'WITH THE GOVERNOR away dealing with the druids on Mona, I am the man to ask,' Catus Decia.n.u.s, the middle-aged procurator of Britannia, informed Vespasian, Sabinus and Caenis in the most unpleasant, smug manner. 'And then, of course, there would be some form of recompense for my trouble in taking the time to consider the case.' Plump, soft and pale, with a curled coiffure that was unmanly, he languished in his well-cus.h.i.+oned chair with an air of indolence enveloping him; he did not even bother to meet the eyes of the people he was addressing, seated on the other side of his desk. Behind him, through a window, could be seen the st.u.r.dy frame of the bridge across the Tamesis, the reason why Londinium had grown out of nothing and become so important in the seventeen years since the invasion.

Vespasian leant forward in his chair and pointed an accusatory finger, sporting his senatorial ring, at Decia.n.u.s. 'Now listen to me, you-' He stopped mid-flow as Caenis squeezed his arm.

'I think what Senator Vespasian was going to emphasise, procurator,' Caenis said with a sweet smile and a honeyed tone, 'was that we don't need permission to travel to the lands of the Iceni as we have imperial letters of transit to go wherever we wish in pursuit of Seneca's business. We were just dropping in to ask permission of the Governor out of courtesy and, seeing as we have been shown none in return, we shall now leave.' She got up and smiled again. 'It's been such a pleasure meeting you, procurator; unfortunately our business is such that we simply do not have the time to accept that kind invitation to stay for a few days and recuperate in comfortable accommodation that you would surely have extended us. We shall, however, be staying a couple of nights here anyway as we have an appointment to meet with Seneca's financial agent in Londinium at the third hour tomorrow; I'll have your steward show us to our suite. We won't bother you for dinner either tonight or tomorrow but, rather, we'll have it served in our rooms.' With that, she turned on her heel and walked swiftly to the door, leaving Decia.n.u.s with his mouth hanging slack and looking as if he had just been slapped.

Vespasian and Sabinus shared a quick look before following Caenis without saying goodbye.

'But you must have my permission!' Decia.n.u.s blurted as they reached the door.

'Why?' Sabinus asked over his shoulder as he stepped out into the corridor.

'Because I'm in charge.'

'How lovely for you.'

'What a vile man,' Caenis observed as a slave closed the door behind them.

'He won't bother us now,' Sabinus said, grinning broadly at Caenis. 'You should have seen him as he watched you go; his face was as red as a spanked a.r.s.e.'

'Yes, but it hasn't helped us in that it would have been nice to have the cooperation of the authorities in the province.'

'We'll enlist the goodwill of the city administration of Camulodunum when we get there in a couple of days,' Vespasian suggested as they continued along the corridor in the direction of the atrium where Magnus, Hormus and Caenis' two slave girls awaited along with Castor and Pollux. 'I'm sure if we're nice to the Urban prefect there he'll give us what we want. After all, a military escort to add a bit of l.u.s.tre to our arrival at Venta Icenorum is not much to ask.'

It all came flooding back to Vespasian as he looked out of the window, the following morning, over a town swathed in a thick, damp fog. The bridge across the Tamesis and the river itself were lost somewhere within the miasma and Vespasian remembered just how much he hated the climate of this northern isle, which seemed, to his eyes, to vary little from one season to the next. But the changes to Londinium itself were far more marked than those to the weather: it was now a thriving port, more important even than the provincial capital of Camulodunum; here goods could be dispersed all over the province because of the bridge. So it was, then, that Londinium had become the natural place for merchants to set up business and with them had come the bankers. But the town had grown so quickly over the last thirteen years since Vespasian had last seen it, ever expanding north, west and east, with the thought only of profitable commerce and not costly defence and so, therefore, it was still an open town.

Vespasian shook his head at the results of greed. 'Fifty thousand people living, in a province that's barely pacified, in a town filled with goods and money with no walls to protect them is foolhardy to say the least.' He turned back to Caenis, still lying in the bed piled with blankets. 'The sooner we finish our business and we can get back to Rome the better, as far as I'm concerned; just the view out of the window, or lack of it, is a very strong argument for never having invaded and the lack of defences is an even stronger one for not staying.'

Caenis opened an eye. 'Come back to bed and keep warm; then perhaps you'll stop moaning. Our appointment with Seneca's agent isn't for another couple of hours; I'm sure we can amuse each other until then.'

'This is a complete list of all the loans made by me on Seneca's behalf in the last six years,' Manius Galla, financial agent to one of the most powerful men in the Empire, said with a deal of pride, taking a scroll from a cylindrical bookcase and handing it to Caenis. A ruggedly handsome, well-built man in his mid-thirties, Galla looked as if he should be in uniform, leading soldiery rather than engaging in money-lending to cash-strapped provincials. 'Names, amounts, interest rates, commencement dates and due dates.' The newly constructed forum, through the open window behind him, was teaming with traders of all sorts and their customers; at its northern end towered wooden scaffolding encasing the rising walls of the town's new amphitheatre.

Caenis scanned through the list, her eyes taking in the information at an impressive rate, as the cries and whiplashes of the overseers supervising slaves hauling stone blocks up the amphitheatre's scaffolding rose above the calls of the seagulls circling above the traders shouting their wares. 'So, eighteen loans are still outstanding including Prasutagus', which is by far the largest.' She pa.s.sed the scroll to Vespasian. 'What did Prasutagus want the money for?'

'It wasn't just coinage but bullion as well. He said the money was to build up the Iceni's main town, Venta Icenorum, and the bullion was to strike his own coinage as the Iceni are technically an independent client kingdom. Since they rose against Publius Scapula when he tried to disarm them, they have been allowed a great degree of autonomy, basically because fighting the Silures and other tribes in the west makes it important for us to have if not overtly friendly then neutral tribes in the east. They still use our coinage as well as their own.'

'So we'll be asking Prasutagus to dismantle his people's currency when we call in the loan.'

Galla could not but agree. 'That'll effectively be what would happen, which would place a great strain on their economy and could well make for a very volatile situation.'

'Did Scapula succeed in disarming them?' Vespasian asked, pa.s.sing the scroll onto Sabinus.

Galla sucked the air through his teeth. 'Yes and no. They agreed to destroy their war chariots and melt down their swords as the price of their independence; but how thorough they were at doing that has never been verified and the rumours are that all they actually did was disa.s.semble the chariots and hide the parts and their swords in their thatched roofs. Then, of course, they still retain their spears and bows for hunting.'

Sabinus placed the scroll back on the desk. 'So, what you are saying is that if they were upset the whole Iceni tribe could be fully armed and ready for rebellion in a matter of days.'

'It would take them half a month or so to muster their strength in one place, but, essentially, yes.'

'Then we had better handle this very carefully,' Vespasian said.

'It would be best not to handle it at all,' Galla observed. 'Leave things as they are and just keep taking the interest; he does pay it regularly.'

Caenis shook her head. 'We can't do that as Seneca has decided that he wants to call every loan in the province back in.'

Galla looked at her, astounded. 'He can't be serious.'

'He is.'

Galla's eyes widened. 'G.o.ds below; we're going to abandon Britannia.'

'You keep that to yourself, Galla; the fewer people who know about it the better for our business as we don't want to cause a stampede of creditors.'

'Indeed, Antonia Caenis; but I shall start to make my own arrangements, discreetly of course.'

'Of course. In the meantime you're to call in all the loans that you can; we'll deal with the four loans in Camulodunum as we pa.s.s on our way up to see Prasutagus.'

'As you wish.' Galla looked down the list. 'Most of these shouldn't be a problem; a million or so sesterces should be easy to refinance.' He looked up nervously. 'The news hasn't got out yet, has it?'

'Not yet, that's why speed is of the essence. A couple of the Cloelius Brothers are only a few days behind us; I think that once they start trying to claw back their money then it will become obvious what's happening and that's when the economy will start to crumble.'

'I don't have long then.'

'No one does.'

'What about Cartimandua up in the north? You do realise that calling in her loan could have a similar effect on the Brigantes and push them into rebellion?'

'But Suetonius is up there with the Fourteenth dealing with Mona,' Vespasian pointed out, 'so he could be on hand very quickly. Which legion is nearest the Iceni at the moment?'

'The Ninth Hispana, based just to the northwest of their lands at Lindum Colonia.'

'Ah! That's my son-in-law's legion. I can write to Cerialis privately and tell him to be on a high state of alert. Could you have the letter delivered for me, Galla?'

'Of course.'

'I'd be grateful for the details of the four Camulodunum loans,' Caenis said. 'Would you be good enough to furnish me with the details?'

'My pleasure. Although there is another loan there which does not appear on my list as it was done privately by Seneca back in Rome.'

Caenis was interested. 'Oh yes?'

'Yes, the Urban prefect of Camulodunum owes Seneca half a million sesterces; I only know because he makes his interest payments to me. He should be able to help you with the other loans there seeing as he acts as Seneca's agent in that town.'

'Well, we were going to see him anyway so we can wash two tunics in the same tub. What's the man's name?'

'Julius Paelignus.'

Vespasian sat up as if he had been stung. 'Paelignus?' he exclaimed, recalling the hunchbacked procurator of Cappadocia who had betrayed him to the Parthians, causing his two-year incarceration; the man he had sworn to kill. 'I wondered where he'd got to. I can see that I'm going to enjoy this trip much more than I thought I would.'

And Vespasian was not disappointed; the shriek of fearful recognition that Paelignus emitted when he barged, unannounced, knocking the doorkeeper aside, into the prefect's office in Camulodunum the following day warmed his heart.

'Y-y-y-you!' Paelignus stammered, dropping the wax tablet that he had been reading. 'What are you doing in my town?'

Vespasian gave his friendliest smile. 'I thought that I'd just drop in on an old friend, Paelignus; it's been such a long time.' He pointed to Paelignus' maimed hand; two fingers were missing. 'Remind me how you lost them.'

Paelignus looked at his hand in confusion. 'I ... er ... it was fighting the Parthians in Armenia.'

'Liar! You know perfectly well it's from when Magnus had to encourage you to divulge my whereabouts. And where was I, Paelignus? Can you at least remember that?'

'You were ... er ... you were ...' He trailed off, evidently unwilling to say where Vespasian had been.

'I was rotting in a cell in Parthia; that's where I was, Paelignus. Can you remember that now?'

With a feeble inclination of the head, Paelignus indicated that he could.

'And it was only through the loyalty of Magnus and my then slave, Hormus, that I managed to get out; otherwise I would still be there. A thing of filth and no consequence. Is that what you'd prefer, Paelignus, rather than me standing here now?'

Paelignus miserably shook his head, keeping his eyes averted.

'So, what to do, eh?' Vespasian mused.

'You've already had your revenge by giving that doc.u.ment to Seneca and ruining me.'

Vespasian threw his head back and laughed; he had supplied Seneca with the evidence, gained from Narcissus' private papers, that Paelignus had falsified his father's will, valuing his estate at far less than its true worth and thereby cheating the Emperor, who was named as co-heir, out of a considerable amount of money. 'That was nothing; that was just me warming up. Now, Paelignus, I'll tell you what we're going to do. I'm here with Seneca's secretary, Antonia Caenis, and my brother, Sabinus, to call in Seneca's loans from four people in Camulodunum and also from you.'

'Me?' Paelignus squawked, meeting Vespasian's gaze for the first time. 'You can't call in my loan with him.'

'Caenis has been asked to call in all Seneca's loans in Britannia.'

'But he gave me my loan in Rome.'

'And now you're in Britannia.'

'But I'm his agent here; he would have written to tell me about it.'

'But he sent us instead. I'm very sorry if you think we're misunderstanding our instructions, but they seem clear enough to us.' Vespasian turned to the door. 'Caenis!'

Caenis entered and, without asking permission, sat down opposite Paelignus and unrolled a scroll. 'So, Julius Paelignus, we believe that you owe an outstanding half a million sesterces to Seneca. As he has charged me with collecting all money owing to him in Britannia I'm serving notice that we will expect to receive the full sum on return from our journey to the lands of the Iceni, which should be at the beginning of next month.'

Paelignus stared open-mouthed at her. 'You can't do this, I'm the Urban prefect of Camulodunum; you can't make me pay.'

'Seneca is your creditor and he wishes to call in the loan.'

'Besides,' Vespasian said jovially, 'as Urban prefect I expect you can put a good squeeze on the locals and raise the money very quickly. Or perhaps you could take out a loan with one of the local bankers to help you with the cash.'

Paelignus was now incensed; he stood, leaning his hands on the desk, making the curvature of his back more prominent. 'Seneca just lent me back the money he had extorted off me in return for not telling Nero about my father's will. It's my money and I'll not pay it back.'

'I'm very sorry that you feel that way,' Vespasian said, his voice full of sympathy; once again he turned to the door. 'Magnus! Hormus!'

Magnus and Hormus came in, beaming recognition at Paelignus.

'Now, prefect,' Vespasian carried on, 'you recognise these two gentlemen, I'm sure.' He pointed at Magnus. 'This is Magnus, who severed your two fingers.' He then indicated to Hormus. 'And this is Hormus who held you down in order to make Magnus' task easier. Now, I can see that you've still got a few of your fingers left.'

Paelignus quickly put his hands under his armpits.

'It only took two for Magnus to get you to admit that you'd betrayed me to the Parthians; I wonder how many it would take to make you pay what you owe? What would you reckon, Magnus?'

Magnus rubbed his chin as if he were giving the matter serious consideration. 'Well, hard to say, sir. I can't recall him enjoying it the last time; in fact, if I remember rightly, he cried, real tears they were. No, he didn't enjoy it at all; not one bit. So I'd reckon he would agree to pay just by having his hand held down and me placing the blade on one of his fingers.' Magnus nodded to himself, his sagest expression on his face. 'I don't think that I would have to cut.'

Vespasian looked genuinely interested in that a.s.sessment. 'Really? Well, let's see if you're right, Magnus.'

Paelignus yelped and, seeing Magnus coming around one side of the desk and Hormus the other, nipped under it with surprising speed, and made a dash past Vespasian's legs to the door, which he opened only to come face to face with a smiling Sabinus.

'Is this the one you were talking about, brother?' Sabinus enquired, grabbing the wriggling prefect by the arm and hauling him back into the room.

'Yes, that's the one, Sabinus; how could you tell?'

'Because he's such a horribly bent little specimen; I seem to remember you mentioning that.'

'I probably did. Now, where were we? Ah yes, Magnus, you were going to see whether or not you needed to cut off one of Paelignus' fingers to get him to repay the money he owes.'

Paelignus howled as Sabinus dragged him over to the desk and Hormus grabbed the wrist of his undamaged hand, holding it firmly down on the surface.

'All right! All right!' Paelignus shouted as Magnus showed him the knife. 'I'll pay; I'll squeeze the locals and see if I can raise a tax of some sort on the ex-legionary settlers and then I'll get a loan to cover the rest of it.'

'Well, you can't say fairer than that,' Vespasian said in the most reasonable of tones. 'Magnus, you were right.'

'Normally am when it comes to that sort of issue, sir.'

'Yes, I wouldn't bet against you. Caenis, give Paelignus the list of the other four gentlemen in Camulodunum who owe Seneca money. They're minor n.o.bles of the Trinovantes, Paelignus, so whilst we're away you can get them to pay, seeing as you act as Seneca's agent in this town; but use a bit of delicacy as they are no doubt proud men and influential with their people. And if you change your mind just remember, we know where to find you and should you decide to run the only place that you'll be safe from me is in the very prison cell that you condemned me to, as I don't fancy going back there. Now, if you'll excuse us, we're going to borrow a turma of your cavalry as, tomorrow, we have to visit the King of the Iceni.'

There was no road north, no Roman one at least, to the lands of the Iceni and the track that Vespasian and his companions followed instead soon became a mora.s.s in the steady rain, sucking at the hoofs of the thirty-two Gallic auxiliary cavalry and providing little support for the four wooden wheels of the rhaeda the covered carriage in which Caenis and her two slave girls travelled in some degree of cus.h.i.+oned comfort. Vespasian, Sabinus, Magnus and Hormus rode, hunched beneath thick travel cloaks, behind the rhaeda whilst their slaves, eight in all, trudged along on foot at the rear of the little column as it made its slow progress towards Venta Icenorum on the third day of the journey. Only Castor and Pollux seemed oblivious to the miserable conditions; their concern was their leashes, tied to the rhaeda, which prevented them from killing any more sheep. Magnus had already had to pay a couple of colonist farmers for the deaths of two of their flock and the mauling of a slave shepherd boy; this he had done with bad grace as he felt that it was surely the farmers' duty to keep their livestock protected and, after all, his dogs were only doing what was natural. The failure of this argument with even his friends had forced him to restrain the beasts in order to spare his purse; his mood had not been made better by the weather.

When they had set out it had been one of the rare clear days allotted to the miserably damp isle in November and Camulodunum actually looked tolerably pleasant in the thin sun. The brightly painted columns and walls of the Temple of Divine Claudius, which dominated the southern end of the forum, would not have looked out of place in Rome; nor, indeed, would the Governor's residence next to it, where they had spent the night. Vespasian had thought, as the escort turma of cavalry had clattered into the forum, that had it not been for the excessive number of men wearing trousers and sporting long hair and moustaches, a casual observer looking about the forum might be forgiven for thinking that this was a town in the north of Italia until one took note of the countryside around the town, that was. One could not see any. It was flat and therefore invisible from the forum, or indeed, from anywhere inside Camulodunum's less-than-reasonable defences, a quarter of which were now made of brick that had begun to replace the broken-down wooden palisade that had originally formed the town's walls. It was only from the river port, to the southeast of the town, that any countryside could be seen and that was dreary marshland in the main, through which the river trailed on its way to the sea, just a few miles away.

Many of the townsfolk had gathered to see them off, curious as to what these high-status new arrivals were up to, and Vespasian noticed very few amongst the indigenous Trinovantes who had taken up Roman dress; it was only the colonists, discharged legionaries and their native wives, who looked Roman. Here, far more than in Londinium, Vespasian surmised, the pacification of the province was rudimentary. That fact was also emphasised by their short journey through the town to the north gates. In this part of the town, markedly more than around the western gates by which they had entered the previous day, the houses were native in construction: round with thatched roofs and a leather door-curtain. There were definitely two sides to Camulodunum and from what Vespasian could see, apart from trading in the forum, they did not mix.

And he had noticed the same thing as they journeyed north: small colonies of discharged legionaries living in brick-built houses with their native wives who had been only too happy to get a husband after the ma.s.s killing and deportation to the slave markets of Gaul and Italia of so many Trinovantes men contrasted with villages of round huts spiralling thick woodsmoke up through the holes cut in their thatched roofs. Again, the two never mixed. The further north they travelled, the more dominant the native villages and farmsteads became until by the end of the second day there was no sign of Roman occupation at all; it was as if the whole Claudian invasion had never happened and they were just a band of travellers journeying through a countryside dotted with damp, mist-wreathed farmsteads and deep woods as yet untouched by Rome.

Thus they entered the lands of the Iceni, the independent tribe whose domain was enclosed by the sea to the north and east, almost impa.s.sable fenland and marsh to the west and then the Roman-controlled Trinovantes to the south. Here the people lived under their own law. Yes, they traded with the Empire, paid tribute into its coffers and sent their young men to serve in its auxiliary cohorts, but it was to their chieftains and, ultimately, their King that they held loyalty.

'They were never conquered, did you know?' Vespasian said to Hormus, riding next to him. 'Sensibly, Prasutagus came to Camulodunum and submitted to Claudius without any blood spilt.'

'Did he not even take hostages?'

'He did but they had been returned by the time the Iceni rose against that idiot, Scapula, when he tried to disarm them. But now they are still technically independent, although I'm sure that won't last beyond Prasutagus' death seeing as he's only got a wife and three daughters to inherit. I don't know what the Iceni laws of inheritance are but in Rome they would not, in most circ.u.mstances, be able to inherit by themselves. They would need men named in the will, unless the Emperor gave a special dispensation which is highly unlikely.'

'Besides,' Sabinus said, 'it's customary for client kings to leave their kingdoms to Rome in their wills. Atallus the Third of Pergamon did it and old whats.h.i.+sname of Pontus.'

'Polemon?'