David Wishart: Ovid

'You've been to the palace,' she said.

'Yeah.' I lay down on the master couch. Bathyllus was already bringing a chair, and Perilla actually smiled at him as he set it down. He looked lost for an instant. Then he beamed. I could almost see the little bastard's hair curl.

Bathyllus is bald.

'Some wine, sir?' he murmured. Shit. The perfect butler. You could've scooped the smarm off him with a spoon.

'Yeah. Honey-wine for the lady, Bathyllus. Setinian for me. The special.' It was the strongest we had, and I was going to need something pretty strong if I wanted to live through the next half hour with my balls still attached. 'And go easy with the water, okay?'

'So we can arrange for my stepfather's remains to be brought back,' Perilla said when he had gone. 'Corvinus, that's wonderful!'

Normally her use of my last name without the addition of the more formal family one would've set me quivering. Not to mention the smile that went with it. As it was I felt sick as a dog.

'Actually, Lady Rufia…' When you're at a disadvantage, crawl.

'Oh, call me Perilla, please. Mother will be delighted. As to the funeral arrangements, we still keep up the old villa on the hillside above the Claudian-Flaminian junction. We'll bury my stepfather there, in the orchard. He'd've liked that.'

‘Perilla…' Jupiter! It was like trying to dam a river with your bare hands.

'You're invited to the ceremony, of course.'

'Perilla, listen to me. I'm sorry, but — '

She waved me down. 'How long do you think it would take for a ship to go to the Black Sea and back? There must be something from Corinth, surely. Ten days? A month? We'd best say two to be on the safe side. Which means we can arrange the funeral for-'

'Wine, madam?' Bathyllus, reappearing with his tray of winecups, succeeded in doing what I'd been trying to do, and interrupted her.

Perilla frowned. 'I don't, normally. But perhaps just a little of the Setinian. To celebrate.'

It was now or never. I jumped in with both feet. 'Perilla, listen to me. The funeral's off. No ashes. You understand?' Her mouth opened, but I pressed on. 'They turned us down.'

There was a terrible silence, like just before a volcano erupts and even the birds stop singing. For one crazy moment I considered sending Bathyllus to check that my will was safe in the desk.

'I beg your pardon?'

'You can't bring your stepfather back from Tomi after all. At least, not yet. Permission's been refused.'

She was staring at me as if I'd suddenly grown two heads. 'What do you mean, permission's been refused?'

I took the flagon from Bathyllus's tray, poured myself a whopper, and drank it down. Maybe it'd be better if I tried this drunk after all. 'I saw one of the imperial secretaries. He was very apologetic, but there was nothing he could do.'

Perilla drew herself up to her full seated height. I could almost hear the ice crackling.

'Do you mean to tell me, Valerius Corvinus,' she said, and her voice was straight off a glacier, 'that you allowed a civil servant to dictate to you, a patrician from one of the oldest families in Rome?'

I temporised. 'Yeah, well, not really. He was only passing on the decision, so you-'

'And who made the decision? The emperor himself?'

'The guy didn't actually say so, not as such, not in as many words, but that was the implication, yeah.' I was beginning to sweat.

'Valerius Corvinus.' Perilla's voice was terrible. 'Did Tiberius himself refuse to grant the request or did he not?'

I poured another cup of wine and drank it off. The stuff was beginning to work. Maybe another one would do it.

'How the hell should I know?' I said.

That was a mistake. Perilla shot to her feet like a rocketing pheasant. She was stiff with anger.

'You,' she said, 'are a disgrace to your name and the memory of your grandfather. He'd never have given up like that. Not to mention the first member of your family.'

I poured again. 'That bastard only had a Gallic champion to fight,' I muttered. 'Not a bloody harpy.'

'I beg your pardon?'

'Nothing.' Shit. I took a large swallow. 'Anyway, who says I've uppen gived?' I noticed that Bathyllus hadn't moved. He stood there with the wine things, stiff as a novelty standing-waiter bronze. 'Given up. 'Course I haven't. We'll just have to try another approach, is all.'

'Corvinus,' she said coldly, 'I think I'll go now, if you don't mind. Before you get even more beastly drunk than you are at present.'

It's good stuff, the special. I actually had the nerve to raise my winecup to her. She glared at me and turned to leave. As she stormed out the sunshine caught her hair again in a net of molten gold. Ah, well. You win some, you lose some.

I was just congratulating myself on getting rid of Perilla when Bathyllus told me I had another visitor. One even less welcome.

My father.

Like I said, we didn't get on and I hadn't seen him for months, barring the occasional brush in the streets when we exchanged dignified and meaningless salutes. Not, in fact, since the divorce. I was upstairs when Bathyllus announced him, getting ready for that evening's party. I changed back into my lounging tunic and went downstairs, the bile sharp in my throat. Bathyllus had left the study door open and I could see Dad's tall thin figure inside. He was standing by my desk examining the title label of a Greek novel I'd been skimming through, his lantern jaw clenched in disapproval.

'Hi, Dad. How's it going?' I said. He turned, as angry as I'd hoped he would be. My father is so uptight about the social niceties that when they burn him they'll find a poker up his rectum inscribed "Property of the Senate and People of Rome". 'Interested in my dirty book collection?'

He put the novel down slowly. Actually, it was pretty well written, and not dirty at all, but I wasn't going to tell him that. It would've spoiled the bastard's evening.

'How are you, Marcus?'

'Okay.' I motioned him to the study's only couch and sat myself in the desk chair. Bathyllus put his nose round the door and I sent him for the wine.

We stared at each other in silence.

'I saw your mother today,' he said finally.

'Nice of you.'

He held up a placating hand. 'She's happy enough.'

'Oh, whoopee.'

My father's mouth turned down. 'The marriage wasn't working, son. Ending it was good for both of us. You know that.'

'For you, maybe,' I said. 'Not for me. And Mother tried her best. She'd never have divorced you. If she had done it'd've been for a reason, not just because it suited her at the time. Not because a new wife would be politically convenient.'

His sallow face flushed with anger. 'It wasn't like that at all! And I won't have you judging me!'

'Thank the gods you don't!' I shot back. He turned away.

There was a polite cough outside the door and Bathyllus reappeared. We sat in stony silence, glaring at each other while Bathyllus poured. When he'd gone, I handed my father a winecup.

'So what do you want?' I said. 'To what do I owe the inestimable pleasure of your fucking presence, Dad? Tell me and then get out.'

He set the cup down untasted. His hands were shaking; but then mine were, too.

'I'm here on official business, Marcus. You caused a bit of trouble at the palace yesterday.'

I took a long swallow. 'You've been misinformed. I didn't cause any trouble. I made a perfectly reasonable request and when it was turned down in what I considered to be an unsatisfactory way I asked for an interview with the emperor.'

'That wasn't what I heard. I was told you got quite abusive.'

'No more abusive than the situation merited.'

'And that you assaulted an imperial secretary.'

'Come off it, Dad!' I set the winecup down hard on the desk, and the wine leapt up over the rim. 'What do you expect? The bastard told me he wouldn't let me see Tiberius. He wouldn't let me! Who the hell is a government clerk to tell a patrician noble that he can't see the emperor?'