'You like your joke, Falco.' What made him think it was a joke?

'Your health,' I said politely, trying not to sound as if actually I wished him a plague of warts and Tiber fever.

'Yours too! So, Falco, here we are:' From a beautiful woman slipping out of her tunic, this could have been a promising remark. From him it stank.

'Here we are,' I growled back, intending to be somewhere else as soon as possible. Then I sniffed at my drink, which smelt like thin vinegar, and waited in silence for him to come to the point. Trying to rush Anacrites only made him dawdle more.

After what seemed like half an hour, though I had only managed to swallow a digit of the awful wine, he struck: 'I've been hearing all about your German adventure.' I smiled to myself as he tried to insinuate an admiring tone into his basic hostility. 'How was it?'

'Fine, if you like gloomy weather, legionary swank, and amazing examples of ineptitude among the higher ranks. Fine, if you like to winter in a forest where the ferocity of the animals is excelled only by the bad mood of the trousered barbarians who are holding spears to your throat.'

'You do love to talk!'

'And I hate wasting time. What's the point of this fake banter, Anacrites?'

He gave me a soothing smile, meant to patronise. 'The Emperor happens to want another extraterritorial expedition – by somebody discreet.'

My response may have sounded cynical. 'You mean he's instructed you to do the job yourself, but you're keen to duck? Is the mission just dangerous, or does it involve an inconvenient journey, a foul climate, a total lack of civilised amenities, and a tyrannical king who likes his Romans laced on a spit over a very hot fire?'

'Oh, the place is civilised.'

That applied to very few corners outside the Empire – the one thing these tended to have in common was a determination to stay outside. It led to an unfriendly reception for our envoys. The more we pretended to arrive with peaceful intentions, the more certain they felt that we had their country earmarked for annexation. 'I don't like the sound of that! Before you bother asking, my answer's no.'