David Wishart - Foreign Bodies

‘Look, dear.’ Perilla reached up to the sliding panel above and between the two bunks. ‘We even have a window.’

She slid it aside. Sure enough, you could see the line of the quay through the space it left. Very handy, although a bit too small and far above the ground to throw up through when the time came. Which, personally and from grim experience, I’d say was the prime purpose of a window on board ship. Me, I was more interested in what was on the table: a silver wine decanter with matching cups and some cold nibbles and fruit. Yet further proof that your ordinary bog-standard merchantman this definitely wasn’t.

I lay down on one of the couches, poured a cupful and sipped. Not imperial Caecuban, sure, but a very passable Falernian. Claudius was doing us proud.

Bathyllus and Perilla’s Phryne had just finished stowing the gear that we’d need for the trip and left to make their own bunk-down arrangements when there was a tap on the door and the captain put his head round it.

‘That’s Domitius Crinas come aboard now, sir,’ he said. ‘He says he’d like to introduce himself, if you and the lady are willing.’

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘In here’s fine. Wheel him in.’

And a moment or two later, he did. Lucius Domitius Crinas was mid-thirties, max, and he could have modelled for a statue of Apollo. Done it better than the original, what’s more. I saw Perilla’s eyes widen.

‘Valerius Corvinus,’ he said. ‘Lady Rufia Perilla. I’m delighted to meet you.’

‘Ah … likewise.’ I held out a hand and we shook. It was like having your fingers caught in a vice. ‘You want some wine?’

‘Thank you, no. I don’t, as a rule, or just the occasional cup, very well watered and taken with a meal.’

Oh, gods! This did not sound promising. ‘You mind if I do?’ I said, reaching for the decanter.

‘Personally, no, not at all. But then it’s not my liver.’

Delivered with the most disarming of smiles. Yeah, I could just come to love this guy, I could see that already.

‘Rhetorical question, pal,’ I said, filling the cup.

‘Indeed, and I apologize. However, if you did want a professional opinion based on my first impressions of you as a physical type then I’d advise you for your own good to go just a little easier on the sauce.’

Perilla gave a muffled grunt. I set the decanter down.

‘ What? ’ I said.

‘Oh, dear. Now I’ve really offended you. I spoke with the best of intentions, believe me. Forget that I did so.’

Yeah, well, if he was running for Best Travelling Companion of the Year he’d blown his chances all over the shop right from the outset. ‘And what might those impressions be, exactly?’ I said. ‘Just out of interest, you understand.’

‘You really want to know?’

‘I really want to know. Humour me. No pun intended.’

‘Then from your colour and general condition I’d diagnose an excess of yellow bile produced by a derangement of the liver, which excessive consumption of wine can only aggravate. Your behaviour, from what I’ve seen of it so far, confirms this. You find yourself prone to bouts of anger. You tend to be peevish and irritable with very little provocation. You-’

‘Now listen, friend!’

‘You are, in fact, a classic bilious subject. You have problems with excess wind, don’t you?’

‘The only excess wind around here is-’

Which was when the captain put his head round the door again.

‘We’re about to cast off, lady and gentlemen,’ he said. ‘If you’d like to come on deck.’

‘I think that’s an excellent idea,’ Perilla said brightly. ‘Don’t you, Marcus?’

‘Uh … yeah. Yeah, all right.’ I glared at our co-passenger, who gave me a sunny smile back. ‘We may as well.’

Evidently this trip was going to be fun, fun, fun. If some god had made me the offer, I’d even have been willing to swap the bastard for Meton.

They untied the yacht and we left in style. At a fair rate of knots, too. Even when she’s well up to speed, with the wind at her back, your average merchantman will roll like a pig in muck; the Leucothea – that was the yacht’s name – most emphatically didn’t; forget the pig, think greyhound, and one after a hare, at that. Like the captain had said, it was a perfect day for sailing: a brisk breeze from behind us, with the result that we creamed along at a rate that would’ve left even your well-above-average merchantman standing. It was like being perched on top of a racehorse, with the difference that you didn’t have to hold on for dear life to the bloody thing’s mane. Me, I’m no sailor, not even the fair-weather sort; the first pitch, and I’m heaving my guts out. With the Leucothea , I didn’t feel so much as a twinge. Magic. Barring the downside of having to share the boat with our master of tact Domitius sodding Crinas I could even get to like this.

A few hours out, we picked up the dolphins.

If you’re looking for just one thing that makes travelling by sea a pleasure – and otherwise your options are limited, to say the least – you can’t do better than dolphins. Those things are brilliant; it’s the grins that get me, like the whole world’s a joke and they’re the ones who are playing it. This time, there were at least a dozen of the buggers, half each side of the boat. They were keeping pace with us, slipping through the water like they’d been greased. I watched, fascinated.

Perilla came and stood beside me.

‘You know, dear,’ she said when after we’d been watching them in silence for a good five minutes, ‘so far, for a change, as cases go, this one’s turning out to be quite pleasant.’

‘Don’t get too used to it, lady. It hasn’t properly started yet.’

‘Pessimist.’

She was right, though, even so: again leaving Crinas aside, I’d had worse starts to a case than a cruise on a luxury yacht with a set of dolphins for company.

… at which the lad himself joined us at the rail.

‘Marvellous creatures, aren’t they?’ he said.

‘They’re OK.’ I gasped as one of them leaped clear of the water scant yards from us, shook itself in a shower of rainbow droplets, and plunged back beneath the surface slick as a knife. ‘Beautiful!’

Crinas nodded. ‘Did you know, Corvinus, that dolphins are the only animals, land or sea, that feed on their backs?’

‘Actually, that’s not true,’ I said.

He frowned. ‘Really?’

‘You haven’t been to many senatorial dinner parties, have you?’

Perilla choked. Not that it fazed Smarty-pants for a moment, mind.

‘They’re also,’ he said, ‘the most helpful of wild creatures where humans are concerned.’ He turned to Perilla and flashed her a twenty-candelabra smile. ‘You’ve heard, perhaps, Lady Rufia, how the fishermen of Latera go about catching mullet?’

‘No. No, I haven’t.’ Gods! Was that the faintest smidgeon of a blush? And the lady had actually patted her hair! ‘Where is Latera?’

‘Some hundred miles west of Massilia, on the other side of the bay. Well out of our way to Lugdunum, of course, which is a pity since it would have been interesting to see the process in action, or failing that to talk to the locals concerned.’

‘Yeah, well, you could always make the detour yourself,’ I said. ‘We’d be sorry to lose you, of course, but-’

‘ Marcus! ’ Perilla snapped.

‘Oh, it’s quite the wrong season.’ I was favoured with the white-toothed smile in all its glory. ‘Besides, like you, I’m not a free agent. I have a job to do.’

‘Going the round of the local mud-holes testing the water. Yeah, I know.’

‘Quite,’ he said equably. ‘Although I wouldn’t exactly call the hot springs of Northern Gaul “mud-holes”. Most have been developed as sacred sites by the locals for centuries, and a systematic assessment and cataloguing of their various healing powers will be of tremendous use where keeping our border forces fit and healthy goes. Not only the men, either; there is, to my certain knowledge, a spring near Moguntiacum itself where the waters are of sovereign use in the treatment of sprains and muscular problems in horses.’