David Wishart - Parthian Shot

‘Oh.’ That was all. The girl turned her big, vacant eyes on me. ‘You were at the dinner party, weren’t you?’

‘Yeah, that’s right,’ I said. ‘Corvinus. Marcus Corvinus. You’re a very talented girl, Calliste.’

‘Yes, I know.’

It should’ve sounded arrogant, or precious, but it didn’t: it came out simply, in the same childish voice that was way too young for the body. I glanced at Jarhades.

‘Leave us to talk,’ he said gently. She got up and left the room. With a muttered excuse Batis followed her. Jarhades waited until they were gone and then said to me: ‘You can see now why I didn’t want that bastard touching her.’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Yeah, I can.’

‘It’s nothing serious.’ He was looking down at his hands. ‘She’s just a bit slow. But as a juggler and tumbler she’s first-rate.’

I didn’t answer. Just a bit slow. Yeah, sure. Well, they seemed happy enough. And he was right; she was good at what she did. That was all that mattered.

‘Batis worships her, and it’s mutual.’ He looked up. ‘Still, that’s a problem for the future, isn’t it?’ Erato came in with a tray: two cups of wine and a plate of cheese and olives. ‘Here’s the wine. It’s Syrian, as good as Mano’s or better.’

Erato was avoiding his eye. She set the tray on the table then sat down on the bench opposite.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’d have told you if I could.’

I got up quickly. ‘Look, you can do without me, right? You don’t need — ’

‘Sit down. It’s all right.’ Jarhades half-smiled and ducked his head. ‘Though I won’t say it hasn’t been a shock.’ He turned to Erato. ‘You’ve nothing to be ashamed of, girl, quite the reverse. Now. We have a guest. I told him you’d want to thank him for what he did at the dinner. Was I wrong?’

‘No.’ Erato wiped her nose on her tunic-sleeve, her expression the stiffly-formal one you get sometimes with peasant women when they’re doing what they see as their duty. ‘You’re very welcome here, Marcus Corvinus. And I’m grateful, very grateful. We all are.’

I took a swallow of the wine. It was good stuff, and after that little scene with Peucestas I needed it. ‘All the guy really wanted was to make trouble,’ I said.

Jarhades nodded; he didn’t seem all that surprised. ‘Yes. That I’d believe. That’s him all over. You get people like Mithradates; they meddle for the sake of meddling, then sit back and watch the fun.’

‘And at least this time no one got hurt,’ Erato said.

‘“This time”?’ I said.

Jarhades scowled and pushed the plate of cheese and olives over towards me. ‘What these flash young society bastards do to each other at their parties, girl, is up to them,’ he said. ‘They deserve all they get, and you won’t catch me crying.’

The hairs on the back of my neck were lifting gently. I reached for a piece of cheese.

‘What specific flash young society bastards would we talking about here exactly?’ I said.

‘You’ll’ve seen one of them at the dinner.’ Jarhades sipped his wine. ‘Damon. Prince Phraates’s son.’

Something cold touched my spine. ‘Mithradates had a spat at a party with Damon?’

‘No. Not him; you said it yourself, he just stirs things up. The other lad went by the name of Nicanor. He — ’

‘Nicanor?’

‘That’s right.’ Jarhades shot me a sharp look ‘You know him? Father’s an Armenian merchant, very big in the spice trade.’ He turned to Erato. ‘What’s his name again? Aratus?’

‘Anacus,’ Erato said. ‘His wife’s from Antioch. They’ve got that fancy house near the Caelimontanan Gate, the one with the — ’

‘This party,’ I interrupted. ‘You care to tell me about it? The whole story, from the beginning?’

‘That was the one I was telling you about at Mano’s,’ Jarhades said. ‘When Mithradates made his pass at Calliste. Quite a big affair, a birthday bash. It’d be, what, two or three months ago now?’ He looked at Erato. She nodded. ‘The host had booked us along with another couple of acts. We weren’t there ourselves when the trouble started — we’d had the business over Calliste by then — but we got the story from one of the others. It was young Nicanor’s fault, sure, but Mithradates began it, setting Damon on at him.’

‘Damon was always needling the other boy,’ Erato said. ‘If you’ve met him you’ll know why. He’s soft as new-pressed goat’s-cheese.’

Yeah, well; that was a verdict on Nicanor I wouldn’t entirely agree with, but it didn’t really matter and I kept my mouth shut.

‘Anyway.’ Jarhades stoned an olive. ‘Then seemingly Nicanor shouts out something about Damon having fooled with his sister — Nicanor’s sister — and goes for him with a knife. When they pull the two apart Damon’s lost a finger.’

‘The sister had died,’ Erato put in. ‘Two or three months before that. I forget her name.’

There was something about her tone that set the prickles in my neck going again. ‘“Died”?’ I said.

‘Of a fever. That was the official version, anyway. Rumour was, though, they buried her hand separate. And with what her brother claimed you don’t have to look far for the reason.’

Right; a pregnancy and suicide. Oh, shit. Not that I thought the story had any relevance, apart from explaining how Damon had come by the wound that put him out of the running for the Great Kingship, even if he was only eligible by his own reckoning. ‘The girl killed herself because she was pregnant by Damon?’

‘So people said at the time. And there was no trouble later about the finger.’

I sat back. Yeah, gossip aside — and the lady was clearly a born gossiper — that last was pretty surprising. Damon might be illegitimate, sure, but he was still a Parthian prince’s son, and in Rome you don’t carve bits off sprigs of the nobility and get away with it unless you’ve got serious clout. Or, of course, for an equally good reason. Hushing up a pregnancy and a suicide — especially if the girl’s father was a big wheel in the city’s merchant community — was as good an explanation as any, even if Phraates was a prince of the blood. It explained why Nicanor hated Damon’s guts, for a start, and why he wanted nothing more to do with him or his cronies. Also why he’d been so touchy on the subject of his family. I tucked the little nugget away for future reference.

‘What’s your interest, anyway?’ Erato had picked up Jarhades’s wine-cup and was sipping at it. The distraction seemed to have done her good. If I hadn’t seen her onstage in a spangled bra and fringed panties I would’ve placed her as a Suburan housewife swapping scandal with a neighbour over the shelled peas. ‘In Damon and his friends, I mean?’

The born gossip’s question; I should’ve been expecting it. Erato was no fool, either.

‘Uh…’ I said.

‘Now, now, girl,’ Jarhades grunted. ‘That’s none of our business. Let the man drink his wine in peace.’

Well, she knew about the Parthian delegation anyway, or at least that the guys were in Rome and that they were Parthians, if not the whys and wherefores. Also, she and Jarhades had been pretty helpful, and maybe there was more where that came from. ‘No, that’s okay,’ I said. ‘I’m looking into a murder. One of the people at the dinner, name of Zariadres.’

I hadn’t been expecting what happened next. The lady set the cup down sharply, and it caught the edge of Jarhades’s hand, tipped, and splashed wine onto the table-top.

‘Who?’ she whispered. The colour had left her face.

Jarhades and I were both staring at her. ‘Zariadres,’ I said. ‘You know him?’

She shook her head numbly. ‘No. I…at least, not that…no.’ She stood up. ‘I’m sorry. I’ll get a cloth.’