David Wishart - Old Bones

'So, Corvinus, you must be settling in at Vetuliscum quite nicely now.' Vipena poured me some honey wine. 'Becoming – if you'll excuse yet another joke --somewhat of an "old hand".' Another sniff, longer this time, followed by a snuffle which I decided must be the augurial equivalent of a belly laugh.

Joke? Well, maybe I was missing something. 'Yeah,' I said. 'It must be all of four days. And two murders kind of let you get a feel for a place.'

'Indeed. Indeed.' Vipena sipped his wine. I didn't: I reckoned I'd been poisoned enough by that stuff already these past two days. How any self- respecting winemaker can drink that bilge, let alone serve it to guests, just beats me. 'A sadly misguided young man, Attus Navius. In more ways than one. Tut. A tragedy, an utter tragedy.' He shook his head slowly. 'I hear they've arrested Larth Papatius.'

'Yeah. This morning.'

'The gods be good to him, then. It would have been better if he had controlled his wife instead of killing her lover, but there' – he sighed – 'we are all in the hands of fate.'

'Yeah.' I paused. 'Uh…you said "in more ways than one".'

The yellow poached-egg eyes came up. 'I beg your pardon?'

'You said that Navius was misguided "in more ways than one". I know the one, at least I think I do. But what was the other way?'

He stared at me for a long time, his mouth opening and shutting. Then he blinked and turned away.

'It was only a figure of speech,' he said finally.

Sure; and I was Porsenna's grandmother. Still, I let it pass for the moment…

Which was lucky, because at that point Tanaquil leaned forward and said something to the guy in Etruscan: I remembered that Mamilius had said they spoke it at home. I only caught two words: lupuce and tular . The first you can't be around Priscus for long without knowing, the second Jupiter knew where I'd picked up from but I knew that too.

'What's that about boundaries?' I said. 'And who's dead?'

Vipena's jaw dropped and he went pasty white.

'You speak Etruscan?' he said.

I shook my head. 'Uh-uh. Two or three words, that's all. My stepfather's the one for dead languages. He's -'

I stopped: Vipena was holding up a hand like Jupiter himself preparing to smite the ungodly with a thunderbolt.

'Etruscan is not a dead language, Valerius Corvinus!' he snapped. 'Not yet! But if it is moribund then it is the fault of you Romans.' Shit, that was a change-around! One minute the guy had all the drive and force of a wilted lettuce, now you could've shoved a knife between his teeth, given him a sign saying 'no prisoners' and used him as a model for Hannibal before Cannae. 'And as for your stepfather desecrating our ancestors' tombs that is sheer unadulterated blasphemy!'

Uh-oh; there went the spittle and the manic gleam. We had serious problems here. Time for bridge-building. 'Hey, hold on, pal!' I said mildly. 'Priscus doesn't break in. He just borrows the keys and lurks. And he doesn't touch anything, either. The owners are welcome to frisk him when he comes out.'

I might as well have saved my breath. Vipena's eyes were blazing. It was like watching a praying mantis suddenly metamorphose into a very tetchy basilisk.

'Our history is not a sideshow,’ he said. ‘And Helvius Priscus may not steal himself, but he encourages others to do so.'

Yeah, well, the guy had a point: the more shady antique shops in Rome were full of bits and pieces that had probably seen the inside of a tomb somewhere if you went back far enough. And a lot of the tombs Priscus visited had already been cleaned out over the past hundred years by entrepreneurs working nights and weren't worth the trouble bricking up again. The bastards may not have gone to the length of lifting the paintings off the walls, but it was only a matter of time before someone developed the technique.

Ramutha had her hand on Vipena's arm. He was literally shaking with rage. 'I think you should go, Corvinus,' she said quietly.

That made two of us. If I stuck around any longer a curse was the least I could expect to be hit with. I stood up. 'Fine,' I said. 'Thanks for the -'

'No.' Vipena was taking deep breaths. 'No. Wait. My apologies.' Wheeze. 'I get…rather upset over the – ah – cavalier way your ancestors treated mine.' Wheeze. 'Of course it's not your fault, either individually or collectively.' Wheeze. 'I'm speaking cosmically, of course.'

'Cosmically.' Jupiter on wheels! Still, I sat down again. 'Is that right, now?'

The guy picked up his wine cup and took a long swig. Under it I could see his adam's-apple working as the honey wine slipped past his tonsils. I winced. Finally he set the cup down empty and wiped his lips. Foul stuff or not, it seemed to have done the trick and the manic glare was gone. Now he just looked like a mad dishcloth.

'Perhaps if I explain,' he said.

'Go ahead, pal.' Well, anything was better than being on the receiving end of another Wrath of God speech. And if it calmed him down to speak cosmically, then that was fine with me.

'The limits to the Etruscan race's existence were set long ago. We were allotted ten cycles of time. The ninth ended at the death of your Julius Caesar, and the tenth cannot have long to run; perhaps I may see it end myself. When that happens everything will be gone: not simply independence but history, language, way of life. Perhaps even the Etruscan name itself. Everything. Gone and irrecoverable. Imagine, if you can, your Rome in the same position, Corvinus. How would you feel? How would you view the culture responsible for its death, and the representatives of that culture?' I didn't say anything. Vipena sighed. 'Well, let it pass. As to your question, or questions, rather. I was concealing no great secret. The spring near the boundary I share – shared – with Navius dried up recently. I hoped that I could persuade him to rent me at least partial water rights to the perennial stream that flows through his own land some twenty yards from my own. He refused, and I count that decision "misguided" in the sense that we were neighbours and the advantage to me would far outweigh the loss to him. Tanaquil was simply advising me to tell you that.'

'Okay,' I said. 'And lupuce – "he's dead"?'

'Latin and Etruscan share an axiom, Corvinus: "Speak of the dead nothing but good". It's a fine rule, and one I try to put into practice. I was therefore reluctant to speak ill of Navius. Tanaquil disagreed; it was her opinion that, Navius being dead, information concerning a quarrel which shows him up in a poor light cannot possibly harm him.' He cleared his throat. 'And now if you'll excuse me I really must go and talk with Baro.' He stood up. 'I've enjoyed our meeting. You and your charming wife will be most welcome should you choose to call at any time.'

I said my goodbyes and left.

On the way home I thought about that last little gem. Sure, it was plausible, if you twisted it a little, looked at it sideways and allowed for the wind, but that was the point; otherwise it stank. My gut feeling was that my pal the augur had been lying through a hole in his fillet. Language is one thing, tone of voice is another; I'd got the distinct impression that whatever Tanaquil had said she'd been warning him, not advising him. And whatever the ins and outs of it, the admission of a quarrel was yet another indication that everything wasn't all sweetness and light in Vetuliscum where Navius and his neighbours were concerned. Whatever his mother might tell me, the guy wasn't popular. And somehow, some why , his unpopularity had killed him.

Perilla had arrived back just before I did, so while she got changed out of her formal mantle and purified herself from the funeral I got Bathyllus to lay us out a cold lunch and a jug of wine on the terrace.