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boss had sneered when Marcus voiced his anxiety aloud. ‘For any serious assault, you’d need the Germans banding together with the Helvetii, and even then they’d need the help of the Sequani who stand in between them, and the Sequani are our staunchest allies in the whole of Western Gaul. Or are you the only man on the earth not to have heard about that delegation to Vesontio to celebrate fifty years of harmony between our two nations?’
    ‘Of course, sir—’
    ‘Fifty years, Orbilio. Fifty years, in which they’ve grown fat on the land, working their vast tracts of forest in peace, churning out fruit presses and canoes instead of spears and javelins, and look at the quality of the stock they breed nowadays. Men will part with a small fortune to get their hands on a good Gaulish mule—’
    ‘Yes, sir, I’m aware of that—’
    ‘Are you?’ his boss snapped. ‘Their king, Oxi— Axi— oh shit, I can never get my tongue round those bloody Sequani names, but the point is, their king’s been afforded the title ‘Brother of the People’ by the Senate. The Senate, Orbilio. This is not a title either party takes lightly, and the Sequani are grateful—bloody grateful, I might add—that their cemeteries are filling up with the sick and the old, not young men butchered in inter-tribal skirmishes.’
    ‘I’m not suggesting King Axo— Ixo—’ (Orbilio couldn’t pronounce the names either) ‘is mounting an insurrection, but you know yourself, sir, what these petty chieftains are like. Ruthless and ambitious, keen to prove themselves. Suppose—’
    ‘Suppose, my arse, Orbilio! The whole idea of the tribes banding together and marching on Rome is preposterous, they’d be torn to pieces by our legions before they’d crossed into Italy, and in any case the Sequani are our buffer against such a contingency. One whiff of an uprising and King Ixi— Izi— Sodhisbloodyname will be selling them out as fast as he can. Trust me, the Emperor’s as safe as a Vestal Virgin’s virtue. Now get out of here and stop wasting my time.’
    With that, Orbilio had been bawled out of the room, his misgivings stronger than ever. Looking at it objectively, he could see why his boss, even as head of the Security Police, had imagined him right off his rocker. A few power-hungry princes from a few branches of a few northern tribes marching on Rome? Put like that, it did sound preposterous. However, whenever he’d received wind of these secret alliances, will-o’-the-wisps as they were, the core of each rumour was identical—that any time soon, Augustus would be just a name in the history books.
    There was only one logical conclusion, which turned Orbilio’s blood into ice.
    The uprising was being masterminded from inside Rome. Someone here—someone high-ranking and influential—was plotting to kill the Emperor, quietly whipping up the northern tribes to act as the military muscle he’d need for his coup to succeed. Because not only would Augustus need to be eliminated, loyal generals, senators and magistrates would have to be taken out as well…
    This someone had to be close to Augustus, a trusted friend, a senator, a general…the head of the Security Police? Orbilio knew he could not confide in anyone. Not if he wanted to live.
    Meanwhile, in this subterranean rabbit warren, Big Buckle had almost nodded off. ‘This confession,’ Orbilio said, jerking him awake, ‘reads more like an official report.’
    ‘Well, you know what they’re like, these interrogations.’ Big Buckle yawned and rubbed his great belly. ‘Half lies, half gibberish, I simply tidy it up.’
    ‘In other words, this is nothing more than your interpretation of what was said?’
    ‘Exactly.’ The sarcasm scuttled right past him, and his chest puffed up like a cockerel’s at dawn. ‘Typical example in your hand there.’ He even crowed like the damned cockerel. ‘Here we are, trying to extract information about sedition and assassination, and all