David Wishart - Parthian Shot

The four entertainers bowed and sidled out through the serving door. I lay down too and reached for my winecup.

‘Corvinus, you gormless bastard,’ Vitellius muttered, ‘when we’re alone I will personally rip your guts out. That is a promise.’

Now it was finished I wasn’t feeling too proud of myself, either, and the whole room was staring at me. ‘Yeah, well,’ I said.

Phraates leaned over towards me. ‘You must forgive Mithradates,’ he said quietly, in Latin. ‘He gets rather overexcited.’

I glanced across. Overexcited wasn’t exactly the term I’d’ve used. I was getting the death stare. Shit; I’d made an enemy here, and no mistake. ‘Right. Right,’ I said.

Vitellius didn’t say another word to me the whole evening. He saved it all up until we were in the litter and out of earshot of the Parthian domestics who’d escorted us out.

‘You bloody fool! I warned you! Mithradates is the next sodding king of Armenia! What the hell did you think you were doing there?’

I held up both hands, palm out. ‘Okay. Okay! Point taken! I only — ’

‘What would it matter if the bastard had had the girl anyway? She’s just an entertainer! She’s probably been had already a dozen times since the Winter Festival!’

‘Yeah. Yeah, I know. I’m just not a diplomat, pal. I told you, I — ’

‘Too bloody right you’re not!’ He punched the cushions behind him and threw himself backwards so hard I felt the litter-bearers stagger. ‘That’s the understatement of the fucking century! Wait until I see Isidorus! He’ll have you out so fast your head’ll spin, Phraates or no Phraates! Holy bloody sodding Jupiter, what a mess!’

I was feeling just a little tetchy myself by this time. ‘Pal, this wasn’t my idea in the first place, remember? If Isidorus wants to pull the plug then it’s fine by me.’

‘Seconded, by God! Carried nem. bloody con.!’ Vitellius was calming down now; at least, he’d stopped throwing himself around the litter and was just sitting breathing hard and glaring at me. ‘Corvinus, do you know what you’ve done?’ he said finally. ‘I mean, as far as Rome and me personally are concerned?’

‘Uh…no. Not altogether.’

‘No. You fucking well wouldn’t.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Well. For your information I am now in a situation where the future king of Armenia, with whom I may later have to deal both officially and socially, has seen me seeing him publicly humiliated in a petty wrangle over a whore.’

‘She wasn’t a whore, she was a — ’

‘Shut up. The person responsible for his humiliation being my aide, who presumably, the gods help us, was under my control and instruction. How do you think Mithradates is going to feel the next time we meet? And remember that the next time may involve sensitive political dickering vital to Rome’s fucking interests.’

‘Ah…right.’ I swallowed. ‘Look, I’m sorry, pal. Really sorry.’

Vitellius turned round and punched the cushions again, savagely. ‘Not a tenth as sorry as I am. Or as much as you soon will be, if I have my way.’

‘At least Phraates backed me up.

His head came round and he stared at me. ‘Corvinus, you really haven’t got a clue what day it is where diplomacy’s concerned, have you? What the hell else could he do? Let the two of you slug it out on top of the candied pears? Phraates couldn’t’ve cared less about the girl, and quite right too. As it is, by forcing him publicly to take Rome’s side — which is what you did — against one of his most important future allies you’ve dropped him in the shit as well. Definitely with Mithradates, and probably with the Parthians to boot. Don’t think they didn’t understand what was happening, because they did. They’ll remember it, too.’

‘Even so, if Mithradates had wanted a girl he could’ve got one with the others.’

‘Holy immortal Jove!’ Vitellius raised his eyes to the ceiling of the litter. ‘Don’t be an even bigger fool than you are! Of course he sodding could! He and his mates are in and out of the cat-house those girls came from like bloody weavers’ shuttles! But he didn’t. Why he didn’t, I don’t know, although my guess would be he wanted to embarrass Phraates and lower his stock with the embassy. For reasons of his own, probably involving Tiridates. And you, you gormless idiot, gave him what he wanted so easily he must’ve thought it was his fucking birthday!’

Things clicked horribly into place. Vitellius was right, absolutely right: the conniving bastard had manipulated me straight down the line. ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Yeah, fair enough. Well, all I can do is apologise.’

Vitellius gave a bark of laughter. ‘Marvellous! Oh, that really helps a lot! Isidorus will be so bloody delighted that you’ve done that! Now shut up. I don’t want even to listen to you any more.’

While he fumed quietly in his corner I glanced out of the window. We were coming down the Palatine stretch of Scaurus Incline. ‘Why Callion, incidentally?’ I said.

‘What?’

‘He was the only one of the embassy to have a girlfriend. Why him?’

‘Jupiter, Corvinus! They’re not bloody celibate! And Callion’s a real lady’s man. The first thing he asked for when he got here was the address of a decent brothel. Now button that mouth of yours. I’ve had enough for one evening.’

We subsided into silence again, and I lay back against the cushions to think. The seating arrangements; those had been interesting. Mithradates with Tiridates, that fitted, especially after Vitellius’s hints. Osroes as far away from Zariadres as he could get; that fitted too, from what I’d seen of the chemistry between the two men. Was there any significance in the fact that he’d chosen to sit with the eunuch Peucestas? That I didn’t know, because I hadn’t met the guy. And Callion, the outsider of the group, out on a limb with Damon, Phraates’s son; also a bit of an outsider…

Then there was the question of why Phraates had made a point of bringing a taster with him to a friendly dinner. I hadn’t had the chance he had half-promised me to talk things over in private, when I might have asked him direct, but under the circumstances — and after Vitellius’s little analysis of the position — that was understandable.

Something else nagged. It was a minor twinge, and probably not worth a rotten anchovy, but still, it nagged.

That troupe of entertainers had been top-class professionals to their finger-ends; like I say, the best I’d seen for a long time. Prime acts like that didn’t make elementary mistakes.

So why had the woman muffed that first catch?

Ah, hell, the whole thing was probably academic now anyway, because after Vitellius was finished outlining his opinion of my ancestry Isidorus wouldn’t touch me with three pairs of gloves and a long pole.

Which suited me just fine. If that was a sample of diplomatic life then I’d had enough of it to last me until I was ninety.

Perilla had been in bed and asleep when I got back, and she was still flat out when I woke up the next morning. That lady’s capacity for sleep never ceases to amaze me: Perilla’s no night owl, but she’s definitely not an early morning person either. Which, this morning anyway, suited me perfectly. After blowing my diplomatic street-cred at the dinner party I might well be out on my ear with Isidorus, but until I knew that for certain I had a conscientious duty to push on with the case. The next stage was to pay a call on Decimus Lippillus down at the Public Pond Watch-house re the knife gang that’d hit Phraates’s litter. Knifemen being currently a sensitive issue with Perilla — plus the fact that I wasn’t too anxious to tell her about my brush with Mithradates — meant that slipping out of the house while she was still an unconscious and uncritical lump under the covers was pretty sound policy.