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

thoroughly depressed. “I used to shave Nero. He killed himself with a razor, I heard; probably one of mine. Since then they’ve all passed through my hands. I shaved Galba; I shaved Otho—I laundered his toupee as well, in fact!” For the first time it sounded like the truth: only a genuine barber would make so much of name-dropping eminent clients. “After that, when he remembered to let somebody attack his fortnight’s undergrowth, I even shaved Vitellius…”
    Distrust had struck again. I rasped bleakly. “You ever scraped Vespasian?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œWhat about Titus?” He shook his head. I was too old to believe it. “Know a man called Anacrites?”
    â€œNo.”
    Anacrites was the official chief spy at the Palace, and no crony of mine. If anyone at the Palace was commissioning a private extermination, Anacrites was bound to be involved. Especially if they were exterminating me. Anacrites would enjoy that.
    I bit my lip. “So how come, when a clean shave is as rare as an emerald in a goose’s gizzard, an imperial razorman has been reduced to footslogging round the Aventine in his natty scarlet lace-ups?”
    â€œDemoted,” he said (unhappily).
    â€œTo the seedier end of a delivery round? It’s hardly apt. I think you’re lying.”
    â€œThink what you like. I did my best to satisfy whoever turned up under the towel, but I’m told there’s no further call for my skills and since Vespasian hates waste, I’m reallocated to the secretariat.”
    â€œTough!”
    â€œIt is, Falco! The Flavians have a set of strong chins. I had been assigned to Titus Caesar—”
    â€œNice mop of curls!”
    â€œYes. I could have done decent work on Titus…”
    â€œBut the victor of Jerusalem declines to trust his handsome epiglottis to a sharp Spanish blade in the hands of a man who has previously scratched Nero and Vitellius? Who can blame him, friend?”
    â€œPolitics!” he spat. “Anyway, I’m now shoved off to tramp through the dung in stinking alleys and struggle up endless smelly stairs bringing so-called urgent despatches to unfriendly types who don’t even bother to read them when I arrive.”
    The complaints did not deflect me. “Sorry, I’m not convinced. Did Titus send you here?” The barber shook his head impatiently, but by now I knew better. “Stop jiggling like a whore on a busy night after the races.”
    â€œWhy the heavy suspicion? I’m just a runt they have no other use for.”
    They had a use for him all right.
    *   *   *
    I broke open the scroll Xanthus had delivered, only to reveal more bad news.
    My orders from Vespasian had been written by a secretary whose pretty Greek lettering would make a good vase decoration, though it was torture to read. While I struggled to decipher the rambling-rose script, the barber clung against one wall of the apartment. He seemed frightened of something. Possibly me.
    When I had finished, I sat in silence. I was feeling bilious from the wine I had drunk with Canidius and from eating my sausage too fast. I would have been squeamish anyway. What I had to do in Germany was:
    Deliver the Emperor’s gift to the XIV Gemina—and make a report to the Emperor.
    Any fool could do that. I might even manage it myself.
    Ascertain the fate of the most noble Munius Lupercus.
    Who was he? I’ll tell you: only the commanding legate of the legion at Vetera, the fort which had held out against the rebels to the verge of starvation before its surrendering troops were all butchered. All except Lupercus. The freedom fighters had sent him over the Rhine as a present to their thoroughly nasty priestess.
    Attempt to curtail the activities of Veleda.
    You guessed: Veleda was the priestess.
    Ascertain the whereabouts of Julius Civilis—
    â€œOh gods!” Even with my long history of resistible