David Wishart - Foreign Bodies

Uh-huh. Well, I’d heard worse suggestions.

I wasn’t looking forward to the sightseeing, mind.

That was scheduled for right after breakfast. We’d arranged to meet Crinas in the entrance lobby at the beginning of the second hour; I suspected that by that time he’d not only have wolfed down his spelt porridge but done a couple of hundred press-ups, jogged the circuit of the city’s walls, and finished the thing off with a bracing half-mile swim in Massilia Bay. Sickening.

He was already there and waiting for us. Sure enough, he looked bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, glowing with health and just bursting with enthusiasm to get to grips with those temples.

Like I say, sickening.

‘Good morning, Valerius Corvinus. Lady Rufia.’ He smiled. ‘Did you sleep well?’

‘Very well, thank you, Domitius Crinas.’ Perilla dimpled. ‘And you must call me Perilla, please. I insist.’

‘Then I’m simply Crinas.’

Oh, gods! I suppressed the urge to put a finger down my throat and bring up my breakfast all over the guy’s size-twelve sandals. ‘OK, pal,’ I said. ‘We’d best be off, then. What’s the plan?’

Perilla turned to me. ‘Now you’re absolutely sure you want to come, dear? You really don’t have to if you’d rather not.’

‘No, I’m fine. Wouldn’t miss it for worlds.’

‘I thought the Temple of Apollo and Artemis first, naturally,’ Crinas said. ‘It’s on the high ground overlooking the Lacydon.’ That was the long inlet that we’d come in by on the way to the harbour the day before. ‘Then down to the market square to see the Pytheas statue, and if we have time carry on to the theatre, which I’m told is a particularly fine one. If you’re up for the walk, of course, Perilla. It’s a lovely day outside, and not too hot.’

‘That sounds perfect,’ Perilla said.

‘You’re all right with that as well, Corvinus? Not too strenuous for you? It might be quite a climb up to the temple.’

‘I think I can manage it.’ I gritted my teeth. ‘You may have to stop a few times on the way, mind, while I get my breath back and adjust my hernia support.’

‘Marcus …’ Perilla murmured.

‘We’ll take it slowly. No real hurry.’

‘Thanks. Much appreciated.’

We set off.

He hadn’t been kidding about the climb, although Massilia being the city it was we had paved streets most of the way. It wasn’t exactly cool, either, now the sun was properly up; when we finally got to the temple the tunic was sticking to my back, and Perilla, who while she’s a decent enough hoofer when the need arises doesn’t do a lot of walking, was distinctly puffed. Not that the lady would lose face in front of Pheidippides here by admitting it, mind.

‘Impressive,’ she said, looking up at the pediment with its Battle of the Lapiths and Centaurs.

‘Isn’t it just?’ Crinas was doing the same; I noticed that the bastard was as cool and relaxed as he’d been when we’d started out. ‘Primitive, of course, it’s more than six hundred years old, but it does have a certain raw power. I’m not sure who the architect was, but the sculptures are by Dipoenus of Crete. They say he was taught by Daedalus himself, although I can’t believe that, personally. I suspect that the choice of subject matter involved a bit of pawky humour on the part of the Massilians at the expense of their less civilized neighbours. Those centaurs do have a certain Gaulish cast to their faces, don’t they?’

‘Mmm,’ Perilla said.

‘And of course the matching pediment on the western side shows the Cyclops forging Artemis’s bow and arrows. I’d say that strengthened the theory, wouldn’t you?’

‘Now that is extremely interesting. Yes, I would.’

The lady was positively purring. Shit.

‘Yeah, well, it also strengthens the theory that most Greeks are smug supercilious bastards who can’t resist showing themselves how clever they are, doesn’t it?’ I said. ‘Present company excepted, of course.’

Crinas turned to me. ‘You think so, Corvinus?’ he said. ‘Well, you may have a point.’

Not a blink; water off a duck’s back. You can add ‘thick-skinned and impervious to sarcasm’ to that list.

‘Shall we go round and see it now?’ Perilla said. ‘The west pediment, I mean.’

‘Perhaps best to have a look inside first. Pay our respects to the gods.’

‘Very well.’

Like there always is in those places, there was the usual gaggle of assorted purveyors of small domestic animals and birds destined for the ecclesiastical chop, incense-sellers, amulet-hawkers and food-and-drink vendors camped out on the temple steps. Crinas went up to one of the incense guys and bought a few pinches wrapped in a twist of parchment.

‘The cult statues are supposed to be something else,’ he said to Perilla, handing her the package. ‘But I’d be glad to have your expert opinion on that score.’

Simper, simper, pat, pat.

‘Something else other than what, pal?’ I said.

Perilla turned on me. ‘Marcus, will you behave , please!’ she snapped. ‘I told you, you didn’t have to come with us. If all you can do is grizzle and snipe then-’

I held up my hands, palm out. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘OK! But you two carry on. I’ll just stay out here and commune with nature. Go ahead and enjoy. Take as long as you like.’ Yeah, well, if Smarty-pants had attempted seduction on his mind – which he very well might – then Massilia’s most-frequented temple at its busiest time probably wasn’t the ideal place for it. She should be safe enough.

They went up the steps, and I settled down next to a cage of white doves to watch the scenery.

It was certainly something. We were high enough up to see right across the city to the countryside beyond. Which, of course, was the reason why the Massilians had built their patron gods’ temple there in the first place, so it could be seen clearly from all directions. Mind you, if it’d been me I’d’ve factored in a decent-sized wineshop, preferably one with an arboured terrace attached; my tongue was practically scraping the marble, and my throat was as dry as a camel’s scrotum. Not that I even thought about buying a cup of wine from one of the booths, mark you: I’ve got certain standards, and the rot-gut those places sell would take the lining off your stomach. Besides, there was this four-cups-a-day deal. I wasn’t going to waste one of those on rot-gut.

They rolled back some half-hour later, in great good humour. Evidently the cult statues had been Something Else indeed.

‘Ready to push on, Marcus?’ Perilla said.

‘As ever was.’ I stood up.

‘We’ll just walk all the way round the peristyle, have a look at the Artemis pediment on the way, and then go on down to the market square and the Pytheas statue,’ Crinas said.

Which we did. I glazed over while the pair of them discussed the relative sizes of triglyphs and metopes, the possible reasons for the lack of a frieze, and the proportional relationship of side- to front-and-rear column numbers in comparison with that of later Doric and Ionic temples. Believe me, you do not want to know.

We got to the market square at last; busy, but not heaving. The statue was on a large plinth to one side, decorated with dolphins, tritons blowing their conch-shells, and a band of frolicking Nereids. Yeah, well: if Perilla was right, and he’d done his exploring in seas with floating cliffs of ice, then given what little they were wearing it was surprising the whole gang of them weren’t down with frostbite.

‘There he is,’ Crinas said. ‘Pytheas the explorer.’ He didn’t look much to me, and if the sculptor had known his subject personally it wasn’t surprising that his wife, given that he had one, had been glad to get shot of him for a couple of years, or however long the exploring took. ‘You’ve read his book, Concerning Ocean , Perilla?’