The Londinium File

by Gavin Chappell

  ‘But you’ve got your old job back,’ Flaminius pointed out, lounging against the wall of the office, his arms folded negligently. ‘You’re the Chief again. The Carvettians are at peace, Pons Aelius has been restored to full working order… Everything’s forgiven and forgotten, and I hope that odious brat Antinous got the thrashing he threatened me with.’

  Probus shook his head. ‘His imperial majesty could not countenance the notion that his favourite might be implicated. Rather he prefers to consider it a… misunderstanding. He commends me and my assistants for working so assiduously to clear things up.’ The Chief crooked a brow at Flaminius. ‘That means you, of course, not to mention Junius Italicus and Rhoda, who all stood by me in my time of need.’

  ‘And what about the man who replaced you?’ Flaminius asked. ‘Him and his cronies.’

  ‘I believe they have been posted to one of the forts on the Limes,’ Probus said, referring to the wild frontier between barbarian Germany and the empire. ‘Perhaps not all were aware they were part of a conspiracy, but nonetheless they have incurred the imperial displeasure. Oh, and another matter. Due to a recommendation you included in your report, Sabina will no longer remain under house arrest at the Tiburtine Villa, but instead will regain the freedom of movement she enjoyed before her indiscretions were exposed. Whether this is a sensible move remains to be seen, but perhaps she has learned her lesson.’

  He began sorting through the reports that were neatly stacked up on his desk. ‘Now that Platorius Nepos is out of the way, tribune,’ he went on, not looking at Flaminius directly, ‘I can make better use of your own peculiar talents. There’s no requirement for you to return to Alexandria now all this is over.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ said Flaminius with feeling. ‘Egypt had got just a little bit too hot for me. I’ll miss Ozymandias and Nitocris, of course,’ he went on, although he knew that the Chief had little or no interest in his personal life, ‘and yet I think it’s important to draw a line under what went on over the last few years. But there’s just one thing I don’t understand,’ he added wryly. ‘Or rather, something I’m not sure about. Something I realised when the evidence proved beyond a doubt that it was Platorius Nepos who was the last member of the conspiracy.

  ‘This last plot, against the Commissary itself—Platorius Nepos could not have orchestrated it all from Britain. He’s returned to Rome at times, he clearly became more than a little friendly with Antinous at some point, and Antinous repaid his favours with favours of his own. But it could not have been Platorius Nepos, a world away in Britain, working with Antinous here in Rome. I can’t help feeling that there is something else at the back of it all. Someone else. I told you about Arctos, of course, who I clashed with in Egypt. His identity remains a mystery as well... Could there be any connection?’

  ‘That remains to be seen,’ Probus said. ‘But for the moment, you need not dwell upon your experiences in Egypt. A new commissary officer will be despatched to that dark land. I think Junius Italicus would be the right man for the job, and it is about time he was on active service again. This sentimental obsession of his with young Rhoda is unseemly, even if she seems to reciprocate… I want you to take up a post in Eboracum.’

  ‘Eboracum?’ asked Flaminius. ‘Britain?’ He gave a wry smile. ‘I was forbidden to return to Britain.’

  Probus sighed impatiently. ‘That was Platorius Nepos’ doing. The erstwhile governor of Britain is now expending his considerable energies in the brickwork industry, it seems, and let us hope it keeps him occupied now that a public career is denied him. No, you have nothing to fear about with the new governor. Trebius Germanus is deemed to be a sound man by all accounts. And you will be working alongside him to ensure the security of that insecure province.’

  ‘I will?’ Flaminius looked Probus up and down. ‘You’re making me Commissary officer for Britain?’ He grinned wryly. ‘The post that you held shortly before you became Chief?’

  ‘Don’t go getting too ambitious,’ Probus said reprovingly. ‘It’s no guarantee of promotion, tribune. Yes, I think between the experience you gained in Egypt, and your existing links with and knowledge of Britain, you should make a useful aide for a new governor while he is still finding his feet.’ He went on. ‘You know the local language well, you know how the druids work, you have close connections with important people on the frontier. Despite the fight at Pons Aelius, the Carvettians remain friendly with Rome, and with you as its representative.’

  ‘And Drustica is a Roman citizen, of course,’ Flaminius pointed out.

  Probus nodded in acknowledgement. ‘What is more, you have developed a close working relationship with this most able of Romano-Britons. She makes a superb civilian agent. I found working alongside her highly congenial, and I gather you feel much the same way. So you will set forth for Britain straightaway, to take up your new post. Your first task will be to plan a way to retrieve the treasure of Decebalus from Pinnata Castra. The imperial treasury requires that gold to feed its ever hungry coffers.’

  ‘What, no holiday?’ asked Flaminius, with a laugh. ‘No leave? Not even a couple of weeks in Baiae?’

  Since their return to Rome with Platorius Nepos as their prisoner, most of his time had been spent in work of one sort or another. There had been that night when they had made a round of the wine shops of the Argiletum—not Probus, of course, Flaminius had gone with Junius Italicus and Rhoda.

  And that had been the problem. The grizzled centurion and the young thief had been so absorbed in each other, Flaminius had felt rather left out, and had in fact left them to it, getting dead drunk on his own in some low brothel… But the morning after he had felt truly awful. He really was getting too old for this.

  His thoughts turned to Drustica. She had remained in Britain, with her tribe on the frontier. The aftermath of the fight in the fort had been bitter for many of her people, but they had welcomed the summary departure of Platorius Nepos.

  ‘Tribune Flaminius,’ said Probus reprovingly. ‘As you have yourself intimated, in foiling this conspiracy, we have only hewn off one head of the Hydra that threatens the empire. You have seen in Egypt as you saw in Britain that any number of barbarian menaces are ravening at the edges of empire. And in Rome and elsewhere, you have seen the corruption and iniquity at the empire’s heart. Between them, the empire is doomed. Sooner or later, Rome will fall, as must all things in this transient world. All we can do is to stave off the inevitable destruction. I do not hanker after leave or rest, and I see no reason why you should. That is why I am sending you to Britain, and Junius Italicus to Egypt.’

  Flaminius folded his arms. ‘Don’t send Junius Italicus to Egypt, for Isis’ sake,’ he urged him. ‘He’d hate it. The flies, the heat, the stink; it’s worse than Rome in the Dog Days of summer. I suggest you send him to Britain. He knows it about as well as I do, and he’s a good man.’

  ‘Lacks initiative,’ Probus grumbled. ‘And where will you be, if Junius Italicus is despatched to Britain? Don’t tell me you would rather go back to Egypt yourself?’

  Visions of that dusty land drifted through Flaminius’ mind. The thronging crowds of Alexandria; Greek, Egyptian, Roman and more... The stink of sweat and smoke and incense and cooking fires... The cyclopean walls of crumbling ruins from a time forgotten... The flash of blades in the hot air of a sandy arena… The endless waters of the Nile Delta during the inundation, the papyrus reeds swaying in the breeze, a lone boat slowly crossing the swollen channels with river pirates crowding its deck... And the desert, its hot and spicy air filled with stinging particles of sand, while naked nomads traversed the dunes... A wasteland of black mountains, like some extrusion of the pits of Tartarus…A lost desert city where men drove chariots beneath lowering desert crags…

  ‘No.’ He rose, and fumbled at the lance-head brooch he wore—not Junius Italicus’ but his own, recently restored to him. ‘I’m going to Britain too.’

  He undid the brooch and dropped it with a clink on the tabl
e.

  He’d been thinking about this for a long time; now he had finally made his mind up. ‘But not to work for the Commissary. I’m resigning, Chief. I’m going to Luguvalium, where Drustica is waiting for me. I intend to become her second husband.’

  Without another word, without waiting for Probus’ response, Flaminius strode from the office.

  Probus reached out and picked up the brooch. He turned it first one way then another, so it glinted in the flickering light of the oil lamp. Then, dismissively, he let it drop with a clatter to the desk.

  ‘He’ll be back,’ he said complacently to himself. ‘The Commissary is in his blood now.’ He looked up, and his eyes did not see the cracked stucco walls of his office deep in the Peregrine Camp, but something else, some wide and endless vista known only to himself. ‘Oh yes, he’ll be back.’

  * * *

  [1] See The Hadrian Legacy.

  [2] A rose scented Roman perfume.

  [3] See The Kingdom that Rome Forgot.

  [4] Modern Romania.

  [5] The Roman public records office.

  [6] Modern Tivoli.

  [7] See On Hadrian’s Secret Service.

  [8] Not to be confused with the Twenty Second (Deiotaran) Legion, based in Egypt.

  [9] A province in the modern Balkans, including parts of former Yugoslavia and Bulgaria.

  [10] See Murder in Hadrian’s Villa.

  [11] Inchtuthil, Perth and Kinross, Scotland.

  [12] Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

  [13] London.

  [14] See On Hadrian’s Secret Service.

  [15] Corbridge.

  [16] See The Hadrian Legacy.

  [17] Modern Bulgaria.