‘Yes, he did. And the older I get, the more I respect the old bastard’s opinion …’
He deliberately went quiet, until the silence got to the other man in exactly the intended manner. Morban looked up, a sudden hint of disquiet in his swift glance, then looked back down at the money.
‘There it is. Just like he said, it’s in the eyes. So, Morban, you came recommended to me as a man with a magical touch with money.’
The standard bearer smiled in an attempt at self-deprecation.
‘Really? That was kind of-’
‘Yes.’ The centurion’s voice hardened. ‘I was told that any money that was put in front of you would, if you were left alone with it, magically start to vanish.’
The other man reared back with an indignant expression.
‘Just a minute! I-’
‘Resemble that comment?’
Morban’s eyes narrowed at the time-honoured put-down.
‘I’ve counted all this money three times now: thirty-three shaves and seventy-five haircuts, which comes to …’
‘So that’s fifty-eight customers, is it?’
The veteran soldier’s eyes narrowed as the deceptive lightness of Cotta’s tone sank in.
‘Ahhh … no. In fact it was seventy-two.’
He met the centurion’s stare with his most impassive mask and waited for a response. Cotta shook his head slowly, and something in his impassive stare sounded a warning in the standard bearer’s mind.
‘Once an officer always an officer, eh? Alright it was seventy-eight …’ The veteran centurion held his gaze steady. I’m telling you, seventy-eight customers. And that’s it.’
Cotta nodded.
‘Very good. I do so like it when I come to an accommodation with an experienced senior man like you.’
He held out a hand, and Morban opened the desk drawer, pulling out a purse and sweeping the money arrayed across the flat wooden surface into it before dropping the purse into the outstretched palm.
‘About the lads’ bonus?’
‘And yours for that matter?’
The standard bearer grinned shamelessly.
‘Well, now that you mention it …’
Cotta shook his head in feigned disbelief.
‘Every time I think I’ve met the most barefaced crook that could ever exist in the army, someone goes and proves me wrong. You can take the bonus out of the money you’re still holding back from the other fifteen heads that your lads cropped today.’
Morban gaped as the secure ground he thought he’d managed to put beneath his feet abruptly dropped away.
‘How …?’
Cotta stood.
‘How did I know how many haircuts your boys have got through today? That’s for me to know and for you to wonder, I’d say. You’ll work it out in your own time. When I see your lads I’ll tell them that you’ve got their share for the day, shall I?’
‘But that won’t cover it!’
Cotta grinned, bending to pinch the older man’s cheek.
‘No, it won’t, will it? Perhaps this old dog might just have learned a new trick tonight — not to lie to a man that’s forgotten more ways to make money vanish than you’ll ever know. Goodnight Morban!’
Excingus dropped wearily into the chair facing Gaius, waving a hand at the landlord who promptly sent one of his daughters over with a flask of wine. Having deposited flask and cups onto the table, she fixed the informer with a sultry pout, squeezing her breasts together to make them protrude alluringly. Excingus waved the hand again to dismiss her, shaking his head firmly as her pout went from allure to disgust.
‘On your way child. You’re too young for me, I’m too tired to do you justice, and my young friend here doesn’t have a fully functioning phallus yet. Come back in two or three years’ time.’
The child frowned at him.
‘How do you know my dick doesn’t work!? For all you know, I could be-’
‘Looking at your hairless sausage in puzzlement, I’d imagine. What did you find out for me?’
Gaius shrugged.
‘About the barber’s new cellar? Nothing.’
Excingus poured himself a cup of wine with an expression of profound disappointment at the child’s answer.
‘I give you one simple thing to find out, and all you can say is “nothing”?’
The boy regarded him steadily.
‘Exactly. Nothing. There’s nothing down there.’
‘What?’ The informer shook his head in fresh irritation. ‘So you did get a look at it! How did you manage that?’
Gaius shrugged.
‘You ain’t the only one with money that wants to know things. We was employed to watch the place and tell that centurion that’s playing at being the boss how many men went in and out.’
Excingus raised his eyes in disbelief.
‘You’re telling me that you were paid to count haircuts? Sometimes I wonder if the whole city has gone mad.’ He shrugged. ‘So, while you were counting heads, exactly how did you manage to get down the stairs?’
Gaius grinned.
‘Simple. I got a haircut.’
The informant smirked.
‘Yes, now you mention it, you do look a little more military than you did this morning.’
The boy ignored his comment.
‘And when I was done I took a quick peek down the stairs. They never even knew I’d done it. After all, nobody gives any mind to a little boy being a bit nosey, do they?’
‘And?’
‘I told you. Nothing!’
‘It is with the greatest of difficulty that I am restraining myself from taking a handful of what little hair you have left and banging your irritating fucking head on this table.’ Excingus was grating his words out in a mixture of fatigue and irritation. ‘What. Did. You. See?’
‘An empty cellar. Just rough rock walls and nothing else.’
Excingus sat back with a frown.
‘Why? Why go to all the trouble of building a cellar and then leaving it empty? I was sure there’d be weapons down there, but if it’s just a bare storeroom perhaps that’s all there is to it.’ He mused in silence for a moment. ‘Perhaps I’m reading too much into it after all. They are soldiers, and the army always likes to overdo anything it takes on …’
He shrugged.
‘No matter. And it’s time I was elsewhere.’ Taking his cup from the table, he downed its remaining contents and stood. ‘It’s time to go and meet your father, and encourage him to deliver young Aquila’s next victim. With a little luck Brutus’s thugs will catch the arrogant young bastard and carve his lungs out.’
Cotta led six of his men through the Viminal district’s darkened streets behind Excingus, with Marcus close at his heels, while the informant’s man Silus walked cautiously twenty paces ahead of the party to check each road junction for any presence of the city’s Watch before signalling that the path was clear. The veteran centurion had bluntly refused to consider Marcus’s attempts to leave him behind when they had set off from the barracks.
‘And besides, you’ll need some men at your back if you’re going to put this Brutus to the knife, or you’ll never get past his men. And you can’t take soldiers. Trailing Excingus around is one thing, but going up against a gang like the Silver Dagger will need men who know these streets, and how to fight in them, and that means my lads. And what about this Silus, eh? How likely is he to be trustworthy?’
The veteran soldier had predictably taken an instant dislike to their guide upon meeting him an hour or so before, when Excingus had beckoned him from the shadows of the Baths of Trajan to join their small, furtive party. To the veteran centurion’s experienced eye, the informer’s man had the look of a killer, the same dead look to his eyes that he saw in some of his own men.
‘But whereas I know my men well enough to trust them, this Silus is a stranger to me. He can be trusted not to lead us into a fucking great trap, I assume?’
He’d asked the question of Excingus bluntly, albeit having led the informant far enough from the group of soldiers for a degree of privacy.
‘No.’ The answer had been equally frank, in Excingus’s usual matter-of-fact tone. ‘I expect he would sell us out, given half a chance, but I have him by the balls, or at least I hope so. He knows that my sponsor in this matter is fully aware of his part in it, and where his family resides. I’d like to think that he’s tied to me by the fear of whatever retribution might be visited on him, and his enormous herd of children and blood relatives, but ultimately there’s no denying that we’re taking a risk in employing his services.’ His teeth had flashed in the moonlight, the familiar smile that made Cotta want to punch him with every ounce of his strength. ‘And if you have a better idea as to how we can make this happen, I am veritably all ears.’