“You see,” said Navigatus as he fished a slim scroll from the wallet beneath his toga, “he came with this, which isn’t something that I see every day. Even here.” He slipped off the vellum cover and handed the document to Perennius.
The agent read the brief Latin inscription carefully. “Can’t say it’s not to the point,” he remarked as he rolled the document again. It had read, “The Emperor Caesar Publius Licinius Gallienus Pius Augustus to Marcus Navigatus. The bearer of this rescript, Lucius Cloelius Calvus, is to be afforded the full support of your Bureau.
All his requests are to be executed as if from my lips. When it is necessary to accomplish the tasks thus imposed, you may apply for assistance from my Director of Administration, Aurelius Quirinius.”
The damned thing was in vermilion ink, Perennius noted, and it didn’t look to be in the handwriting of a professional scribe either. Blazes! “All right,” he said as he handed back the imperial rescript, “what does he request?”
“You, Aulus,” said the Director, meeting Perennius’ gaze steadily. “He wants you.”
“Blazes,” the agent repeated aloud. He had an urge to wrap his cloak around him again, even in the sunlit garden. “He’s the tall one in there, isn’t he?” Perennius added in sudden certainty.
Both men glanced toward the drawing room. The window was lined with the faces of men waiting with an impatience which bid fair to master their senses of decorum. In the center was the bald man with whom Perennius had locked eyes earlier. He was the tallest of those watching and the only one who looked calm. His face was as still as a statue’s as he watched the men in the garden.
“Why yes,” said Navigatus in surprise. “You know him, then? Frankly, I haven’t been able to find anybody who did.”
Perennius grinned at his Director. He wondered briefly whether an appearance of omniscience might not be worth cultivation. Not with Marcus, though; not with family. “Don’t know a thing but what I can tell by looking at him,” the agent admitted. “Must just have been his name.” But the cognomen Calvus, Baldie, could have come from generations before. There was something in his easy identification that bothered Perennius in a way that hunches generally did not.
“Umm,” said his superior. “He told me nothing at all, Marcus, except that he needed my best agent for a dangerous mission. And then he named you.” Navigatus smiled. “Not that there was any question in my mind, of course, but I’m not sure I would have withdrawn you from Palmyra if he hadn’t been so specific. And while the fellow was polite enough, well … he knew what the rescript he brought said, didn’t he?”
Perennius turned his head so that the other man would not see his expression and grimaced ruefully. Another startled lizard ran spraddle-legged a dozen feet along the vertical surface of the wall. “I’ve been doing you an injustice, Marcus,” the agent said. “I thought you’d jerked me because you were getting nervous again.”
“I didn’t want the Palmyra mission assigned to you, that’s correct,” the older man said carefully. “You’ve paid your dues, and I think it’s time you left some of the risk to others. But I’ve never scrubbed you from a mission which you wanted and for which you were qualified. Which is anything short of a bed-chamber attendant for the Empress, as I well know.”
Perennius laughed. He slapped his would-be protector on the shoulder and said, “Hell, what good did my balls ever do me, Marcus? But if the well-connected gentleman has been roosting in your chamber since Gaius was sent for me, you’ll probably be glad to be shut of him. Let’s bring him out here, learn what he needs and then the two of us’ll get out of your hair.” He stood up.
Navigatus rose also. “That’s an odd thing, Aulus,” the Director said. “He brought the rescript eighteen days ago today. I said I’d send for him as soon as you arrived – he has an apartment in the palace, but nobody there seems to know him. Except his Majesty, I suppose. . . . But he returned today without being summoned. I was rather concerned because we didn’t expect you, you know, not for a week at least.”