Birds of Prey Read online

  The older guard took the tablet. The wax seal had been broken. He held the document at an angle to the light to see the impression more clearly. The guard’s helmet quivered as his high forehead wrinkled beneath it.

  “You know,” said the younger man as his partner opened the tablet, “just having a pass won’t get you farther than the hall. Now, it happens that the receiving clerk is a friend of ours. You understand that everything’s open and above-board inside, what with so many, let’s say hands, around. But if I were to tip him the wink as I sent you through, then it might save you, hell, maybe a day warming a bench in—”

  “Maximus,” the older guard said. He looked from the diploma to his companion. Perennius was smiling at the corner of his eye.

  “—a bench in the hall,” Maximus continued, his conspirator’s smile seguing into a quick frown at the partner who was interrupting his spiel.

  “Maximus, shut the fuck up!” the older man snarled. He thrust the open tablet toward his companion.

  What was written on the enclosure was simple and standard. It named Perennius, described him in detail which included his four major scars, and directed him to report to Headquarters—not further identified—with all dispatch. As such, the document served both for orders and for a pass. There was nothing in the written portion to frighten anyone who knew as little about Aulus Perennius as either of the guards could be expected to know.

  The tablet had been sealed with the general Bureau signet, a seated woman holding a small sheaf of wheat. It was a hold-over from the days a century before when the organization had officially been the Bureau of Grain Supply. The seal within, at the close of the brusk orders, was a personal one. It impressed in the wax a low relief of a man gripping the steering oar of a ship. Though the guards might never have seen the seal in use before, they knew it for that of Marcus Optatius Navigatus. Navigatus was head of the Bureau, formally the equal of a provincial fiscal officer in authority and informally more powerful than most governors … because he directed men like Aulus Perennius.

  Maximus got the point. The helmsman signet smothered his snarl into an engaging grin as he turned from his partner back to the agent. “Hey, just a joke, sir,” he said. “There’s just about no traffic through here anyway, except the morning levee and from the courier’s entrance.” He gestured with a quick flick of his head. It was more of a nervous mannerism than a direction toward whichever other entrance to the building he meant. “No harm done, hey?”

  “There could have been,” said Perennius.

  The older guard closed the tablet carefully and offered it back to the agent. “Thank you, sir. Now, if—”

  Perennius ignored him. His eyes forced Maximus back a step. The agent’s hard voice continued. “It still could be, son, couldn’t it? Look at me, damn you!”

  Gaius cleared his throat and laid a hand lightly on his superior’s shoulder. He had seen the reaction before, always in rear areas, always in response to someone’s attempt to parlay petty authority into injustice. The younger Illyrian knew that it would be to the advantage of everyone if he could calm his protector before matters proceeded further.

  For the moment, Perennius noticed Gaius as little as he did the older guard. Maximus squirmed as he met the eyes of the shorter, older man. “Listen, you slimy little thief,” the agent went on in a fierce whisper, “If I ever again hear of you shaking down people on the business of this Bureau, I’ll come for you. Do you understand?”

  Maximus nodded his head upward in affirmation.

  “Do you understand?” Perennius shouted.

  Gaius stepped between the two men. “Say yessir, you damned fool!” he snapped to the guard. “And you better mean it, because he does. Aulus,” he added, turning to Perennius, “you back off, he’s not worth it.”

  “The gods know that’s true,” Perennius muttered. He gripped Gaius’ shoulder for support and took a shuddering breath.

  “Yessir,” said the guard. He could not believe what was happening. He had just enough intellectual control to suppress the desire to grasp his sword hilt. This couldn’t be happening!

  Still touching Gaius, though the support needed was no longer physical, Perennius retrieved his orders from the other guard. “Sorry,” he said to the mail-clad man, “but if I don’t cure him, who in blazes will?” He thrust the diploma into his wallet and began to unbuckle his equipment belt. Gaius stepped back and wiped his forehead with the inner hem of his cloak.

  “Ah, that’s right, sir,” said the older guard as Perennius loosed his shoulder strap, then the waist buckle itself. “We’ll return your weapons to you when you leave.”

  “Sure, couldn’t have me going berserk in Bureau Headquarters, could we?” said the agent with the only smile among the four men. His wallet and purse were hung from a separate, much lighter belt. That saved him the problem of unfastening the hook-mounted scabbards when he disarmed, or handing the sword and dagger over bare to be dulled when somebody inevitably dropped them.

  “Ah, sir,” the guard added tentatively, “the pass is for you alone.”

  Everyone paused. Perennius laughed abruptly. Maximus flinched away from the sound.

  The agent was amused, however. He was not just going through some prelude to the murderous frenzy about which he had joked. Perennius had intended to carry his protégé in to see Navigatus. It would be good for Gaius’ career, especially if the emergency summons meant the Director might need Perennius’ gratitude. Under normal circumstances, the agent could have squared the guards easily enough and taken Gaius into the building. He did not see any practical way of doing that now that he had thrown a wholly unnecessary scene. The guards might be willing to compromise—Maximus looked both confused and terrified—but Perennius’ own sense of propriety would not permit him to openly proclaim himself an idiot.

  “You know,” the agent said as he gave his sword and dagger to the younger guard, “there’s times that even I think I’ve been on the job too long. The only problem is that when I go on leave, I get wound up even tighter.” He grinned and added, “Don’t know what the cure is.” But he did know, they all knew that death was the cure for men in whom frustration and violence mounted higher and higher.

  “Well, I’ll wait out here,” Gaius said. He was a good kid, prideful but not ambitious enough for his own good. It had probably not occurred to him that he was missing the chance of a real career boost. “Or look, there’s a tavern right there—” he thumbed toward the end of the court. “Look me up when you’re done with your interview.”

  Perennius glanced first at the westering sun, then back to the younger man. Everybody in a cathouse this close to Headquarters was probably an informer or a spy in addition to their other duties. Gaius was the friendly sort who tended to be loose-lipped when he had a cup or two in him or was dipping his wick. Perennius could not imagine that such talk would do any intrinsic harm, but it would get back to the Bureau for sure and Internal Security would drop on the kid like an obelisk. “Look,” the veteran agent said, “why don’t you head straight to the Transient Barracks and make sure they’ve assigned us decent accommodations. There’s a nice bath attached to the barracks. I’ll meet you there, soon as I can—and there’s shops in the bathhouse, better wine than they’ll serve around here.”

  Gaius shrugged. “Sure,” he agreed. “I’ll catch you there.” The glance he cast over his shoulder as he walked off was from concern over Perennius, not because the older man was manipulating him.

  The agent took a deep breath. “Look,” he said to Maximus in a calm, even friendly, tone, “if you wear your body armor, you’ll live longer. Whether or not that’s a benefit to the Empire sort of depends on whether you have sense enough to take good advice.”

  Maximus nodded stiffly, but there was no belief in his eyes—only fear of the result of giving the wrong answer to a test that he did not begin to understand.

  Perennius sighed. He looked at the older guard, the one with the mail shirt and the scar snaking u
p his right arm to where the sleeve of his tunic hid it. The infantryman smiled back at the agent. The expression was forced but perhaps it was the more notable for that. “Quintus Sestius Cotyla,” he volunteered. “Third Centurion of the Fourth Battalion, Palatine Foot.”

  “Tell him about it,” Perennius said with a nod toward the younger guard. “When the shit comes down, habits’ll either save you or get your ass killed. For a soldier, walking around on duty without armor is a damned bad habit. But blazes, I’ve got work to do, I guess.”

  Sestius nodded. He rapped sharply on the door with a swagger stick. “Pass one,” he called through the triangular communication grate.

  “The tribune doesn’t object so long as our brightwork’s polished,” said Maximus unexpectedly. He held a rigid brace with his eyes on the opposite building instead of on the man he was addressing.

  The door groaned and began to swing inward. Perennius looked at the guard without anger. “Your tribune,” he said “may not have seen as many feet of intestine spilled as I have, sonny. But, like I say, it’s a problem that’ll cure itself sooner or later.” He stepped between the men into the short passageway that led to the shabby elegance of the entrance hall.

  The interior of the building was very dark by contrast to the sunlit street. Perennius nodded to the functionary who had opened the door, but he did not notice that the fellow had raised a hand for attention. “A moment, sir,” the man said in a sharp voice as Perennius almost walked into the bar separating the passage from the hall proper.

  The hall was a pool of light which spilled through the large roof vent twenty feet above. The agent’s eyes adapted well enough to see by the scattered reflection that the man who spoke was too well dressed to be simply a slave used as a doorkeeper. There was a shimmer of silk woven into the linen of his tunic. “Your pass, sir,” he said with his hand out. Beside him stirred the heavy-set man with a cudgel, the civilian equivalent of the two uniformed men outside. Since the last time Perennius had been here, the Bureau had added its own credentials check to duplicate that of the army. Clerks seated at desks filling the hall glanced up at the diversion.

  Perennius fingered out his diploma again and handed it to the doorman. “First,” he said, “I need to see a fellow named Zopyrion, Claudius Zopyrion, in one of the finance sections.”

  The doorman ignored what the agent was saying. He closed the document with a snap and a smile. “Very good, Legate Perennius,” he said in a bright voice. “The Director has requested that you be passed through to him at once. His office is—”

  “I know where the Director’s office is,” Perennius said quietly. He could feel muscles knotting together, but he managed not to let his fists clench as they wanted to do. Rome always did this to him; it wasn’t fair. “First I need to see—”

  “You can take care of your travel vouchers later, I’m sure, Legate,” the functionary interrupted. His smile was a caricature, now, warping itself into a sneer. “The Director says—”

  “Read my lips!” the agent hissed. His voice did not carry to the assembled clerks, but the bruiser in the passage straightened abruptly. “I said, I’ll see Navigatus when I’ve finished my business with Zopyrion. Now, if you want to tell me where to find the bastard, fine. Otherwise—” and his eyes measured the bruiser with cool detachment before flicking back to the doorman—“I guess I’ll go look for myself.” Unconquered Sun, Father of Life! He should never have come back.

  “Upstairs,” the doorman said. He slid aside a curtain behind him. There was a doorway, punched through a frescoed wall when the house was converted. The plain wooden staircase might have been original. “He’s the head of Finance Two. Follow the corridor to the left.”

  “Thank you,” Perennius said with a nod. He strode to the staircase.

  “I’ll inform the Director that you’re here, Legate,” the doorman said in a distant voice. “No doubt he’ll be amused by your priorities.”

  “Wish to blazes his priorities amused me, buddy,” the agent flung over his shoulder as he stamped upward. He had replaced his orders in the wallet. Now he was taking out another, similar tablet.

  CHAPTER TWO

  When the building was a residence, its upper floor had been divided into small cubicles—slave quarters, storage, and ladder-served additions to the shops and rental housing on the exterior of the lower floor. The open peristyle court and the garden provided light wells for the rooms to the rear. The entrance hall, though double height, was roofed except for the vent which served as a skylight and fed the pool beneath it. The area at the top of the stairs was lighted and ventilated only by the outside windows.

  Most of the partition walls had been knocked down during conversion. The windows were opened out from their frames like vertical louvers to catch what breeze wandered through the maze of higher buildings and surrounding hills. Even so, the atmosphere within was warm and stuffy. Perennius unpinned his cloak and gripped it with his left hand. Even in the street, he had worn the garment mostly to keep his weapons from being too obtrusive. The sword and dagger were legal for him but he preferred to avoid the hassle of explanations.

  A unit of forty or so clerks occupied the area to the left of the staircase. They sat on low stools in front of desks which were boards slanted from pedestals with holes for ink pots. There was an aisle between the desks and the enclosed main hall. Perennius followed the aisle in accordance with the doorkeeper’s instructions. The room was alive with noise. Most of the clerks read aloud the reports which they copied or epitomized. Baskets of scrolls and tablets sat on the floor beside each desk. The din seemed to bother neither the men who were working nor those who were talking with others at neighboring desks. Some of the clerks worked and chatted simultaneously. Their fingers and pens followed lines of manuscript while their tongues discussed the chariot races of the day before.

  A supervisor almost walked into Perennius at the corner. “Yes sir?” the man said, startled into Greek.

  “I need Claudius Zopyrion,” the agent replied. He flashed the document in his hand so that the other man could see the name of the addressee. Battle in closed ranks had made Perennius as facile at separating information from noise as any of the gobbling clerks around him.

  The supervisor gestured down the aisle in the direction from which he had come. Perennius edged around the corner so that he could follow the pointing finger. A dozen cubicles remained along the outside wall, though the partitions of most of the rooms which had faced the light wells had been removed to seat more clerks. “Third office on the left,” the supervisor said.

  “Thanks,” replied the agent. “And who’s his boss? Zopyrion’s?”

  “Gnaeus Calgurrio,” the other man said. He had begun to frown, but he did not ask the agent’s business. “Head of Finance. First office.”

  Perennius smiled his gratitude and walked off in the indicated direction. He could feel the bureaucrat’s eyes follow him past the ranks of clerks.

  The first office was double the width of the others in the row. As Perennius stepped past, he caught a glimpse through the doorway of a plump, balding man reclining on a brocaded couch. Seated upright between the couch and the door was a younger man with hard eyes and a face as ruthless in repose as Perennius’ own. Perfect, the agent thought. He had no immediate need for the department head and his aide, however. Not until he had prepared things in the second office over.

  Perennius slipped in the door and closed it before the cubicle’s inhabitant could more than glance up from the scroll in his hand. “Zopyrion?” the agent asked in a husky whisper.

  “Herakles! Who are you?” the other demanded. Zopyrion was a short man with the cylindrical softness that marked him as a eunuch more clearly than his smooth chin. Like his department head, Zopyrion had a couch and window; but only one window and a couch with a frame of turned wood instead of the filigree of his superior’s.

  The section head spoke Latin with a pronounced Carian accent. Perennius answered in that dialect, thou
gh he was not fully fluent in it. The partitions separating the offices were thin, and the agent wanted only Zopyrion to understand him at the moment. “I’ve got a letter from Simonides,” the agent said, proferring the sealed tablet in his hand. “He said for me to take back an answer.”

  There was a one-legged tablet near the head of the couch. It held writing instruments. “Simonides?” the bureaucrat repeated as he took the document. He picked up a stylus with which to break the thread which held the tablet closed. Concern had replaced the initial anger in his voice.

  “Simonides of Antioch, the banker,” Perennius said as he stepped closer. “You know, the one you used to wash the—”

  “Silence, by Herakles!” Zopyrion gasped. He too had slipped into his native Carian. That was a result of confusion rather than a conscious desire for secrecy, however. He looked down at the document in his hand.

  It was a tablet of three waxed wooden leaves, hollowed to keep the writing from being flattened to illegibility when they were closed. Zopyrion began to read the first page in a low sing-song, holding the page by habit at a flat angle to the light so that shadows brought the wax impressions into relief. “‘Simonides, son of Eustachios, greets Sextus Claudius Zopyrion. I return herewith the draft by which you ordered me to transfer two hundred gold solidi from Imperial accounts to your brother-in-law, Nelius Juturnus.…’” The clerk looked up again in utter, abject terror at Perennius, who now stood beside him. The agent’s left hand rested on the table, covering the alabaster ink pot there. “Why in the name of Fortune did he write this?” Zopyrion demanded.

  The agent laughed. “Oh,” he said, “maybe it was when I asked him which orifice he wanted to swallow my sword through, hey? But take a look at the draft—” he tapped with his right forefinger the pair of pages which were still closed. “You know, it seems to me your department head’s seal is a bit fuzzy, like somebody used a plaster copy instead of the original.”

  Zopyrion’s eyes followed the tapping finger. As his head bent slightly, Perennius hit him behind the ear with the base of the ink pot. It was an awkward, left-handed blow, but there was enough muscle behind it to spill the clerk flaccidly onto the floor. The table went over on top of him with a crash.