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“Caesar, if you can spare Cerialis for higher duties, the frontier must be under control?”
    â€œSome unfinished items—I’ll come to those.” Whatever was said in public, the whole region must still be highly sensitive. Not the time for a quiet cruise downstream on a wineship. “Petilius Cerialis held a meeting with Civilis—”
    â€œI heard about that!” Dramatic stuff: the two opposing commanders had confronted each other in the middle of a river, both bawling across the void from the ends of a severed bridge. It sounded like some incident from the mists of Rome’s heroic history that schoolboys learn about.
    â€œCivilis has fallen unnaturally quiet since then…” Speaking of the rebel chief, Vespasian paused, in a way that ought to have worried me. “We were hoping he would settle down peacefully in the Batavian homeland, but he’s missing.” That did arouse my interest; I read in it a bad prophecy for me. “Rumour says he may have travelled south. On that subject, I’d like to say to you—”
    Whatever he had intended to tell me—or warn me—about the rebel Civilis never happened, because just then a curtain swung open and the official who must be the one he had called Canidius arrived.

 
    VIII
    When he shambled in, the sharp lads in glittering white uniforms who waited on the Emperor all stepped back and glared at him bitterly.
    He was a real papyrus beetle. Even before he opened his mouth, I guessed he must be one of those odd cases who hang around secretariats doing jobs no one else will. No well-kept palace would tolerate him unless his contribution was unique. He wore a dingy damson tunic, shoes with one lace tied up crookedly, and a belt so poorly tanned it looked as if the cow it came from was still alive. His hair was lank, and his skin had a grey pallor that might have washed off when he was younger, but was now ingrained. Even if he did not actually smell, he looked musty.
    â€œDidius Falco, this is Canidius,” Vespasian himself introduced us in his brisk way. “Canidius keeps the legionary archive.”
    I was right then. Canidius was a clerk with unpromising prospects who had found an offbeat job he could invent for himself. I grunted noncommittally.
    Vespasian shot me a suspicious glance. “Your next assignment, Falco, is as my personal emissary to the Fourteenth Gemina in Germany.” This time I saved myself the hypocrisy of politeness and openly grimaced. The Emperor ignored it. “I hear the Fourteenth are in a truculent mood. Brief us, Canidius.”
    The eccentric-looking clerk recited nervously, without notes. “The legio Fourteenth Gemina were an Augustan creation, originally raised at Moguntiacum on the River Rhenus.” He had a thin whine of a voice that tired a listener rapidly. “They were among the four legions chosen by the Divine Claudius for the invasion of Britain, acquitting themselves bravely at the Battle of the Medway, much assisted by their native auxiliaries, who were Batavians.” North Europeans from the Rhenus delta, Batavians are rowers, swimmers, and river pilots to a man. All Roman legions are supported by such units of foreigners, in particular native cavalry.
    â€œFalco doesn’t need your Claudian anecdotes,” muttered Vespasian. “And I was there!”
    The clerk blushed; forgetting the Emperor’s history was a bad mistake. Vespasian had commanded the II Augusta at the Battle of the Medway, and he and the II had played a celebrated part in the conquest of Britain.
    â€œCaesar!” Canidius writhed in misery. “The Fourteenth’s roll of honour includes defeating Queen Boudicca, for which—along with the Twentieth Valeria—they were awarded the honorific title of ‘Martia Victrix.’”
    You may wonder why the II Augusta did not win that prestigious handle too. The answer is that due to the kind of mix-up