'My friends have been kind to me.' So she had creamed the tops off some handsome Forum bank accounts. 'I helped choose the presents for Veleda; I provided some of them. Then I fancied seeing foreign parts, so I travelled with the ambassadors.' She was as bad as Xanthus. The world must be full of intrepid idiots trying to catch some fatal strain of alien marsh fever.

'Let me guess:' I was grinning despite myself. 'The men might have had to follow the rules that preserve Veleda's sanctity; you, however, somehow wangled a woman-to-woman chat? I suppose the venerated wench has to pop down from the tower some time-to wash her face, let's say?' This arch description seemed to fit the discreet atmosphere of Claudia's house, where Jupiter, the guardian of strangers, must have his work cut out protecting people desperate to find a polite phrase for asking their way to the latrine.

'I did my best for her.' Claudia Sacrata looked sad. 'You can imagine the life the poor girl leads. No conversation; no society. The menfolk who guard her are a feeble lot. She was badly in need of a chin-wag, I can tell you. And before you say anything dear, I made a point of asking about Lupercus. I never forget my boys if I find a chance to do one of them a good turn.'

That angered me. 'A man's death in foreign territory is no subject for gossip! Was Lupercus someone you giggled over in the Bructian groves? Did she tell you what she'd done with him?'

'No,' replied Claudia crisply, as if I had impugned all womanhood.

'Not fit for civilised ears? What did she do-hang his head up for a lantern, sprinkle his blood on her private altar and stick his balls among the mistletoe?' Rome, horrified for once by practices even more barbaric than we could devise ourselves, had outlawed those rites in Gaul and Britain. But that gave no protection to anyone trapped outside our frontiers.

'She had not seen the man,' replied Claudia.

'He never reached the tower?'

'Something happened on the way.' Something worse than what would have happened had he arrived?

'What was it?'

'Veleda couldn't say.'

'She must have been lying.'

'Veleda had no reason to do that, dear.'

'Evidently a nice girl!' This time I allowed my irony to grate ferociously.

Claudia was looking at me with her mouth turned down. When she spoke again, there was a hint of complaint: 'I've given you a great deal of my time, Marcus Didius.'

'I appreciate that. I'm finishing now. Just answer this: have you ever been in contact with Julius Civilis?'

'We met socially in the old days.'

'Where is he now?'

'Sorry, dear. I thought he went back to The Island?'

For the first time, her answer sounded disingenuous. I decided she knew something. I also realised that squeezing Claudia Sacrata once she had clammed up was too daunting for me. She looked like a loose ball of duck down, but her will was formidable. I had also run up against an unshakeable tribal clannishness.

It was hopeless, but I flogged on anyway. 'Civilis has disappeared from The Island. He could well have made his way south again, hoping to re-establish his old power base. I heard he was back among the Ubii and Treveri,' I started factually, 'and I feel it may be true. His family lived in Colonia.'

'That was when Civilis was attached to the Roman forts.'

'Maybe, but he knows this area. Any suggestions where I can make enquiries?'

'Sorry,' she repeated. I was one Roman who must have ceased to be a nice boy.

We were closing the interview. Claudia's good nature reasserted itself as she asked again if there was anything she could do for me. I told her I had a girlfriend waiting who believed I had just stepped out of doors for a basket of bread rolls.

'She'll be anxious!' Claudia reproved me prudishly. She provided comfort for married men away from home, but wrecking relationships on her doorstep was a proposition that deeply offended her. 'You must hurry back at once.' She led me to the door herself-a formal courtesy of the house. No doubt when she was letting out a general, she liked her neighbours to spot the purple. They would be less impressed by today's cheap visitor.

'So how do I find Veleda?' I asked. 'All I know is she lives among the Bructeri. They're a far-flung tribe.'

'I'm hopeless at geography. When I went we travelled by river.' She meant the River Lupia.

'And she lived in the forest?' I already knew, but facing it made me freeze. Veleda lived in the area all Rome hated to contemplate, where Roman hopes of controlling the eastern tribes had been obliterated so hideously. 'The Teutoburger forest? I wish it was anywhere but there!'

'You're thinking of Varus?' For a mad moment I thought she was about to tell me that Quinctilius Varus and all his three lost legions had been her boys. She was mature, but not that cheesy. 'The free Germans still boast about Arminius.' They would be doing that for a long time. Arminius was the chieftain who had destroyed Varus; who had liberated Germany from Roman control; and whom Civilis was now openly trying to emulate. 'Be careful, Marcus Didius.'

Claudia Sacrata spoke as if I needed a trepanning operation-a hole drilled in my head to relieve the pressure on my brain.

XXXVII

'You were out a long time,' grumbled Helena. I told her why. It seemed best, in case one of Claudia Sacrata's wide circle in Colonia later let slip the information. Helena decided I had vanished intentionally. 'And have you been drinking?'

'Had to be sociable. I declined the nibbles she usually serves to her Roman boys.'

'How restrained! You're not the salon type-did being sociable work?'

'I heard some lurid gossip. She confirmed that Florius Gracilis is running one step ahead of me in searching for the rebel leaders. He's also deep into selling favours, and disguising it as an autumn hunting trip. The only useful fact I suspect she knows-where I could look for Civilis-was the one thing she deliberately held back.'

'What happened to your persuasiveness?'

'Sweetheart, I have nothing to offer a woman who is used to being coerced by men with top-level public salaries.'

'You're slipping then!' said Helena, more sharply than usual. 'By the way, I fetched the bread myself. I realised you'd gone off somewhere working, and I thought you might forget.' She gave me a consoling wholegrain roll. I ate it gloomily. The effect on Claudia Sacrata's spiced wine was negligible. I still felt drunk, in the dire way that afflicts you when you are also in disgrace. 'Marcus, I've hired a Ubian waiting-woman to help me when you have to go away. She's a widow-the troubles, you know. She had a daughter the same age as Augustinilla. I'm hoping a little friend who has been brought up more strictly might be a good influence.'

I was not ready to think about going away. 'Good idea. I'll pay,'

'Can you afford it?'

'Yes.' She gave me one of her looks. She knew I meant no.

As if to confirm her information two small heads came round the door just then and stared at me. They were as plain-faced as each other, a well-browned bun with eyes like burnt raisins, and a round dollop of pale unleavened dough. They both looked like trouble. The one with the flaxen pigtails demanded of the dark one with the topknot, 'Is that him?' She had a faint lisp, a German accent, and about six times the intelligence of my niece.

'Either get out,' I growled, 'or come in properly.'

They came in, and stood half a stride away, jostling shoulders and giggling. I felt like a hippopotamus in a seedy menagerie-the one with the reputation for making unpredictable rushes at the bars.

'Are you the uncle who is an enquirer?'

'No, I'm the ogre who eats children. Who are you?'