Tiro rubbed the healing knife-wound on his forehead, looking troubled.
‘Cheer up, Tiro. We’ll take the older British trackways. The main road is likely to be watched. I want to approach the mines from an unexpected direction so we can take stock before we enter the operations centre. It’s a cross-country route, and you’ll learn more about the history of your country, I’m told. A brisk night under the stars in the company of your ancestors. What could be better?’
Tiro’s mouth turned down.
Leaving the main road, they began to scramble north-west up the hillside to the ridge-top. They turned due west towards the sea, following the highest line. It was moonrise and light enough to pick their way between tussocks and outcrops of pale grey rock. As the night advanced it grew colder and Tiro pulled up the hood of his grubby birrus.
The breeze had been blowing light but steady from the south-west, a sweet whistle across the sedges and rushes colonising the hills from the damp valleys below. As the night progressed the whisper turning to buffets of swirl, coiling and changing direction. Suddenly the cloud dispersed. Right in front of them a long dark hill reared up, taking Tiro’s dun horse by surprise. She tried to shear away, but Tiro put his hand on her shaggy neck to reassure her. He spoke to her softly in the British tongue.
Quintus watched. ‘She feels the old dead.’
‘What?’ Tiro spat on the ground against the Evil Eye. With the moon rising before them, the shadow firmed. No hill, it was clear. A long earthen barrow. Quintus was right – it was a house of the ancient dead, and full of dread to the Briton.
Quintus clapped his stator on the shoulder, making Tiro jump.
‘Tiro, if you could only see your face! What harm can these ancient bones do us? Truly, your ancestors are our friends. None other of your countrymen will come up here at night, so close to the barrows. It’s a perfect place for us to camp.’
And camp they did, right in the shadow of the long departed. Tiro’s face grew even more miserable.
It was a cold supper. Quintus might laugh at Tiro’s superstition, but he would not allow a fire to betray them. After supper Tiro seemed to struggle to settle. Not until the moon had set and utter dark dropped over them did he fall asleep.
Quintus lay awake as he often did, watching the crisp night sky with its scattering of starlight. He returned in his mind to the encounters at Julia’s townhouse. He saw the engaging young girl with his rebellious dark hair, his grey eyes, and Julia’s generous mouth. Was Aurelia really his daughter? It seemed so unlikely, a fantasy he might have dreamed up under the influence of the poppy syrup in the military hospital at Eboracum. My daughter. How strange that sounded! His daughter, Aurelia, and at the same time the daughter of Julia. Julia who had run away from him, knowing she was pregnant, knowing he would be unlikely to come back. She hadn’t given him a chance. She took his child away, before he could get used to the idea. He felt suddenly resentful. Julia had ripped away a whole possible future in which he stayed in this strange northern country. All stolen from him by an impulsive younger Julia.
Really, Quintus? A sterner inner eye now shone a harsh light on that final meeting in Eboracum. Julia had run to greet him in the forum. She had looked so happy. He pictured himself ignoring her joy, unable to look her in the face while he told her he was leaving. That his family was in trouble, that he must return to Rome immediately. He gave her no chance to tell him her news, no reason to change his mind. He was the one who ran away — from his real family in Britannia. He was trying to run from the shame of his father’s disgrace, from the horror of the Caledonian battle where Gaius had saved him, from the guilt of watching as Flavius died…
I did this to us, Julia, didn’t I? I rejected you. And now I pay the price: not just thirteen years of trudging the Empire’s roads, policing the Emperor’s business, but also thirteen years without you. Thirteen years of missing my daughter growing from a baby into a wilful bright girl who calls someone else “Father”.
Eventually Quintus slept, not knowing that he turned and groaned in his sleep as the same old nightmares clawed at him.
Quintus woke Tiro before dawn. A ribbon of bright sun hovered along the eastern horizon as they circled round to the southern edge of a sloping plateau already humming with activity. A tumbled mass of slag-heaps and the scattered buildings of the straggling mining complex stretched away into the distance. They crouched down near a small tumbledown fort, anxious to avoid being silhouetted by the rising sun slanting up behind them.
Beyond the old fort were long wriggling clefts in the bedrock, which Quintus guessed to be the rakes dug out by miners to follow the line of the lead ore. As they watched, miners began to hammer lead ore lumps into smaller piles. Fire and smoke showed where the raw ore was heated by workers swathed in big leather aprons to melt the silver from the lead. Even this early in the day, Quintus could see the sweat pouring off the workers as smelting fumes rose in plumes.
He touched Tiro’s sleeve, pointing to a central brick-built block surrounded by a courtyard, with stables off to one side.
‘There’s the office. I hope our man Tertius will already be at work. No sign of horses or wagons, so Bulbo hasn’t yet arrived from his Iscalis home. Quick as we can, and pull your hood up.’
Leaving the ponies hobbled in a copse of wind-sculpted ash trees, they slunk along narrow lanes to the mines administration block. Several men passed them, hurrying to work without any sign of interest.
They crept into the courtyard and round to the back of the building. Through rough window shutters Quintus spotted a swarthy man seated inside, papers and wax tablets scattered across the table in front of him. The man started at Quintus’s rap on the shutters and came over to the window. Quintus flashed his hasta insignia briefly. ‘Round to the front,’ the dark man hissed, and went to let them in, bolting the door as soon as they were inside.
‘Tertius?’
‘Yes, sir. You have been sent by …?’
‘Rome. The Castra Peregrina.’ The little man anxiously smoothed both hands down his ink-stained robe. With his harsh desert nose Tertius looked every inch the Eastern Roman he was. Dark curling hair bulged in tufts from the top of his tunica. He was slight and stooped, an unlikely hero. He closed the front window shutters, plunging the room into darkness until he had lit a smoky tallow taper.
Quintus got to the point. ‘We’re investigating the possible theft of silver from these mines. We are told by Lady Julia Aureliana that it may be you who has been reporting secretly to Rome.’
‘Yes sir. I am so glad my messages got through.’
‘Sit down, Tertius. We have bad news.’
Tertius trembled, and his black eyes moistened as Quintus told him about Catus. He dashed a hand across his face and wiped it on his tunic. ‘He was such a good lad. His sister Enica will be devastated. They were everything to each other.’ Then Tertius straightened.
‘What more can I do to help, Frumentarius? I must avenge Catus, and make his ending worth the dreadful cost.’
‘Just tell us everything you know.’
Tertius knew a surprising amount. It was obvious he had been an effective investigator for some time. He’d realised the mine accounts were being falsified to cover irregularities in the silver smelting processes, and had kept his own secret records. He’d overheard the security manager Caesulanus talking. Then he’d gone searching in the old barracks in the crumbled Claudian fort, and found silver ingots stored illicitly. He’d witnessed a recent meeting between the owner Bulbo, his son Lucius, and two strangers.
‘I have some written evidence too, a letter inviting my master to a meeting in Londinium last winter. He was instructed to bring with him samples of silver coins.’ He passed a white wax tablet to Quintus, who quickly scanned it. Coins, perhaps to pay troops? Army pay was always in silver denarii, and keeping the army happy was of critical importance to the security of the province. He looked again at the letter. He was disappointed by the lack of any names or signature
, but that would only have confirmed what he already suspected. With any luck Tertius would have other corroborating documents.
‘Praise be to Mercury that you’re so sharp and conscientious, Tertius. But how is the silver being sent out?’
‘Normally the finished ingots, both lead and silver, are sent direct from the cupellation works here, lowered in sledges down the cliffside of the Great Gorge.’
‘The Great Gorge?’
‘Yes, it’s a mighty chasm in the Mendip rock, splitting the hills in half. At the bottom the ingots are loaded onto wagons to be taken the short distance to the dockyard in Iscalis. The pigs are loaded onto river barges and rowed to the coast, where they’re transhipped onto trading vessels heading to all parts of the Province and the wider Empire.’
‘Right. Well, to escape notice I expect them to stick to normal patterns. That is, if the silver is leaving this area. Tiro, I want you to take up position in Iscalis by the docks. Watch the comings and goings, and try to trace back to where the silver is being coined.’
Tertius shifted nervously in his seat.
‘Frumentarius, I believe the silver pigs are being offloaded nearby for minting into coins before leaving Iscalis.’ He told of the meeting between Bulbo and Lucius and the two strangers. ‘I, err…’ he coughed, ‘could hear some of what they said. The visitors weren’t happy. Something to do with discrepancies between the weight of the silver and the amount of coinage produced. They seemed to think the silver was being debased. One of them made a threat. It was then my master offered to bring a sample of the silver coins to Londinium. By his voice, the threat came from the taller of the two strangers, the softly-spoken one wearing a fine blue cloak. Then—‘
‘Blue cloak!’ A memory held back for too long flooded into Tiro’s mind like the cool overflow of a drinking fountain on a hot afternoon. He leapt up, slapping his head. ‘What a fool! If only I hadn’t been drinking; I had such a hangover, it’s just come back… Sir, I’ve seen that blue cloak myself. At the Palace of Procurator Aradius Rufinus, in Londinium. Two men, one tall, low-voiced and wearing a fancy blue cloak, on a roan; the other smaller, darker, with a scarred eye. They came out of the Procurator’s headquarters while I was waiting for you on the day we left Londinium. And they spoke to another bloke, greasy-looking. I remember now – I’m pretty sure that third bastard was the low-life who attacked me in Calleva, the one you killed, sir.’
Quintus frowned at him, but Tertius nodded.
‘Yes, the other man does have a badly scarred face — his eye droops from the pull of it. And I can tell you who is in league with them, arranging the coining of the silver. It’s Caesulanus, our noble head of mines security. I’m pretty sure how they’re stealing the silver, too. During the first phase of smelting, some of the lead pigs are being stamped as if the silver had been removed. Then they’re stored away as if for future shipment.’
Tertius glanced up and must have realised he was making no sense. He stumbled on, eager to explain, ‘You see, I know to a gram the exact production and destination of everything here: lead, silver, zinc. When I found some of our lead pigs stamped in the usual way and apparently ready for shipment, but stored in separate piles, I got suspicious. I weighed one of them. It was too heavy. You see what that means? The silver hasn’t yet been removed from the galena ore. These pigs are smelted without the silver being floated off.
‘They must be making the pure silver ingots secretly, later, after the pigs have supposedly left site for export in the usual way. Only then is the silver removed. The lead ingots are also then properly refined and sent for shipment as usual. The books are cooked to cover the delay. The retained silver is never recorded in the paperwork. And it’s being made to look as if I’ve been colluding. If I hadn’t got the wind up, copied the crooked records and checked the old barracks while everyone else was away on Saturnalia, you might well be investigating me now.’ The accountant looked upset.
‘Right,’ said Quintus, ticking items off on his fingers. ‘So now we know how the silver is being siphoned off; how the removal has been hidden by false over-stamping of some of the pigs; where the silver is stored; how the books are being cooked; and the possibility of silver denarii being minted locally from Vebriacum silver. I suspect these coins would be the samples requested in the letter from Londinium, meaning this business is well underway.’
Tertius continued eagerly, ’Yes, once the stolen silver has left the recorded production process, I believe it’s being sent instead by Sextus Caesulanus to be secretly stamped into false denarii at —‘
Tiro turned his head, but they all heard it at the same time: the clatter of hoofs in the cobbled yard, and the sound of an imperious young voice calling for the yard boy.
‘It’s Master Lucius! Quick, you must leave.’ Tertius ran to the window and flung open the shutters once more, but Quintus caught him by the arm.
‘That young man – that’s Lucius Claudius? Don’t worry. Look, he’s going straight back out of the yard again.’
They saw a dark-haired, expensively-dressed young man hand his horse to the stable boy, and immediately leave again through the yard gateway, heading downhill into the town. Tertius dragged a hand over his sweating forehead, and sat down as heavily as his little frame allowed. ‘By Astarte, that was close. My heart nearly left my chest!’
‘Right, we may not have much time left. We’ll have to split up. Tiro, don’t worry about the docks; I’ll go there. You follow Lucius. If Tertius is right and he’s meeting Caesulanus, I want to know what they say and do.
‘Tertius, we’ll push our luck here a few more minutes. If your master Bulbo arrives, I’m here on official business, checking taxes paid or some such. You can leave the talking to me. Now show me your hidden records, and tell me exactly what you sent by way of messages to Londinium, and to whom. And why you suspect the mines security chief is behind all this.’
Tiro, moving with a speed and silence that would have surprised his drinking cronies in Londinium, pulled his birrus hood back down over his face and hurried out of the office after Lucius.
Chapter Twelve
Tiro approached the old fort cautiously. He’d kept Lucius in sight easily enough. Tiro arrived to find an open-topped wagon pulled up close alongside the dilapidated wooden building. A harnessed ox was feeding nearby. He squeezed himself behind the wagon to watch and wait. His heart was racing. This was where he belonged, in the action, getting on with the job. What if he pretty much solved this case single-handed? What would the frumentarius say? What would Britta think? A scene unfolded in his head: himself, modest, controlled; Britta leaning close to him, face turned up, her lavender scent in his nostrils …
The scene dissipated as Lucius came out of the barracks carrying a load wrapped in canvas. A big man, looking like a retired soldier but moving with the strength and grace of a gladiator, came out behind the boy. His load was at least twice the size. The big man — Tiro guessed it was Centurion Caesulanus — hoisted the bullion into the wagon with a grunt. Lucius struggled with his smaller load. Caesulanus laughed. Lucius looked angry, but glanced down into the wagon, and he smiled too.
The big man slapped Lucius hard on the back. ‘Get a shuffle on, boy! Naught to amuse, everything to lose. We need to get these bars off to the boys at Chilton Polden, soon as. If that little rat Tertius comes snooping round, the fat’ll be in the fire and no mistake! I might have to slit his scrawny throat, and you wouldn’t want his blood all over your fancy clothes, would you now? So shift yourself, give us a hand with the rest. Then you can get off home on that showy nag of yours.’
The smile stayed pasted rigidly on Lucius’s face.
Tiro tucked himself further down, and tried not to breathe until they’d both gone back inside. He reached through the slats of the wagon and wiggled out one of the metal bars. It was incredibly heavy, double axe-head shaped, with an incised stamp on one side. Tiro had no idea what the stamp meant. Not his fault. He couldn’t read, could he? But he knew the
shapes were letters, which might tell a tale, and he knew someone who could read. He slipped the ingot into the pouch on his belt.
The pair returned with more ingots. Lucius dropped one, just missing his soft leather boot.
‘Hecate!’ the boy swore. He leaned over, then froze, looking under the wagon. ‘There’s someone here!’
It was Tiro’s turn to swear, but no time for that. He stood, drawing his dagger. His birrus, so long his friend, now turned traitor and he got his hand tangled in the folds. There was a sudden thump on the back of his head. Not again! He thought, as his feet were swept away and he fell into a black pit.
Tiro woke an aeon later, the back of his head lanced by pain and his vision blurred and dancing. He was lying in the wagon, bouncing along a rutted road. A hood was over his face and his hands were tied together behind his back. Ah, Gods! — it was his own damned birrus wrapped round his head. He tried again to pull his dagger from his belt. It wasn’t there, unsurprisingly. Moving cautiously to avoid alerting the two men, he felt heavy cold rectangular objects stacked all around his body.
At any event, he’d found the missing silver. And landed himself right in the proverbial.
The rough ride lasted a good couple of hours. Tiro was cramped, cold and bursting to piss when the swaying came to a halt. Two new voices hailed Caesulanus in the British tongue. Tiro could speak the language fine, but these men had a rough rolling accent that made them difficult to understand. Lucius answered in Latin, his voice high-pitched and nervous.
‘He’ll have to be got rid of. We can’t have any witnesses.’
Rumbles of alarm from the two local lads, then the centurion weighed in.
‘All in good time. I’ve a story to hear from him first. Maybe a score to settle. We heard from the Palace that this bloke and his boss were on their way to snoop, so a mate of mine was sent to Calleva to sort them out. My mate never came home, but this fellow seems to have got back on his feet just fine. I want to know why he’s here, and where his boss has got to. Then I’ll deal with him properly.’
The Governor's Man: A Quintus Valerius Mystery Page 9