The governor made a dismissive gesture. ‘Fabulous treasure,’ he said with a low laugh. ‘The fellow’s cracked. He’s telling treasure stories now. Decebalus had a hoard of gold, yes. But its true nature was exaggerated. The amount that was recovered was still substantial. But there never was any more gold than that.’
‘You speak with considerable authority,’ said Flaminius. ‘Well, that’s natural. Since no one knows the truth better than you, governor.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ asked Sidonius Placidus.
Flaminius smiled at him. ‘Only the governor knows the full truth. Because Aulus Platorius Nepos was the name of the tribune commanding the vexillation of the Fortunate Twenty Second Legion that recovered Decebalus’ treasure.’
Silence reigned over the hall. Everyone stared uncertainly at Flaminius.
At last Sidonius Placidus broke the silence. ‘What are you telling us?’ he asked. ‘You say that the governor was, as a young man, in command of a vexillation that was sent to Dacia? That he was involved in recovering the treasure of Decebalus... Well, it is not impossible. What do you say, governor?’
Platorius Nepos looked about the hall with hunted eyes. ‘I was that tribune,’ he admitted. ‘But what of it? I did my duty and had the hoard transported to Rome. I was commended by the emperor himself. No doubt my handling of the affair helped to further my career. And please remember that you are speaking to a Roman senator. I shared the consulate with my old friend Hadrian himself the year before the Ninth Legion met its fate. I am a powerful man.’
‘Ah, the Ninth Legion,’ said Flaminius, smiling broadly. ‘Funny you should mention them! I put it to you that not all the gold of the Dacian king was sent to Rome. Some of it was concealed in Thrace and later despatched by imperial courier to Pompeius Falco, formerly governor of Moesia who had by then moved on to govern the province of Britain. Falco took it with him when he went north to Pinnata Castra with the Ninth Legion, on their fateful last journey, ostensibly to negotiate with Brennos, the Caledonian high king, but in actual fact he intended to use the gold as part of a plot. Some of it was used to bride Brennos to persuade his tribesmen to attack and then surrender after enough fighting to make it convincing. After that, Falco’s agents within the Ninth, paid for with more Dacian gold, were to proclaim him emperor for this famous victory and he would march on Rome—where, conveniently, Hadrian himself would have been assassinated.’
The procurator was astounded. ‘I heard nothing of this! Can it be true? But none of that happened. The Ninth Legion were attacked, yes, but they were slaughtered, as everyone knows. As for his imperial majesty…’
‘An assassination attempt was made,’ said Flaminius dogmatically, ‘at his villa in Tibur. But I was on hand, having learnt about the conspiracy, and I successfully disarmed the assassin before he could achieve his goal. The entire plot was foiled. For the moment. But it was hardly the last conspiracy against the emperor.’
‘But what of the gold?’ the procurator asked. Platorius Nepos was watching in silence now, his face pale and gleaming with sweat.
‘The gold remains where Falco left it,’ Flaminius said, ‘in the ruins of Pinnata Castra. Having fired the place after the slaughter of the Ninth, the Caledonians are now too superstitious to trouble it—all except the thrifty Archdruid, who has quietly been using the gold to feather his own nest. Sadly he suffered an unfortunate accident not so long ago, so now the only person with a clue as to the exact location of the gold is… well, er, me. Oh, and of course, the governor here. I understand that he was planning an expedition into Caledonia. To lay your hands on the gold, no doubt, Aulus? To finance some other conspiracy against Rome?’
‘I know nothing of the gold’s location,’ said Platorius Nepos. ‘All you’ve said is mere supposition. Where is your proof? You say that gold was taken and hidden. You say it was sent to Britain. You say it was all part of a plot against my personal friend the emperor. But where in Hades is your proof?’
Flaminius held up his hand. ‘Here is my proof. This is the key to the chest where the gold lies, courtesy of the Archdruid who found it in the ruins of Pinnata Castra. As you see, it is stamped with a number. That number will correlate with a number in the procurator’s files, dating from when the courier transported it secretly into Britain—no doubt unaware that he was being used to facilitate a conspiracy. As long as the file is still extant, all we need do is to cross reference this number with that in the Londinium file, and we will know on whose authority imperial plunder was sent by imperial courier to assist a conspiracy against his imperial majesty Hadrian.’
There was a click and the door to the procurator’s office swung open.
‘Very good work, Flaminius, and most ably argued,’ said the bearded man who stood in the doorway. ‘I had the utmost faith in your ability.’
— 31—
It was Probus.
‘But… you’re dead,’ Flaminius heard himself saying.
‘Dead?’ Drustica was puzzled. ‘Why should you think the Chief is dead?’
He turned to her. ‘I saw him. His body. Charred and burnt.’ He swung round and saw that there was no ring on Probus’ finger. ‘That wasn’t you,’ he added slowly.
Probus advanced into the hall. He wore a long red cloak and the regalia of a tribune of the Sixth Legion, but they fitted him poorly. In his hand he held a scroll. He gave Platorius Nepos a malicious grin, before seating himself on another bench. Then he nodded to Sidonius Placidus.
‘Good day to you, procurator. May I say you keep meticulous records?’
Sidonius Placidus gaped and gasped like a landed fish. He looked to Flaminius then back to Probus again.
‘Who are you?’ he demanded. ‘And what have you been doing with my files?’
Probus ignored him, but beckoned Flaminius closer. ‘I see you have found the key to the puzzle,’ he said, indicating the ring-key he wore.
Flaminius raised his hand to examine it. ‘This? You knew of it?’
‘I knew that you would follow the trail suggested by the Moesia memorandum,’ Probus said. ‘You were bound to, intelligent lad like you. That was why I sent you to look for it. I already knew that the only man at the back of this must be the one member of the conspiracy who was not netted at Hadrian’s Villa. I had a very good idea who that might be, but I was in no position to make any wild accusations. Not with the emperor’s own catamite working against me.’
‘Antinous?’ asked Flaminius. ‘You’re not saying he was behind this?’
‘As I told you before,’ Probus said, ‘Antinous was a catspaw. But who was the cat?’
He studied the document he had taken from the procurator’s office. ‘Those records are confidential,’ Sidonius Placidus said hotly. ‘You have no right…!’
‘I saw you dead,’ Flaminius told Probus, ignoring the procurator’s outburst. ‘I saw your corpse in the House of the Satyr. Except obviously I didn’t. What happened?’
‘I knew that it would only be a matter of time before the conspirators caught up with us,’ Probus said. ‘You’d not been very subtle in your investigations. You were being followed by commissary agents. They, being connected with the conspiracy, were sending back details of your activities. Despite all my precautions, the new Chief must have realised what we were doing…’
‘He knew more than I did,’ Flaminius said. ‘So you sent me off on a wild goose chase to Hadrian’s Villa. The Moesia memorandum… Then you knew what it said.’
‘I’d read it already,’ Probus told him. ‘Back when I received it in the first place. It was archived in the Villa on my orders. Later, Junius Italicus’ report from Dacia got me thinking. Before I could learn the truth, I was called to the palace and Antinous informed me that my services were no longer required by Rome.’ A savage look crossed his face. ‘When you abstracted it from the library in the palace and I was able to read it at leisure, I became certain. I needed your aid, but I could not be sure that you would not be taken prisoner at so
me point. You have a lamentable tendency to draw attention to yourself—most remiss in an imperial agent. You were the only one I could trust, other than my civilian agents. But they lacked your advantages.’
‘So there’s something to be said in my favour, is there?’ Flaminius asked wryly.
‘You have many virtues,’ said Probus, with a cursory flap of his hand. ‘But I could not entrust you with too much information because there was a danger that you would betray us under torture. Or even that you might be suborned in some way, blackmailed, corrupted... The first rule of the Commissary is to trust no one.’
‘I’ve learnt that lesson myself,’ said Flaminius bitterly. ‘Learnt it the hard way. So what you’re telling me is that you faked your death after sending me on a futile trip to Tibur?’
‘Your journey was not futile,’ Probus told him. ‘You had enough nous to work out from the memorandum that the last clues would lie in the north. By the time you had found the body of the fellow to whom I had given my ring, I was already on my way to Massalia, the first staging post on my own journey to Britain.’
‘You knew the enemy was going to try and kill you?’ Flaminius asked.
‘Word came to me by secret channels,’ Probus said mysteriously. ‘There was a fellow in the tavern below my lodgings much my height and similar in appearance. A drunk, almost penniless. He was only too glad to accept a spare set of my clothes, and the ring was the clincher on the deal. Sadly he had only too short a time to enjoy his new acquisitions—though it seems he had no time to pawn the ring for more drink.’
‘And then you went to Britain?’ Flaminius asked, with a glance at Drustica, who had been listening in silence. ‘Where you found Drustica had married one of the governor’s personal aides?’
‘I knew already,’ Probus laughed. ‘I encouraged her to seduce Tribune Quintus. It was not long after you were banished from Britain, indeed at the much same time you set sail for Alexandria. I’d had my suspicions for a long time, but with you having made such a nuisance of yourself in the province, I needed another agent. Drustica had already encountered the governor, of course, which was a problem, but the arts Rhoda taught me were sufficient to conceal her British origin and transform her into a child of the Mediterranean.’
Drustica nodded. ‘I also learnt to speak like a born Roman,’ she added. ‘You’ll have noticed the change, no doubt. Then I pursued Tribune Quintus to Eboracum, and proceeded to seduce him. For over a year I lived with him. I had no notion what the plan was, until Probus contacted me again.’
‘And then you gathered together your Carvettian allies, and unleashed Hades?’ Flaminius asked gently.
Drustica lifted a hand for quiet. No longer was the distant sound of slaughter to be heard, but a sullen silence had settled over the fort. ‘The struggle is over, Gaius,’ she said.
‘This is all very interesting,’ the procurator announced patiently, ‘but I don’t see what your intrigues have to do with the case in hand. Accusations have been made, allegations of wrongdoing have been laid at the door of a man of exemplary, nay impeccable character and breeding, a Roman senator and, as we have heard, a personal friend of the emperor. It seems to me that unless any of this can be substantiated, certain people present in this room risk being found guilty of calumny, even conspiracy. I am the only person in this room entitled to pass judgement—I, procurator of the province of Britain, not some nefarious imperial agent who is working on his own, rather than following the orders of his emperor. I have some questions.’
‘Ask away, procurator,’ said Probus. ‘Naturally, we would wish you, as an independent witness of high standing, to have knowledge of the governor’s crimes.’
Platorius Nepos spoke for the first time in some minutes. ‘Wild accusations have indeed been made, strange stories have been told that have reflected poorly upon the tellers of those tales. The procurator is quite right in suggesting that a conspiracy exists. The speakers in this hall have not been coy in admitting that they have deliberately worked against me—for what reason they will not say, but instead they have fabricated these accounts of plots and conspiracies against the emperor, my personal friend. Let us consider the notion that the annihilation of the Ninth Legion was part of some seditious plot to make Pompeius Falco emperor. Has any of this been made public? No. Falco, after he agreed to step down from the post I currently hold, was made proconsul of Asia, and he has now retired from public life with full honours. Never was there any suspicion that he was involved in any conspiracy against the emperor.’
‘He concealed his tracks well,’ Probus admitted. ‘No official acknowledgment was made of his involvement, but I believe that he had nothing more to do with the conspirators afterwards. He had learnt his lesson. And when the other conspirators were exposed, due to their high profile, the emperor did not make the scandal public, preferring rather to dismiss two of the conspirators from his service for becoming “too close” to Vibia Sabina, from which the entire empire inferred this to mean adultery. However, the adultery was only a side issue. You brag about your friendship with the emperor, but at one time his own wife was working against him. And only you, far away in Britain, escaped the net. But not forever.’
‘I must also protest,’ said Sidonius Placidus wearily. ‘More accusations, calumnies, call them what you will. But where is your proof? To whom am I speaking, for the second time of asking? I assume you have no right to wear tribune’s regalia.’
‘I am Chief Centurion Probus of the Commissary,’ Probus said.
‘Ex-chief,’ Platorius Nepos sneered. ‘You were dismissed.’
‘I stand corrected,’ said Probus, with a wry expression. ‘Your lover Antinous did your work well. He poisoned the emperor’s mind against me, had the Peregrine Camp purged of all my supporters, and no doubt has been working to remove all my field agents. All with surprisingly little drama for an adolescent. But of course, a wiser, older man was behind him.’
Platorius Nepos flushed. ‘More calumny,’ he rasped. ‘As my colleague says, where is your proof?’
‘That is easily furnished,’ said Probus. He rose, and unrolled the scroll on the marble surface of the table. ‘Gather round, everyone,’ he added. ‘Procurator, can you identify for us the nature of this document?’
Officiously, Sidonius Placidus pushed past him and examined the scroll. Then he looked up and glanced round the gathered people. His gaze finally settled on Platorius Nepos.
‘This is a bit before my time, I’m afraid,’ he began, not looking at Probus. He examined the document’s seal. ‘As I thought. Pulcher’s time in office. He was my predecessor’s predecessor, poor fellow. I believe he was murdered less than twenty miles away from our current position. A terrible fate…’
‘Yes, yes, we know all about that,’ said Flaminius impatiently. ‘But what does this document say?’
He was peering over the procurator’s shoulder but could make neither head nor tail of the text.
‘It’s a file detailing confidential deliveries into Londinium from other provinces of the empire,’ the procurator explained. ‘It dates from the governorship of Pompeius Falco. On one side we have the numerical code identifying the delivery number. Over here we have the identity of the original sender.’
Excitedly Flaminius inspected his ring key. ‘Can you find the code THR: CXXXXXVII?’ he asked.
Laboriously, the procurator ran a finger down one column. ‘Here it is. And looking across, we can see that the sender of the delivery was…’
Platorius Nepos sprang up. ‘Very well, I sent that delivery,’ he said wildly. ‘Whatever coffer or box that key fits, it was sent to Britain under my authority. But you cannot prove that I was implicated in any plot that Falco or any other fool may have joined.’
Flaminius whirled round. ‘You sent the gold to Britain,’ he said, pointing accusingly. ‘You sent stolen treasure from the hoard of the Dacian king to Pompeius Falco so he could use it to suborn the Ninth Legion. And when you saw a risk of all this
finally coming to light, you used your influence to have Probus discredited and dismissed. The Peregrine Camp was staffed with men in your pocket—or the pocket of your associates. You couldn’t have achieved this on your own, not even with the emperor’s personal catamite fawning on your every word. Who else was involved?’
‘That’s for me to know,’ said Platorius Nepos darkly. He turned to Sidonius Placidus and took a deep breath. ‘Very well, procurator. You have heard the word of my accusers. What is your verdict?’
Sidonius Placidus took some time to deliberate with himself. At last he shook his head. ‘It gives me great pain to say that I must use my authority as procurator of the province of Britain to request that you relinquish your post as governor. You will be sent under armed guard to Rome, where his imperial majesty may give his verdict on the matter.’
He looked around for guards, but only Drustica’s Carvettians were available. As one man they moved to surround Platorius Nepos, who raised his hands unwillingly.
There was a commotion from the courtyard. Flaminius went to the main doors and looked out. The place was crowded with scarred and bloody men. Some were Carvettians, others were Roman legionaries. Standing in the middle of them, carrying a limp form in his arms, was Junius Italicus.
‘Sir?’ he said pathetically, and looked down into Rhoda’s sleeping face. ‘Have you not found a medic yet?’
Epilogue
Peregrine Camp, September 125 AD
Probus slammed his clenched fist down on his desk so it rattled and assorted scrolls and writing tablets rattled and bounced. On one finger winked his signet ring. ‘The imperial verdict is that Platorius Nepos cannot be found guilty of any wrongdoing. Despite my testimony, your testimony, the testimony of Sidonius Placidus—he is exonerated. However, he will retire from public life. The new governor of Britain is the recent consul, Lucius Trebius Germanus.’
The Londinium File Page 24