David Wishart: Ovid

Jupiter's balls! 'Now look, lady…' I said. As a protest it was feeble, and she ignored it.

'However, I have here a letter which I think will explain everything.'

She reached under her mantle, giving me a brief glimpse of red undertunic, brought out a small scroll of paper and handed it over. I was still in shock. Without even checking that the thing was addressed to me I broke the seal and waited until the writing had stopped dancing around on the page.

The letter was from my Uncle Cotta, and in his usual mind-numbing, rambling style.

'Marcus Valerius Cotta Maximus Messalinus to his nephew Marcus, Greetings.This is to introduce Rufia Perilla, the stepdaughter of my old friend Publius Ovidius Naso lately dead at Tomi. She'll scare the hell out of you, Marcus, but her heart's in the right place as well as everything else so help her as best you can, eh, boy? I've suggested you rather than your father because that pompous arse-licker wouldn't be seen dead helping anyone unless he got something out of it for himself. Besides, poor Publius never could stand him and it was mutual so his stepdaughter wouldn't get much change out of the old hypocrite either. And as you may or may not know I'm out too being off to Athens shortly for a few months of well earned carnality, so you're hereby elected. Don't let the family down, eh?

Farewell.'

There was a PS:

'She's married to an unpleasant bugger called Suillius Rufus. He's out east at present and from all accounts they can't stand each other. A nod's as good as a wink, eh? Cotta.'

I raised my eyes from the letter to find that hers were fixed on me. Perhaps I'd caught her at an unguarded moment, perhaps the look was intentional. I don't know. But for the first time she looked vulnerable. Desperate and vulnerable. Now I may be a self-indulgent overbred slob, but at least I'm a kind-hearted self-indulgent overbred slob, and that look showed me two things. First that whatever front she put on it had cost Rufia Perilla a lot to ask for help, mine or whoever's. And second (call me a sucker if you like) I knew I'd do almost anything to see her smile.

Maybe Uncle Cotta's postscript was relevant too.

'Okay,' I said. 'Consider it done.'

Which, in retrospect, was a pretty stupid thing to say. If any nasty-minded gods were listening I was just asking for the clouting of the century. Which was more or less what I was in for. Not that I'd've taken the words back even if I'd known, because as I spoke them for another precious instant the ice melted and the other Perilla showed through.

That paid for everything.

‘Consider it done’. Yeah, well, I found out how stupid that particular promise was next day.

The palace is something else, bureaucracy run mad. For a start, it’s huge. You can get lost, physically lost, if you’re not careful. They find skeletons in there regularly, and guys who’ve waddled in fat as butter stagger out days later blinking like owls and thin as hay rakes. The place is full of clerks who spend most of their working day bouncing the punters between them like they were playing handball; and the worst of it is that you don’t realise you’re getting nowhere until it’s going home time and the bastards drop you.

A typical bureaucracy, in other words.

Sure, I’m exaggerating, but not by much. And don’t imagine that just because I’ve got four names that getting something done is any easier, Especially something involving the emperor. The Wart’s got better things to do (don’t ask what) than sit at a desk all day scratching his boils and waiting for Rome’s brightest and best to bring him their troubles. We purple-stripers have to stand in line like everyone else.

Oh, sure, if it’d been my Uncle Cotta or my father things would’ve been easy. Guys like that have got clout; and clout, at the palace, is everything. My father was an ex-consul and former provincial governor, which tells you something about the half-arsed way we choose our magistrates. Although Uncle Cotta hadn’t made it that high yet, he was on the ladder; but with not so much as an assistant-deputy-clerkship under my belt I’d as much weight of my own to swing as the slave who mucked out the privies.

By rights my best course of action would’ve been to make big eyes at one of my father’s friends, look helpless, and be ever so terribly grateful when the guy condescended to take me under his privileged wing. That, of course, was out, even if I could’ve stomached it. I hadn’t seen my father for months, and I wouldn’t have touched most of his pals with a six-foot pole. Not that they’d’ve fallen over themselves to help if I had asked. My father and I weren’t exactly estranged (only the marriage tie is so simply severed in pukkah families like ours), but that didn’t mean to say our lives had to cross. And the last thing I wanted was to owe the bastard any favours.

So there I was, three hours down the line and making progress you couldn’t’ve measured by the scruple. My feet hurt, my back hurt, and I’d’ve committed any crime short of sodomy for a cup of neat Setinian. The Sixth Assistant Secretary to the Sixth Undersecretary’s Assistant had just promised me that he’d see what he could do if I would kindly wait a few months when Cornelius Lentulus hove into view.

Yeah, hove . ‘Hove’ is a good word to use of Lentulus. He had the build of a merchant ship: big, round-bellied, and inclined to wallow in anything but a flat calm. You could describe him as a friend of my father’s, I suppose, but he was as far from that sharp-eyed crew as it’s possible to get and stay in sight. In other words, he was human, or close enough to it to make no difference. And the old guy had clout by the barrow-load.

‘Hey, young fellah-me-lad!’ he shouted when he saw me. (Yeah again; I never said Lentulus didn’t have his faults. In my view Augustus didn’t go far enough when he purged the Senate). ‘Not often we see you slumming it, eh?’

I explained, and Lentulus nearly popped his clogs right there in the corridor.

‘By the gods, I’ll nail the bastards’ foreskins to their rectums!’ Oh, whoopee. Sterling stuff. ‘A grandson of my old friend Messalla Corvinus left to kick his heels in the waiting-room like a commoner? Don’t you worry, boy. I’ll fix things for you. You just leave it to me!’

So, of course, I did. Willingly, and with suitable awe. Within ten minutes we’d reached the Holy of Holies itself, the imperial anteroom where even the flies are vetted. At which point, having introduced me to one of the secretaries as something only slightly less sacred than the Palatine Shield of Mars, Lentulus buggered off.

‘You must excuse me, young fellah,’ he grunted, patting my arm. ‘You’ll be all right now, Callicrates here’ll look after you. Good lad, Callicrates. I’ve got an early dinner engagement. Nubian girls and tame pythons. Old Gaius Sempronius always does you proud if you’ve got the stamina, Eh, boy? Eh?’

And, with a final elbow in the ribs, he was gone before I could thank him. A pity. I’d’ve liked to ask about the Nubians and the pythons. Good tasteful after-dinner entertainment’s hard to come by, even in Rome.

The imperial secretary was all teeth and hair-oil.

‘And now, sir,’ he said. ‘How may I help you?’

‘A client’s father has just died abroad.’ I leaned on the desk, giving the guy the full benefit of my patrician nostrils. ‘He was exiled under the Divine Augustus, and the client and her mother need imperial permission for his ashes to be brought back to Rome.’

The secretary smiled and reached for his pen and wax tablet. ‘No problem there, sir,’ he said. ‘Not if the gentleman in question is dead. I don’t think we need even bother the emperor.’