David Wishart - Bodies Politic

I walked along Staurian Street to its end where the Stairs lead up the back of the Palatine Hill. It’s a long, hard climb: they’re steep and narrow, wide enough for two people to pass abreast but not much more, and closed in either side for most of their length. This time of day they were deserted, although even at busy times that didn’t vary much: the Palatine’s definitely upper-class ground, your ordinary punter, unless he’s a slave or a workman, has no reason to go there, and the more well-heeled wouldn’t be slogging up a long flight of stairs on foot in any case. It’s only stupid eccentrics like me that don’t like litters who do silly things like that.

I started to climb.

I’d got about three-quarters the way up, and I’d stopped for a breather, when I noticed the cart at the top of the flight. It was piled high with stones – probably a mason’s cart; they’d be doing some road repairs – and it was parked tail-end-on, so that it practically blocked the exit. Bugger! Well, there was just enough room to squeeze past on either side. Stupid place to leave the thing, though: there was plenty of space in the open ground beyond.

Then, as I watched, the cart began to move. Backwards. Its rear wheels dropped down the first of the steps, and the sudden tilt sent part of its cargo rattling over the tailgate while the weight of the rest pulled the front wheels over the lip. I stared in horror as the thing started to bounce and jolt down the flight towards me, gathering speed as it went.

Oh, shit!

There was nowhere I could run. If I tried back the way I’d come I hadn’t a hope in hell of reaching the bottom before the cart caught up with me, even if I didn’t trip in the first few steps and break my neck tumbling down the stairs, which I probably would. And even if that didn’t happen I’d be crushed where I lay under the wheels. On the other hand, to stay where I was would be suicide: there wasn’t a hand’s breadth of clearance either side, and unless the damn thing stuck on the way, which didn’t seem likely with the momentum it was building up, it’d squash me against the wall like a bug.

Bloody, bloody shit! Think, Corvinus!

Up was the only way out. Twenty yards ahead, if I remembered rightly, there was a break in the wall where the masonry had crumbled, leaving a hole. It wasn’t much, sure, but it was the best I’d got.

If I was right. If it was big and deep enough. And if I could reach it in time.

Too many ifs. Fuck!

I started running up the steps towards the oncoming cart, breathing hard with pure terror. Shit, where was it? Blank wall, blank wall all the way. They’d fucking repaired it! Just when I needed the fucking City Works department to be their fucking inefficient selves they’d fixed the fucking thing!

Stones rattled past me, bouncing up like slingshots, shattering themselves against the side walls. One caught me on the shoulder, and I winced. The cart was no more than a dozen yards away now, and coming like a bat out of hell.

And then I saw it. Sweet Jupiter, I’d almost missed the thing in the shadows! I raced up the last few yards, lungs bursting, and dived sideways…

The cart’s wooden side scraped my back as I pressed myself as far as I could go into the hole, hard up against the crumbling masonry, and it was gone, thundering down the steps behind me. I stayed where I was, shaking and gasping for breath.

From far below came a shattering crash. Then there was silence.

Somewhere a bird sang. I don’t know what the hell kind it was, but at that moment it was the sweetest sound in the world.

Gods!

I didn’t bother with the rendezvous in front of the Pollio; like Perilla had said, if any of the kids had spotted Dion then I’d know soon enough, and I was far too shaken at present to care about little things like that. I went straight to Vinicius and Livilla’s place, next to the palace.

The front door was open, and there was an expensive-looking slave on duty outside. He was wearing a smart red tunic with silver trimmings, which made him a hell of a lot better-dressed than I was, currently.

‘I’ve come for the poetry reading,’ I said.

He gave me the once-over and his eyes widened; but then he just said, ‘Yes, sir,’ and led me inside and through what looked like a major art gallery to one of the big public rooms.

It was packed to the gunnels with Rome’s brightest and best, tucking in to the pre-show drinks and nibbles. I’m not absolutely sure what a cynosure of all eyes is, but when I stepped across the threshold I was it. In spades. As an equivalent conversation-stopper, a fart at a funeral comes to mind.

Perilla was there already, talking to a woman who I recognised as one of her literary cronies. When she saw me she came over like a bolt from a catapult.

‘ Marcus!’ she hissed. ‘I told you! What the hell do you think you’re -?’ She stopped when she saw the cuts and bruises, and her face went pale under her makeup. ‘What happened?’

‘An accident with a cart,’ I said.

‘ A cart? It’s not sunset yet! There aren’t any carts!’

‘It’s complicated. I’ll explain later.’

A dapper-looking guy in his mid-forties was coming towards us. ‘You must be Valerius Corvinus,’ he said, holding out his hand. We shook. ‘We haven’t met. I’m Marcus Vinicius.’

‘Uh…yeah,’ I said. ‘Pleased to meet you, sir.’

‘I’m sorry, but -’ He gestured delicately at what was left of my mantle, which wasn’t much. ‘Did you have a problem on the way here?’

I grinned; I felt like laughing, but I knew that was just hysteria. ‘Yeah. You could say that. A bit of an accident on the Staurian Stairs.’

‘Good gods!’ He’d noticed the blood and the bruising too, now. ‘Are you all right? No, don’t answer that.’ He looked round and signalled to a slave, who came over. ‘Tynnias. Fetch Theodorides. Now, man! Do it quickly!’ He turned back. ‘Theodorides is my doctor. He’ll take a look at you. Meanwhile, get this down you.’ He held out the winecup he was holding.

Thank Jupiter for a man who had his priorities right. I took it and drank. Caecuban. Beautiful, and just what I needed.

‘You fell?’ he said.

‘Uh-uh. Runaway mason’s cart.’ Beside me, Perilla gasped, but she didn’t say anything. ‘Almost got me.’

‘ On the Stairs? ’

‘Yeah. Some idiot had left it parked off the brake at the top and it must’ve rolled backwards somehow and gone down the steps.’

‘Good gods!’ he said again. ‘They’re only a few feet wide! You’re lucky to be alive, man!’

‘Yeah. Yeah, I know.’ A slave was passing with a jug. I grabbed his arm, got him to refill the cup and downed that one too.

A thin-faced Greek in a plain mantle was hurrying over, with the slave Tynnias in tow. The doctor, obviously. Well, that’s imperials for you: they even have their own medical staff on the household roll.

‘Theodorides,’ Vinicius said. ‘Take Valerius Corvinus to the bath suite and patch him up.’ Then, when I started to protest: ‘No, I won’t hear of it, Corvinus! And Tynnias, fetch a clean tunic and mantle!’ He turned back to me. ‘Take your time. We’ll talk later, when Theodorides has finished with you and you’ve had a chance to freshen up. Meanwhile I think Seneca’s about ready to start, so I’m afraid I must…if you’ll excuse me?’

‘Sure. Thanks.’

He left in the direction of a fat, jowly purple-striper who was moving purposefully towards the podium at the end of the room clutching a thick book-roll.

‘This way, sir,’ the doctor said, plucking at my sleeve.

‘You’re all right, Marcus?’ Perilla said anxiously. ‘Really?’

‘Yeah, I’m fine, lady,’ I said. ‘All surface, no bones broken. Go and enjoy.’