channel. We were staring at the customs house, a handsome stone building. Nothing there moved.

Silvanus was deploying men, some along the warehouse frontages, some on the forum road, some shinning up and clambering all over the roofs. They were silent and quick. Once in position they froze. The Second had always deserved better than their recent reputation. They were the Emperor's old legion, and it showed.

Now we had the place surrounded, every exit covered.

"Something bothering you?" I nudged Petro as he stood in a reverie.

"We were set up at the Shower of Gold," he answered warily. "I'm still wondering why."

"You think there was more to it than Florius paying the Adiutrix to do for us?"

"Not their style, Falco. Florius knows I'm after him, and he wants me. But it's personal. He needs to see me suffer. Then he wants to finish me himself. He had Maia; he could have taken me. This doesn't make sense."

Petro was too good an officer to brush aside his qualms. I trusted his instincts.

"Another thing," I warned him. "If he did lean on Crixus to finish us off, Florius won't now be expecting to go through with the handover. He thinks we're dead…" I tailed off. If he thought Petronius was dead, holding Maia served no purpose.

Unable to face the thought of what they might do to her, Petro found himself some action. Firmus was lying on the walkway being tended by a doctor. He had a deep gash in the side, from which he had lost too much blood. We did not ask whether he would make it; he was conscious, so we tried to seem optimistic.

Petro knelt beside him. "Don't talk much. Just tell me who went into the building, if you can."

"About fifteen or twenty," Firmus croaked. Someone passed Petro a water flask, which he held to the injured man's lips. "Thanks… Heavy weapons…"