The Iron Hand of Mars by Lindsey Davis Read Free Book Online Page A

would have to discover the gaps—and the answers—myself.
    Cursing myself for being gracious to this dim-wit, I left him with the flagon. Canidius let me pay, of course. He was a clerk.
    *   *   *
    Returning home, I brought in a loaf and some cooked sausage. Night was falling beyond my open window. The apartment block reverberated with distant knocks and cries as its occupants beat all Hades out of each other in various happy ways. The street below my balcony was full of oddly muttering voices which I preferred not to investigate. The night air brought a city cacophony of grumbling wheels, off-tune flutes, squalling cats, and dolorous drunks. But I had never before noticed how intense the silence was indoors when Helena was not there.
    Intense, until footsteps approached.
    They were light, but reluctant—tired out by the long haul upstairs. Not boots. Not slipshod sandals either. Too long a stride for a woman, unless it was a woman I would not welcome. Too casual to be any man I needed to fear.
    The feet stopped outside my door. There was a lengthy pause. Someone knocked. I leaned back on my stool saying nothing. Someone opened the door gingerly. The high-class odour of an extremely subtle unguent sneaked in and shimmied curiously around the room.
    A head followed. It had sharply layered dark locks, held in place by a fillet of braid. It was a haircut you were meant to notice. It looked clean, neat, well attended, and as out of place in the Aventine as bees in a feather bed. “You Falco?”
    My own scalp began to feel dandruffy and hot. “Who’s asking?”
    â€œI’m Xanthus. I was told you would be expecting me.”
    â€œI’m not expecting anyone. But you can come in now you’re here.”
    He came in. He was sneering at the place; that made two of us. He left the door open. I told him to close it. He did so as if he was afraid he would be grappled to the floor by a pair of wild centaurs and robbed of his manhood amid much whinnying.
    I gave him a rapid scan. He was a daisy. Not the usual Palace messenger, with a brain as thick as his bootsoles. This one had class—in his queer way.
    While I stared, the inappropriate shaving-lotion continued to make itself at home. The chin that was sporting the magic Eastern mixture had been bristling gently for about ten years. The messenger wore a white Palace uniform with gold on the hem, but the shoes I had heard on the apartment stairs were his gesture to personality: round-toed vermilion calfskin jobs that must have cost a lot of money, though they were in questionable taste. The sort of supple footgear a low-grade actor might accept in return for paying attention to a female devotee.
    â€œLetter for you.” He held it out: the papyrus I had come to dread, solid as piecrust, and weighed down with an ounce of sombrely embossed wax. I knew it contained orders for my German trip.
    â€œThanks.” I sounded thoughtful. This odd bod in the lurid shoes already had me wondering. He was not all he seemed. Although that applies to most of Rome, with Titus Caesar jealously concerned about my private life I felt more nervous than usual about social frauds. I took the letter. “Hang yourself up on a cloak-peg, in case I want to send a rude reply.”
    â€œThat’s right!” he ranted bitterly. “Give me your orders! My sole purpose is to dally on doorsteps while people read their correspondence.”
    Something was wrong here. I needed to probe. “You seem a restless sort of messenger. Are your corns worse than usual?”
    â€œI’m a barber,” said he.
    â€œStick with it, Xanthus. There are fortunes to be made out of bristle for a man with a deft hand.” And other fortunes, too, for hired hacks who deftly applied sharp weapons to people’s throats. I checked him over discreetly; if he was carrying a blade it was well hidden. “Whose barber are you anyway?”
    He looked