David Wishart - Parthian Shot

The jowls purpled and quivered. I could see the guy was within a hair’s-breadth of coming back at me in spades — not that I’d’ve minded — but he just reached for his cup and took another gulp before he answered. Interesting; ex-consuls aren’t exactly easy-going at the best of times, and that little bit of lese-majeste ought to have got me blistered. Vitellius was holding himself in so tight I wondered he didn’t rupture. The question was, why?

‘Isidorus of Charax,’ he said shortly.

I nodded. ‘Right. Right. That is really informative. So far we’ve got the length of a name and a place of birth. Now maybe you’d like to go a little bit further and tell me what he actually does.’

The purpling went up a notch. ‘Jupiter bloody Best and Greatest, Corvinus! If this were up to me..!’

‘You’d spit in my eye. Yeah. I’d sort of worked that one out for myself, and to tell you the truth I’m wondering why you don’t. Seriously wondering, because Isidorus has to be Greek, Greeks in Rome don’t rate consular messenger-boys, and if they ever did the bugger in question sure as hell wouldn’t roll over and take it like you seem to be doing. So I’ll ask you again: who’s Isidorus?’

Pause; long pause, while we glared at each other. Then, suddenly, Vitellius grinned; not a pleasant grin, either, even allowing for the three or four blackened teeth that showed when he smiled.

‘Oh, dear,’ he said. ‘I am really going to enjoy this.’

He reached into his mantle-fold, pulled out a sealed letter and handed it over. Then he reached for his wine-cup, took a hefty swig and sat back, his eyes on my face.

I broke the seal, and my eye went straight to the authorising signature…

Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus.

Aka the Wart.

Oh, shit.

I read the thing through from the start. Not that there was much of it; just the bald request that I be good enough to put myself at the disposal of Isidorus of Charax and the Roman senate, on a matter which would be explained to me.

I raised my eyes to Vitellius’s face. He was smiling so hard there could’ve been a hinge in his neck.

‘The litter’s waiting,’ he said.

I took a long slug of my untouched wine before I stood up. Something told me I was going to need it.

The Wart, eh?

Fuck.

Litters I hate, but it was throwing it down outside, and besides I was still too much in shock to object. The four chair guys and the half-dozen outwalkers that Vitellius rated were sheltering beneath the branches of the big beech tree that grew the other side of our garden wall and overhung the pavement. I thought I heard one of them swear as we came down the steps — understandable, seeing what the poor bugger was faced with hefting on the return journey — but they were over and ready to go almost as soon as we’d climbed in. Vitellius, I noted, didn’t bother to give any instructions.

‘Where are we going?’ I asked. ‘Or is that a secret too?’

‘The Palatine.’ Vitellius was beetroot-faced and breathless with the effort of climbing over the sill. He grunted and heaved himself upright against the cushion facing me. The litter rocked and, outside, someone swore again. ‘House of Augustus.’

Well, that made sense, anyway. Taken together with the letter, a lot of sense. It meant that whoever this Isidorus was — I’d’ve guessed, from his name, he was a freedman, but maybe I was wrong, because even the most trusted imperial freedman didn’t have that much clout — he was on the imperial side of things. Fifty years back when Rome’s first First Citizen Augustus had been handed his major slice of the administrative cake by the Senate he and his wife Livia had worked, as it were, from home, and built on accordingly; with the result that a lot of the purely imperial business was done on the Palatine, while Capitol Hill tended to be senatorial or shared. Most of it was pretty high-powered, too; certainly too important to trust to just any broad-striper whose family connections might’ve got him the city judgeship or consulship but who still couldn’t be relied on to find his backside three tries out of five with both hands and a map. A Greek was pushing things, mind, freeborn or not; which made Vitellius’s tight-lipped play-it-by-the-book attitude doubly weird.

He wasn’t very forthcoming on the journey, either. Not that I pushed, mind. I was still in shock.

I’m not all that familiar with the Palatine. There’re still some private houses up there, sure — I used to own one of them myself — but most of these are on the outer slopes. Since Augustus’s day the central area has gradually been becoming state-owned, and there’re more libraries, picture galleries and temples than you can shake a stick at. Plus, of course, the various properties that technically belong to the imperial family but are mostly used by the imperial administration, like Augustus House itself.

The rain was slackening off as we parked the litter and mounted the steps, but by the looks of the sky there was plenty more to come, which didn’t bode well for the Augustalia in four days’ time. We were met in the cool, tastefully-decorated atrium by a cool, tastefully-decorated secretary. A couple of mean six-foot-tall-by three-foot-wide Praetorians glowered at us under their helmets from either side of a staircase that was all coloured marble and polished cedar.

‘Morning, Quintus.’ Vitellius nodded to the secretary. ‘This is Marcus Valerius Corvinus. We’ve an appointment with Isidorus.’

‘Ah, yes. Indeed.’ The guy gave me a long, cool stare. Yeah, well; at least this time round I was looking respectable. I hadn’t changed my tunic but I had on one of the new mantles Perilla buys me every Winter Festival and I never get round to wearing. ‘You’re to go straight up, sir. Alciphron!’

An exquisitely-barbered slave unfolded himself from a stool by the wall. I raised an eyebrow at Vitellius — I’d expected he’d know his way well enough to do without an escort — but he didn’t seem particularly surprised. Maybe this Alciphron had a pocketful of doggie biscuits to get us past the Praetorians.

We set off up the stairs. Forget the pocketful: if our gopher had been handing out doggie biscuits he’d’ve needed a sack. It could’ve been a hangover from Augustus’s own day — although from what I’d heard of the old buffer he’d been far too smart to give the impression of a closely-guarded autocrat — but there were sentries stationed every few yards. Seriously armed sentries, too. Impressive. Finally, we reached a pair of oak-panelled doors. The gopher tapped gently, waited, then opened the doors and stood aside to let us pass.

I had to stop myself from whistling. I’ve been in plenty of government offices in my time, sure, but this one had them all beat hollow. My bet was that in its day it’d been Augustus’s private library. Certainly it was grand enough: bronzes by the cartload and more book cubbies let into the walls than you’d see in Rome anywhere outside the Pollio. Fully stacked, as well. At the end of the room was a big desk with a huge window behind it, the shutters drawn back either side to show a canopied balcony and the city beyond. Nice; and that grade of view wasn’t wasted on clerks.

The guy sitting at the desk didn’t fit with the surroundings at all. Isidorus — it had to be Isidorus — was a little, nondescript, balding man with ears that stuck out like lugs on a wine jar, a snub nose and a scrawny neck bare and wrinkled as a plucked chicken’s. In that room he looked as out-of-place as a freedman’s nag in a racing stable.

‘Ah, Lucius,’ he said. ‘You’ve brought him. Well done.’ The bland face turned in my direction. ‘Come in, Valerius Corvinus. Have a drink. I’ve managed to get you some Caecuban. It’s one of your favourites, so I understand.’