David Wishart - Last Rites

She left. Camillus stared at the closing door for a moment, frowning. Then he turned back to me. ‘And I,’ he said, ‘will have to give some thought to the appointment of a sixth Vestal. No doubt the emperor will be asking for suggestions, at the least. Corvinus, my dear fellow, I’m afraid I’ll have to throw you out. Most inhospitable. My apologies.’

‘Hey, that’s okay,’ I said. ‘I’m used to being thrown out.’

I did my obeisance to Jupiter at the door and set off for the Capitol. All the way up the hill my brain was buzzing.

Shock, nothing, nor old age neither; that lady was as hard-boiled as they come. Camillus had seen it too, although he’d been too much the gentleman to give her the lie in her teeth. Something had thrown her, and I’d missed it…

What the hell was biting Junia Torquata?

I thought, when Caelius Crispus saw me, he was going to call in the half-dozen Axemen that city and out-of-town judges rate. Either that or die from a stroke on the spot.

‘Hey, Crispus,’ I said, sitting down uninvited on the chair in front of his desk. ‘How’s the lad?’

‘You…’ He was pointing at me, eyes goggling. ‘You…’

‘Yeah. Me. I’ve come because I need some help. A favour. Some information.’

‘ Get the hell out of my office! ’

‘On the private life and passions of Aemilia, the senior consul’s wife.’

‘Corvinus, I swear to you if you’re not out of that door in five seconds flat I’ll -’

When in doubt, ask for more. ‘Also, I wouldn’t mind an inside edge on the senior consul himself. If you’re feeling generous.’

He gagged. Interesting; I wouldn’t’ve said, personally, that a face could match exactly the colour of a windfall plum that’s slightly gone off, but Crispus’s was doing its best. And I could’ve sworn the hairs in his ears were smouldering.

‘Screw you, Corvinus! Screw you and your whole family, twice, and six times on the kalends! Especially that bitch of a wife of yours!’

‘Perilla sends her regards. She still talks about the visit we made to the Pincian all those happy years ago. In fact, she was just saying we should meet up again soon, now we’ve moved back to Rome.’

That one always gets him. It did this time, too. He blanched like an almond. ‘Keep her away from me! You hear me?’

‘In fact, as soon as I find out where you spend your free time these days, which shouldn’t be all that difficult, we intend to drop in one evening. Unexpectedly. With no prior warning whatsoever.’ I gave him my best smile. ‘Won’t that be nice?’

Crispus stared at me, his mouth working. Then he drew a long breath and shuddered. ‘All right,’ he said quietly. ‘What exactly do you want this time?’

‘That’s better. I told you, but you weren’t listening. I want to know about Aemilia.’

‘Know what?’

‘Does she have a lover?’

‘Jupiter’s balls, Corvinus!’

‘And if so what’s his name and where can I find him?’

‘Corvinus, read my lips, right? We are talking about the consul’s wife. The senior consul’s wife. Consul as in “consul”. You understand me?’

‘Sure. I told you that myself, pal. Twice. Of course I understand.’ I waited. Nothing. I stood up. ‘Well, Crispus, it’s been really nice talking to you again. We’ll see each other again very soon, and -’

‘Sit down,’ he growled. I did. He breathed deeply for a while with his eyes shut then leaned over the desk, close enough to whisper. His breath smelled of violet comfits. ‘All right, you bastard. The man’s name’s Gaius Licinius Murena. He’s a junior finance officer at the Mint.’

‘Your old stamping ground,’ I said. ‘No pun intended.’

‘Hah-hah. Right. Now get the hell out of here. Go for a swim in the Tiber. I’ll lend you the bricks.’

I didn’t move. ‘What about Galba?’ Then when he hesitated: ‘Come on, Crispus! Give! We’re all alone, the door’s closed and you know you’ll have to tell me eventually.’

He grinned evilly. ‘Oh, you are pushing it, aren’t you? You want his lovers as well?’

‘Plural?’

‘Sure, plural. Our senior consul likes variety. But no one important. Actors. Fluteplayers. Freedmen. Even the occasional slave, if he’s hosed down first.’

Something with lots of legs was strolling up my spine. ‘Fluteplayers?’

‘Why not? There’s nothing like a good fluteplayer.’ Crispus sniggered. ‘They’ve got the lips for it.’

‘You have any names?’

The snigger died. ‘No. And if I had I wouldn’t give you them. You can push only so hard, Corvinus, and pleasant though it’d be to see you tangling with Galba and getting your long patrician nose lopped off he might trace the information back to me. Whatever the Wart might think of him, Galba’s a close pal of the prince, and you don’t mix with Gaius. Especially now with his mother and brother dead he’s Tiberius’s blue-eyed boy.’

Yeah, I’d heard about that: Agrippina and Drusus Caesar, both in exile, had committed suicide by starving themselves a couple of months back. Or that was the official version, anyway. ‘Galba and the Wart don’t get on, you say?’ I was fishing here, sure, but you never know what you might catch. And to give Crispus his due, he had the true professional’s interest in his job, even if that job was raking over muckheaps.

He shrugged. ‘You know the senior consul. If he spotted a copper piece in a latrine he’d have it out no matter what he had to grope through to get it. And he’s close enough to skin a flint. He’s had his knife into Tiberius for years, ever since the old empress’s bequest. And it’s quite mutual.’

‘The empress’s bequest?’

‘Sure. You don’t know that story?’ Now we’d moved – I assumed – on to the safe ground of old gossip Crispus was beginning to relax like a Suburan grandmother swapping scandal with a crony over the shelled peas. Sickening to watch, but then that was Crispus for you, and I wasn’t complaining. There was just the chance that he might come across with something useful.

‘Uh-uh,’ I said. ‘Tell me.’

‘Seemingly the two were related through Galba’s stepmother, and they were as thick as beets and fish sauce.’ Crispus had leaned forward and dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. Gods, Suburan grandmother was right; all the guy needed was the shawl and a few less teeth. ‘Anyhow, when the will’s opened it turns out that she’s left him a cool half-million. Gold, not silver.’

I whistled; half a million gold pieces was a lot of gravy.

‘The Wart, as executor, turns several shades of grey and says there must be some mistake: his mother meant five hundred, not five hundred thousand. The emperor’s the emperor, so Galba has to grit his teeth and nod. In the end it doesn’t matter because the Wart never pays him a plugged copper.’ Crispus grinned. ‘Oh, Galba doesn’t like Tiberius. He doesn’t like him at all.’

‘So how come the guy made consul? Surely the Wart has to approve the appointments?’

‘I told you, him and the prince are like this.’ Crispus held up two interlocking fingers. ‘And we’re not just talking Damon and Pytheas here, either.’ Shit; classical allusions now. Crispus certainly had come on. ‘What Gaius wants these days he gets, and if he doesn’t get it he takes. And if he doesn’t take it himself his pal Macro takes it for him. All the Wart’s interested in is screwing fancy boys alfresco on that island of his. Not that I blame him, because this time next year he’ll be dead anyway and Gaius’ll be our new emperor.’

Well, I knew the truth or lack of it in the first little nugget of scandal, and the Wart had four years yet before he was due to pop his clogs. But I wasn’t going to let Crispus in on the secret. Oh, no. Still, that bit about the fluteplayers had been interesting. It could be coincidence, sure, and there wasn’t an ounce of reason to link Galba with Cornelia’s death, but taken along with the fact that she’d died in his house it was certainly something to think about. And I didn’t like Galba’s smell; I didn’t like it at all.