David Wishart - Sejanus

With Cornutus gone Serenus had brazened it out. He'd challenged his son to prove his case by naming other associates. Celsus promptly accused Cornelius Lentulus and Seius Tubero; Lentulus being an old friend of the Wart's and Tubero being Sejanus's elder stepbrother. Naturally the case collapsed. Lentulus and Tubero were discharged by an embarrassed senate without a hearing, and Celsus quickly left Rome for Ravenna.

Interesting enough, but that wasn't the end of it, because the Wart then proceeded to shove his personal oar in. Despite the fact that Serenus's slaves had given evidence under torture that suggested their master's innocence, Tiberius hauled Celsus back and forced him to carry on with the prosecution. In the teeth of the slaves' evidence Serenus was tried, convicted and sentenced to death. At which point the Wart intervened again, this time on grounds of mercy, and sent the guy back to his original island, where he still was.

Weird, right? And a complete mess, into the bargain. However, certain things stuck out like sore thumbs. First, like Lippillus had said, for a son to prosecute his father on a capital charge is practically unheard of even in these degenerate days. Second, why should Celsus have picked on Lentulus and Tubero? Lentulus was a harmless old duffer, practically senile and devoted to the Wart's interests; Tubero was just as unlikely a crypto-Julian, being one of Sejanus's closest relatives. More, I knew for a fact that ten years ago on Sejanus's instructions he'd used his position as city judge to block a crucial murder investigation. Neither of them, obviously, could be considered a likely supporter of Agrippina's, even given the senate's overheated imagination. Third, what the hell was the Wart playing at? And fourth, if Celsus had had the nerve to accuse Sejanus's stepbrother of treason in open court then why was he still breathing?

Like I said the whole thing was weird; and as far as plausibility was concerned you could stick it in a pig's ear and drop it down the nearest manhole. Even so, these were the facts. Explaining them was my problem.

By this time I was past Racetrack Corner and on my way to the Publician Incline. It was a beautiful spring day, perfect for walking. Even the tenements looked good in the sunshine, splashed with colour where housewives had planted bulbs outside the doors in tubs. Sure, the streets stank; but the stink was friendly, and the noise was friendly, too.

Hell, what I really needed was a holiday. This was Rome after all, and I hadn't been back for years; not properly back, anyway. I carefully put politics out of my head as I walked through the huge open market of the Velabrum and Cattlemarket Square, that spills southwards past the Temple of Hercules and covers the triangle between Racetrack, Aventine and river: past the stalls with vegetables and herbs, butchers' tables, racks of cheap ready-made tunics and headscarves, cheesemongers, knife-sellers, all one glorious muddle as if the bits and pieces left over from the city's separate trading areas had been bundled together and dropped down at random. Like always, it was crowded and I had to shove in places; ordinary Romans pay no attention to a purple stripe unless it has a few slaves with heavy sticks in front of it. The sun had brought out the hucksters with their trays of roasted pumpkin seeds, hot sausages and doughnuts in honey. Whores, too. A couple of them in red mantles glittering with tin-and-glass jewellery waved to me and I flung them a silver piece each for the hell of it, just because they looked like they were enjoying life.

Maybe Livia had been right about me and Rome after all. Certainly I was enjoying myself, really enjoying myself, for the first time in ten years, and Rome was the reason. Not the Rome that belonged to the hypocrites in the senate who'd sell their grandmothers for a four-month consulship, but the filthy, sprawling, gutsy city itself, that never left you feeling empty, like Athens did or any other of the dozen cities Perilla and I had stayed in since we'd moved abroad. And if that was what the old sinner had meant by altruism then I agreed with her, one hundred percent.

Maybe Serenus was just a guy on the make, Celsus no better, and neither of them had had any more dealings with Sejanus than an oyster knows Greek. Maybe the whole thing was one great mare's nest. At that moment I didn't particularly care. It was too good a day to waste thinking, and in a hundred years' time we'd all be dead together, Sejanus, the Wart and Agrippina included. The hell with it.

Well, if that was my holiday I'd had it. I bought a nut-stuffed pastry for Perilla, watched a group of jugglers and a guy sucking flames from a lighted torch, then headed back towards the Palatine and home.

Scratch the idyllic atmosphere of a spring day in Rome; when I arrived back I found myself in the middle of a Grade One domestic crisis. Meton the chef had been sulking in his kitchen like a culinary Achilles since the Torquata affair two days before. Now the bastard had hit the cooking wine and barricaded himself in. He wasn't coming out for no one.

'You talk to him, Marcus.' Perilla was standing outside the kitchen door with Bathyllus and a couple of gawping kitchen skivvies. She looked flushed and angry. 'I've tried, but he won't pay any attention.'

Jupiter! The guy must be far gone if Perilla couldn't get through to him. Still, as head of the household I owed it to the good old Roman ethos to give it a go, at least.

'Hey, Meton!' I banged on the wooden panelling. 'Cut that out right now and open the door!'

No answer, bar a snatch of an Alexandrian love song. He could cook better than he could sing, that was for sure. And from the sound of him he was pissed as a newt. I turned to Bathyllus.

'You've tried forcing the door?'

'He has the chopping table wedged against the other side.'

'Shit. How about the outside window? Any chance of taking him from behind?'

'We've tried that too, sir, but it's too high and narrow. Also, he throws things.'

'Onions?'

'Knives.' The little guy was bristling with disapproval. Bathyllus always had thought Meton was too anarchic to live, and his musical appreciation was zilch.

'Knives, eh? Kitchen knives?'

'Yes, sir.'

This was a bad one. Meton normally looked after his kitchen knives as carefully as if they were new-born babies. No one was allowed even to breathe on them in case they lost their edge. And the last time he'd gone on a bender it had lasted three days. I'd've recycled the bugger for scratchings long since if he hadn't been the best cook we'd ever had.

I banged on the door with my fist. 'Meton! I know you're listening! Open up this minute! That's an order!'

The singing stopped momentarily in favour of a loud raspberry. One of the skivvies sniggered and Bathyllus shot him a look that would've curdled milk.

I turned away from the door and shrugged. 'Okay, guys, that's it, show's over. We leave him to it. He'll come out eventually.'

'Oh, marvellous!' Perilla snapped. 'And what do we do for meals in the meantime?'

Yeah. She had a point there. The larder was on Meton's side of the door as well as the cooking facilities. Still, the problem wasn't insuperable.

'We live on take-away sausages and meatballs,' I said. 'I know a cookshop off Tuscan Street where they don't use rats. Or not many, anyway. Unless you'd prefer to sponge off Mother and Priscus.'

'And have your stepfather throw sauce over every good mantle I've got? No, thank you, Corvinus. Not until I'm desperate.'

'Okay, lady, it's your decision.' I held out the pastry that I'd bought her on the way home. 'Here. Make it last.'

She looked at it and her mouth trembled. A moment later and we were hugging each other and laughing helplessly while Bathyllus glared. That little guy has no sense of the ridiculous. Left to himself, he'd probably have called in the City Guard to evict Meton with a battering ram, and told them not to take prisoners.