'So tell me about your life, Agron,' I said. 'You came straight to Rome right after Germany?'
He poured himself a cupful of the rat-piss from the jug. 'Yeah. I was with the Eighteenth. After the massacre what was left of it was disbanded. No Eagle, right?' A legion's Eagle is sacred. Totally and absolutely. Lose the Eagle and the legion's dead forever. Dishonourably dead. 'Sure, I could've got a transfer, but I'd had enough of the army by then. And survivors weren't popular.'
'How do you mean?'
'You've never been a soldier. A defeat as total as that, if you live it says something about you.' His voice was bitter. 'The best die, the worst survive.'
'That's shit and you know it.'
'Sure it's shit, but it's what everyone believes. Not just the know-nothings in the wineshops, either. The survivors were barred from Rome. Officers, anyway. The rest of us had a pretty bad time of it too.'
Yeah. I'd heard of that. The blanket ban of exile showed how hard the disaster had hit Augustus. How personally the old man had taken it.
'Were there that many? Survivors, I mean.'
'There were a few. Some of them were runners, sure. But others like me just happened to be lucky. If you can call it luck. Anyway, I came to Rome, and the mistress got Asprenas to set me up in the blacksmith's shop.'
'Generous of him.'
Agron shrugged. 'He gets his cut, like patrons always do. And it didn't cost him anything, he was left it by a friend that died. Anyway, I've had the business ever since. That's it. You want more, you tell it yourself.'
I glanced down the street towards the small square where Scylax and Daphnis were sitting. Daphnis was facing us with his back against the tree, his eyes half-closed.
'So you're Asprenas's client now?' I said. Sure, I was pussy-footing. I still wasn't sure where the big guy's real sympathies lay; and if Asprenas was our man I'd have to find out pretty damn quick.
'The general was my real patron, but yeah, I look after the family's interests. Run errands.' He grinned. 'Lean on young smartasses occasionally.'
'Save their lives, too.' I'd never actually thanked the big guy for that. Maybe it was time I did.
'That had nothing to do with you. I told you.'
'You know who these guys were? Or who sent them?'
'No. It wasn't any of my business.' He frowned. 'You ever wonder why Tiberius should use garbage like that?'
'How do you mean?'
'Where's your brain, Corvinus? The guy's the fucking emperor. If he wants you stopped then why aren't you coughing your guts up in the Tullianum?'
I sat back. It was a simple enough question; so simple that it rocked me. The Tullianum was the old prison off the Market Square, reserved for guests of the state waiting for the authorities to get round to shortening them by a head. Also, of course, for any private citizen the emperor took a violent personal dislike to, although that function wasn't exactly public knowledge.
'Maybe he just didn't dare,' I said.
'Oh, yeah. Sure. Daddy's Little Boy's got clout. So forget the Tullianum. There're still a dozen other ways the Wart could've used. If it'd been me giving the orders I could've got rid of you long since. The Wart doesn't. He sends in the local knife-men and the sweepings from the legions to do his dirty work on the quiet. So the question I'm asking is why.'
'Easier. Quicker.' I was making excuses, and I knew it.
'Screw that. I told you, there're neater ways. Official channels. Why not use them?'
The guy was right. This was a top-level scam, an imperial level scam. It had to be, for everything to fit in. Even if Asprenas was involved it could only be as a middle-man, an agent for Tiberius and Livia. There'd been a dozen ways I could've been stopped dead officially, with the minimum of risk and the minimum of fuss; but none of them had been used. And that could mean…
Shit. I had to think this through.
Maybe I was wrong. Maybe this wasn't an official cover-up at all. The Wart and his mother didn't get on too well these days. I knew that. So if Livia was acting behind the Wart's back it would explain why she hadn't been able to use official channels to shut me up…
Yeah. Only that didn't make sense either, right? Tiberius needed the cover-up just as much as Livia. Maybe even more so. After all, the guy had to know about how his mother had got him the throne. He had to know about the murders and the exiles. And of course he had to know about…
About…
I stopped.
Oh, Jupiter! Jupiter Best and Greatest! Oh, holy shit!
Agron was staring at me. 'Corvinus?'
'Hold on.' If I was right, I was saved, I was home and dry! 'Hold on,’ I said. ‘Let me think! Just let me think, okay?'
What was it Pomponius, the decurion in charge of the rookie squad, had said about Tiberius?
He was the best. Maybe he's First Citizen now, but the General's Army first and last. A real professional.
A real professional. A soldier. The highest compliment Pomponius could pay anyone. Jupiter, it made sense! It made all kinds of sense! The Wart was Army. And yet he'd agreed — must have agreed — to a scheme that might send a whole province and the security of the Rhine frontier down the tube…
Three Eagles lost! Three sacred Eagles…
The Wart would never have done that, not to win a dozen empires. Never in a million years. And that meant…
'He doesn't know,' I whispered. 'Jupiter Best and Greatest, the emperor doesn't know!'
'Corvinus, what the hell..!' Agron was gripping my arm. 'Get a hold on yourself!'
The landlord was staring at us and absently wiping a winecup with a rag. I turned away from him, towards the street. I tried to keep my voice low, but I was trembling with excitement.
'Listen! The Wart wasn't involved in the Varus scam! The rest, the murders, yeah, sure, maybe even the Paullus plot, I don't know and it doesn't matter. But he didn't know about Germany!'
'Gods, Corvinus, will you shut up? Everyone's-'
'No, listen!' I had to get this out or I'd burst. 'He doesn't know there even was a scam! The whole German idea was Livia's, only it went wrong. And now the empress is pissing acid that her son will find out, because if he ever does he'll nail the bitch's hide to the palace gates! That's who's been trying to stop me! Not Tiberius and Livia! Livia!'
And that's when it happened.
Like I said, we were sitting in the shadows just inside the wineshop door with the pavement only a step or so beyond. As I spoke the empress's name a nondescript guy who was slouching past stopped as if I'd planted a hook in his neck. His head whipped round…
For the space of two heartbeats he stared straight at us, his eyes wide, his unshaven jaw slack. Then he turned and was off like a hare up the street back the way he'd come, in the other direction from the tenement. I saw Scylax and Daphnis spring to their feet, but they were a good hundred yards away and unless they sprouted wings they didn't have a hope in hell of catching him.
'Fuck!' I was on my feet myself now. I knew we'd blown it and that it was my fault. The guy would've known what I looked like. Sure he would. Scylax had been right. I should've stayed at home. 'Agron, for…'
That was as far as I got. The big Illyrian was still sitting on his stool, his eyes wide and his face drained of colour. Then, suddenly, he was up, pushing past me and sprinting down the street after the fleeing man. There wasn't much else I could do so I went after him, although I knew I couldn't match his speed or his skill at dodging between pedestrians. I was in time to see the guy throw a frantic look over his shoulder and duck into one of the little side alleys.
Someone — a woman — screamed just as Agron half-rounded the alley corner. He pulled up sharp like he'd found there was no alley there at all, just a brick wall; and everything, suddenly, went very quiet.
I saw why when I caught up, by which time Scylax and Daphnis were right behind me. When they saw they stopped too. Daphnis took one look and threw up all over the pavement.