David Wishart: Ovid

The wall mosaic in the lobby was politically correct too. Forget your bourgeoise "Beware of the Dog" tat, this was Art: a more-than-life-size Divine Augustus, golden rays of glory streaming from his noble brow, seated on a pink cloud between the goddesses of Piety and Liberality, shedding his gracious lustre on the tiny City of Rome below. All beautifully and tastefully done in stones the size of my little fingernail. You could even make out the goddess's nipples.

The thing must've cost an arm and a leg. I nearly threw up all over it.

I gave my name to the slave and he led me through the marble pillared atrium into the garden (the pool, I noticed in passing, had a Venus and Cupids bathing in it. Another compliment to Augustus's adoptive Julian ancestors, perhaps. Or maybe Rufus was just a randy bugger). The day had brightened but it was still cold. Perilla, sitting in a chair under the shelter of an arbutus and dressed in a fetching little yellow number that looked more for show than warmth, didn't seem concerned. Scattered around her feet were half the contents of the Pollio Library; which was more or less what I'd been expecting. Since her last visit I'd done a bit of homework on sweet little Rufia Perilla. She was a pretty smart lady, not just a poet's stepdaughter but a poet herself and a mean mind where the literary heavies were concerned. As a peace offering to one of my usual bubbleheads I'd've brought perfume or maybe a little trinket from Argyrion's in the Saepta. For Perilla I'd chosen a book; a very rare copy of some Alexandrian pansy who wrote about shepherd-boys (no, I don't know which one. He was expensive, that's all I know).

Why I should be apologising to her when she'd been the one to call me names I've no idea. But that's the way things work. Understand that and you understand women.

'Corvinus!' she looked up smiling from the scroll she was reading. 'Lovely to see you!' Yeah, good news. It seemed like I was forgiven after all, even without the book. I handed it over anyway. She looked at the title label and purred with the sort of pleasure I keep for baked sturgeon with a quince sauce. 'Oh, how absolutely marvellous! Thank you!' She turned to the slave. 'Callias, bring Valerius Corvinus a chair and some wine.'

Obviously a lady of some sensitivity. Maybe I'd misjudged her.

The slave shot off and was back in record time. He had a harried, chewed look about him that I recognised, and I felt for the poor bastard. Being a slave in Perilla's household must've been as wearing on the nerves as being chief manicurist to Cleopatra's leopards.

I sat down and sipped at the wine. It was Falernian and so ought to've been good, but it was third rate stuff. Whatever the absent Rufus's qualities were (and he must've had some besides an ability to use his tongue to good advantage) they obviously didn't extend to a discriminating palate. Or maybe it was the fault of his cellarman. If so the guy should be crucified with a flask of the stuff up his rectum. I set the cup aside as unobtrusively as I could.

'Now.' Perilla laid the book aside and settled back, giving me the kind of smile that would have any Greek sculptor worth his salt reaching for his sketchbook. 'Don't tell me. You've seen the emperor and he's agreed.'

'Uh…actually no. That's not why I've come.' The smile faded from her face but at least she didn't freeze up on me.

'But you're making progress.'

'I'm trying. Believe me I'm trying. There's just nothing doing.'

'Why not?'

I shrugged. 'Your guess is as good as mine. All I get are solid refusals right down the line. I think it might have something to do with your stepfather's crime.' She didn't say anything, so I lightened it up a bit. 'What did the old guy do? Personally promise to hand Armenia over to the Parthians? Rape Livia? Rape Augustus? Burst one of the Wart's boils?' Silence. 'Oh, come on, lady! I'm your patron, remember?'

'I don't know,' she said at last. 'My stepfather never told us.'

Jupiter! 'What do you mean, he never told you? The guy had been punished already. The secret was out.'

She shook her head. Today the golden hair was tied up in a tight braid, simpler than was fashionable but suiting her perfectly. A single curl lay tantalisingly against each temple. I could smell roses.

'We asked him,' she said. 'At least my mother did, I was too young. But he wouldn't even tell her. He said it was too dangerous.'

My scalp tingled. 'Dangerous? Dangerous to who?'

'Himself, I suppose. Or maybe to my mother and me. Anyway, he wouldn't say.'

I couldn't believe this.

'Come on, Perilla! Sure, I know nothing was made public, but your mother must've known what he did, or be able to guess at least. They were very close, weren't they?'

'Yes. Very,' she said softly.

'And you're telling me he clammed up on her? Totally?'

'Maybe she does know.' Perilla had lowered her eyes and her voice was barely a whisper. I waited for more, but it didn't come. There was something I didn't understand here.

'Then why don't you ask her outright?'

'Because it wouldn't do any good.'

Again that phrase. I'd heard it from the secretary, and from Crispus. It sounded strange coming from Perilla. 'Didn't Ovid say anything before he left? Or give any clues in his letters? He did send letters, didn't he?'

'Oh, yes.' Perilla plucked a sprig of leaves from the bush beside her and turned it absently between her fingers. 'He talked about…whatever he'd done quite often, in fact. Not just in his letters. In his poems as well.'

Now we were getting somewhere! 'Okay. So tell me.'

'He says he made a mistake. He saw something he shouldn't have seen, and he didn't report it.'

'And?'

'That's all.'

I leaned back. Shit. The more I got into this thing, the more tantalising it became, and the more it slipped away from me. Hints and rumours. Like mist or water through the fingers.

'What do you mean, that's all?'

'Just what I say. Oh, there's more, lots more, but that's the gist of it. That and what he didn't do.'

'Didn't do?' I was beginning to sound like a third rate tragedian's chorus.

'He says he didn't profit personally from whatever it was. And he hadn't killed anyone, or committed forgery or fraud or treason.'

'That doesn't leave very much.'

'No, it doesn't.'

'So what you're saying,' I spelt it out, 'is that Ovid did nothing whatsoever? That Augustus sent him to Tomi just for seeing something he shouldn't have seen?'

'And for not reporting it. Yes, that's right.'

'But it's crazy! It makes no sense at all! Jupiter's holy prick, we're talking about exile here!'

'Nevertheless, Corvinus, that's all there is. And please don't swear. I don't like it.'

'But what could he have seen that deserved that sort of treatment? To be packed off to the Black Sea for the rest of his days, without a trial, with no reprieve. Not even to be allowed back for burial.'

'I don't know.'

'Come off it, lady! You're his f… You're his stepdaughter!'

Her lips set in a firm line, and she looked away.

'I've told you that's all there is,' she said, 'and I would be grateful if we could drop the subject.'

Now I may not know my Bion from my Moschus but I know damn well when a woman isn't telling me the truth. And if ever beautiful woman lied in her teeth that woman was Rufia Perilla. You expect obstructions from nit-picking bureaucrats and timeservers like my father and Crispus. You don't expect them from the client you're trying to help.

I got up. 'Okay, don't tell me. I'll find out for myself. Anyway, I've got to be going now. I've a long night of debauchery ahead of me and I need to get tanked up first. Thank you for your hospitality, Lady Rufia.'

She turned back to face me, and she had the grace to look guilty; but that was all.