‘Does not surprise me. He will make it too. The best soldier I ever saw.’

Turbo wondered whether the prefect always spoke in such clipped sentences or whether the man was posing as a bluff soldier. He could detect no hint of an offer to assist his brother’s ambitions – or indeed his own – in return for some favour.

‘My letter must have worried you!’ Hadrian said abruptly, and grinned, his informality as shocking as his words. He raised a hand at Turbo’s instinctive denial. ‘Please, do not trouble yourself.’ The grin was back again. ‘It certainly would have worried me if I was in your place. Some senator – a praetor of all things – nosing about an army base and wanting to talk to the numerus. What’s the bugger up to, you must have thought? Can’t be up to any good, and more than likely doing something that might compromise your sacred oath to the emperor. Even these days that looks suspicious, under as beneficent and wise a princeps as the Lord Trajan.’

That was indeed what Turbo had thought, and under ordinary circumstances he might have made excuses, pleaded other duties or just refused and asked the praetor to submit a formal request via the consuls if he needed information for a trial. The problem was that the circumstances were not normal. Hadrian was not simply a praetor, but the great-nephew of the emperor. If Turbo was not sure how far Trajan’s favour extended, that did not matter. At the very least it placed this young man close to the highest levels of the Senate, which meant that he could scarcely do less than meet him, after such a courteous request. At the same time, he had filed the letter and formally recorded the appointment.

Hadrian reached over and patted him on the arm. ‘My dear fellow, I really am sorry to trouble you, but my intentions are in no way improper. That is why I have come so publicly – to show that neither of us have anything to hide.’ The praetor’s eyes were fixed on him, as if reading his innermost thoughts. ‘I believe that you can help me, and that in turn will permit me to serve the res publica more effectively in my small way. Please forgive me for taking some of your valuable time.’

‘An honour, my lord.’ Turbo glanced down at the tablets on his desk, less because he needed to remind himself of what they said than to break away from the intensity of Hadrian’s gaze. ‘Your letter explained that you are returning to the eagles.’

‘That’s right. Instead of the usual year as magistrate, I am to hand over my responsibilities next month and go out as legatus to Legio I Minervia. No one ever likes a changeover of command and getting used to a new commander’s little ways – I lived through that twice while I was tribune. You must have experienced it even more often?’

‘Yes, my lord. A fair few times.’ Turbo was a centurion, with eighteen years of service in a succession of legions before his appointment as princeps peregrinorum. ‘Soldiers are creatures of habit. Discipline may be petty, but at least you know where you are.’ Turbo wondered whether Hadrian’s clipped manner of speaking was infectious. Apart from his connections, this was clearly a man to watch. ‘A new man has a tendency to change things, usually little things, but they are the ones that can get under the skin.’