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leather document case lying on a table by the entrance, and as they came to it Collega took up the case and handed it to Varro. “Your Authority, questor,” he said. “Use it wisely.” Then he held out his hand. “I will not be seeing you again before you leave. May the gods go with you.” He focused very deliberately on Varro, and lowered his voice. “Be sure to bring back the evidence I seek, Varro. As well you know, much hangs on the success of this mission as far as Rome is concerned.” His eyes transmitted the true meaning of his words. Collega was thinking about his career at Rome, first and foremost.
    Varro returned the handshake. “Yes, general, for Rome. Thank you. I will do my utmost not to disappoint you.”
    “Do not forget, I want you back here with your report before the last ship of the sailing season sets out for Italy. I bid you a good night and all success, questor.”
    “Thank you, general. A good night to you.”
    As Varro walked from the room with his Authority in hand, he cursed his luck. Collega was not doing anything to contribute to the success of the expedition, saddling him at the last moment with a drunkard and a brat, adding them to Pythagoras the spy and the devious Jew Antiochus. Varro resolved to be on his guard from this moment forward, knowing there would be few in his entourage apart from Martius he could rely on and trust, on what he had become convinced was close to an impossible mission.

V
THE PREFECT’S SHAME
    The Road to Beirut, Roman Province of Syria.
March A.D. 71
    With characteristic efficiency, Varro had begun as he meant to go on. The questor’s column had departed Antioch on time, in the light of a golden dawn. While the main body moved down the military highway at brisk marching pace, the mounted advance guard of ten Vettonian troopers led by their decurion Gains Pompeius cantered down the road ahead, accompanied by a centurion and several civilians.
    Callidus rode with the advance guard, along with another freedman, Paris, the questor’s portly cook. The advance guard’s task was to clear the road of obstruction and to precede the main column into the place chosen for the next night’s camp. There, Callidus would make whatever logistical arrangements were necessary for the expedition as a whole, while Paris the cook acquired food for the questor’s personal table.
     
    There was a smile on Callidus’ face as he rode. His thoughts were in Antioch, the previous night, in a small attic room in a house on the Street of the Olives, and Priscilla, the love of his life. Priscilla was a slave in the household of Pagan us, a freedman originally from Northern Gaul and now a grasping merchant and money-lender. While Callidus had frolicked in plump, playful Priscilla’s bed, his master Julius Varro had been below in the bedroom of Octavia, eldest daughter of Paganus. Callidus did not like Octavia. A beauty she might be, but she was arrogant and self-centered. But because she had been the questor’s bed partner for a year Callidus was certain his master would take Octavia back to Rome with him when he and Callidus went home, and would keep her there as his mistress even if he married a daughter of the nobility. And if Octavia went to Rome, so too would her favorite body servant Priscilla, and Callidus and Priscilla could be together. It would be a perfect outcome as far as Callidus was concerned.
    Callidus smiled too as he remembered the words last evening of Priscilla’s mother, the ancient, toothless, sightless Aquila, who shared a tiny upper floor room with her daughter. Paganus had retained the crone because he valued her skills as a seer. The merchant would boast to friends that old Aquila only had to hold of a subject’s hands to receive messages containing often astonishingly accurate predictions about their future, and he would charge them for her ‘readings.’ Last evening, old Aquila had taken Callidus’ hands and, wide eyed and perspiring, she had