David Wishart - Foreign Bodies

‘Very well, thank you.’

‘I assume Marcus has been asking your advice as to how much he should limit his wine consumption?’

I glared at her. The lady didn’t put off time, did she? Even so, raising the subject with the guy almost before we were within shouting distance of breakfast was a whammy well below the belt.

‘Ah … no, he hasn’t.’ Crinas had the decency to look embarrassed. ‘At least, not yet.’

‘I’m sure he was working up to it.’ Viper! ‘So, what’s your opinion? Medically speaking?’

‘Hippocrates recommends no more than three cups of wine a day. That’s Greek cups, of course, kylikes . Let’s say the equivalent of four of ours.’

Shit! Only four cups? A day ?

Bacchus in spangles!

‘That, naturally, is the top limit, and well watered. I myself, as I said, prefer to allow myself only one. A cup of wine a day, taken with food, will certainly do no harm, absolutely the reverse. Hippocrates was no champion of total abstinence, and nor am I.’

‘There, now, dear!’ Perilla turned to me with a dazzling smile. ‘Limiting yourself to four cups of wine a day won’t be too much of a hardship, will it?’

‘Jupiter, lady …!’

‘Besides, I’m sure you’ll feel all the better for it by the time we get to Lugdunum.’ She turned back to Crinas. ‘Have you been there before, Domitius Crinas?’

‘No. Not even to Massilia. As I was just saying to your husband, I’ve never been west of Italy at all.’ He smiled. ‘To tell the truth, barring Alexandria where I grew up, I haven’t been much to the east, either. Have you been to Gaul before yourself?’

‘No. Neither Marcus nor I. We lived in Athens for a while, and we’ve travelled round the east a little, including Alexandria, but we’ve never been to the western provinces. I’m quite looking forward to seeing Massilia and Lugdunum. Massilia, of course, is bound to be worth seeing, but Marcus was saying that the emperor told him Lugdunum has its points, too.’

‘Then if you don’t mind I’ll tag along on your expeditions. Assuming we’re given the time, of course. And assuming that your husband doesn’t object.’ The smile was transferred to me.

‘Oh, Marcus won’t mind, will you, dear? He isn’t one for sightseeing in any case. He prefers to lounge about in the local wineshops.’

I unclenched my teeth. ‘Yeah, well, I’m not going to have the chance of doing that this time round, am I?’ I said. ‘Not on four sodding cups of wine a day.’

‘Marcus!’

‘Besides, once we get to Lugdunum I’ll be working, and Chummie here will be en route to his mud baths.’

‘I did say if we’re given the time, Valerius Corvinus,’ Crinas said reproachfully. ‘It will naturally all depend on the travel arrangements the governor has made for us.’

‘Right. Right.’

Gods!

We got to Massilia on schedule just shy of noon on the third day.

Since it’s in Gaul you forget just how old and respectable, city-wise, the place is. It predates the province that surrounds it by a good four hundred years, and it isn’t a Gallic city at all: Massilia is pure Greek, and has been ever since Phocis founded it over six hundred years back, making it just a tad younger than Rome herself. In fact, the reason we Romans got our greedy little hands on it in the first place was because the Massilians asked the Senate for help against their hairy-in-the-hoof Gallic neighbours, only to find that they’d swapped one lot of pushy barbarians for another. Who needs enemies when you can have friends?

So we are talking civilization here, with all that entails. Which unfortunately, unless I could put the kybosh on it pretty smartly, now not only meant my being dragged round a serious number of Places of Local Interest by Perilla but also having to keep a watchful eye on her squeaky-clean co-sightseer and possible would-be toyboy.

Bugger.

‘We simply must see the temples of Artemis and Apollo, dear,’ she said as the Leucothea entered the long inlet that formed the town’s underbelly and led to the inner harbour, while the three of us watched her progress from the rail. ‘Isn’t that so, Domitius Crinas?’

‘Oh, absolutely.’

‘And then there’s the statue of Pytheas, of course. That’s supposed to have been done from life, by a sculptor who actually knew him.’

‘Really?’ Crinas said. ‘Now that I did not know.’

‘Who’s Pytheas when he’s at home?’ I said.

They both gave me a Look.

‘Oh, Marcus!’ Perilla said. ‘The famous explorer, of course!’

‘Uh-uh. Sorry, no bells.’

‘I distinctly remember telling you about him yesterday. He sailed as far as Thule, where the sun never sets and there are floating cliffs of ice.’ Yeah, well, no doubt she had told me, but selective deafness is a trait that I’ve cultivated pretty assiduously over the years where the lady’s more arcane interests are concerned. ‘Honestly, you really are impossible at times.’

Not half as impossible as sodding midnight suns and floating ice cliffs, that was sure; me, I’d bet the old guy was either lying through his teeth or when he’d made the trip he’d been stewed to the gills first to last. Or maybe somehow he’d got his hands on a stash of that qef the Parthians are so fond of sniffing and was stoned out of his skull. But then sometimes Perilla and rationality part company completely, and there’s no sense in arguing with her.

‘Look,’ I said. ‘We’re not on holiday; we’re on a job here, or on two jobs, rather. Massilia’s no more than a stopover.’ I turned to Crinas. ‘You’d agree, wouldn’t you, pal?’

‘Of course, in principle. But-’

‘Really, dear!’ Perilla frowned. ‘Pushing on to Lugdunum straight away can’t be all that important if this Cabirus man has already been dead for a month. And Domitius Crinas’s hot springs aren’t going to dry up overnight, now, are they? I’m certain that Tiberius Claudius wouldn’t begrudge us a little sightseeing. Particularly since it’s our first visit.’

True enough, all of it. Particularly the bit about Claudius, who was a fellow sightseeing, box-ticking nut if ever I’d met one. Hell’s teeth. Still, unless whoever was in charge here was super-super-efficient, there was bound to be a little hiatus before we headed off into the sticks.

I temporized. ‘We’ll just take things as they come, OK?’ I said. ‘We aren’t even ashore yet.’

Not that there was far to go. We nosed our way past the bar of the inner harbour and docked at an empty stretch of quay. By pre-arrangement, obviously: I could see what had to be a reception party of slaves with a young guy in a sharp purple-striped mantle heading it.

The lads tied us fast to the bollards back and front and set the gang-plank in place. I gave the captain a goodbye-and-thanks wave, and stepped ashore …

Jupiter!

Yeah, well, I’d been expecting it, but after three days on a boat it still felt like we’d landed in the middle of a full-scale earthquake. I grabbed the nearest sailor’s shoulder for support.

The young guy came up, hand outstretched.

‘Valerius Corvinus?’ he said. ‘Delighted to meet you. I’m Curtius Bassus, Governor Catellus’s aide. Welcome to Massilia, sir. You had a pleasant trip?’

‘Yeah. Yeah, it was fine.’ I shook, and glanced back at Perilla, just in time to see Crinas, who’d followed me down and seemed completely at ease, put his hand under her elbow to steady her as her foot touched the quay. Bastard. ‘Very enjoyable, in fact.’

‘That’s excellent.’ He beamed. ‘The governor sends his apologies, or would have done if he’d known you were coming, but he’s away on walkabout at present.’