David Wishart: Last Rites

Junia Torquata was waiting for me in the atrium. The place was still rigged out for the ceremony, with the goddess’s couch – empty, now, of course: they’d’ve taken her back to the Aventine – at the far end where the screens and curtains had been pulled back from the family rooms beyond to give more space. The walls and ceiling were hung with greenery and some of the statues still had sheets over them; these would be the male ones, too heavy to lug out but decently covered over, because not even male statues are allowed to see the rites of the Good Goddess. There was a gaggle of people clustered in the middle of the room, and they looked round when I came in. I recognised old Lucius Arruntius, the pal of my father who I’d last seen at Dad’s funeral two or three years back, the time when he and Aelius Lamia had asked me to dig the dirt on Sejanus.

‘Ah, Caecinus.’ The lady came over nose first, like a trireme heading for the kill. Junia Torquata might be pushing sixty but she was built like a Suburan bruiser and you could’ve used her voice to warn shipping. Given the choice of meeting a qef -stoned gorilla head-on down a dark alley and Rome’s chief Vestal I’d’ve taken the monkey any time. ‘Decimus found you, then.’

‘Uh . . . yeah,’ I said. ‘And the name’s Corvinus, by the way.’

‘Indeed.’ Well, that disposed of that one nicely. ‘How’s your wife? Thriving, I trust?’

‘Uh, yeah, Perilla’s -’

‘Excellent. Well done. Now take your cloak off, young man, the weather is exceptionally mild for the time of year and it isn’t a bit cold in here.’

Jupiter! I found my fingers going automatically for the pin and another grey-faced slave was at my elbow to catch the falling cloak.

‘You know everyone, I assume?’ The trireme’s ram nose turned towards the group. Maybe it was my imagination, but the huddle seemed to tighten. Probably a self-protective herd instinct.

‘No, I can’t say I -’

‘The consul Servius Sulpicius Galba and his wife Aemilia. Terrible for them, of course, the whole house will have to be purified top to bottom, and that is such a chore you can’t imagine.’

‘Corvinus.’ Rome’s current brightest and best gave me a stiff nod. He was a fattish, balding man with a hooked nose and quick, shifty eyes. Aemilia was short and on the plain side, but a snappy dresser: tight-fisted as the guy was rumoured to be, that mantle and the jewellery that went with it must’ve set him back a couple of months’ income. Her perfume – it had to be hers, because she was the only other woman in the room except for Torquata, and that lady just smelled scrubbed – was four-figures too, and despite the fact she’d been up all night she was made up like a doll. All I got from her was a scared flutter of eyelashes.

‘The deputy chief priest, Marcus Furius Camillus.’ The trireme’s ram pointed to a big old guy with white hair who wore his broad-striper mantle like it was a military uniform. Yeah; I’d heard of Furius Camillus. As governor of Africa twenty-odd years back he’d been the guy who finally put the skids under that bastard Tacfarinas. Camillus was no puffball: the bulk under that mantle was muscle, not fat, and there was a mean brain behind the pair of ice-grey eyes that turned in my direction.

‘Delighted to meet you, Valerius Corvinus,’ he said. ‘Even under these sad circumstances. I knew your father well. A good man.’

‘No introduction in my case, Torquata.’ Arruntius had stepped forward. ‘Corvinus here did me – and Rome – an inestimable favour two years back.’ He held out his hand. I hesitated, then took it. Broad-striper to the bone though he was, and not my type at all, I’d always respected Lucius Arruntius. He might be one of that shifty bunch of hypocritical self-servers in the Senate House down the road, but he was a lion among jackals and he stuck by his principles, politically correct or not. ‘Also, Corvinus, I should admit here and now that I’m the reason for dragging you away from your family at such an ungodly hour.’

Well, that was one question answered, anyway. ‘Is that so?’ I said.

‘Unfortunately, yes.’ He hesitated. ‘I did it because you possess a flair for this sort of business which I felt we should avail ourselves of. Also a commendable degree of tact.’ Hah! Perilla would love that! ‘The latter is important because we would prefer any investigation to be conducted privately rather than involve the usual authorities.’

‘Uh-huh.’ In other words, whatever was going on here stank like a cat’s-meat factory in high summer and he was just about to land me with the whole boiling. Thank you, Lucius bloody Arruntius and the gods bless and keep you. However, it wouldn’t do to come out with any sarky comments at this juncture. I kept my lips buttoned.

‘Myself, I have a double interest in the matter.’ The smile was gone now and Arruntius looked grave. Clearly we’d come to – or were coming to – the nitty-gritty. ‘First of all the dead woman is the daughter of Cornelius Lentulus, a cousin of mine currently abroad; second, Aemilia here is my wife’s niece.

Right; in other words, the old blue-blood network in operation. Well, at least I had a name now if nothing else: the dead Vestal must be Cornelia, one of the Cornelii if her father’s surname was anything to go by. And the mention of Aemilia had got me another eyelid-bat. I had the impression that physically exhausted or not, stressed out or not, the lady enjoyed making up to any presentable male within range. Although given her husband’s rumoured predilections maybe that wasn’t so surprising.

Not that it left me any further forward understanding the situation here. I was beginning to think this crowd was giving me the run-around on purpose; like no one wanted to be the first to put the thing into words. ‘Uh, that’s all very interesting, pal,’ I said. ‘But maybe you could just tell me what -’

Arruntius laid a hand on my arm. ‘All in good time,’ he said. ‘I am asking you formally, Valerius Corvinus: will you help us?’

I’ve never been happy with the cold, clinical way that the Roman upper classes go about things. Even an invitation to dinner can end up sounding like a treaty of alliance complete with oaths before the Fetial priests. Still, it was how the guy was made. ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘No problem. If I can. Now I’d really like to know -’

‘Excellent. You’ll be liaising with Camillus, naturally, but he has an appointment shortly so with his permission I’ll deputise.’ He glanced at Camillus, who frowned and nodded. ‘Very well. The body, I think. Torquata? If you’d care to do the honours?’

We went to see the Vestal. Or what was left of her, anyway.

Torquata led us down a long marble-floored corridor with doors along its right-hand side. At the far end I could see a window with a grille set high in the wall, but there were still lamps burning in the embrasures, and most of the light came from them. Also in the embrasures – bagged, so they must’ve been male – were a line of what from their shapes had to be portrait busts. Oh, yeah: Galba’s ancestor kick. I’d just bet that what we were passing was a roll of honour. It was a big place, though. These old patrician families didn’t skimp themselves.

‘She’s down here, Caecinus.’ Torquata turned sharp left down a side passage and into a small hallway with a staircase in the middle. ‘In one of the spare bedrooms.’

She pushed open the third door along. The room was bare, apart from a bed in the centre and a clothes chest against one wall with a single oil lamp perched on top of it. On the bed lay a small sheeted figure. Torquata crossed the room and picked up the lamp.

‘Watch your feet,’ she said.