David Wishart - Last Rites

It was late afternoon before I got back home, slightly the worse for wear: we’d had a lot to catch up on, and the one jug had turned into two after all. Perilla was upstairs in her study working on a poem, but she came back down to the atrium in any case. That suited me: being in Perilla’s study with all these books and not a wine cup in sight makes me nervous as hell. Some people’s ideas about what constitutes necessary furnishings are weird.

I slipped off my sandals, we settled on to the couches and Bathyllus wheeled in the Setinian.

‘So, lady, how was your day?’ I asked.

‘All right. That is, if you except the arrival of a note from your mother asking us round for a meal over the Winter Festival.’

I groaned. Jupiter! ‘Can we get out of it?’

‘Marcus, dear, I am no more keen to be poisoned by suspect cooking than you are, nor do I relish the prospect of your stepfather covering one of my best mantles with sauce as he usually does; but no, we cannot get out of it. This is our first year back, and naturally Vipsania expects us. We’ll just have to grit our teeth.’

‘I’m more worried about what we’ll be gritting our teeth on, lady.’ I scowled into my wine. This was going to be a bad one, I could tell that now: Phormio, Mother’s hyperinventive chef, went into overdrive on big occasions like the Winter Festival, and he didn’t take prisoners. ‘You think she and Priscus would consider coming to us instead?’

‘I asked. Vipsania said Meton was fine in his way but his menus were pedestrian.’

Ouch. I winced. If Meton ever got to hear that little squib he’d blow every gasket in his tiny food-fixated brain and go looking for Phormio with a cleaver. Well, there was nothing we could do; we were committed. Maybe if we were very lucky there’d be a plague or a major fire between now and the Festival that’d give us the chance to cancel. Failing that the only defence was to eat before we left.

The clock went ting! That’d be the tenth hour. Strange, I hadn’t noticed the drips. Maybe I was getting used to them after all.

‘How’s the clepsydra behaving?’ I said.

‘Perfectly. It’s an absolutely marvellous machine, and so useful I don’t know what we did without it. I can’t understand Bathyllus’s attitude. He doesn’t like it at all.’

Surprise, surprise. ‘Yeah, well, he’s a traditionalist, our Bathyllus. And I don’t think the pissing cherubs went down a bomb with him either.’

Perilla settled back on her couch. ‘So,’ she said. ‘How is the case going?’

I told her about the various visits. ‘That guy Murena is a perfect fit, physically, anyway. It looks like the Aemilia theory is working out. All I’ve got to do now is check on whether he plays the flute and what he was doing two nights ago. That’s going to be difficult but not impossible, thanks to having Gaius Secundus on the strength.’ I took a swallow of Setinian. ‘We’ll have to have Gaius and his wife round, by the way. They’re practically neighbours.’

‘Perhaps we should ask your friend Caelius Crispus as well,’ Perilla said demurely. ‘Since he’s been so helpful.’

I laughed. ‘Jupiter, lady, the guy’d have apoplexy! But you’re right, he’s been a great help. That angle on Sulpicius Galba was interesting, too.’

‘You think that’s a possibility, Marcus? That the senior consul was involved?’

‘No. Not really. He’d have no motive, for a start. But he’s the only person we’ve come across so far with fluteplayer connections, and since it’s his place the mechanics of the thing wouldn’t be a problem. If we could find a reason why he’d introduce one of his fancy boys into the house on the night of the ceremony, then -’

I stopped. The clock had gone ting!

Perilla’s brow wrinkled. ‘But it can’t be nearly that time already!’ she said.

I got up and went over to check. The Victory’s pointer was on the eleven. ‘Wrong, lady. At least, your bronze pal in the tutu says it is.’

‘But that’s absolute nonsense!’

‘Come over and see for yourself.’

She did. We stared at it together.

‘The drips are too fast,’ Perilla said finally. ‘The valve needs adjusting.’

‘Where to? This is December. One more notch and we’re at the end of the scale.’

‘Do it anyway.’

I turned the duck so its beak pointed to the last notch. The drips speeded up.

Perilla said, ‘Hmm.’

‘You got any other bright ideas, lady?’

‘Try it the other way.’

I did as she’d told me. The drips speeded up some more. I turned the duck back, or tried to, and there was a dry metallic tunk! As it came free. The drips became a single trickle, then a rush, and the Victory lurched upwards on her pole like a dog after a rabbit.

‘Oh, shit,’ I murmured

‘ Marcus! ’

‘Yeah, well.’

The little titan raised his hammer and brought it down with a sharp ting! The Victory kept on going.

Perilla rounded on me. ‘Corvinus,’ she snapped, ‘if you’ve broken that clock…!’

‘I hardly touched the thing!’

‘Then what’s that duck doing in your hand?’

Gods! Suddenly everything was my fault: typical bloody woman’s logic. ‘Look, Perilla,’ I said, ‘the bugger’s sentient, right? It’s got a mind of its own.’

‘Nonsense! Here, let me -’

Ting!

Gurglegurglegurgle.

We both stared in horror as the pointer clanged against the top of its scale.

Tinkletinkletinklepssss .

Silence. Long silence.

Perilla let her breath out. ‘There, now,’ she said brightly. ‘Crisis over. It’s reached the end of the cycle. All we have to do is leave it switched off until the engineer comes.’

I looked at the titan. I swear the little bastard had a sneer on his face. ‘Listen, lady,’ I said. ‘Trust me. Forget the engineer, okay? The thing’s only biding its time until it gets the chance to really let rip. Send it back while you still can.’

‘Don’t be silly, Marcus. Honestly, sometimes I think you -’

Knock knock knock.

The front door. Oh, hell. That was all we needed: visitors, and the door-slave had gone walkabout. I yelled for Bathyllus, but he was obviously sulking or keeping a low profile or both: where domestic crises are concerned the little guy has a psychic streak that’s positively uncanny.

Knock knock knock.

‘Are we expecting anyone?’ Perilla said.

‘Uh-uh. Unless it’s that flutegirl Thalia. I told the guy at the guildhouse to send her straight round if she showed up.’

‘Really?’ A sniff: the lady was clearly peeved. ‘Then perhaps you should let her in.’

Barefoot, in only my tunic – I always get rid of my mantle, whenever I have to wear the thing, as soon as I get inside – I went through to the lobby and opened the door.

It wasn’t Thalia. It was another Axeman, fist raised to knock again, glaring down at me in silent outrage like I hadn’t even bothered with the tunic. Standing on the pavement behind him, bristling, was a Vestal virgin.

She was tall, thin and angular as a cloak-stand, yellow-faced and ugly as sin. I didn’t know if Vestals conformed to any dietary rules, but this one looked like she lived on dry bread and vinegar.

‘Marcus Valerius Corvinus?’ she snapped. ‘Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus?’

‘Uh, yeah.’ She’d said the extra handle to my name like she was making sure another MVC wasn’t pulling a fast one on her. ‘Yeah, that’s me.’

‘My name is Servilia.’ Her nose went up. ‘May I come in?’

‘Uh… yeah. Yeah, sure.’ I stepped aside quickly.

She brushed past me like a homing wasp. ‘Quintus,’ she said to the Axeman, ‘stay here, please. I’ll call if I need you.’