Marilyn Todd - Sour Grapes

Testing the point of a Scythian arrowhead, Marcus prided himself on his work within the Security Police. The satisfaction of knowing that this assassination attempt had been foiled, that conspiracy had been thwarted, those rapists and murderers thrown to the lions. He might only be a small cog in the wheel, but that was the wheel that kept Rome safe and the Empire thriving, and no one could take that sense of fulfilment away. He saw, in time, taking a seat in the Senate, like his father before him, and voting on issues that would change not just the law, but the whole structure of society. Make it better and stronger for generations to come. There was a sense of achievement in that, too.

But… He ran his finger over the red horsehair crest of an antique Spartan helmet. But at the same time there was something missing in his life, and that something was a woman. A wife. And that something also had a name.

Watching the tumble of curls bursting out of their ivory hairpins this morning, Marcus felt the same wrench in his gut that he always felt when he was with her. It wasn't love, of course, because love wouldn't keep a chap tossing and turning all through the night, then leave him aching and empty in the morning. Love was about holding hands in the moonlight and whispering sweet nothings in one another's ears, not chasing round the countryside risking your career on a girl who took life's corners on two wheels. Nevertheless… He examined his teeth in the shine of an ancient Mycenean breastplate. The Governor of Aquitania was pressuring him to set an example of Roman propriety by remarrying, while Claudia's estate was under threat if Darius married Larentia.

Expediency, that's all it was. She knew him enough to trust his word that she could continue to manage her own affairs without his interference. He'd have the appendage of respectability that the State required. Expediency. Yes, that's what it was. Expediency, pure and simple.

'Ah, Marcus!' Rex strode into the room with his customary briskness, and for all that he was clad in civilian clothes, he might just as well have been wearing his red legate's tunic, with his red woollen cloak swinging jauntily over his shoulder. 'Been admiring my collection, have you? That — ' he jabbed a stubby finger at a leather belt hanging empty in pride of place behind his desk '- was Agamemnon's own baldric. By your right shoulder hangs the girdle of Hippolyte the Amazon queen, and this,' he said proudly, 'this is the very sword with which Achilles despatched Hector beneath the walls of Troy!'

Orbilio was reminded of charlatans in Rome selling dead snakes cut from Medusa's head or feathers shed from Pegasus's wings.

'Hoping to add Hercules's olive-wood club very soon. Depends on whether my source can negotiate a fair price-'

'About Hadrian, sir.'

'Hadrian?' The old war horse filled two goblets to the brim with wine. 'Waste of time, m'boy. Appreciate you coming up here and all that, and happy to put you and your scribe up for as long as you want, but no need, no need. Local army chappies are quite capable of handling the investigation.'

'There are rumbles of a cover-up.'

'That'll be the sister's doing. Take no notice.' Rex indicated for Orbilio to take a seat on a high-backed upholstered chair with carved lion armrests. 'Keeps stirring the wrong pot, that's Rosenna's trouble. Won't face the truth.'

Orbilio placed his glass on the desk untouched. 'And what is the truth?'

'The truth, m'boy, is that Lichas was a nasty little shit, who deserved everything he got.'

The general downed his wine in one swallow and Marcus wondered idly whether anyone ever deserved to be stabbed and thrown into the river alive.

'Which makes it doubly unfortunate for Hadrian that he was the last person to see Lichas alive and has admitted quarrelling with him under the yew,' he said evenly.

'That admission was made in this room, dammit, when there were only the three of us present, and if you take that outside, both my son and I'll deny it and never mind I sat next to your father on a bench in the Senate, I'll have you denounced as a liar, understood?'

'No, sir, I don't understand.' Orbilio laced his fingers. 'Your son is this close to being arrested for Lichas's murder, and right now the only thing that's preventing him from being marched off in chains is the fact that you've leaned on the local judiciary. Rosenna knows it, the townspeople know it, and if I've any hope of clearing Hadrian's name, you have to let me interview him again-'

'Categorically not!' Rex pounded the desk with his fist. 'The boy's said too much as it is.'

'Are you worried he'll say more?'

Colour suffused the general's face, turning it a deep shade of purple. 'If I was still a legate, I'd have had you flogged for that remark.'

'If you'd still been a legate, I'd have been a tribune, and you could not have had a tribune flogged for any reason. Sir. Now let's not forget we're on the same side here-'

'What we shouldn't forget, sonny, is that I didn't invite you here and I didn't ask you to meddle in affairs that don't bloody concern you.' The old soldier regrouped. 'See here, m'boy. You came to Tuscany for all the right reasons, I realize that, and I appreciate the sacrifice you've made, too. Building a reputation for yourself in Aquitania and all that. But best get back while you've still got a job, eh?'

'Is that a threat?'

Rex's lips tightened and for several minutes the only sound in the office was that of him tapping his finger on his satin-wood desk. Orbilio let his gaze range across the various antiquaries. What was Rex hiding, he wondered?

'Sorry if I appear to be breaking your balls, but you see how it is, don't you?' The general harrumphed around in his chair. 'Just… just not right, this sort of thing.'

'Murder?'

Rex wasn't listening. 'Have fun, by all means. At his age, we all did. Sow your wild oats and if that includes hopping over the fence for a bit of a change, then so be it. But to make a vocation of it, dammit! Just ain't natural, and I'll cure that boy of his ridiculous notions if it's the last thing I do. Think I'll have a word with the Emperor, what. Ask for Hadrian to be put in charge of a cohort out on the Rhine. That'll make a man of him right enough, because there'll be none of this namby-pamby nancy-boy stuff, not on my watch, even if I have to beat it out of the lad myself.'

'I'm sure that'll do the trick.'

'Are you being funny?'

'No, sir.'

'That Lichas, he was one of 'em, y'know, and we all know how far they'll go to protect one of their own.'

'With all due respect, you can't lump homosexuals in a box and-'

'Not talking about bloody poofs! Commoners, Marcus. Riff-raff. You served abroad. You know what it's like, living among vanquished tribes. Can't trust 'em, can't turn your back on 'em, and forget this talk about the Etruscans being conquered so far back in time that they're fully integrated. Bollocks. It's them and us, always was, always will be, and it don't matter a damn what we've done for the ungrateful buggers, they still resent us.'

'One can see their point, though.'

The general pushed his jowly face towards his. 'I'll not have my son's reputation smeared through these preposterous allegations. If Hadrian says he didn't kill that snide little queer, that's the end of it, so you leave it, Marcus. Leave it alone or so help me you'll be pushing a quill for the rest of your sordid little career.'

Watching her brother's pyre burn, Rosenna experienced an unexpected sense of release. At last, she thought, Lichas was free of the indignity of lying there with his corpse ravaged by murder, by water, by savage wee teeth. At last, Lichas was free.

As the choir of four (it was all she could afford) sent him on his last journey with hymns, an acolyte sprinkled sacred water on the pyre as the priest raised his arms in supplication that the gates of the Fields of the Blessed would open and the newcomer find peace among his ancestors. There was no question of hiring wailing women or professional mourners for Lichas, but the modest funeral had not deterred the townspeople from paying their respects. The toy-maker had been a nice enough lad and his skills would be missed, but wasn't it wicked the way that patrician boy cut him down in his prime and was gonna get away with the murder? Discontent rumbled through the crowds like distant thunder and Rosenna's heart found comfort in the sound.