David Wishart - Bodies Politic

He turned and left, slamming the door behind him, and the slap of his sandals echoed along the corridor.

The echoes faded.

I stared at the door’s panelwork for a good half minute. Then I picked the letter up and read it through again, twice.

Hell.

Watery Setinian’s no food for the brain. I got up, opened the door and yelled for Bathyllus to bring me half a jug of the proper sort. Then I lay down on the reading couch to think.

I was a good half way down the jug when Perilla got back hot, tired and material-less an hour later.

‘ That was a complete waste of time,’ she said as she collapsed onto the other couch. ‘I have been in every material shop in the city including that big new one by the Livian Porch that everyone’s talking about and there’s simply nothing suitable. You’d think you could find something the right weight and colour for bridesmaids’ dresses in Rome.’

I grunted. Me, when I want a new cloak or a pair of boots I just go out and buy them, and so long as they fit and do the job they’re supposed to do I couldn’t care less about finicky details like colour and style. Hell is a woman shopping. And a woman shopping for wedding supplies is hell with frills on. Still, a sympathetic grunt is all they want, usually.

‘So,’ she went on, ‘It’s a nuisance but I’m afraid we’ll just have to try elsewhere.’

Well, so long as the ‘we’ wasn’t used inclusively she could try where she liked. ‘Fine by me,’ I said. ‘You have anywhere particular in mind?’

‘I thought Alexandria.’

I almost swallowed my winecup. ‘ What? ’

‘Alexandria, dear. The big city on the coast of Egypt?’

Oh, gods! She wasn’t joking, either. Bring weddings and women together and you kiss sanity goodbye. The Macro problem could wait. ‘Perilla…’

‘We can take Marilla and Clarus. They’d love it. They’ve never been abroad.’

This was getting surreal. ‘Lady, just listen to yourself! Capua or Naples, fine, although why the shops there should be any better than the Roman ones beats me. Alexandria’s the other side of the fucking Mediterranean!’

‘I’m quite well aware of that, thank you, Marcus. But the sea connections are excellent. And we could stay with Stratocles. He wouldn’t mind if we turned up on spec, I’m sure.’

‘Who the hell’s Stratocles?’ I was seriously worried now. Once the lady gets an idea into her head she’s like a terrier with a rat. And, like I say, where wedding shopping’s concerned women aren’t rational.

‘You remember. Uncle Fabius’s old freedman.’ Fabius had been Aunt Marcia’s husband, dead over twenty years before. ‘He owns a paper factory that supplies half the copyists in Rome. And he’s got a huge house near the city centre. There would be plenty of room.’

Forget the rat and terrier; we were operating on a whole new level here. If she’d got down to the fine details of accommodation then we were in real trouble. This thing had to be knocked on the head right now before she started asking what socks I wanted packed. ‘Perilla, watch my lips. We are not chasing off to Alexandria just so you and Marilla can go on a shopping binge. It’s ridiculous!’

‘No it isn’t. I told you. There are plenty of boats, and it wouldn’t take long at this time of year. Twelve or fifteen days at most.’

‘Plus the ten it’d take to get down to Brindisi. Plus the shopping binge. Plus the journey home. We’d be lucky if we got back in enough time to chill the wine for the sodding reception. Jupiter, lady, have some sense!’

‘Well.’ She sniffed. ‘We can think about it, at least.’ Right. Keeping an eye out for flying pigs all the way. ‘So how was your day?’

Ah. I told her, as gently as possible. Not that that helped much.

‘Marcus, you can’t!’ She was staring at me in horror. ‘Whatever the reasons, Macro died by direct order of the emperor. If you start poking around Gaius will be livid, and if there is anything to find it’ll be even worse. You did say no, didn’t you?’

‘Yeah, but -’

‘Listen. Macro’s death is nothing to do with you. You didn’t even like the man. And Ennia was Gaius’s mistress, everyone knows that. Their suicides were the emperor’s business, no one else’s, and they’re finished and done with. Now don’t be stupid.’

‘I’ve been thinking it through. Macro’s wasn’t the only enforced suicide round about that time. There were Gemellus and Silanus just before the new year. If all the deaths were connected then -’

‘ Juno! Will you listen! Macro was Praetorian Prefect and the emperor’s chief advisor. Gemellus was Gaius’s co-heir, at least Tiberius named him as such in his will. And Junius Silanus was Gaius’s father-in-law and the most powerful man in the senate.’

‘Right. Full marks. So what if -’

‘ Stop it! Just…bloody…stop it!’ I blinked: the lady never, ever swears, not even mildly. ‘I’m not dense, and it doesn’t need half a brain to see the what if here. You’re going to say that they were involved together in some sort of plot against Gaius, yes? That they were, in effect, executed for treason but it wasn’t made public.’

‘Ah…yeah. Yeah, that would just about cover it. Or at least -’

‘Fine. So what?’

‘How do you mean, so what?’

‘ Marcus, what on earth business is it of yours? This is political! Gaius may be a lot of things but he isn’t a fool. If he does something he does it for a reason, and even if it’s the wrong reason he’s still the emperor. Start grubbing around in the whys and wherefores of politics just for the fun of it and you’ll find yourself ordered into suicide as well. What’s more, you’ll deserve to be.’

Yeah. True. All of it. Even so -

Silently, I passed her the letter. She read it through. Twice. Then she said, very quietly:

‘Oh.’

‘Doesn’t sound like an admission of guilt, does it?’

‘ No, but all the same.’ She handed the roll back. ‘ All the same , Marcus. Don’t do it. Don’t get involved. I mean it; please, not this time. It’s far too dangerous, and it isn’t worth it.’

‘No arguments,’ I said. ‘None at all.’

She smiled. ‘Good. That’s a huge relief. The best thing you can do with that letter is burn it.’

I reached over for the wine jug and topped up my cup. Bugger; this was going to be tricky. ‘None the less,’ I said. ‘I, ah, was thinking I might go round for a word with old Cornelius Lentulus tomorrow. Just to set my mind at rest, clear the air a bit. That wouldn’t hurt, would it?’

Perilla’s smile faded and she turned away.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, I think it would. Very much so. And, Marcus Valerius Corvinus, I think you are a complete fool.’

Ah, well, I couldn’t disagree there, either; but then I always had been, and it was too late to change.

I ’d first met Lentulus years before, the time of the Ovid business: he’d been one of my father’s cronies, and a lot more human than the average specimen of that pokered-rectum bunch. That first time he’d told me he never wanted to see me again, but we’d bumped into each other since at various social get-togethers – Lentulus was the party animal’s party animal – and the guy had mellowed like a ripe cheese. Although he was getting on now, pushing eighty, he was still a heavyweight on the senate benches: literally rather than politically, because the guy must’ve weighed as much as a rhino. How they got him into his seat I don’t know. Probably with a crane.

There was nothing wrong with his mind, though. What Cornelius Lentulus didn’t know about the ins and outs of politics over the last sixty years you could write on a bootstrap. But – and this was what was important – he had a mouth as loose as a cat-flap. Especially when he was half-pissed, which was most of the time.