Back to Glevum. Hilaris and I tackled Triferus together. Action did me good, and we made a strong team. Gaius sat on his official chair of office, a folding do with yellowed ivory legs that he told me was ruin for the back. I roamed about in a menacing way.

Triferus was a loud British wideboy, all twisty electrum necklets and narrow, pointed shoes. He wore the toga such middlemen had been encouraged to adopt, but the soldiers who dragged him in peeled that off him at a nod from us. We parked him on a stool so if he turned his head in either direction he was eyeball to muscled thigh with chain-mailed auxiliaries—two morose Spanish horsemen, who ignored his shifty jokes. (Only their officers spoke Latin; we had chosen the guards for that reason.)

Apart from the torques beneath that puffy British face, he could have been any barrow boy in any city in the world. He used the forenames Tiberius Claudius—possibly a freed slave named for the old Emperor, but more likely some minor tribal dignitary, honoured as an ally at some past date. I doubted he could produce a diploma to support his citizenship.

“We know how you operate: just cough up the names!” I barked at him.

“All right, Falco,” murmured Gaius, like a senior man being hopelessly overruled from Rome. “This is Britain, we do things differently here. Triferus, whether I can help is up to you. This man is an Imperial agent—”

Triferus tried bluff. “Weights and measures? Safety regulations? What’s your problem, officer?” He had a high voice with an irritating nasal lilt. He belonged to the Corieltauvi, a self-sufficient tribe on the midland plain.

I tested the point of a dagger between my thumbs. I glanced at Gaius; he nodded.

“There’s nothing you can tell me about the lead mines,” I began. “Triferus, I’ve been in there to explore the whole shambles for myself.” His face shone with sweat; I had caught him off guard. “Your system stinks, from the shafts to the furnaces. Even the bakers in the village are using silver shavings for small change—”

“Trouble with the dockets, is it?” he whined with an innocent wink. “Treasury interference? Procedures to clear?”

I flung my nugget of silver onto a tripod table where it spun in front of Triferus on a level with his nose. I slammed my hand onto it. Even Gaius looked surprised.

“Three weeks on the cupellation bellows and that was my haul! Make a dainty finger ring for some lucky skirt in Rome.”

Triferus abruptly came the brave boy: “Shove it up your arse!”

I beamed at him pleasantly: “Oh I’ve done that!”

Gaius blenched.

I strode up to Triferus, grabbing at one of his skinny torques so it pressed against his jugular just enough to make a dent.