David Wishart: White Murder

My guts went cold. Holy Jupiter! This was no time for soul-searching and maudlin wine-binges. If Charax was right – and the guy had an ear for gossip that would’ve put Midas’s donkey version to shame – then all hell would currently be breaking out on the Caelian.

I paid for the undrunk wine and made a bolt for the door.

It was true, all right: I knew that as soon as I saw Bathyllus’s face. I’d been wrong about the hell, though, because he had on his noble self-sacrificing look. An expression somewhere between that of a boiled trout and of a high priest with piles.

‘Tyndaris is marrying Titus Petillius, right?’ I said as I took off my cloak and gave it to him.

‘Yes, sir. She told me this morning. I understand they had agreed to keep it quiet until she had been officially freed and the engagement could be announced legally.’ He folded the cloak carefully. ‘Which was yesterday.’

‘You, uh, were round there yesterday evening, weren’t you?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And she didn’t mention it?’

‘No, sir.’

I took the cup of wine from the tray he’d set on the hall table. ‘This would be a sudden decision, would it? Or reasonably sudden, anyway?’

He put his lips together. You could’ve used the line to cut marble. ‘On the gentleman’s side, sir, yes. I have the impression that his own proposal – made while we were in Sicily – came as rather a surprise to himself.’

‘I’m sorry about this, little guy,’ I said.

‘Sympathy isn’t necessary, sir.’ He gave a distinctly Bathyllus-type sniff that had nothing to do with tear-duct activity. ‘I have been tricked and deluded throughout. My only role by that woman’s design, right from the first, was to rouse jealousy in her intended suitor and precipitate an avowal of an equal devotion on his part. I am well rid of her.’

I paused, the cup half-way to my lips. Jealousy? Jupiter, the mind boggled! Certainly no dramatist worth his salt would’ve touched that kind of love-triangle with a bargepole. Still, Petillius was marrying the lady, you couldn’t get round that. Unlikely as it sounded, Bathyllus was probably right. ‘Even so, you have my condolences,’ I said. ‘It’s a pity things haven’t worked out.’

‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.’

I picked up the jug and went through to the living-room. Perilla was on the couch. I kissed her.

‘You’ve heard, then,’ she said.

‘Yeah. Seemingly the news is all over town.’ I settled on my own couch. ‘The guy seems quite philosophical about it.’

‘I think it’s simply dreadful. The woman used him.’

I shrugged. ‘He’ll get over it. Me, I think he had a lucky escape. She would’ve eaten him alive. You can’t trust those culture-vultures as far as you can throw them.’

‘You don’t think so?’ She was grinning.

‘Present company excepted. Mind you, for that lady you’d’ve needed a legion-strength ballista.’

‘How did your business at the stables go?’

‘Okay.’ I kept my voice neutral. ‘We went on to Cammius’s place afterwards. He’s dead. Suicide.’

The grin vanished. ‘Oh, Marcus, no!’

‘There wasn’t anything I could do. He wanted to go.’ I took a swallow of wine. ‘Maybe it’s for the best. That’s what my pal Charax would say, anyway.’

‘Charax?’

‘A pain-in-the-backside plasterer. Thank your stars you don’t know him.’ Bathyllus oozed in. Taking things philosophically or not, the poor bugger still looked like Socrates – the original one, not Natalis’s gatekeeper – after he’d downed the hemlock. ‘Oh, hi, sunshine.’

‘A message from the kitchen, sir. Dinner will be late. Meton has had a major crisis with the sauce.’

Well, to do a Charax, as someone said somewhere: ‘You can pitch Nature out with a fork, but the lady always comes back.’ It was nice to think life still had some certainties, and domestic crises came high on the list. The googlies just provided the ups and downs that made things interesting. I sank another mouthful of Setinian and refilled the cup.

‘That’s okay, little guy,’ I said. ‘We’re happy here with the wine.’