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Chapters (65)
  1. COVER
  2. NEMESIS
  3. ROME AND LATIUM: SUMMER, AD 77
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Laeta for once allowed himself to be rude about another official: ‘You know how he works. He spends most of his time spying on his colleagues rather than enemies of the state.’

‘Shall I challenge him on this?’ I asked.

‘I advise against.’

‘Why?’

Laeta’s eyes were keen and oddly sympathetic. ‘Take a steer from a friend. Anacrites is always dangerous. If he really feels he wants this work, stand back.’

‘That’s not my style.’

Laeta leaned back with the palms of his hands on the edge of his table. ‘I know it’s not, Falco. That’s why I am taking the trouble, out of respect for your qualities, to say, just let this one go.’

I thanked him for his concern, though I did not understand it. Then I left his office wondering what exactly the Chief Spy could find fascinating in a bunch of belligerent marshfrogs killing a neighbour in a feud about a boundary fence.

My style was, as Laeta may have realised, to march straight up the corridor to Anacrites’ office, intending to ask him.

Once again he was absent.

Two of his men were there this time, eating folded flatbreads. I had seen them before. I reckoned they were brothers, and for no logical reason I had placed them as Melitans. Anacrites had had these idiots watching my house last December. I was looking after a state prisoner temporarily and, in his own tiresome style, he tried muscling in. Just like this, really. If he thought I was being noticed by the Palace, he could never leave me alone.

The legmen had taken over his room as if this was their base, where they were allowed to eat their supper before they were sent out on their next assignment. One was actually sitting in the seat Anacrites normally used. Even spies have to eat. That included the unfortunates Anacrites employed. Any over-familiarity was his problem.

When I looked in, the pair straightened up slightly; they rearranged their foreign-looking features so they seemed helpful, though neither bothered to ask what I wanted. They made vague attempts to hide their vegetable turnovers until they saw I didn’t give a damn.

‘He’s out?’

They nodded. One raised his bread two inches as an affirmative. I didn’t ask where he had gone, so they did not need to tell me. They knew who I was. I wondered whether they guessed why I wanted to talk to Anacrites.

He was obsessively secretive, too close to make a good commander. His men probably had no idea what he was up to. That was the problem with him: half the time he didn’t know what he was doing himself.

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