The Leopard Sword: Empire IV (35 page)

Caninus shrugged.

‘That all depends whether we want to scare them into inactivity, and have the gains of their crime vanish into thin air, or to catch every man involved and recover the money they’ve been salting away. And that sum, Tribune, is likely to be large enough to put everyone involved very much in the emperor’s eye.’

He watched intently as tribune and first spear exchanged glances. Scaurus shook his head slowly, his eyes locked on the prefect’s.

‘That’s not a status I crave, Quintus Caninus. The attention of the throne can be a double-edged sword, as anyone with any experience of imperial politics will tell you. I’ll settle for recovering the gold and making sure that it is returned to its rightful owner. So, whose doors would you have me send my men to kick in? I’m presuming that you want me to put on a display of overwhelming force?’

‘What in Hades are you doing, Tribune? Do you have such delusions of grandeur that you think you can arrest me and assume my responsibilities in your ceaseless quest for power? Do you imagine that I won’t . . .’

Albanus, standing under the watchful eyes of a pair of Tungrian veterans in the middle of the basilica’s main chamber, was literally spitting his indignation at Scaurus, who sat before him with an expression of weary contempt. Julius, standing close behind the prisoner with his vine stick in one hand, reached out and tapped him hard on the arm with the baton. As he did so the tribune raised an eyebrow, pointing with one hand at the fuming procurator.

‘The next time my officer’s vine stick touches you, the force used will be sufficient to silence you. And it will be repeated as many times as necessary to achieve that objective. Bruised or unmarked, either way you’ll be silent when I command it. Shut your mouth and consider for a moment which outcome you would prefer, if you will.’

The two men stared at each other in silence before the tribune gestured with his raised hand to the stony-faced Julius, who stepped back with another tap of the stick, smiling quietly to himself as the procurator flinched at its touch. Albanus composed himself, looking down at the broad flagstones on which he stood before Scaurus’s chair. Lifting his head to look at the tribune, he waited in silence for permission to speak.

‘Very well, Procurator, now that you’ve had some time to consider our relative positions in this redefined relationship, do please continue with whatever further expression of outrage you had in mind.’

When he spoke again, Albanus’s previous fury had been replaced by a more calculated approach, part submission, part sardonic sneer.

‘Thank you so much, Tribune, for allowing me to voice my opinion. You have my admiration for your ploy of dragging me from my bed and forcing me to stand here, while you sit in comfort, to reinforce the difficulty of my position. It’s interesting psychology, Tribune, but I’m afraid—’

Scaurus cut him off before he could warm to his subject, his tone matching the look of disparagement he was playing on his prisoner.

‘I am sitting, Procurator, because I’ve been on my feet all night organising a series of raids on multiple locations within Tungrorum. Would you like to hazard a guess at who else we might have bagged this morning? No? Enlighten the prisoner, if you will, Centurion.’

Julius read aloud from his tablet, his parade-ground-hardened voice harsh in the room’s echoing silence.

‘Four grain store workers, the grain store loading and unloading supervisor, two records clerks, the store manager, your deputy, Petrus, and yourself, Procurator.’

Scaurus stood up and stretched, then took the two paces that set him toe to toe with the procurator. When he spoke his voice was pitched low, but with an edge of unmistakable ferocity.

‘All of you, Albanus. I’ve rolled up the entire organisation that was engaged in perpetrating your fraud against the empire, every man in the city with any official part in the store’s management. They’re all being questioned as we speak, and doubtless one or two of them will sing in order to earn a more lenient sentence. Not that we really need them to, of course, the evidence is already more than convincing. Centurion?’

Julius opened the door to the antechamber and hefted a corn sack into the room. Scaurus walked over to it, opened the top and sank his fist deep into the black, mould-crusted grain within before pulling it back out. He opened it under Albanus’s nose, watching as the procurator’s face creased in reflexive disgust.

‘Rotten grain. Not just a dusting of mould, but actually rotting in the bag. A bag that was found, I hasten to add, in a separate granary, well away from the sound supplies. So you were still accepting sub-standard grain into the store, but it was being stored apart from the legions’ supply of good corn.’ He raised a hand, forestalling Albanus as he opened his mouth to comment. ‘No, no need to say it. I’ll say it for you. There’s been no crime committed simply because your men found a bad bag, and segregated it in a separate store built purely for that necessary expedient. But the rebuttal to such justifications is usually to be found in the detail, Procurator, and so it proves in this case. Just how many such bags do you think we found, eh? No answer? You need to take more of an interest in the workings of your operation, Albanus. We found seven hundred and forty-three spoiled bags in total, most of them nowhere near as bad as this, although not one of them would get past a legion stores officer.’

He dropped the corn in his hand back into the bag, rubbing his hands in distaste at the mould stains that remained on his skin.

‘Nasty stuff, bad grain. Quite unusable for anything, including animal feed. Except, that is, for the purposes of fraud. One or two bags quietly pulled from the back of the store and loaded onto each cart, an irritation for the stores officer at the other end when they’re eventually opened and found to be rotten, and doubtless you’ve had a few letters come back down the road already, detailing the problem and asking you to keep a closer watch on what gets loaded, but still well within the usual incidence of spoiling. It’s a work of genius, Albanus, to ruthlessly weed out the usual percentage of bad grain and then turn it to your own profit. Although of course you’re quite sure I have no way to prove my allegations, aren’t you?’ He stared at the silent Albanus for a moment, and the procurator looked back, his blank expression betraying his uncertainty as to whether or not the soldier had any means of proving the allegations he was making. With a sigh, the tribune nodded to Julius. ‘Centurion?’

Julius stepped out of the room, and returned with a heavy wooden box under his arm. Albanus took one look and blanched, his eyes widening. The tribune met his gaze and then gestured to the box, a tight smile on his lips.

‘Yes, indeed. Your hiding place was well chosen, and quite expertly camouflaged, but like most soldiers my men are experts in finding hidden valuables. The flagstone under which you had it hidden was just a little lower than the stones around it, which was more than enough to excite their interest. And so this is the moment when you know without any doubt that I have you, all of you, in the palm of my hand. I’ve no proof of the actual physical action of the fraud yet, although I expect that your accomplices will be singing like birds given a little vigorous encouragement, but this find has provided some very interesting evidence as to the profit you’ve been taking from it.’ He opened the box and lifted out a scroll, unrolling it and reading in silence for a moment. ‘An impressive sum, Procurator, and still growing at a rate that implies ongoing activity. But not enough to account for the full profit, nowhere close to it, even after the deduction of the bribes you’ve been paying to your staff. I’m guessing that you have a partner in crime, someone with control of the sale of grain, perhaps even the milling. You steal the good corn by substituting the mouldy grain, for which you’ve paid a pittance, then you pass it on to your business partner and he handles the onward sale into the city. The evidence is consumed within days of the theft and everyone’s happy. The farmers get to sell corn with no market value, even if they make little enough on the deal, you make a healthy profit on the price you charge your business partner, and he sells on the stolen grain at market rates and makes his own turn. Yes, everyone’s happy. With the exception of one rather significant party to the deal, now I come to think about it. The Emperor Commodus, Procurator, would be less than delighted at this state of affairs, if he were to be made aware of it. He’s being defrauded of thousands of denarii every month, and I can assure you that no emperor has ever reacted well to having his purse lightened, even if it is by a well-bred character like yourself.’

He turned away, strolling across the chamber and taking a spear from one of the Tungrians. Walking back, he put the weapon’s vicious point under Albanus’s chin, a look of disgust on his face.

‘And since the emperor can’t be here in person to register his unhappiness with your actions, I’ll just have to take his place in dispensing justice to you. Imperial justice, Albanus.’ He stood the spear on its butt spike with a scrape of metal on stone and leaned closer, whispering his next words. ‘Harsh justice.’ He walked away across the room, shaking his head in apparent sorrow. ‘A skilled executioner can nail a man up in such a way that he’ll live on the cross for two or three days before succumbing to thirst, torn between asphyxiation and the terrible pain in his feet when he pushes up against the nail hammered through them to ease his breathing. And that’s before we consider the carrion birds that will do their damndest to get at your eyes while you’re still breathing. And how are your family going to take it when the news reaches them that you’ve been crucified as an example to others, I wonder? Of course the emperor may take a lenient view of your crime. He might spare your family their property, and their lives. Or he might not. He might take the view that they are fully responsible for your actions, and have the praetorians turn them out onto the streets. Confiscation of the family properties might give him some feeling of recompense, as might the indignities that I can assure the soldiers will visit upon them in the process. They get so little entertainment, you see, that the chance to make sport of fallen aristocrats is a great opportunity for them, and so much better value than simple whoring.’ He walked away from the shivering procurator, speaking aloud again. ‘It goes without saying that I have the power to make this all a lot less unpleasant, for you and your loved ones. I can commute your sentence to something a little less drastic, just as long as we recover the proceeds of your crime. But that can’t happen unless you give up the identity of your business partner.’

He waited in silence for Albanus to reply, but after a long pause the prisoner shook his head slowly, his voice quavering on the edge of tears.

‘I can’t. He knows where my family live . . .’

Scaurus shook his head in a display of sympathy.

‘Ah. I see. Yes, well, that is a dilemma. I presume that you mean your “partner” has taken steps to ensure your compliance? You’re the junior man in all this, and he has a good firm grip of your balls to keep you from doing anything silly?’

Albanus nodded.

‘Soon after we entered into our arrangement he told me in great detail about my parents’ house, my brother’s wife and children, every little detail to prove his knowledge of their lives. He has connections to the gangs of Rome, and he told me in painful detail what would happen to them all if I ever tried to take more than my share, or informed on him. My crucifixion would be nothing by comparison, and the risk to my family from the emperor is less certain than what he told me would happen to them if I were to talk. None of my men will talk either; they all have people here in the city.’

Scaurus nodded, his sardonic smile replaced by a frown as he sensed the frustration of his fleeting hopes of a swift end to the matter.

‘I’m starting to understand your place in all this a little better, Procurator. This man approached you with the idea in the first place, didn’t he? He’s got contacts in Rome, and they sent him everything he needed to ensnare you into the scheme. Your own greed was enough at the start, but any ideas of getting out once you’d made enough money were never going to be allowed, were they? After all, once a supply of gold has been opened up there’s never any incentive to stop it flowing in. A gang leader can never have too much money, now can he?’ He looked at Albanus, his expression fading from anger to pity. ‘You know that I’ll have to execute you, regardless of the circumstances?’ The prisoner nodded his head miserably. ‘And if I tell you that I have a very good idea who your partner is, and that I only need confirmation of that last detail?’

Albanus shook his head again.

‘It would make no difference. If I even hint to you where to look for him he’ll know it, one way or another. It would be better for you to put temptation out of my reach by having me killed.’

The tribune nodded with a slow, sad smile.

‘I can respect your bravery in this matter, Procurator. I can see that you felt you had little choice when this man made you the offer. It was one that could not easily be refused. And if I cannot spare you the indignity of a criminal’s death, I can at least make it a quick one. I’ll save the more protracted exit from this life for your tormentor.’ He waved a hand to Julius. ‘Take him back to his cell, and make sure he doesn’t meet the other prisoner. It seems your moment is at hand.’

The centurion nodded, ordering his men to escort Albanus from the room and turning to follow them with a grim smile. Scaurus worked on a stack of papers as he waited for the next prisoner to arrive, briefly raising his glance as the man was marched into the room, then returning his attention to them while the soldiers herded their charge into place with spear prods and meaningful stares. Julius stepped in close once the prisoner was upon his appointed mark, looming over the smaller man with a smouldering glare as he pulled the dagger from his belt and raised it to hack away the assistant procurator’s customary long sleeves, leaving his arms bared. Holding out a hand behind him he took a torch from the waiting soldier and held it close to the prisoner, close enough to scorch the hairs on the man’s arms and illuminate the mass of gang tattoos that writhed up both arms. Nodding dourly he turned away and surrendered the torch, then spun back and put a fist deep into the other man’s gut, doubling him over as he gasped for breath. Scaurus looked up again, dropping a scroll onto the desk’s scarred surface.