David Wishart - In at the Death

Bells were going off all over my brain. Shit! Perilla had told me who Albucilla was, but at the time it hadn’t registered: the widow of one of Aelius Sejanus’s closest supporters who’d turned informer to save his skin when the bastard fell but had died himself the following year. Now Crispus was telling me that she’d been a lot more at the time than just the surviving relict; and that, given certain much more recent events, was interesting. Oh, sure, we were talking old history — Sejanus had been dead for five years — and it could be pure coincidence. Nonetheless, it gave us a link. ‘You’re telling me that Albucilla was Sejanus’s mistress?’ I said.

‘ A mistress. A mistress, Corvinus. One of several. That bastard got around, and being the charismatic guy he was he had more than one outwardly-respectable matron willing to drop her pants for him. If you ask me, Lucia Albucilla was the real Sejanan of the partnership. Certainly she’d more guts than Secundus had.’

‘You said she and Soranus were an item, a long-standing item.’ Hell. So much for the lady’s calling him an acquaintance; but then my guess was that at the time she’d been running scared and just wanted rid of me. ‘Any idea why they broke up?’

‘Uh-uh. She didn’t say, he didn’t say. Not to anyone. But whatever it was, it was sudden.’

‘She do much in the way of cradle-snatching?’

He gave me a sharp look. ‘What?’

‘Papinius’s ex-girlfriend seemed to think Albucilla had seduced him. That likely, do you suppose? She go for youngsters as a rule?’

‘It’s been known. Not that the lady’s unduly particular where the age of her menfriends is concerned. Eclectic’s the word I’d use.’ He beamed. ‘That’s Greek, Corvinus, as I hope you noticed. As was charismatic.’

‘Yeah, it did register.’

‘I’m teaching myself Greek in my free time.’

‘Oh, whoopee.’ Definitely a new model Crispus. The old type wouldn’t’ve recognised the aorist of pherein if it’d jumped up and bitten him. ‘You know whether there might’ve been any other reason for Albucilla to have taken Papatius on? Besides the sexual?’

‘No.’

‘And you don’t know either why he killed himself?’ I wasn’t going to suggest murder to Crispus. No way. The bugger would’ve used the information somehow, and I didn’t want the trail muddied at this stage.

‘I told you. Soranus was soaking him. That’s reason enough for me.’

Yeah, well, he’d done his best and I couldn’t complain. I stood up. ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Thanks, Crispus, I owe you one. I’ll see you around.’

I was just leaving, my hand on the door-knob, when he said: ‘Corvinus?’

‘Yeah?’ I turned.

‘Wait a minute. A freebie. No skin off my nose, but you might be interested.’

‘What in?’

‘You called the kid Papinius Allenius’s son.’

‘So?’

‘Rumour is he wasn’t. Old rumour, nineteen years old. His natural father was Domitius Ahenobarbus.’

I stared at him.

Shit!

‘It explains a lot of things, lady,’ I said when I’d finished telling Perilla about the subsequent gossip with Crispus. ‘Why the divorce. Why Allenius never took any interest in him. Why the consular’s so bitter against his ex-wife. Allenius and Ahenobarbus were of an age, they were colleagues. Only thing was, Ahenobarbus was related to the imperial family. There wasn’t much a career politician like Allenius could do about it.’

‘You think he knew?’ Perilla said. We were in the garden, me with a half-jug of Setinian, Perilla with a chilled fruit juice. No Placida: the lady had relented and let Alexis take her out rabbit-chasing. ‘The boy, I mean.’

‘Sure he did. Cluvia told me: he was proud of his family, his father especially. I thought that was odd at the time; the Papinii are no great shakes, and although Allenius had made consul he was no ball of fire personally. Besides, he and young Sextus had hardly ever spoken. Change Ahenobarbus for Allenius and the Domitii for the Papinii and you’ve got a pretty good pedigree. In social terms anyway, because the gods know who’d want that bastard Ahenobarbus for a father.’

‘But why didn’t Ahenobarbus acknowledge him?’

‘Gods, Perilla! For any number of reasons. One, whatever his own private life was like, Tiberius was a moralist in public. How do you think he’d’ve reacted if it came out that one of the imperial family had got a colleague’s wife pregnant? Two, the pressure would’ve been on — if Allenius had blown the whistle and subsequently divorced Rupilia, which he would’ve done — for Ahenobarbus to marry her, and Ahenobarbus had much bigger fish to fry than a hick provincial from Leontini. She’d been an amusement, nothing more, and young Sextus had been an accident. Three, on Allenius’s side — Rupilia’s, too — where was the benefit? Rupilia would be disgraced, Allenius laughed at, and with Ahenobarbus as an enemy his career would be down the tubes before it’d even started. As it was, if he kept schtum, at least officially, he was owed.’ Doxa ; it all came down to doxa .

‘But he still divorced Rupilia.’

‘Sure he did. As soon as he could, right after the birth. I never said he didn’t have a concern for his honour, and raising another man’s child by his wife while having to pretend it was his own just wouldn’t sit with a guy like that. Only thing was, he didn’t give out the reason.’

‘Hmm.’ Perilla was twisting her lock of hair. ‘So what has this to do with the murder?’

‘Fuck knows.’

‘Marcus!’

‘Yeah, well. Maybe nothing. Probably nothing. Still, it opens up another angle. And I’ll have to have a word with Ahenobarbus.’

‘Why should you do that?’

‘Lady, he was the kid’s real father. He knew, young Papinius knew. The chances are Papinius got his job with the fire commission directly through Ahenobarbus, not via Allenius. That means Ahenobarbus had a personal, vested interest in him. And I’ll bet you a jar of Caecuban to a pickled anchovy that the solution to all this has something to do with the kid’s job. Good enough?’

‘Not really.’

‘Stick, then.’ I leaned over and kissed her. ‘Also, apropos of nothing whatsoever, I’ve got a link between Albucilla and Acutia.’

‘Between Albucilla and who?’

I did a double-take. Oh, yeah: the day I’d talked to Albucilla at the Apollo Library had ended with me being mugged, and subsequent events had pushed that little interview into the background. Perilla didn’t know about her, because I’d never mentioned the lady. ‘You remember Acutia in Antioch?’ I said. ‘Publius Vitellius’s wife?’

‘Oh, that Acutia! Yes, of course I remember her; mousy little thing. And I did know she was in Rome, it’s only that our paths don’t cross nowadays.’

‘That so, now? Anyway, I bumped into her at the Apollo Library. She and Albucilla seem to be good mates.’

‘Really? So?’

‘You don’t think that’s strange?’

‘No, Marcus, of course not. Why should I? And what has Acutia to do with Sextus Papinius in any case?’

I ignored the last bit; yeah, I was wondering about that myself. ‘Or that both of them should just happen to have had connections with Aelius Sejanus?’

‘Marcus — ’

‘Albucilla’s husband was one of his pals before he betrayed him, and according to Crispus Albucilla was his mistress. And that bastard Vitellius — well, you know all about him.’

Perilla sighed. ‘Marcus, dear, I’m sorry, but so what? Half of Rome had connections with Sejanus, one way or the other. And if he was a…common interest between the two women then it’s perfectly natural that they should be friends. However, Sejanus is dead, and if not exactly forgotten then the next thing to it. Support for him — if that’s what you’re accusing the two of them of, and the gods know in what sense — is no longer an issue. Besides, why on earth should it be relevant? From what I remember of Acutia and know of Lucia Albucilla they may not be particularly similar in character, but that’s no bar to friendship. They obviously share literary tastes, for a start.’