'And what do you do, Falco?' asked the mouth. It squeezed out his words like stuffing from a badly sewn mattress case.

'I deliver awkward packages.'

'Hah!' commented the primipilus.

'So what's in the picnic basket?' jeered his more talkative pal.

'Five bread rolls, a sheep's-gut sausage-and a new standard to mark the Emperor's personal favour to the Fourteenth. Want to take a look?'

The primipilus was the man of action around here, so while the cornicularius attended to a snag in his manicure with the stump-end of a stylus, he forced himself to approach as I unbuckled the basket straps. The Iron Hand weighed as much as a chunk of aqueduct supply pipe, but he lifted it by its thumb as lightly as an amulet.

'Oh very nice!' No one could fault the words. Only the tone was treasonous.

I kept my own voice level. 'I am to deliver Vespasian's gift to your legate in person. I also have a sealed despatch for him, which I believe contains the programme for a suitable investiture ceremony. Any chance of a word with Florius Gracilis at once?'

'No,' said the cornicularius.

'I can wait.'

'You can measure yourself for a funeral urn and pour yourself into it.'

I remarked to Xanthus pleasantly, 'This is the Fourteenth legion's famous helpfulness and charm.'

'Who's the flower with the disgusting reek?' demanded the primipilus suddenly.

I gave both sections of the military a narrow look. 'Special envoy from Titus Caesar.' I drew one finger across my neck in the time-honoured gesture. 'I haven't worked out yet whether he's a well-disguised assassin looking for someone to dispose of, or just an auditor with a fancy dress sense. Now we've got here we should soon know. Either there'll be a body count, or you'll find him peering at your daily accounts:'

Xanthus was so startled that for once he kept his trap shut.

The two wits consulted each other wearily. 'As we thought!' sighed the cornicularius. 'Things must be rough in Rome. Now they're sending us rejects from musical parties and bogus scum like this-'

'Steady on!' I grinned, attempting to go along with them. 'Whatever I am, it's genuine! Let's get back to the point. If Gracilis is too busy now, make me an appointment when his schedule has more space.'

Sometimes ingratiation works. Not here. ' Genuine scum!' commented the primipilus to his crony. 'Disappear up your own arse, curly!'

'Leave my orifices out of the orders of the day! Listen, centurion. I've just lugged an Iron Hand halfway across Europe and I'm intending to deliver it. I know the Fourteenth are a blasphemous, uncultured mob, but if your legate wants his consulship he's not going to let a drill-swank and an ink-swab reject an award from the Emperor-'

'Don't get clever,' the cornicularius warned. 'You can leave the trophy, and you can leave the sealed despatch. Maybe,' he speculated with his most cheerful expression yet, 'the despatch says " Execute the messenger":'

I ignored that. 'I'll happily ground the ironwork, but I'm going to hand the confidential orders to Gracilis himself. Do I get quarters at the fort? Your accommodation must be flush now you're light of the loyal Batavians!'

'If that's a jibe at the Fourteenth's expense,' the primipilus snorted, 'make the most of it; you won't manage another!'

I said I wouldn't dream of insulting the victors of Bedriacum, and that I'd find my own roost.

As I shoved him down the corridor outside, Xanthus whined, 'What's Bedriacum?'

'A battle where the Fourteenth escaped being called losers by the simple trick of claiming they had never arrived for the fight.'

'I thought it would be something like that. You've upset them, Falco!'

'Suits me.'

'And they know you are working for the Emperor-'

'No, Xanthus; they think you are!'

'What's the point of that?'

'They appreciate they have a tricky record. They know the Emperor will send someone to look them over, but they reckon I'm the dregs. So long as I behave stupidly, they'll never believe I'm the spy.'

Fortunately, Xanthus didn't ask why I was so anxious to identify someone else as the Emperor's agent.

Or what I thought the Fourteenth Gemina might try and do to whoever they thought it was.

As we reached the exit, two tribunes came from another office, arguing in a gentlemanly way.

'Macrinus, I don't want to be a nuisance, but-'

'He's incommunicado; planning one of his forays against imagined troublemakers. Remind me tomorrow and I'll get you in to see him when he has some breathing-space.'

At first I listened because I guessed they were referring to the legate Gracilis. The young man speaking was the assured and stocky type that had never impressed me, with an athletic build, square head and a burnished tint to his tight curls. The one who seemed to be protesting struck me as familiar.

He must have been twenty, but looked younger. An ordinary, boyish face. A tall, slim frame. A quiet manner but a ready smile from a wide mouth.

'Camillus Justinus!' At my cry of recognition for his companion, the first tribune reacted deftly. Coming from a senatorial family, he had had a good education: he knew Latin, Greek, mathematics and geography, how much to tip a prostitute, where the best oysters come from-and the old forum art of escaping from someone he wanted to avoid. 'Sorry, Justinus. Were you in conference?'

Helena's brother growled after the gleamingly armoured and fast-retreating back. 'Never mind. He wasn't going to oblige me. It's Falco, isn't it?'

'Yes. Marcus Didius. I heard you were posted-not to the Fourteenth I hope?'

'Oh, I don't meet their high standards! No, I was persuaded to "volunteer" for an extra tour with the First Adiutrix-they're a new outfit.'

'Glad to hear it. The Fourteenth are an impolite mob. I just brought them a trophy and they refused me a billet,' I hinted without shame.

Justinus laughed. 'Then you'd better stay at my house! Come on. After trying to wrestle sense out of this crew I need to go home and lie down in the dark.' We started to walk. 'What are you doing here, Marcus Didius?'

'Oh, nothing very exciting. Business for Vespasian. Mostly routine. One or two extra tasks to toy with in my free time-coercing rebels, that sort of stuff,' I joked. 'There's a missing legate to find, for instance.'

Justinus stopped in his tracks. He seemed amazed.

I pulled up too. 'What's up, tribune?'

'Does the Emperor have access to new kinds of Etruscan augury?'

'Something not right?'

'You flabbergast me, Falco! That was what I was trying to get straight with my oppo just now. I don't see,' he grumbled, 'how Vespasian could have known there was something fishy out in Germany in time for you to turn up here before my commander has even made up his mind that he needs to signal Rome!'

As he ran out of breath, I simply said, 'Explain?'

Camillus Justinus glanced over his shoulder then lowered his voice, even though we were crossing the empty parade-ground. 'Florius Gracilis has not been seen for several days. The Fourteenth won't admit it even to my own chief, but we in the First reckon that their legate has disappeared!'