David Wishart - Old Bones

'Deal.' She kissed me solemnly. 'Come on, Corydon. Let's see if we can find you a lettuce.'

They started off in the direction of the kitchen garden. That took them past Perilla, who was still sitting with Caecina in her lap. The mule's head snaked round…

Perilla squealed.

'Corydon!' The Princess was pulling at Caecina's end-roller while the mule's teeth got busy editing the text. 'Bad boy! Drop it! Drop! '

There was a ripping sound, then silence except for the rhythmic chomping of jaws and a sort of muline snigger. Shit. There went a lifetime's work, three hundred years' worth of collated scholarship and the entire recorded achievements of a once-proud nation.

'Oh, Perilla, I'm sorry!' Marilla was still tugging at the bit of Caecina which still projected from the mule's mouth. The mule pulled it away from her with a jerk of his head and carried on eating. 'He didn't know what it was!'

I don't think I've ever been so proud of Perilla. At this point anyone else but the Princess – including me – would've been a small glowing pile of ash on the flagstones and all the wildlife for miles would be headed at speed in the general direction of Parthia. Jupiter alone knew what would've happened to the mule. But not an eyelid did the lady bat.

'Never mind, dear,' she said. 'It can't be helped.'

Marilla led Corydon off, still busy with his textual criticism. I gave her a couple of minutes then sneaked a glance at Perilla. She was staring out over the plain towards Pyrgi and the coast in the distance.

'Marcus, you've heard of Cilnius Maecenas, I suppose?' she said after a while.

I cleared my throat nervously. It was quiet; too quiet, like there'd just been an earthquake and the world hadn't decided yet whether it was still in one piece. 'Uh, yeah. Yeah, sure. Augustus's pal. What about him?'

'He wrote poetry in his spare time. He's also supposed to have introduced the eating of donkey flesh as a delicacy at banquets.'

'Is that right, now?'

'His poetry was considered to be trite, badly constructed, trivial in theme, and totally unoriginal.' Perilla picked up a half-eaten book-roller from the ground and set it carefully on the table beside her. 'Personally I think he's grossly underrated.'

'Yeah?'

'Yes. I thought I might just tell you that.'

'Uh, yeah. Thanks.'

'And no quips about that animal having excellent taste in literature, please. I'm not up to them at present.

'It never even occurred to me.'

'Good.' She brushed the papyrus fragments from her mantle and stood up. 'Now I think I'll just go upstairs for five minutes and have a quiet scream.'

She left.

Ah, well. You win some, you lose some. Grinning, I reached for the wine jug.

Perilla and I went to Nepos's next day via the spinsters'. We took the coach: left to myself I'd've walked, and unlike your standard Roman matron Perilla is a pretty willing and competent hoofer, but I'd bet that the Gruesomes were sticklers for the proprieties, and if we'd turned up on the doorstep sweaty and covered with dust we'd just have got another of these hundred-candelabra stares and the bum's rush. Lysias the coachman had been warned to do things right for once, with no slouching in the box scratching his armpit while the master opened his own door, and he rose to the occasion. We pulled up in front of Ramutha and Tanaquil's terrace like visiting royalty and de-carriaged in style.

The sisters were shelling beans: whatever arcane practices the augur's household indulged in they sure as hell weren't Pythagorean-based. Close up, I could see what Mamilius had meant by vinegary: personally I'd never actually come across such a thing as a life-sized pickled gherkin before, but if I ever did I reckon it would've been tough to spot the difference.

'Yes?' said the psoriatic one with the mole. Friendly as hell. You'd've thought we'd come specially to steal the spoons.

Perilla introduced us while I kept to the background and smiled. Bringing the lady with me had been a stroke of genius: you could almost hear the crackle as the ice melted.

'And so we thought, or rather Marcus thought,' she finished, 'that we would take the liberty of paying a brief visit. It's so important, don't you feel, when one is on holiday, to make the acquaintance of the right type of people.'

They blossomed like December roses. The one with the mole – that was Tanaquil, the elder; Ramutha was the eggbound hen – even patted her iron-hard bun. We were whisked inside and plied with honey wine and cinnamon cake. The cake wasn't bad, but the honey wine set my teeth on edge. Gods, I hate that stuff!

Perilla did most of the talking, which was fine by me. Half an hour in we'd covered, in order, what a terrible place Rome was (parties going on until all hours, even after sunset, sometimes, so they'd heard, would that be right, now?), how Athens wasn't much better (Perilla's contribution, much appreciated), how things had deteriorated since they were girls forty years ago ('But you're much too young, Perilla my dear, to remember that!'), how even in a quiet, decent place like Vetuliscum people nowadays actually had the bad manners to get murdered …

'But then of course,' Tanaquil said with a sniff, 'he brought it on himself.'

'It's his mother I feel sorry for.' Ramutha was cutting another slice of cinnamon cake. 'Such a nice woman. Her side of the family always was most respectable.'

I bit down hard on my tongue. I noticed that Perilla, her job done, had her eyes lowered and was sipping her honey wine.

' Most respectable.' Tanaquil's thin lips were pursed above the rim of her cup. 'I really do not understand why that brazen hussy's husband doesn't take a stick to her.'

'Quite.' Ramutha nodded. 'It's just a mercy there are no children.'

I frowned; something was screwy here. The 'no children' bit didn't square for a start, and Mamilius might've gone slightly over the top but not that much. 'Uh…I'm sorry,' I said, 'but are we talking about Vesia? Titus Clusinus's wife?'

Tanaquil sucked in her breath and shot me a look that made my scrotum crawl.

'We most certainly are not!' she snapped.

'The very idea!' Ramutha sawed viciously at the cake. 'Valerius Corvinus, you surprise me!'

'Right. Right.' I was nodding so hard I thought my head might fall off. 'So…ah…who -?'

'Why, that woman down the road, of course.' Ramutha's voice was pure undiluted venom. 'Larth Papatius's wife.'

I almost dropped my cup. 'You mean Thupeltha?'

'You know her?' Tanaquil was glaring at me like I'd blown my nose in my napkin.

'Ah…yeah, well, not personally, of course, but -'

'By reputation,' Ramutha finished. She dumped the slice of cake on Perilla's plate. 'Indeed. I'm not at all surprised.'

'Hell, she's practically old enough to be the kid's mother!'

Tanaquil smiled grimly. 'You're quite right to be shocked,' she said. 'We all were when it started. Shocked and appalled.'

'It had been going on for a while, then?'

'A year. Perhaps longer,' Ramutha said. 'Certainly before the boy's father passed away. I wouldn't be surprised, myself, if the shame of it didn't hurry the poor man into his grave before his time. Scandalous, quite scandalous.' She leaned across the table, and her voice dropped to barely a whisper. 'And, of course, it wasn't the first time, either.'

'Yeah?'

'A butcher in Caere. Just after they were first married. They say his death was an accident, but you can believe that if you like.'

'Uh…the guy died?'

'Found with his neck broken at the bottom of a ravine.' She sat back and beamed at me. 'The investigation was most cursory.'

'A strong man, Larth Papatius.' Tanaquil chewed on a morsel of cake. 'And not the most evenly-tempered. One must be charitable and feel some sympathy for the boy, naturally, but a husband does have rights, and he acted most properly.'