'Veleda…' I pretended I was trying to remember who she was. Laeta saw through it.

I took a free couch. Relaxing at the Palace always made me feel like an unpleasant grub that had crawled in from the gardens. We informers are not meant to spread ourselves on cushions stuffed with goose-down, embroidered in luminous silks with imperial motifs. I had probably brought in donkey dung on my boots. I didn't bother to check the floor marble.

'When Titus suggested you, I looked at your record, Falco,' Laeta pointed out. 'Five years ago, you were sent on a mission to Germany to help batten down any persisting rebels. The scroll box has been mysteriously weeded – one wonders why – but it's clear you met Civilis, the Batavian chief, and I can work out the rest. I presume you crossed over the River Rhenus to negotiate with the priestess?'

Back in the Year of the Four Emperors, when the Empire had collapsed in bloody lawlessness, Civilis and Veleda had been two German activists who tried to free their area from Roman occupation. Civilis was one of our own, an ex-auxiliary, trained in the legions, but Veleda opposed us from alien territory. Once Vespasian assumed the throne and ended the civil war, they had both remained troublemakers – for a while. 'Wrong direction,' I smiled. 'I went across from Batavia, and then worked south to find her.' 'Details,' sniffed Laeta. 'I was trying to stay alive. Formal negotiations were difficult when the rampaging Bructeri were after our blood. No point ending up decapitated, with our heads hurled in the river as sacrifices.'

'Not if you can make friends with a beauteous blonde at the top of a signal tower, and then borrow her boat to sail home.' Laeta knew all the details.