David Wishart - Foreign Bodies

Brother Quintus it would be, then.

I was beginning to get my bearings now. The quickest way to the Canabae was east along Traders’ Street, where it crossed the Hinge, to the Rhone Gate, then down Rhone Road to the South Bridge. So that was the way I went.

Like its name suggests, Traders’ Street was mostly shops; but where the ones on the two main drags, particularly on Boundary Marker Street, tended to feature luxury goods and be pretty pricey these catered for the everyday needs and wants of what in Rome would be the tunic and plain-mantle clientele. Which meant at that time of day it got as close as Lugdunum evidently did to heaving. Oh, sure, the local version of the bag lady we got back home was a lot more polite and a lot less bloody-minded – you don’t get in the way of an incoming Suburban housewife loaded down with shopping if you’re wise – but what with the comparative narrowness of the street and the fact that the shopkeepers’ wares tended to spill over on to the pavement the going was pretty slow. I made it to the gate at the end eventually and turned right on to Rhone Road. This was pretty busy, too, but it was a different kind of busyness: linking the two ports as it did, it was used mostly by heavy carts, and there were comparatively few pedestrians. Still, the original engineers had laid it out pretty wide, so as long as you listened out for waggons coming from behind it was OK.

Much pleasanter to walk along than its equivalent in Rome would’ve been, what’s more: summer, when the river’s low and there’s more mud in it than water, is no time for a stroll along the Tiber unless you’ve as much sense of smell as a radish or don’t mind having your sinuses cauterized. Oh, sure, what we’d got here was just a side branch that cut off the wooded central island from the bank, and like riverside dwellers everywhere the locals evidently took the opportunity to use it as a largely self-clearing garbage-disposal system, but since compared with Rome the population density wasn’t all that high the smell wasn’t, either: what buildings there were – and they were a mixture of commercial properties, small-scale industrial yards, and downmarket private houses – weren’t exactly packed cheek-by-jowl, and there was plenty of open space for the breeze to blow around.

I crossed the South Bridge into the Canabae and turned down the first road leading off to the right: Diligenta had said that the family’s offices were near the river, opposite the port on the mainland side, so they couldn’t be all that far away. Sure enough, when I stopped off at a brick-maker’s yard to ask I was pointed to a set of warehouses a hundred yards or so further on.

Outside the first one I came to, four or five men were loading amphoras on to a cart. Promising.

‘Excuse me,’ I said, going up to them. ‘This the Cabirus place?’

They paused, and I saw their eyes going to the stripe on my tunic.

‘That’s right, sir,’ one of them said. ‘Looking for the boss, are you?’

‘Yeah. Quintus Cabirus, yes? He around at present?’

‘Sure. Just go straight up.’ He turned back to his work.

There was an external stair leading to the first floor, above the warehouse proper. I went up it and through the door at the top, and found myself in an office with the usual complement of clerks, desks and document-cubbies. A chunky middle-aged guy in a smart tunic was standing by one of the desks talking to the clerk behind it. He looked up as I came in, and his eyes, like those of the workmen below, went to the purple stripe.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Can I help you?’

‘Quintus Cabirus?’ I said.

‘That’s me.’

‘Valerius Corvinus. Sorry to disturb you when you’re busy, but your sister-in-law said I might catch you here. It’s about-’

‘My brother’s death. Word has got around. Yes. And no, you’re not disturbing me.’ He turned to the clerk. ‘That’s fine, Silus, just send these off at once, will you?’ He turned back to me. ‘We’ll go into my private office, if that’s all right.’

‘Sure.’ I followed him past the suddenly attentive clerks to a door at the back of the room. He opened it and stood aside. I went in.

Obviously the place where he took prospective clients: there was a desk, sure, and more document-cubbies against the wall, but there were also a couple of wickerwork chairs – I was getting more used to those things as standard: in Rome, they’re mostly used for portable garden furniture – and a low table with a wine jug and cups on it.

He came in behind me and closed the door. ‘Have a seat, please,’ he said. ‘Some wine?’

Here we went again. Conscience won out, and I steeled myself. ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Half a cup will do fine.’ There was no water jug on the table, but I reckoned I could stretch a point for once and have it as it was without breaking my promise to Perilla. I sat down in the nearest chair – the cushions were newer and in far better nick than Oppianus’s – while he poured the wine into two cups and handed me one.

‘Now.’ He settled himself in the other chair. ‘How can I help you? If you’ve talked to Diligenta then you’ll already have the basic facts. I’m afraid where those are concerned I can’t add anything, because I was elsewhere at the time.’

‘You were away altogether? Your sister-in-law said you travel a lot on business.’

‘No, I was here in Lugdunum. I just wasn’t at the house, that’s all. Naturally not.’

‘Yeah, well, it would’ve been a working day, wouldn’t it?’ I took a sip of the wine. Nice stuff; very nice, and all the better for not being drowned. I held up the cup. ‘Massilian?’

‘Yes, that’s right. It’s the top of our range. Single vineyard, only ten acres. Aminnean vines. The annual yield is very small indeed, as you can imagine, and the price is correspondingly high. But we sell all we produce, and we could easily sell five times the amount.’

‘You own the vineyard?’

‘No. But we have a standing arrangement with the owner to buy the entire vintage, barring what he keeps for his own use.’

‘Diligenta told me that you and your brother looked after two separate halves of the business.’

‘Indeed. Tiberius did the buying and arranged transport as far as Lugdunum. Most of our customers, though, are north of here, in the smaller towns between us and the Rhine. Plus, of course, we have our share of the army contract. That side of things was my concern.’

‘You’re from that part of Gaul yourself, aren’t you?’

‘Yes. From Augusta. The family – or our bit of it, anyway – moved here twenty years ago. Tiberius decided that Lugdunum made a more sensible base.’

‘Yeah, that’s what Diligenta said.’

‘It works – worked – out very well, because it played to both our strengths. I’m the better salesman as such, but Tiberius was the one who could judge what would really sell. Not only that, but pick the wines with mileage.’

‘“Mileage”?’

‘However good a wine is on its own ground, if it can’t travel without deteriorating you won’t get its proper price at the other end. Tiberius was a marvel at singling out the wines with mileage. He’d a first-rate palate, too. Not like me.’ He held up his cup. ‘Oh, I know this is a first-rate wine, but that’s only because he spotted it as such to begin with and told me it was. Me, I can’t tell the difference between a wine that’s just very good and one that’s outstanding, and in our business that’s not enough. The gods know how the family will cope now he’s gone.’

‘What about young Publius? I thought his father was training him up?’

‘Publius?’ He hesitated. ‘He’s my nephew, Corvinus, so I shouldn’t say this, but nice enough boy as he is Publius will never make a wine merchant. You’ve met him?’