David Wishart - Sejanus

'No,' Perilla said slowly. 'No, I suppose not.'

'Fine. Who else have you got?'

'That seems to cover it, I'm afraid.' She paused. 'Apart from your mother and Priscus, of course.'

We looked at each other. I took a morose swallow of wine.

'Oh, yeah,' I said at last. 'Mother and Priscus. Let's hear it for desperation.'

Unfortunately Mother and Priscus were dining in that evening and would be delighted to feed us. Perilla put on the mantle she least minded getting gravy stains all over and we whistled up the litter for the Caelian.

'As a matter of interest, little guy,' I said to Bathyllus as we prepared to set off, 'what are your plans for dinner tonight?'

'The kitchen staff at the neighbour's have rallied round, sir.' Bathyllus straightened our cushions. 'Their master is having a birthday banquet, and the leftovers should be sufficient for both households.'

'Is that right?' I kept my voice neutral. 'A birthday banquet, eh? You, uh, happen to know what's on the menu?'

'Sturgeon was mentioned, sir. Roast sucking pig stuffed with dates and pastry. And, I think, a sweetbread fricassee with forcemeat dumplings. Plus the sundries, of course.'

'The sundries. Great. Great. Sounds nice. Well, enjoy yourselves.'

'You too, sir. Have a very pleasant evening.'

Bastard. Still, it was Mother's or starve, if you can call that a choice. Off we went.

'Marcus! Perilla! Do come in, we were just going to start without you.' Mother kissed the air beside my right cheek. 'Something to drink?'

Uh-uh. I'd been caught out on that one before. 'Some plain ordinary wine'd be nice, Mother,' I said. 'If you've got it.'

'Nonsense, dear!' Mother looked shocked. 'You must try Phormio's spiced wine surprise. He made it specially for this evening from his own recipe.'

'In that case no. No thanks.' Phormio was Mother's chef, and he was even crazier than she was. One day he'd finally manage to poison someone, and I didn't want it to be me, whether it meant offending his professional susceptibilities or not. 'I'll pass. Perilla?'

'Just a fruit juice, please,' Perilla said firmly.

'Very well.' Mother frowned. 'Suit yourselves.'

We went through to the dining room. Priscus was on the host's couch. He hadn't changed since I'd seen him last. He still looked like a cross between a sheep and a dried prune.

'Mmmmaaa!' he bleated. 'Good to see you both. Perilla, you're beside me as usual, my dear.' Well, she'd got her sauceproof mantle on this time, anyway.

'Hi, Stepfather,' I said, taking the last couch. 'How are the joints now?' They were the reason he'd missed the funeral: a bout of galloping arthritis caught in a damp Caerean tomb.

'I can't complain. I can't complain. Lartia Tarchna was worth a few twinges. A lovely woman in her day, Marcus, lovely.' Yeah, if you like five hundred year old funerary statues. 'Beautiful breasts. And we're having celery soup with watercress tonight. That should help.'

Jupiter, that sturgeon! Those suckling pigs! Bathyllus would be tucking in to them even now. Never let anyone tell you that a slave's life is the pits.

'Celery soup with watercress, eh?' I said. 'Yum. Delicious. I can't wait.'

The spiced wine surprise arrived. I was glad I'd passed it up: from the smell and the colour it seemed that the surprise was that it wasn't wine at all; but then I hadn't ever thought it would be, and faking things was part of Phormio's bag. I could still remember how, the last time we'd eaten at Mother's, he'd served up a dish of pickled anchovies that had turned out to be caramelised radishes. I'd swallowed one before I realised and been off fish for a month.

The soup came next, together with a plate heaped high with what looked like green worms. I goggled.

'Hey, great!' I said. 'Baby eels with fennel!' This was more like it: good plain Roman cooking for a change. Maybe we were going to be lucky after all.

Mother gave me a brittle smile. 'No, dear. Not eels. Not even close.'

Hell. This sounded bad, even by Mother's standards. 'You want to tell us what they are?'

'Not until after you've had a taste and told me what you think.'

'Ah.' Bad was right.

'A trader I met told me about them and I had Phormio recreate the recipe with my own adaptations.' Mother held out a spoon. 'Go on, Marcus. They won't bite you.'

From the look of the things I wouldn't've bet on it. Still, it looked like the worms were all we were getting. Dubiously, I let her spoon some onto my plate. They slithered off again.

'Uh…a trader from where, exactly?' I asked. Britain. It had to be Britain.

'Syria, dear. But the recipe itself came from much farther away. Somewhere along the silk route, I think.'

Perilla was already digging in. 'They're lovely. Most unusual. Go on, Marcus, try them.'

With some difficulty I picked up two or three of the worms on my spoon and bit.

'Gods!'

'Interesting, aren't they?' Mother said. 'Thin strands of flour and egg paste, dried and then boiled, with a sauce of oil, pounded cheese, garlic, pine nuts and rue. I'm not sure about the rue. Perhaps something else might give a less astringent flavour.'

'Yeah. Yeah, I'd go along with that.' Jupiter in a bucket! It was like having your mouth scraped out with a gorse bush. I turned to the slave behind me. 'You got any common-or-garden fish sauce there, pal?'

With a barely-concealed sniff — Mother's got her whole staff brainwashed — he passed me the small jug. I poured it on lavishly. Thank the gods for plain fermented anchovies.

I didn't even touch the soup.

Priscus was tucking in to both like there was no tomorrow. Well, maybe there was something to be said for a diet of boiled celery and rue-worms, because dried prune or not the guy was wiry. And he had to be seventy, at least.

'You're enjoying your holiday, Marcus?' He sucked up a recalcitrant worm. A droplet of sauce flew off the end and landed on Perilla's tunic. She sighed and dabbed at it with her napkin.

'Titus!' Mother snapped.

Priscus gave her a look of mild-eyed surprise. 'You know what I mean, my dear. I've already extended my condolences.'

Yeah, well. I didn't blame the old bugger. He had one foot in the grave himself, or he ought to have by his time of life, and he'd raked around cemeteries for so long he must've looked on death as the only worthwhile reason for existence.

'It's okay,' I said, surreptitiously pushing my plate aside. 'I keep myself busy.'

'Doing what?' Mother asked. She'd noticed the plate. Mother never misses anything.

'This and that. Looking up old friends. Passing on messages.' There were some plain ordinary bread rolls on the table; at least they looked plain and ordinary. I broke one and tasted it carefully. It was edible, if you ignored the green bits. 'Speaking of which, you don't know of a guy called Sextus Marius, do you by any chance?'

I was looking at Mother; I doubted if the offhand tone would fool her for a minute, but she was my best bet because Priscus never knew anybody.

'Ah, yes,' Priscus said. 'The Carthage man.'

I choked on a crumb. 'You know him?'

'Of course. Not that he actually comes from Carthage, mind. He's Spanish.' Priscus spooned up more worms. Sauce flew. 'And he has a lovely daughter, I understand.'

Spanish fitted, anyway. But I couldn't see anyone who was a mate of Priscus's being involved in a treason scam. Most of that crew only got worked up about issues like an aberrant use of the genitive in early Oscan. As for politics three of them out of every five might know who Tiberius was, but beyond that was stretching things.

'Ah…the Carthage man?' I said cautiously.

Priscus nodded, chewed and swallowed, while Mother looked on fondly. I was grateful: she'd obviously never heard of Marius herself, and if Priscus knew him then ipso facto my question couldn't be all that out of line.