David Wishart - Old Bones

There wasn't any point in denying it. Vetuliscum was a small place, and even if we had only been here for a couple of days I'd've bet the locals knew already what we put on our porridge in the morning.

'Yeah,' I said. 'That's right.'

He grunted. 'And naturally you're out to prove he didn't do it. True?'

'You ever meet Priscus, Mamilius?'

The guy obviously hadn't expected a question. He paused with the cup half way to his mouth. 'No. Can't say I have.'

'Take my word for it, then. The cack-handed old bugger couldn't stab anyone if he tried between now and Winter Festival.'

Mamilius's eyes opened wide. Then, slowly, he began to laugh. It was like hearing a superannuated wolf choke on a duck.

'Aye,' he said finally. 'Well, maybe that's as good a defence as any. You're right, killing a man takes practice. Even so you'll have an uphill struggle proving it.'

'You think so?'

'I know so.' He took a swallow of wine then set the cup down. 'Put it like this. Whoever killed Navius wasn't just passing through. Your stepfather doesn't belong here. If he did it, then fine, but if he didn't then it was one of the locals. If you'd lived here all your life which solution would you prefer? Even if it was the wrong one?'

I frowned. Shit, that was something I hadn't thought of, but the guy was right, straight down the line. Forget objectivity and the pure desire for justice; as far as the Vetuliscans were concerned if they could stick Priscus with the rap, guilty or not, then everyone'd be happy. Everyone but Priscus, sure, but then he didn't matter because like Mamilius said he was an outsider, and a Roman aristo at that. Corvinus with his questions was going to be as popular locally as a flea in a barbershop.

Mamilius was watching me. 'Me,' he said, 'I was born in Tusculum.'

'Is that so?' I sat back.

'That's so. Like I said, I got the farm as my discharge settlement forty-three years back when most of these bastards weren't even a gleam in their fathers' eyes, and I'm still a stranger. You believe that?'

Yeah, I'd believe it. Farming communities are no different from the Roman aristocracy: you're either family or you ain't, and if you ain't then all your money and all your goodwill and community spirit won't buy you in, ever. There was an edge of bitterness about Mamilius that I could understand.

'So.' He topped the wine cups up again. The level in the jug had slipped by half in ten minutes, and he'd had most of it. Jupiter, if I could sink the stuff like that when I hit ninety then I'd call myself a drinker. 'What do you want to know about Navius?'

'Who killed the guy.'

He chuckled. 'Aye. No doubt. Well, that's one thing I can't tell you. Try me with something easier.'

'Okay.' I thought of the woman with the basket. 'Clusinus. He have a daughter?'

An expression I couldn't quite place rearranged the wrinkles on Mamilius's face, so fast it was gone almost before I realised it was there. 'Aye,' he said. 'He's got two children. A girl and a boy. The girl's just turned six.'

Bright-eyes hadn't been any six-year-old, that was for sure. 'His wife, then,' I said. 'She small, slim, dark hair, dark eyes?'

He nodded. 'That's Vesia.'

Shit; this could be tricky. 'Navius was found on Clusinus's land,’I said. ‘I understand that he had, uh, a liking for feminine company. I wondered whether maybe you thought there might be a possibility that he might've conceivably dropped by for a visit. A social visit.'

Mamilius had picked up his cup but he wasn't drinking. He didn't say anything for a long time, just sat looking at me like I'd crawled out from under a rock, and nonagenarian or not his look had me sweating. Finally, he put the cup down.

'No, I don't,' he said. Just that, but the tone told me the subject was closed. Closed, locked and buried.

'Ah, yeah. Yeah, right.' I swallowed. Sure, the question had had to be asked, but the country isn't Rome. Cast aspersions on the local womenfolk and you're liable to lose your teeth, fast; and I reckoned I'd just come within spitting distance of losing mine. 'Fine, pal, fine. That's all I wanted to know.'

His hand bunched round the wine cup, and I had the unpleasant feeling that he'd rather it was my throat. 'Listen, Corvinus,' he said. 'Vesia's a good woman and a good wife, right? She could've left that shiftless bastard years ago for someone better but she didn't. And if she ever did take up with anyone else it wouldn't be effing Attus Navius. Besides -'

He stopped speaking. Suddenly, like his mouth had just welded up. I waited, but there was nothing else. He picked up the wine cup, emptied it at a gulp and poured us some more.

Time for a change of subject. Or at least the same subject from a different angle. 'So what was Navius doing up Clusinus's road in the first place?' I said.

'He wasn't necessarily up Clusinus's road at all. Not as such.'

I frowned. 'You've got me there.'

'When it leaves Clusinus's property the track turns left and follows the foothills. The Navius place is on the slopes to the west, and the track runs past it. Navius could just as well've been coming the other way and heading for the main road.'

Yeah. That was something I hadn't thought of not knowing the topography, but it made sense. If the guy had been going to Caere, say, it would've been six of one and half a dozen of the other which way he went, especially if he were on foot. Maybe the fact that he'd been knifed on Clusinus's land wasn't relevant after all. Still, that was something I could check: if he had come by the main road there was a chance that he'd been seen. By one or both of the Gorgons, maybe. These two had looked the type who wouldn't miss much.

'The pair of ladies in the house along the road,' I said. 'Who would they be, now?'

'The Gruesomes?' Yeah, well, I'd been close, and Mamilius's temper seemed to have improved now we'd got off Vesia. 'Gaius Vipena's sisters. The elder one's Tanaquil, the younger's Ramutha.'

'Good old Etruscan names.'

'Believe it.' He chuckled like a badly-greased hinge. 'Good old Etruscan family. With the accent on "old". Vipena's the local augur, and he's got a family tree that goes back to the time of the Tarquins. So he claims, anyway. They even speak Etruscan at home.'

'Yeah?' Now that was really weird: no one, but no one spoke Etruscan these days barring the Wart's nephew Claudius, and that guy was barking crazy in any language. 'That all there is of them? Just the three?'

'Vipena's never married. And no one with any sense would want to bed either of these vinegary bitches.'

'Uh-huh.' I looked up. The sun was well over to the right hand side of the trellis. It was getting late, and Perilla would be more than curious about what the hell was going on. 'One last thing, friend. For now, at least.' I took the knife I'd got from Nepos out of my belt. 'You recognise this at all?'

Mamilius took it from me and turned it over in his gnarled fingers. 'This what the lad was killed with?'

'Yeah.'

He shrugged and handed it back. 'Could be his own,' he said. 'Navius had one like that, sure, but so does half the district.' He reached into his own belt and pulled one out that was practically a ringer, its blade honed almost concave and sharp as a razor. 'Gaius Tullius the cutler over in Caere makes them by the dozen.'

Ah, well; another bummer. Still, I couldn't really expect that whoever had shoved his knife into the guy would've left it there to be traced back. And if the knife was Navius's own, of course, the murderer had probably have been keen to get rid of it anyway. 'Would anyone know for sure?' I said. 'If it was his, I mean?'

Mamilius hesitated. Again I got that fleeting impression that he was going to say something and decided against it. 'Your best bet would be the lad's mother,' he said. 'But maybe under the circumstances that's not such a hot idea.'