David Wishart - Bodies Politic

‘Oh, she’ll stay with them. Two are hers anyway, the twins.’ Yeah, I’d noticed a couple of familiar-faced lookalikes in the bunch. ‘Besides, like I said she’s here to keep an eye on them and that’s a full-time job because they’re little devils. This business could be pretty hard on your furniture and fittings, Corvinus.’

‘If it finds me Dion I can take it.’

‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

We sent them off the next morning after breakfast, with accompanying skivvies to show them which bit the Palatine was: none of the lads had ever been to Rome before, although I’d bet that wouldn’t stop them from being completely at home inside of a day. Ostia’s a hard training ground for kids, harder even than the Aventine or the Subura, and your average Ostian eleven-year-old is streetwise practically from when he can totter up to a fruit barrow and nick his first apple. It was a good breakfast, as well: Meton had worked his socks off filling them up with omelettes; things would be tough on the chickens, too, the next few days. Agron left at the same time for Ostia and Pausimache headed cheerfully in the direction of Cattlemarket Square on a big city shopping binge.

Okay; so it was in the hands of the gods now. All I could do was wait.

I was doing just that, in the shade of the portico with a half jug of Setinian, when Perilla got back from one of her literary outings and told me she’d wangled an invitation to a poetry reading the next day. For both of us.

‘ You’ve done what? ’ I stared at her in horror.

‘Got you invited to a poetry reading, Marcus.’ She was quite composed.

‘Lady, you know me and poetry readings! I can’t tell an ode from a fucking satire and I’m happy to keep it that way! Go yourself, sure, no problem, but leave me out of it!’

‘You’ll love this one, dear.’ She sat down in the portico’s other chair and took the fruit juice from the tray Bathyllus was holding. The little guy was looking definitely ragged, and I swear there was a twitch in his left eyelid. Less than a day, and our almost superhuman major-domo was feeling the pressure already. I hoped the kids found Dion quickly. ‘It’s Annaeus Seneca.’

‘Who the bloody hell is Annaeus Seneca?’

‘He’s a Spaniard. From Corduba. He’s also a rising orator.’

‘I thought you said it was a poetry reading.’

‘It is. He writes poetry as well. This is his first collection.’

‘He any good?’

She sipped her fruit juice. ‘Actually, he’s absolutely dreadful.’

I did a double-take. ‘What?’

‘His poetry’s complete drivel. And fawning, sick-making drivel at that.’

‘So why do you want to go?’

‘I don’t. Not at all. But you do.’

‘Perilla, I will kill you very slowly and painfully unless you -’

‘Seneca,’ she said, ‘is a protege of Gaius’s sister Livilla. The reading’s in her house on the Palatine.’

Oh, gods. ‘You’re kidding!’

‘Certainly not. I bumped into Marcus Vinicius in the Pollio library – I told you I knew him – and he invited me himself. I asked if you could come too.’

‘That surprise him?’

‘No, of course not. You’ve never met, he doesn’t know you’re a complete literary boor, or at least I don’t think he does. And he’s a very nice man anyway, he’d never think of refusing.’

Jupiter Best and Greatest! It’d be worth sitting through an hour or so of guff if it meant I’d get a chance to talk to one of the imperial sisters and her husband face to face. And I would, too, I’d make sure of that. Oh, I’d go careful, sure, and it might not produce any results; probably wouldn’t, in fact. But it was far too good an opportunity to pass up.

I kissed her. ‘Brilliant!’

‘I knew you’d be pleased. It’s early evening, an hour before sunset, so we’ll eat before we go.’ Good idea; I didn’t want to be sitting through a poetry recitation with a rumbling stomach. ‘We can take the double litter.’

I skidded to a mental halt. Oh, hell! Of course we’d have to take the litter! No carriages inside Rome before sunset, so barring walking a litter was the only option. And I hate those things. ‘Ah…actually, come to think of it, Perilla,’ I said, ‘maybe it might be a better idea if we went separately and met up there.’

She blinked. ‘Why on earth should we do that? You’re not doing anything tomorrow afternoon, are you?’

‘Just before sunset’s when Agron’s lads’d be reporting back. If none of them spots Dion today they might tomorrow, and seeing as we’re on the Palatine anyway I could arrange for the kid to meet me somewhere there instead.’ It sounded thin, but what the hell?

‘Oh, Marcus, for goodness’ sake don’t be silly about this! The reading will only last a couple of hours at most. Surely you can wait for any news until we get back? Or if you absolutely insist on knowing straight away you can come with me in the litter as far as the Pollio and then I’ll drop you off and go on ahead.’

‘Ah…’ Bugger; she was right, going separately didn’t make any logical sense. It would have to be the plain unvarnished truth. ‘I’d rather walk it, lady. Honestly.’

‘ Marcus Valerius Corvinus, you are not turning up at an imperial poetry reading in a crumpled, sweaty mantle, even if you do hate travelling in litters!’

I grinned; she’s no fool, Perilla, and after almost twenty years of marriage she knows my quirks inside out. Just like I know hers. ‘Yeah, okay,’ I said. ‘Fair cop. But I was dead serious about the kids: I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on anything else all evening for wondering whether one of them had seen the guy. Besides, it’s not all that far to the Palatine, I’d get just as hot in a closed litter that time of day, if not hotter, and on foot I could take the short cut up the Staurian Stairs. I’d probably get to Livilla’s place before you did, and in far better shape.’

‘Hmm.’

‘Plus, I’ll be careful with the mantle. Pristine condition, I promise. Bargain?’

She frowned, then kissed me. ‘Oh, very well, bargain. But turn up looking like you’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards and I will personally kill you. Understood?’

‘Understood.’

Excellent!

There’d been no word of Dion that day, so the next I saw Perilla off in the litter in plenty of time for the reading and set off for the Palatine myself. I hadn’t been kidding when I’d said that, even if one of the kids did turn up with news outside the Pollio as arranged, I’d probably be there before her: she’d be taking the long way round, whereas the more direct route along Staurus Street and up the Staurian Stairs might be knackering on the legs but it was a good twenty minutes shorter. Besides, our litter team were lardballs with all the pace of arthritic tortoises. I could give them half an hour’s start and still beat them to the finish.

Arrive fresher, too. The heat was off the day and there was a cool breeze blowing. Perfect walking weather.

I came down off the Caelian with its more upmarket houses into the tenement area that fills the dip between it and the Palatine, cutting off the view you get from the higher ground of the definitely-upmarket private and public buildings along its eastern ridge. Me, I like the tenement areas. Oh, sure, your average tenement is a crumbling, overcrowded, smelly eyesore with poky rooms that’re hell to live in, but then most families only use them for sleeping: which means that unless the weather’s really bad they spend their spare time – what they have of it – on the pavements outside. The last couple of hours before sunset, when work’s finished for the day, is traditionally family mealtime, and so what you get is a succession of ad-hoc street-parties, with chairs and folding tables and portable cooking stoves crammed into most of the space between the buildings, the blue haze of burning charcoal, the smell of soup and bean stew and grilling sausages, and people by the hundred: mothers dishing up or gossiping with each other, men sitting around shooting the breeze, beefing about their bosses or arguing racing form while they drink their after-work wine, and kids weaving in and out playing tag or screaming that they hate cabbage. Quiet it isn’t, but then Rome isn’t a quiet place, most of it, any hour of the day or night. If you want peace and quiet, try the Alban Hills, but for me you can keep them. I’ll take the street parties. I’m happy here.