David Wishart - Illegally Dead

He started a sniff, then caught my eye and thought better of it. ‘Clear, sir. Yes, sir.’

He left. I fumed quietly while Perilla sat in silence, giving me occasional nervous looks.

‘Yeah? What is it now, Corvinus?’

I turned round. Well, he’d changed back into his familiar gravy-stained togs, anyway. Alexis had been right, though: sweat there undoubtedly was, but it was laced with a distinct odour of violets.

‘Okay, Meton,’ I said. ‘What’s going on?’

‘About what?’

I sighed. ‘Look, pal, I’m not an idiot.’ He sniggered. ‘You’ve got something cooking, and I don’t mean pork with cumin and onion seeds, either. So give.’

‘Don’t know what you mean.’

‘Meton. When was the last time you put on a new tunic to go out and sprinkled yourself with essence of fucking violets?’

‘This afternoon.’

Bugger. ‘Yeah, I know it was this afternoon, sunshine! That’s the whole point! What I want to know is why?’

‘No law against it, is there? Lookin’ and smellin’ nice? If I want to look an’ smell nice there’s no law that says I shouldn’t look and smell — ’

Gods! Enough! ‘Meton, you are grounded as of now, okay? I don’t know what you’re up to, but it’s something, and I am not taking the risk. Not after that sheep caused the biggest sodding damage to Roman prestige in Latium since the First Fucking Samnite War.’ He sniggered again. ‘Is that perfectly clear?’

‘Fine.’ He inserted a finger into his left nostril, waggled it about, withdrew it and inspected the result. ‘So I won’t be able to do the shopping in town from now on, then?’

‘Gods, Meton, we have a whole household of fucking bought help here — ’

‘Marcus,’ Perilla said quietly.

‘- most of whom have the requisite nous to be able to successfully negotiate the intricacies of a shopping list and bring home the bacon, the cabbage, the lentils, the what-fucking-ever — ’

‘Marcus!’

‘- that you need perfectly well without your personal involvement. Which is what will happen from now on.’

He drew himself up like Scaevola getting ready to spit in Porsenna’s eye. ‘Suit yourself, Corvinus, you’re the boss. It’s your right to decide. Executive decision, like.’ He sniffed and inserted the finger again. ‘An’ if you’re fully prepared to take the responsibility an’ the consequences then…’

Pause. Long, long, ominous pause. What is known, in the trade, as a hanging minatory apodosis. Shit. I knew what the bugger was saying, we all did. It was the culinary equivalent of moving up the heavy artillery to point-blank range, cranking the winches and saying ‘Right, then; lads, on a count of three…’

Maybe I’d been just a little hasty here.

‘Ah…hold on, there,’ I said. ‘Maybe if we just agreed that you didn’t sort of loiter over the shopping, pal. Straight in, straight out, no messing, sort of thing. How would that be?’

‘Never fucking loitered or messed in my life. My shopping is constructive, Corvinus.’

‘Yeah. Yeah.’ I shot an anxious glance at Perilla, but apart from a slight tightening of the lips and two red spots on the cheeks the lady was keeping schtum. ‘Well, that’s very good, Meton, but — ’

‘And what’s wrong with wanting to look smart? ‘S an inalienable human right, is that. Just because I’m a slave doesn’t mean I have to — ’

‘Yeah, right, Meton, okay, pal.’ I was beginning to sweat myself. ‘Got it. Understood, no problem. Let’s just — ’

‘I had that scent off Lysias since two Winter Festivals ago. It needed using.’

‘Yeah, that stuff does, or it rots the bottle. Ah…let’s just forget it, sunshine, okay? Perfume under the bridge. Water. Whatever. What’s for dinner?’

His eyes lit up. ‘Actually, you’re lucky there, Corvinus. I’ve got this marinade I’ve been working on for braised kidneys. Pepper, aniseed, mint and ginger in wine must and vinegar, although I have my doubts about the ginger. The original recipe says dates, but I thought if I replaced them with figs — ’

‘Great. Great. That sounds great, pal.’ Whew! He was talking food again. Crisis over. I stood up, clapped him on the shoulder, turned him round and gave him a gentle shove kitchenwards. ‘Look forward to it.’

He ambled off. Perilla and I looked at each other.

‘Oh, well done, dear,’ she said. ‘Nicely handled again. Two nil to Meton, I would say.’

‘You want to live off gristle meatballs and mushy beets for the next month, lady? Because I don’t.’

‘You don’t think it’s a woman, do you? Remember all that trouble with Bathyllus?’

‘A woman? Meton?’ I considered the possibility. For about a tenth of a second. ‘Nah. No chance.’

‘That’s all right, then,’ Perilla said. ‘So long as you’re sure.’

We were having breakfast the next morning when a messenger arrived from Hyperion to say that Quintus Acceius had been knifed.

‘So what happened exactly?’

Acceius was sitting on a stool in his study, naked to the waist, while Clarus changed the dressing and bandages his father had put on the evening before. The guy still looked pale.

‘I was coming home from a late visit to a client,’ he said. ‘Near the old shrine of Juturna. You know it?’

‘Yeah.’ On the outskirts of town, in the direction of the Bovillae gate. Not the most densely populated part of Castrimoenium because of the smell from the tannery and slaughterhouse nearby.

‘He came out of an alleyway behind me after I’d passed.’ Acceius winced as Clarus carefully removed the blood-soaked pad of linen from the wound. ‘He must’ve got ahead of me and been waiting. No warning, he had the knife drawn already. I was lucky, I managed to turn as he struck, and the fact that I was wearing a full mantle helped.’

I looked while Clarus sponged the stitched-up wound clean. Yeah, he’d been lucky, all right: not a puncture wound but a long, deep cut running across his lower back all the way from side to spine. If it’d been the point of the knife that’d caught him, rather than the edge, he’d’ve had Trophius the undertaker in attendance this morning rather than Clarus.

‘You get a look at him?’

He grinned. ‘Are you kidding, Corvinus? I had more important things to worry about at the time than taking notes on the bugger’s physiognomy for future reference. Such as staying alive. I have never, ever been so bloody petrified in my life! Besides, it was dark.’

‘Yeah, well…’

‘He was about three quarters my height, perhaps a fraction more. Short, thick, wiry hair, no cap, fairly heavily built. Breath smelled of raw onions. Oh, and he wasn’t young.’

‘About the age of the guy who attacked you and Hostilius?’

Acceius considered. ‘No. I can’t be sure, of course, but…no, a bit younger. Middle-aged, and, as I say, in much better physical condition. Unfortunately.’

‘What happened then? After he stabbed you?’

‘I caught him a good sock in the face.’ He held up his right hand: the knuckles were bruised and cut. ‘Sheer bloody luck again that I connected, but I must’ve loosened a tooth or two at least. Then he…well, I think he’d’ve tried a second time but just then there was a noise from one of the houses nearby, someone opening a window and calling a cat in. That must’ve panicked him because he turned and ran.’

‘You didn’t follow him?’

He laughed, then winced. ‘Corvinus, don’t do that, please! It hurts even to breathe at present. No I bloody well did not! I never even thought of it. I just stood there with my back against the wall feeling grateful that I was still alive and would be allowed to stay that way. Besides, I was beginning to hurt. I didn’t, at first, but now I was.’