David Wishart - Last Rites

She took the roll like it was made of cobwebs and looked at the title. ‘The Satires ! Corvinus, this must’ve cost-’

‘It’s a bargain-basement copy. Fourth-hand and two of the roller horns are missing. Besides, one of the careful owners spilled ink all over the last page so you’ll never know whodunnit. So no big deal, lady.’

She’d gone very quiet. ‘Thanks,’ she said.

‘What for? If this Scorpus of yours is the guy we want you deserve the old hack’s complete works in the gold leaf edition.’

‘I told you. Finding him wasn’t a favour. We all owed it to Thalia. And I don’t get many presents, certainly not books.’ Her fingers brushed the paper. ‘I’m grateful.’

‘Yeah. Well.’ I refilled my cup: if we weren’t going straight out I might as well have another one while I waited. ‘Who was your informant, by the way?’

She set the scroll down. ‘One of the boys. He played up at the Galba place eighteen months back when Scorpus was laid up with a poisoned hand and the guy gave him a few tips. Not musical ones.’

‘Uh-huh. He meet the lady of the house, at all? Galba’s wife Aemilia?’

‘No. It was an all-male dinner.’ Aegle hesitated. ‘You think she was the one who arranged it, don’t you? The murder, I mean.’

‘Maybe.’ Jupiter, the lady was quick!

‘She and Scorpus…?’ She made a circle with her thumb and index finger, then slipped the other middle finger through.

I grunted. ‘Uh, yeah,’ I said. ‘Yeah. That’s how it looks, anyway.’

‘Hey!’ She laughed. ‘Don’t look so shocked, Corvinus! It isn’t as rare as you think. If you men can screw any good-looking slave that takes your fancy why shouldn’t the women? Especially if they’re going short otherwise. Happens all the time, only they keep quiet about it. And the boys aren’t going to talk, are they?’

My mouth must’ve been hanging open, because I found myself closing it. Gods! This was seditious stuff! She hadn’t batted an eyelid, either. ‘Uh, no,’ I said. ‘No, I don’t suppose they are.’

‘So.’ She stretched out on the couch. I noticed she’d painted her toenails. ‘Scorpus had an in with the mistress as well as the master. To coin a phrase.’ Ouch. ‘But why should she want a Vestal dead?’

I’d been asking myself the same question, and I didn’t have an answer. ‘Search me. Still, it fits. Celer tells me Aemilia would have a list of the girls at the rite.’

‘Yeah. Only the names, though, not the addresses. And if her tame fluteboy was Scorpus then how did he get in touch with Thalia?’

That brought me up short. Hell. I hadn’t thought of that. The lady was right: Scorpus might have the technical qualifications, but he wasn’t on the circuit, which meant he wouldn’t automatically have the contacts. We still had that hurdle to get over. ‘Fair point. You have any ideas yourself?’

She considered. ‘If I were you I’d have another word with Celer. That bugger would sell his grandmother for the asking, and he probably has, but he’s no hero.’

‘Right. Good suggestion.’ There was a knock on the door: Bathyllus with the tray. Fast work, but then he had a vested interest. ‘Fine, little guy. Just put it down.’

He did; carefully and with eyes averted. Evidently we had a five-star, gold-plated huff situation here. Jupiter! Minions!

‘Will there be anything else, sir?’ he said.

‘No, that about covers it.’ He sniffed and straightened. ‘Oh, one thing more. We’ll need the litter. Tell the lardballs ten minutes.’ I looked at Aegle. ‘That be okay?’

‘Make it fifteen, Bathyllus.’ She was already tucking in. Insouciant, I think, is the word. I really liked Aegle. There weren’t many people who could out-snub Bathyllus.

He exited, out-snubbed and fizzing.

Starved was right; the tray looked pretty empty by the time the lady was through with it. That last lunch I’d seen her picking at in the Suburan cookshop must’ve been a one-off, or maybe she was just making full use of the opportunity. We left the dishes for the little sourpuss to clear away and set off for the Remuria.

The Remuria got its name because it was the part of the Aventine where Romulus’s brother was standing when he spied his vultures. The place has changed in the last eight hundred years, and not for the better: if the old guy came back now he wouldn’t see the sky for tenements, he’d find the vultures walking around in tunics, and there’d be a hell of a lot more than six of them. In fact, from the looks of the lean, mean, corn-dole-fed faces we passed I wondered if maybe we should’ve brought a back-up team. Certainly if things turned rough the litter saves would be no help. After the climb up from Circus Valley the lardballs were so knackered they couldn’t’ve handled a brace of determined three-year-olds.

We got lost a few times, but finally an old guy who could’ve been Nestor’s grandfather if the Pylos royal family had gone in for nicking the tiles off temple roofs pointed us down a rubbish-strewn alleyway between two anonymous blocks of flats. Sure enough, it ended in a walled yard with a heavy gate. There was nothing to show who owned the place – I doubted if one in ten of the locals could’ve read a sign anyway – but the yard was heaped with furniture under a makeshift roofing of sailcloth. Most of it seemed to be basic stuff: iron bedsteads, stools, basin brackets. Cheap quality, nothing too big or too fancy, or even too intact. Yeah, that made sense: in the Remuria most of the punters would be strapped for space and cash, and who worried about a collapsing bed when the real problem was a collapsing bedroom?

Aegle had been right about it being a going concern, though: I counted four men, three of them loading a wagon while the other scratched his balls to one side. Obviously the man in charge. I got out of the litter and went up to him.

‘This place belong to a guy called Scorpus, pal?’ I asked.

‘Yeah.’ He was leering at Aegle, who’d come out behind me. She was wearing her cloak, but it only covered her to the knees.

‘You know where I can find him?’

‘He’s out buying.’ He turned his head away and spat into the mud to one side. ‘Property by the Naevian Gate.’

Down the hill a bit, to the south-west. ‘Uh-huh,’ I said. ‘You care to be more explicit?’

He considered. ‘Family Mucius Trupho,’ he said at last. ‘Only the guy’s dead. Sale of effects. Third tenement before the gate, first floor left.’

‘Thanks.’ I turned back for the litter.

‘Hey, sister!’ the guy yelled. ‘You a flutegirl? Want to give us a tune on your pipe before you go?’

‘Screw you,’ Aegle snapped over her shoulder as we climbed in.

‘Sure.’ He chuckled. ‘Any time.’

We leaned back against the cushions and the lardballs took the strain. Aegle’s birthmark was flushing scarlet and her lips were set.

‘I’m sorry about that,’ I said.

‘No problem, Corvinus.’ She grinned suddenly. ‘I could eat that bastard for breakfast and spit out the pips. It just gets a bit wearisome sometimes, you know?’

Yeah; right. I gave the guys their directions and then ducked my head back in. We headed down for the Naevian.

Even without the slimeball’s exact directions we wouldn’t’ve had any difficulty finding the right address. The furnishings for sale – such as there were of them – had been brought down the tenement steps and were laid out in the street for potential purchasers to finger over. Most of the neighbourhood had turned out, too, whether they were buying or not: when there’re no chariot races or games scheduled, in the Remuria you make your own entertainment. I noticed, though, that there were three hard-looking guys standing around on the fringes and keeping their eyes peeled. From the facial similarity, they had to be family, probably Trupho’s sons: even something as big as a bedstead can grow legs and walk on the Aventine if you leave it unattended for more than five minutes, and they were obviously keeping tabs on their property until the cash had changed hands. When the lads put us down I climbed out, Aegle behind me, and walked up to the nearest.