David Wishart - Bodies Politic

‘You sure you won’t reconsider this, Marcus?’ Perilla said as we got ready to board the litter. ‘After all, you’ve got Seneca now, and that tribune, what was his name? Vinius.’

‘Uh-uh. They’re both on the other side of the case. Anyway, I want to see Helicon for myself, close up.’

‘Well, I think it’s silly. And possibly dangerous.’

‘Lady, it’s a party! There’ll be a hundred people there, literally, probably more. And you never know what’ll turn up.’

‘ All right.’ She sniffed. ‘On one condition. If there’s any trouble, about admission, I mean, you leave it to me to solve. I am not having you indulging in a punch-up or slanging match with the slaves on the gate. It’s not dignified and it would be counter-productive. And if we are turned away in the end then we go quietly.’

‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘Agreed.’

We set off.

The party was in full swing when we arrived just before sunset. Big house was right: it stood in its own grounds, with a wrought-iron gate and a carriage drive leading up to the main complex of buildings with various wings and annexes off to either side. There were marquees set up in the garden, a stage with fluteplayers and percussionists tootling, banging and tinkling away, and the busy hum of a large slice of Rome’s great and good networking their socks off as they tucked into the drinks and nibbles.

Our litter lardballs set us down at the gate and we disgorged.

‘Good evening, sir. Madam.’ A slave in a natty red tunic with silver tassles came over. ‘Your invitation, please.’

‘Ah’ – I patted my mantle-pouch – ‘we seem to have come away without it, pal. Stupid, I know, but these things happen. Still -’

‘Then I’m sorry, sir, but the master gave very strict instructions. Perhaps if you were to go back home and return with it, or send one of your slaves -’

‘ Now that is enough! ’ Perilla snapped. ‘Young man, if you think that we are going to go all the way back to the Caelian for a silly bit of paper or sit out here while one of the boys fetches it then you are very sadly mistaken. Do you?’

‘Ah…’ The guy shifted nervously and glanced at me. I shrugged and moved out of the line of fire: the poor bugger had asked for it, and he was on his own.

‘And look at your hands!’ The gate slave put them quickly behind his back. ‘The nails are filthy! You will go straight inside, please, after you’ve let us through, and give them a good scrub with a nail brush. And comb your hair while you’re at it, it’s an absolute disgrace!’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘I really do not know what things are coming to these days. If a high-profile slave like you thinks that absolutely strict attention to detail where appearances are concerned doesn’t matter and that it’s enough to -’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘- give your sandals a cursory scuff on the back of your ankles before you greet the guests, then -’

‘Yes, ma’am. Sorry, ma’am.’

‘- I despair of the state of the empire. Now open that gate at once, please.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’ He did, almost blurring in the process. ‘I do apologise, ma’am.’

‘So I should hope. Remember, young man, I shall be checking up on you when we leave, and if I do not see that there has been a considerable improvement to your present slovenly turnout then I shall be very seriously annoyed.’

‘Understood, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am. And I can only apologise again, ma’am.’

We went in.

Jupiter!

‘Ah…well done, lady, nice job,’ I said cautiously, glancing back at the slave. He looked like someone had just hit him with the Capitol. ‘What do you do for an encore? Chew iron and spit out nails?’

‘Don’t be silly, Marcus, you just have to be firm, that’s all.’ She sniffed. ‘Now what?’

‘We mingle.’

So we mingled.

I hate these stand-up parties. You never know what to do with your plate, and if you set your wine down for a minute either some other bugger sinks it by mistake, an overefficient slave whips it off, or half the local insect population uses it to drown in. Plus spending the evening exchanging small talk over the canapes with Rome’s great and good just isn’t my bag. Perilla was okay; the lady’s a natural stand-up party animal, she’d met one of her poetry pals early on, and they were in deep conversation about the Cyprian pastoralists. Me, I spent ten gruelling minutes with an ex-consul on the subject of his staffing problems (it was impossible, seemingly, to buy a chef who boiled your breakfast egg just right) and another ten with a horse-faced woman who kept trying to drag me into the shrubbery. That was enough. I disengaged myself politely, cadged a refill from a passing slave (Chian, but not bad. The wine, I mean) and drifted off to enjoy it in peace.

I’d been communing with Claudius Helicon’s version of nature – bushes topiaried within an inch of their lives, separated by a gridwork of scrubbed flagstone paths, twee grottos and simpering statues – just long enough to be thinking about another belt of Chian when I spotted the birthday boy himself over by the huge ornamental fountain, chatting to a couple of broad-stripers: a fit, chunky guy in his early thirties wearing a freedman’s cap and sharp Greek party mantle and looking more like a professional wrestler than a civil servant. I took my gift-wrapped Alexandrian lighthouse out of my mantle-fold and began to stroll over, rehearsing what I was going to say. I’d got to within a dozen yards when our pal the gate-slave moved in ahead of me, tugged at Helicon’s sleeve and whispered something in his ear. Helicon looked up, back towards the gate, and I followed his eyes…

Which was when three things happened almost simultaneously.

The first was that I saw the man who the gate-slave had obviously wanted to bring to Helicon’s attention. He was hanging around on the fringes of the crowd – unseasonably thick travelling cloak, no party mantle, a visitor, not a guest – and I recognised him straight off. Our delinquent Alexandrian bridesmaids’ dress material seller, Cineas.

The second thing was that Cineas saw me. His jaw sagged in horror and disbelief, and he turned to bolt.

The third thing was that Helicon saw him seeing me. He whipped round, our eyes met across a crowded patio, and I could just hear the clink of the dropping penny…

Oh, shit. I stopped dead. Out of the corner of my eye I glimpsed Cineas heading for the gate at speed, leaving a trail of indignant upper-class punters with freshly wine-stained mantles in his wake: too much of a lead, too fast to catch. Meanwhile, Helicon was pointing at me and talking urgently to the gate-slave and one of the waiters. Uh-oh; trouble was right. As they headed in my direction I took a step backwards. They wouldn’t use violence, sure, or nothing obvious, not in this crowd, but -

I collided with someone behind me.

‘Marcus, petal! What are you doing here?’

I turned. ‘Ah…’

‘Well, well, this is a surprise!’ Gaius Caesar gave me a dazzling smile. ‘A pleasant one, of course, apart from the wine you’ve made me spill down my mantle, but no doubt that’ll come out in the wash, and if not I’ll send you the bill.’ Jupiter! ‘I never knew that you were a friend of Helicon’s. How’s the investigation going?’

‘Ah…’ I looked back over my shoulder. The two slaves had paused, uncertain. ‘It’s, ah, -’

‘You must tell me all about it.’ Gaius linked his arm with mine. I glanced at the slaves again. They hadn’t moved. ‘Right now, please, because I could do with cheering up. Between you and me, dear, and much though I love Helicon, this party is absolutely bloody.’