'She doesn't seem to mind entertaining us,' Justinus murmured while she was fetching them. He seemed anxious that we might be treading on dubious moral ground by seeming to encourage her. My scruples about the Medusa were purely practical. I was only afraid we had risked eating those sordid rissoles while following a false lead.

'Entertaining us is her job, and it doesn't rule out a pretty complicated private life off duty. I'll talk to her,' I added, switching into Greek as the girl came back with our wine. 'Let me tell you some rules for living, lad: never play board-games for money with strangers; never vote for the favourite candidate; and never trust a woman who wears an ankle chain:'

'You're the expert on women!' he replied wryly, in Greek that was more confident than mine. He had, at any rate, enough fluency to be rude without much effort.

'I've been fended off by a fair number of barmaids, certainly:' Switching back to Latin, I joked with Regina; 'Men's talk! His Honour was complaining about me ruining his sister.' The dozy girl had forgotten a beaker for herself; she flashed a meaningless smile and trotted off again.

Justinus kept his eyes on his bowl of rissoles (which certainly looked as if they needed cautious reconnaissance) as he continued in that lightly inflected, challenging Greek of his. 'As a matter of fact, Falco, I would like to ask if this business of yours with my sister is serious?'

My jaw set. 'It's as serious as I can make it.'

He looked up. 'That says nothing.'

'Wrong, tribune. It says what you really want to know: no harm will ever come to Helena from me.'

Our barmaid returned again.

Regina sat down, allowing us to go on talking among ourselves. She was used to men of commerce who finished their own business before trading with her. She seemed amenable to anything, in fact.

Justinus and I both let our previous conversation drop.

I ate as much as I could tolerate of the tasteless stew, then rinsed my mouth with wine. I smiled at the girl. She was a squat, flat-chested moppet with short red hair. Her shorn bob had curls of the 'assisted' type much favoured by girls who serve up drink with less useful commodities. She wore a fairly clean white tunic and the usual glass-bead necklace and cheap serpentine rings, as well as the inevitable ankle chain I had referred to earlier. Her attitude seemed servile, but with suggestions of a defiant streak. Back in Rome I had a bunch of hard, contemptuous sisters. Regina reminded me of them. 'Regina, do you know a bedchamber boy called Rusticus?'

'Maybe.' She was the type who avoided answering questions on principle.

'You know who I mean?'

'He works in the fort.'

'For one of the legates. Don't worry-there's no trouble!' I reassured her quickly. 'I heard you were good friends with Rusticus.'

'I may have been.' I thought I saw her confident blue eyes darken sullenly. Maybe she was frightened. Or perhaps it was something more furtive.

'Do you know where he is?'

'No.'

'Has he gone away somewhere?'

'What's it to you?' she demanded.

'I'd very much like to find him.'

'Why?' I was about to explain my search for the legate when she fetched out angrily, 'I haven't seen him for ages. I don't know where he is!' She jumped to her feet. Justinus, taken aback, pushed his stool away from the table with a screeching skid. 'What do you want?' Regina shouted. 'Why have you started pestering me?'

Other customers-mostly soldiers-glanced over in our direction, though without much interest. 'Steady on, Falco,' Justinus interrupted. The girl rushed indoors wildly. 'Yes, barmaids do seem to be your speciality!' Justinus scoffed. He glared at me reprovingly, then followed her inside the tavern.

'That's Regina!' one of the soldiers grinned.

'Scratchy?'

'Gets het up over everything.'

I left payment on the table, sauntering nearby until the tribune reappeared. 'I'm glad to see you in one piece! I gather her temper is legendary. She loves screaming and bursting into tears at innocent customers. For an encore she'll throw an amphora at your head. If you're unlucky it's a full one: Have you been drying her tears, or just trying to dodge?'

'You're too harsh, Falco!'

'She expected it.'

'Oh really?' Justinus muttered through his teeth. 'Well, I found out what we wanted without bullying the girl. It's quite simple. She and the slave Rusticus had a lovers' tiff. She doesn't see him any more.'

'What about the legate nipping off?'

'All she knows is she heard some mention that her boyfriend's master might be planning a few days away. She wasn't told why or where.'

'That's fine, if it's true.'

'Why should it not be?'

'She's a girl in a bar, you're a stranger, and I know when I've just seen a lying little strumpet who has something to hide!'

'Well I believed her.'

'Good for you,' I said.

We strode back towards the gate of the fort. Justinus still pretended to be angry, but his good nature was overcoming it. I shook my head and laughed softly.

'What's so funny?'

'Oh: there's a traditional method of extracting information where first you send a cruel brute who upsets the suspect, then his mild and friendly partner goes in and comforts them until they open their hearts.'

'It appears to be effective,' Justinus commented, rather stiffly.

'Oh yes!'

'I still don't see the joke.'

'It's nothing.' I grinned at him. 'Only the "soft" partner is supposed to be a fake!'

XXV

Back at the house news awaited us. 'A woman came asking for you, Marcus Didius.'

I laughed. 'That kind of message needs a careful approach!' Justinus looked prim. If I wanted to look a reliable friend to Helena, flippancy was a bad response. We were having too much banter of barmaids and not enough of the dull bombast that prevails among senators. Still, I couldn't help it if he wasn't used to me. His sister was, and she had made her choice. 'Who is this matron?'

'Julia Fortunata, Marcus Didius.'

I saw Justinus start at that. I raised an eyebrow. 'Let me guess-is she connected with Gracilis?'

'So you've heard something?' murmured the tribune. In front of his servants he was being discreet.

They were not my servants. 'Maenia Priscilla mentioned to me this morning that Gracilis flaunts a mistress somewhere. Is this her? Coming to the fort in such a public way seems strange-I wonder what she wants so urgently? Do you know where she lives?'

'I believe so,' Justinus replied, still cautiously. 'They say Gracilis has established her in a villa not far away:'

I told him that if he had a free afternoon he could come with me for the entertainment. He hesitated. Then he shouted for a slave to fetch both our cloaks.

We had to ride out through the Decumana Gate and go south. Once we had turned down the incline outside the gate, peace descended. Apart from the broad curve of the waterway, the square fort behind us remained the most prominent feature of the landscape, which, unusually in this section of the river, lacked the dramatic crags and rocky narrows that occur downstream. Here it was mainly low ground, sometimes broken by natural or man-made mooring creeks, though it was obviously not marshy. There were large trees, which frequently hid the Rhenus and Moenus from view.

Justinus took me by the road that enabled me to admire the Drusus Monument-a pleasure I did not let detain us long. Memorials to long-dead establishment heroes fail to excite me. I hardly glanced at it.

A mile or so further on stood a fortlet guarding a small village which Justinus told me regarded itself as the official Moguntiacum canabae. Julia Fortunata was renting a place just this side of the settlement. For a woman of standing it was only just safe. The Rhenus lay within sniffing distance. However, heading upstream to Argentoratum and Vindonissa, there was a military road parallel with our bank of the river, and the guard post afforded first-instance protection if trouble ever flared.