David Wishart - No Cause for Concern

The cookshop was in the same street as the Temple of Flora. There were two or three candidates on offer – tenement dwellers tend to live out of cookshops, particularly when the weather gets too chancey for pavement barbecues, and the Aventine is prime tenement country – but I asked a friendly prostitute coming down the temple steps, and she pointed me to the right one. Sure enough, when I went in there was a middle-aged woman with her back to me chopping vegetables at the table beside the stove and feeding them into the stewpot. Another, much younger woman was decanting pickles into a smaller container on the counter. She looked up.

‘We’re not properly open yet, but I can do you some cold sliced sausage and salad,’ she said.

‘No, that’s okay.’ I glanced over at the woman with her back to me. ‘I was looking for a lady called Tullia. Sextus Luscius’s wife?’

The older woman turned round. I could see the resemblance between the two of them at once: obviously mother and daughter.

‘That’s me,’ she said.

‘Valerius Corvinus. I’m here from your sister-in-law Occusia. She’s trying to trace her son Titus.’

‘Yes?’

Not much interest there; mild hostility, if anything. I remembered that Sempronia had said the two women didn’t get on. ‘He disappeared two or three days back. She thinks he might’ve gone to join your husband.’

‘Really?’

‘Mother!’ The girl – she couldn’t’ve been older than sixteen – set down the pickle jar.

The woman ignored her. ‘We’ve nothing to do with Occusia any more,’ she said. ‘Not since she took up with that crook of a new husband of hers. Or with her fancy-dressed friends. You’ve had a wasted journey.’

She turned back to her chopping-board and reached for a carrot.

‘Look, all I need to know is if he’s been in touch with you,’ I said. ‘Failing that, where your husband’s likely to be at the moment so I can check if he’s gone there. It’s no big deal.’

Tullia picked up the knife, then set it down. She didn’t turn round.

‘You look,’ she said. ‘I’ve nothing against Titus. He’s a nice enough lad, it’s not his fault he’s saddled with that man as a stepfather, and by all accounts he isn’t playing the same game as his mother. If he’s run off to join Sextus then I don’t blame him and good luck to him, he should’ve done it earlier. Now that’s all I’m going to say.’

Bugger. Well, I’d tried. We’d just have to do it another way.

‘Thanks for your help,’ I said.

No answer: she’d gone back to chopping carrots.

I left.

I’d only got a few yards down the street when the girl caught me up.

‘Valerius Corvinus?’

I stopped. ‘Yeah?’

‘I’m sorry about that.’ She glanced back at the cookshop door. ‘Mother can be…well, she can be a bit sharp at times. Particularly where Aunt Occusia’s concerned.’

‘Yeah, well. It’s understandable, I suppose.’

‘Titus hasn’t been in touch. At least, not as far as I know. But if he’s gone to join Father then he wouldn’t need to tell us where he’s likely to be. The troupe was Uncle Marcus’s before he died and Dad took it over, and they’ve always followed the same route every season. Titus’d know that, he used to go with them until Sempronius Eutacticus put a stop to it. If I were you I’d try Sutrium. If they’re not there yet they soon will be.’

Up the Cassian Road, about forty miles from Rome. Two days there, two back. Well, it could’ve been worse.

‘Thanks,’ I said.

‘I hope you find him. If you do tell him Luscilla sends her love.’ She was blushing.

‘Yeah, I’ll do that.’

But she was already gone, running back to the cookshop. Evidently a popular guy, young Titus, at least in some quarters.

So. I wasn’t looking forward to four days in the saddle, not to mention the overnight accommodation in between: we didn’t have any friends or acquaintances in that direction that I could scrounge a bed for the night from, which is the usual way of doing things if you very sensibly want to avoid roadside inns. Still, if it’d get Eutacticus off my back then I’d make the sacrifice gladly. Much too late to start today, though.

I went home.

Lysias the coachman had the mare saddled up and loaded down before dawn the next morning. I’d explained to our touchy chef Meton that I wouldn’t be around to appreciate his dinners for the next four days at least, and he’d grudgingly provided me with a selection of goodies in case the substitute meals proved totally unfit for human consumption; which for Meton covers most of what’s on offer at tables throughout the empire. Bathyllus supplied a travelling-flask of Setinian, and we were all fixed.

Getting across Rome on horseback is a bugger at any time, but just before dawn is your best bet, because most of the supply carts have trundled their way in and out and the streets are as empty as they’re ever likely to get. Once I was clear of the city and onto the open road I settled the mare into a steady trot that wouldn’t knacker either of us: I’m no horseman by choice, but the road was good and I could make it as far as the half-way point at Bacanae in plenty of time to suss out the possibilities for overnight accommodation. The weather was good, too, a cool autumn day perfect for riding, and the traffic when I branched off from the Flaminian Road onto the Cassian was light, mostly locals on foot or mule-back with the occasional farm cart or coach to provide variety.

I reached Bacanae half way through the afternoon. There was an inn just inside the town gates, so I left the mare tethered by the water trough outside and went in to size the place up. It looked promising: clean limewashed frontage, two storeys high, with stables to one side and a vine-trellised courtyard with wooden tables and stools on the other. The entrance was through the courtyard, and there were a couple of locals on one of the benches soaking up the afternoon sunshine. I gave them a nod in passing and got a suspicious stare and a couple of grunts in return. Yeah, well, we were in the country now.

The inside looked promising too: lath and whitewashed plaster, a long communal table with benches running both sides like you’d see in any country farmhouse, beams with smoked hams and drying herbs hanging from them and a bar counter one end with an open door to the kitchen beyond from which a smell of stew was drifting. I looked up at the board with the wines written on it. Not a bad selection, with Graviscan and Statonian topping the list.

A guy carrying a pile of plates came through from the kitchen.

‘Afternoon, sir,’ he said. ‘What can I get you?’

‘Half a jug of the Graviscan would do for a start, pal,’ I said. ‘You serving food at present?’

‘There’s a game stew in the pot. Or the wife can make you an omelette if you like.’

‘Stew would be great.’

He put his head round the open kitchen door and yelled, ‘Secunda! One stew!’, then turned back to me and set the plates down. ‘You from Rome?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Nice place, they say.’ He took a jug down from its peg and filled it from one of the flasks behind the counter. ‘Need a room?’

‘If you’ve got one free. A whole one, no sharing.’

‘We can manage that.’ He reached for a cup and filled it. ‘Have your wine and food and my wife’ll show you. Just for the one night, was it?’

‘Yeah. At least, I think so.’ I took a sip of the wine. Not bad; not bad at all. If the stew was as good and the room had a bug-free bed then here would do me nicely. ‘I’m on my way to Sutrium.’

‘Business or pleasure?’

‘Business. I’m looking for a troupe of actors.’