The Iron Hand of Mars by Lindsey Davis

Naturally Xanthus passed straight on without a second glance. I said I would have bought some beads for my girlfriend if they had been matched and threaded properly. Not entirely to my surprise, Dubnus immediately produced from his unsavoury pocket three or four decent necklace strands—at three or four times the price.
    We spent a tolerable half-hour haggling over the string with the smallest beads. I beat him down to about a quarter of the asking price just for the vocal exercise, then snapped up one of the better necklaces as I had intended all along. The pedlar had weighed me up cannily, but Xanthus looked startled. He did not know I had spent my childhood burrowing around the Saepta Julia secondhand stalls. I also thought it might be wise to buy a present for Helena’s birthday in case I ran into her. I was missing her. It made me an easy mark for anyone hawking trinkets that showed slight vestiges of taste.
    Judging that my purse was now firmly closed, Dubnus turned his whining charm on Xanthus again. He was an artist. As an auctioneer’s son, I almost enjoyed watching it. Luckily, we were not sailing all the way down to the delta, or the barber would have bought up the pedlar’s entire stock. He did fall for the aurochs’ horn, supposedly hacked by Dubnus himself from one of the wild Gallic oxen whose savage temper is legendary …
    â€œI’d really like to see one of those, Falco!”
    â€œJust be thankful it’s unlikely!”
    â€œYou ever spied one on your travels?”
    â€œNo. I’m sensible, Xanthus—I never wanted to.”
    His acquisition was a fairly useful drinking-cup, which didn’t spill too much down his tunic neck when he attempted to use it. He managed to polish it up to a handsome shine. I never told him that aurochs don’t have twisted horns.
    As the wineship floated on to our destination, Dubnus slowly rewrapped his treasures. Xanthus began to handle a helmet. Partly to rescue him before he was bankrupt (because that would mean I’d have to pay for everything ), I took the item away from him.
    It looked like army issue at first, but with differences. The modern helmet incorporates a deeper guard around the back, protecting the neck and shoulders; it also has cheekpieces and extra protection over the ears. I suspect the revised design was developed to counter damage from Celtic broadsword swipes. The original pattern had been superseded long before my time, but I was staring at one now.
    â€œThis must be quite an antique, Dubnus.”
    â€œI call that a relic of the Varus disaster!” he confessed amiably, as if owning to a fake; then his eyes met mine and he had second thoughts. I managed to stop myself shivering.
    â€œWhere did you get it?”
    â€œOh … somewhere in the woods.” His voice faded evasively.
    â€œ Where? ” I asked again.
    â€œOh … up in the north.”
    â€œSomewhere like the Teutoburger forest?”
    He was reluctant to clarify. I dropped to one knee, surveying his stock more attentively. He had marked me up as trouble, so he didn’t like me doing it. I ignored his agitation. That worried him even more.
    Now I noticed a piece of old bronze that could have come from a Roman sword pommel; clasps that resembled a set I had seen at my grandfather’s house; a holder for a helmet plume—another discontinued line, now altered to a carrying loop.
    â€œSell a lot of these ‘Varus relics,’ do you?”
    â€œPeople believe what they want to.”
    There was also a blackened object I refused to handle because I guessed it was a human skull.
    *   *   *
    I stood up again.
    Augustus’s stepgrandson, the heroic Germanicus, was supposed to have found where the massacre had taken place, collected the scattered remains of the dead, and given the lost army of Varus some kind of decent funeral—but who believes that out in the hostile forest