David Wishart - Bodies Politic

‘Luna’d be perfect. But they’re not for me.’ I explained, and quoted the price Mother had cleared with the terminally-flattened Archimenides. Paullus’s eyes widened, and his jaw dropped.

‘You’ve got it,’ he said simply. ‘Jupiter, have you got it! I’ll have to go over to Castrimoenium and make a few sketches, naturally. That be okay?’

‘Any time you like,’ I said. ‘We have a deal?’

‘Absolutely.’ We shook. Thrilled was right.

Well, that part of it was done. ‘Actually, speaking of sketches,’ I said, ‘I’ve a job for you myself. Whether it’s possible I don’t know, but tell me what you think.’

‘Sure.’

‘There’s this guy I want to find. I don’t know his name, but I’ve met him and I could describe what he looks like. I thought maybe we could build up a sketch together.’

He looked blank. Then he snapped his fingers. ‘Marcus Corvinus. You’re the purple-striper that got me to draw these men visiting a house in Rome. Years ago.’

‘That’s me,’ I said.

‘Corvinus, what is this?’ Agron was frowning.

‘Just a bit of a problem I’m having at the moment, pal,’ I said. ‘I thought Paullus here might be able to help.’ I looked at the kid. ‘Possible?’

‘We can try. Just let me get my stuff from inside. The light’s better out here.’

And he disappeared into the lean-to.

‘You in trouble?’ Agron said quietly.

‘No. Not really.’

‘Because if you are, and you need some heavy back-up, you know where to come.’

I thought of the guy in the wineshop. Well, it was comforting to know, even if I did have Gaius’s reassurance. ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘I’ll remember.’

Paullus reappeared with a folding table, some sheets of paper and a charcoal stick. He set the table up.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Go ahead.’

‘He was early forties, Asian Greek, maybe Syrian.’

Paullus shook his head. ‘No. You’ll need to be more detailed than that. Start with the shape of his face. Long and narrow? Rounder, more moon-shaped? Square-cut?’

‘Right. Sorry.’ I closed my eyes for a moment and concentrated on my memory of Dion. ‘Long. But jowly, a fair amount of padding over the bones.’

Paullus’s hand with the charcoal stick moved over the paper, leaving a thin outline. ‘Like this?’

‘Broader in the forehead. No, a bit less than that. Rounder in the chin.’ I watched as he changed the line. ‘Yeah, that’s about right. It’ll do, anyway.’

‘Eyes?’

‘Sunk in over full cheekbones. Piggy; I said, he was fat. Heavy eyelids. The left one drooped a bit. Thin eyebrows, well apart.’ The picture followed the words. Gods, the kid was good! His hand almost blurred, sketching the details in lightly as I gave them to him.

‘Hairline?’

‘High up. Receding. The guy was practically bald, and he was wearing a freedman’s cap. Just the occasional strand of hair coming out from underneath.’

‘Nose?’

‘Big. Fleshy. And there was a mole at the side. A big one, with hairs sprouting.’

‘Great! Which side?’

‘The left. Low down, in the crease.’

Bit by bit, trial and error, we built up Dion’s face. Finally, half an hour later, the man himself stared at me out of the page.

‘Brilliant!’ I said. I meant it, too. The kid was a genius.

‘No problem. If you can wait a few minutes I’ll do you a proper clean sketch without the rubbings-out and the faulty lines.’

‘Can you do copies?’

‘Sure. How many do you want?’

I did a quick calculation. ‘Five. No, better make it six.’

‘Give me an hour?’

I glanced at Agron. ‘Vetus’s?’

‘Vetus’s it is,’ he said.

‘Great. Thanks, Paullus.’

The kid smiled. ‘No bother. Thank you. What I get for your two busts’ll keep us for the next six months, easy. And I’ll enjoy doing them, too.’

We headed for the wineshop.

‘And meanwhile, you close-mouthed bastard,’ Agron said as we went, ‘you can tell me what’s going on.’

I paid Paullus three gold pieces for the copies, which I reckoned was a bargain on my side, plus a down-payment on the busts, then went back with Agron to Sprogs’ Castle for dinner. I was starving: I’d skipped breakfast in favour of an early start, and Agron had wolfed most of the cheese, which was fair enough since I’d accounted for most of the Privernan. Not a wine man, Agron, and it had nothing to do with Cass’s threat: I suspected that had been directed more at me. Still, I managed to roll in sober and respectable. Or reasonably sober and not disreputable.

But there were no sprogs in evidence, barring Septima quietly asleep in her cradle, and I breathed a sigh of relief. That I’d been dreading.

‘I fed them early and sent them outside,’ Cass said as Agron kissed her and the sleeping gnome. ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, Corvinus. I know how much you like children.’

I grinned. ‘Yeah.’ They were probably even now spreading terror, havoc and despair for blocks around, and call me selfish if you like but I didn’t mind. Ostia would survive it. Probably. ‘What’s for dinner?’

‘Fish soup and oyster dumplings.’ Hey, great! ‘Did you see Paullus?’

‘Yeah. All settled.’ I’d told Agron about the Macro problem, but we’d agreed it was no business of Cass’s. Mind you, she’d probably get most of the details after I’d gone anyway: the big Illyrian wasn’t good at keeping secrets from his wife, and besides I’d arranged to hire half a dozen kids from among his collateral family and their friends for the next stage in the plan, so word would get back to her eventually.

‘Sit down and I’ll bring it through,’ Cass said. ‘Agron, would you cut the bread, please?’

Like I said, the flat wasn’t your typical tenement’s: there was a kitchen with a charcoal range, small, sure, but it was there, and a dining room with a big table and benches. The table was ready-laid with earthenware bowls and iron spoons, plus – I was glad to see – winecups.

‘Wine’s over there on the dresser, Marcus,’ Agron said as he divided up the poppy-seed loaf. ‘Help yourself. Just you, Cass and I’ll stick to water.’

I poured, sipped – it was Spanish mass-market, but not bad; Cass must’ve got it for me special that morning – and sat down while she brought in the soup pot and ladled out soup and dumplings.

‘How’re the wedding preparations going?’ she said.

‘Painfully.’ I picked up my spoon. Cass’s fish soup and dumplings were legendary. Mind you, I’d yet to have anything she cooked that wouldn’t’ve got even our Meton’s grudging approval. ‘We’ve got a priest who might just turn up in his underwear, Marilla wants to invite the dog, the sheep and the donkey, and Perilla’s tearing Rome apart for bridesmaids’ dress material. Otherwise everything’s fine.’

Agron laughed, sat down and passed me a piece of the bread. ‘Perilla can’t find dress material in Rome? ’

‘Not to suit.’ I took a spoonful of soup. Delicious. ‘Don’t ask, pal, just don’t ask. I don’t know why not either.’

‘ Oh, Marcus! ’ Cass said.

‘Tell her to try Alexandria.’ Agron bit into a dumpling, still chuckling.

I set down my spoon. ‘Now don’t you start! And if you see Perilla in the near future don’t you even mention the place. I’m serious.’

‘Come on, boy! Joke!’

‘You’ve never had a wife who was shopping for a wedding. They’re not logical. Me, I think something snaps in the brain.’

‘Eat your soup and shut up, Corvinus,’ Cass said.

‘Mind you,’ Agron chewed on the dumpling, ‘you get stuff there from the east that never gets this far. It makes sense. Second biggest city in the empire, huge sophisticated market and half of it’s women. I mean, why bother to take the risk of shipping the goods any further when you can unload it at a decent profit there?’