David Wishart - Bodies Politic

I stopped. We kept coming back to the same area, like a tongue probing a bad tooth. I might not have a name for X, but I sure as hell had a job. Who, in Rome, besides the emperor, had unrestricted access to the contents of a provincial diplomatic bag? Who could control what went in and what came out; at least, if they were high enough up to get away with it? Who was likely to be Greek themselves, and so use a Greek as their prime agent? And who, finally, would be close enough to Claudius Etruscus for me to scare the willies out of him by turning up at civil service headquarters?

Right. X was one of his immediate colleagues, a top civil service freedman probably working at the same level or higher. No wonder he couldn’t approach me through official channels, or propria persona. And no wonder the poor guy had been running shit-scared: if he’d found out somehow that one of his senior associates, maybe even his boss, was eyeball-deep in a plot against the emperor…

Only that didn’t square, did it? Unless he’d been lying to me through his teeth and was the best actor since Roscius, Etruscus didn’t know anything about the Lepidus/Agrippina plot. So what – to the best of his belief, anyway – was X up to?

Hell. I was so close I could smell it. Still, there was no point in speculating, not yet. And I was ninety-nine percent certain now that Glabrio was the man. Which in a way was a relief; even I could see that forcing my way into Flaccus’s private office and punching an Egyptian governor’s lights out was not such a hot idea.

I could see the roofs of the Palace up ahead now.

Here we went.

I had no problems getting past the front desk: appointments with the governor were controlled, sure, but evidently people were in and out of his aide’s room all the time. Also, the clerk recognised me, so as far as he was concerned I was persona grata. He didn’t even bother to send up an accompanying slave.

Which meant when I walked into Glabrio’s office I took the bastard completely by surprise.

He was dictating to a secretary. He glanced up at me and blinked, but he recovered quickly enough.

‘That’s fine, Crito, we’ll finish later,’ he said. The secretary went out. ‘Valerius Corvinus, isn’t it? Delighted to see you again. What can I do for you?’ He rose and held out a hand.

I didn’t take it. ‘You can explain why you didn’t forward the Jews’ letter of congratulations on the emperor’s accession to Rome. What you, Isidorus and that poor sap Cineas that you use as your courier have cooking between you. How much you’re being paid for helping to put the skids on the governor, who in the Roman civil service is doing the paying, and why. And finally, pal, what you meant by sending your thugs to kill me and – which is worse – trying to kidnap my adopted daughter and beating up her fiance.’

He’d frozen, smile and hand together. Then he dropped both.

‘Corvinus, are you out of your mind?’ he said. ‘Why should I -?’

I was over to the desk without being aware that I’d moved, one hand gripping his mantle and the other at his throat. He stiffened.

‘Look, you bastard,’ I said quietly. ‘I’m not interested in lies, or protestations of innocence. All I want, barring at this precise moment to break your fucking neck, is some straightforward answers. But it wouldn’t take much to make me put pleasure before business, so when I let you go you bear that very carefully in mind, okay?’ I stepped back and he collapsed into his chair, gasping and rubbing his throat: I could see the red weals and where my nails had drawn blood, although I hadn’t been aware of squeezing that hard.

‘I can’t…’ he said at last. ‘I didn’t…’ He swallowed. ‘How dare you come in here and..?’

My fist came down on the desk, making the inkpot jump and spreading ink all over the surface. ‘I warned you once,’ I said. ‘I won’t do it again. You’re up shit creek without a paddle, friend. I’m under personal instructions from the emperor to find out what’s going on here’ – his eyes widened – ‘and if you don’t tell me willingly then -’

The door opened; the secretary, back. Bugger!

‘I’m sorry to disturb you, sir,’ he said, ‘but I had a question about -’ He stopped when he saw our faces. ‘Is there any problem?’

‘No.’ Glabrio straightened his mantle. ‘No problem, Crito. But Valerius Corvinus was just leaving. Show him downstairs at once, will you?’

The guy gave me a suspicious look. ‘Yes, sir, of course. Valerius Corvinus? If you’d like to come this way?’ He waited.

I didn’t move. I was still looking at Glabrio, whose face was the colour of old parchment. ‘It doesn’t end here, sunshine,’ I said. ‘Don’t be a fool. You know where I am. I’ll give you twenty-four hours to think it over and get in touch. After that I go to the governor, and believe me by the time I’ve finished with you that’ll be the least of your worries. Have a nice day.’

I walked past the gaping secretary and down the stairs.

It took about three blocks for the fog of anger to lift and for me to start thinking clearly again. Not that, on sober reflection, I would’ve done things differently now: I’d known the minute I walked into the room and saw his face that he was our villain. Or one of them, at least. And every shot had gone home. When I’d let the bastard go he was practically gibbering.

That bit about having the emperor’s commission had been a smacker, too, even if it wasn’t quite true and I’d said it on the spur of the moment. Whoever Glabrio was working for ultimately in Rome – and I didn’t have a clue who it might be – he wouldn’t trump Gaius. It was an indication to Glabrio that if the game was up – which it was – then there was nowhere to run and no one who could protect him. He was well and truly screwed, and he knew it. I wasn’t bluffing about going to the governor either: if I’d no actual hard proof the circumstantial stuff would be good enough, and if I was right it would all add up for Flaccus already. The only fly in the ointment was Isidorus; but then if Glabrio believed me about having Gaius’s backing then I didn’t see why Flaccus shouldn’t as well, and if I didn’t miss my guess the poor bugger would need every influential friend he’d got shortly.

So the chances were that Glabrio would be in touch as per instructions, especially if he had twenty-four hours to stew in his own juice and weigh the pros and cons of keeping his mouth shut. I reckoned I’d done a good – and certainly satisfying – day’s work. If I could just ferret out the details of the Macro connection, now, we’d be off and rolling. It was a pity that Glabrio could only keep official documents out of the diplomatic bag, not put them in. That way he could -

The thought hit me like a hatchet. Oh, gods! Bloody Jupiter and the whole sodding pantheon!

Of course he could! Only not official documents, and not in the bag. Certainly not the first; in fact, you didn’t get any more un official than these had to be, and that was what Cineas was for.

I was passing a horse trough fed by the overflow from a fountain: water’s no problem in Alex, with the system of covered-over canals and ducts bringing it in from Lake Mareotis and the Nile, and there are more fountains than you can shake a stick at. Near the centre, at least. This needed thinking out in detail, and barring a convenient wineshop a seat on the edge of a horse trough would do me fine. I sat down and ignored the curious stares of the other pedestrians and the couple of nags who’d got there first.

A scenario. Let’s say at the time of Gaius’s illness Flaccus writes a perfectly innocent letter to Macro – who deals with provincial policy and who’s himself written to the various governors apprising them of the situation – asking for instructions in the unfortunate event of Gaius’s death; perfectly reasonable, because the odds on that happening at the time had been pretty good, and as the emperor’s personal legate he’d be acting within his remit. X – we’ll call him X, the civil service guy – handles the letter and sees his chance. He’s already, for reasons I didn’t yet know, targeted Flaccus and is looking for ways to burn him at some future date. The two men – Macro and Flaccus – are acquainted personally, as well as officially; and Flaccus, although he was a personal friend of old Tiberius, is already suspect with Gaius because he was heavily involved on the prosecution side in the trial of Gaius’s mother Agrippina. Okay; so X decides to fabricate a conspiracy between them, one that neither will know anything about until it’s too late, but will kill both birds with one stone: Macro literally, and Flaccus metaphorically, because by the time X has finished he’ll be so stitched up in circumstantial evidence that he’ll be a cinch to blackmail…