David Wishart - Bodies Politic

‘Sure.’

‘And if – well, if things do begin to turn nasty, you will give this up straight away?’

‘Cross my heart and hope to die, lady.’

She set her spoon down. ‘Don’t say that!’ she snapped. ‘Ever!’

I went to call on Antiphon next morning.

Drusilla, the second of Gaius’s three younger sisters, had died from a sudden fever at the beginning of the month and although the regulations governing the public mourning were still technically in force not even Gaius could keep the ordinary Roman punter po-faced for long, and things were slowly but surely getting back to their noisy, chaotic normal. Still, the city centre was quieter than usual, and I made good time through the thin crowds. It wasn’t all that far, either: Broad Street runs north of the centre parallel with the Saepta as far as the Pincian, but the corner with Pallacinae is right at the market-place end.

The Cornutus place was one of the old upper-class houses you get in that part of town, that rub shoulders with more run-down properties like a dowager out of her place and forced to mix with the riff-raff. The slave parked on a stool in front of the door stood up when I went to knock.

‘The master’s in Capua, sir,’ he said. ‘And the rest of the family. They won’t be back for another month.’

‘That’s all right, pal,’ I said. ‘I wanted to talk to Antiphon, if he’s around.’

The guy blinked, which was fair enough: you don’t often get purple-stripers turning up on the doorstep and asking to speak to the bought help. However:

‘Yes, sir, he’s here. If you’d like to come in and wait I’ll bring him to you. Who shall I say?’

‘Valerius Corvinus. He doesn’t know me.’

‘Very well.’ He took me inside and through to the atrium. ‘Make yourself comfortable, sir. I won’t be a moment. What was it about?’

‘It’s in connection with his last master, Sertorius Macro. I’m trying to trace one of his freedmen.’

The guy blinked again when I mentioned Macro, but he simply nodded and left.

I sat on one of the couches. I didn’t know Cornutus, but the guy was clearly old money with a penchant for art: there were some nice paintings on the walls, seascapes, mostly, but a few architectural ones too. Good solid traditional stuff, with none of the risque nymphs-and-satyrs jobs you find in the more adventurous houses. The statues matched, too, all decently draped, but if they were copies they were top of the range.

‘Valerius Corvinus, sir?’

I turned. Antiphon was younger than I’d expected, but he fitted the decor: solid, respectable, no flash.

‘You’re looking for one of my ex-master’s freedmen, I understand,’ he said.

‘Yeah. His secretary Dion. He brought me a letter a couple of days back and I need to check up on a few things. I didn’t get his address and I was wondering if -’ I tailed off. The guy was looking puzzled.

‘What was the name again, sir?’ he said.

‘Dion. Like I say, he used to be Macro’s secretary, and -’

‘But the master didn’t have a secretary, sir. Not a personal one. He used the Praetorian clerks.’

‘Okay. So maybe I misheard him.’ I hadn’t; there was something screwy here. ‘Anyway, the guy’s name was definitely Dion, so -’

‘He had no slave or freedman by that name at all, sir.’

Oh, Jupiter! This just didn’t make sense! ‘You’re sure?’

‘I was with the master for ten years, and I am absolutely sure.’

Bloody hell! But Dion’s name had been in the letter! If the guy didn’t exist, then -

‘Hang on, pal.’ I’d brought it with me, just in case I did get to talk to Dion. I took it out of my mantle-fold and handed it over. ‘Take a look at this for me, will you?’

He unrolled it and read. Then he looked up.

‘The master didn’t write this, sir,’ he said.

‘ What? ’

‘ Oh, the handwriting is similar, but it’s definitely not his. The s ’s are wrong, and the t ’s. And I’m afraid – well, the master was no scholar, to put it mildly. Half these words he wouldn’t even know, let alone use. I’m sorry, but I don’t understand.’

I took the letter back. ‘No more do I, pal,’ I said. ‘No more do I. Thanks for your help, anyway.’

I left, my brain numb.

Gods almighty, what the hell was going on here?

What I needed now was a half jug of wine and a think. In that order. Renatius’s wasn’t too far, on Iugarius, but there was a new place I’d thought I might try off Augustus Market. Besides, this time of day Renatius’s would be packed with familiar punters and I’d just get sucked into a conversation I didn’t want.

The place had tables and stools outside, under a shady trellis – late June in Rome’s no time to be sitting out in the full sunshine – and if it wasn’t exactly busy it wasn’t empty either. A good sign. I sat down and the waiter came over.

‘You have such a thing as Mareotic, pal?’ I said.

‘Just what’s on the board, sir.’

I looked. ‘Make it a half jug of Massic.’

‘Half of Massic it is.’ He went off.

Okay, so what was I to make of this, then? I was used to a puzzle at one end of the line, but not at both. Who the hell was Dion, what connection, if any, did he have with Macro, and why was he so anxious – as anxious he obviously was, to go to all this trouble – to have me look into the bastard’s death? Above all, what the hell was the point of this faffing around? He must’ve known that, if I did start an investigation, his porky about being Macro’s secretary and the whole whacky letter business would hold up for about as long as spit on a hot griddle. As indeed it had. So why tell the porky in the first place?

Because although the investigation was important for some reason so was keeping himself – or whoever he represented – out of it. Obviously.

‘Your Massic, sir.’ The waiter, back with the half-jug, cup and a complimentary plate of olives. Well, I couldn’t complain about the speed of the service. And when I tasted it the Massic wasn’t bad either. The first cupful didn’t even touch the sides, and I poured myself a second and took a good swallow.

So. What had we got?

First of all, he was pretty well-informed. He knew me, where to find me, and that I’d known Macro and we hadn’t got on. He knew how to get me hooked despite myself. He knew Macro’s handwriting well enough to produce a passable forgery, but not well enough to do it absolutely right. He’d got an axe to grind, maybe even a personal axe, because if not – again – why the hell bother in the first place? On the other hand, he wasn’t in a position to do anything himself. That much fitted, at least: he’d been a Greek, probably an Asiatic Greek, not a Roman, and if he wasn’t freedman class he’d been a damned good actor. Smart freedman class, though: ‘secretary’ had hit it nicely. I reached for the winecup. Then again -

A hand grabbed my wrist. I refocused.

‘Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus?’

‘Yeah.’ The guy who’d sat down on the stool across from me was built like a slab of the Capitol, if a slab of the Capitol had had that much hair growing in its nostrils. ‘Who the hell are you?’

‘Just someone who wants to keep you still living, pal. And your wife Rufia Perilla. And your adopted daughter and her fiance up in the Alban Hills. Castrimoenium, isn’t it? Nice place.’

My belly went cold.

‘Course, that’d depend on whether you were sensible or not.’ He leaned forwards and I could smell his early lunch on his breath. Raw onions and cheap wine had figured prominently. ‘Asking questions, poking your nose into things – well, that’s not sensible, is it, sir? Give it up now, that’d be my advice. Before someone gets hurt.’