David Wishart - Bodies Politic

I bowed my head as the slave closed the door behind me. ‘Caesar.’

‘Hello, Marcus.’ Well, at least he sounded brighter than he looked, which admittedly wasn’t saying much. The usual bright, brittle drawl was missing. ‘Come in. Have a seat, if you can find one. I’m afraid the place is a bit of a mess. The slaves want to tidy it, but I just can’t be arsed. I’ve told them to stay out.’

I moved over to the couch opposite his. There was a tray on it, with bowls of untouched food that looked like it’d been there for days. I lifted it out of the way, onto a side table, and sat down.

‘I’m sorry about your sister, sir,’ I said.

‘Yes. Yes, thank you.’ He gave a brittle smile that didn’t touch his eyes. These I didn’t like the look of at all; they shifted, and they glittered in the lamplight. ‘Mind you, she’s a goddess now, you know. Or she will be shortly, as soon as I can make her one. I thought Panthea would be a good name – the Universal Divinity. Venus, sort of thing. In fact, she could share Venus’s temple in the Julian Market, in the short term, anyway. What do you think?’

My stomach went cold. ‘Very nice, Caesar,’ I said.

‘Yes. She’ll like that. Still, it’s hard, not having her around in the flesh any more. She was a lovely girl. We’re all quite devastated.’

I said nothing.

‘Life, however, must go on, I suppose.’ Another brittle smile and a shrug of the shoulders. ‘Now. What can I do for you?’

This was the tricky bit. I cleared my throat.

‘I had a letter the other day, sir. From Sertorius Macro. Only it turns out that it wasn’t.’

The smile had become a frown. ‘Macro? He’s dead. Been dead for months.’

‘Yes, sir. I know. It was delivered by someone who claimed to be his secretary. That wasn’t right either.’

‘Marcus, petal, you’re not making sense.’

I took the letter out and handed it over. ‘Read it yourself, sir. But as I say it’s a forgery.’

‘How very odd.’ He unrolled it. ‘Bring some light over, would you? It isn’t very bright in here.’

I got up and fetched the nearest candelabrum closer – half the lamps were out of oil – then waited until he’d read the thing through.

He chuckled.

‘It’s a load of balls,’ he said. ‘Patronising to boot. I mean, what “foibles” do I have, for goodness’ sake? And I certainly was not “misinformed”. The man was a scheming bastard, and that wife of his was worse. I should never have given either of them house room. Especially her.’

‘You’re sure of that, sir?’

‘Absolutely sure. Macro pushed his overblown bedmate at me to worm his way into my confidence, then when I fell ill the two of them got together with that pompous idiot Silanus and stinky young Gemellus to get rid of me altogether. Only it didn’t work. I was protected, you see. The gods of Rome protected me.’

‘So there was an actual conspiracy?’

‘Of course there was. They were completely guilty, all of them. Naturally, I couldn’t make it public, not after making such a song and dance about scrapping that dreadfully unpopular treason charge. But I could kill them all anyway.’ He grinned. ‘By the gods, I could! I was a bit sorry about Gemellus, mind, he was just two tiles short of a roof, poor lamb, but I’d’ve had to do it sooner or later anyway, and he wasn’t much of a loss.’

My belly went cold again.

‘So.’ He handed back the letter. ‘If that’s all that’s worrying you -’

‘Not quite, Caesar,’ I said.

‘You mean there’s more?’

‘I – well, I sort of got interested.’ I swallowed.

‘Really?’ He raised himself on his elbow. ‘You surprise me.’

‘I mean, why the letter in the first place? I know it’s a forgery, but -’

He laughed. ‘Oh, Marcus! Marcus! You don’t change, do you? Now don’t tell me you want to take this further! I said: it’s absolute balls!’

‘So why when I start asking a few questions should some heavy go for me in a wineshop and threaten me and my family to get me to stop?’

The laughter died. ‘What?’

‘It happened a couple of days ago, sir. I, uh, wondered at the time if you hadn’t sent him yourself.’

‘Why on earth would you think that?’

‘He was pretty well informed. And he looked like a Praetorian.’

He laughed again. ‘Marcus, petal,’ he said. ‘If I wanted you to stop pushing your fucking long nose into something then I’d’ve hauled you over here and told you myself. Or sent someone who not only looked like a Praetorian but was one to do it for me in no uncertain terms, with a nasty great sword in his hand to stress the point. That’s what this is all about.’ He gestured round the room. ‘I’m the emperor, for the gods’ sake, I don’t need to be subtle. Besides, I know you and it wouldn’t work. You wouldn’t take a telling. So I’d’ve ordered the Praetorian with the sword to use it there and then or had you use it for him and saved us all a lot of trouble.’ The hairs crawled on my neck. ‘Not guilty, love. It wasn’t me, I promise you.’

Well, that was a relief, anyway. Still, we weren’t through the woods yet.

‘If you do want me to stop, Caesar,’ I said, ‘then I will.’

He looked at me for a long time, frowning. Then he chuckled.

‘Really?’ he said. I didn’t answer. ‘Do you want to? The truth, now!’

‘Not particularly.’

‘There you are, then. That’s settled.’ He reached forward and clapped me on the shoulder. ‘So don’t. It’s no skin off my nose. You’re a fool, Marcus, because there’s nothing to find and you’re wasting your time, but that’s your business. Besides, past experience has taught me that your long nose finds its way into very unexpected places. I may be wrong, and that would be interesting.’

I breathed out. ‘Thank you, Caesar.’

‘Oh, tush, petal! Enjoy yourself. You’ve got carte blanche. You can’t do me any harm, and who knows? You might do me some actual good. I told you: the gods are protecting me. Now push off, there’s a lamb. Give my regards to that wife of yours.’

‘Yes, Caesar.’ I got up and moved towards the door.

‘Oh, and Marcus?’

I turned. ‘Yes?’

‘Don’t worry. I’ll look into this Praetorian business. You think the man was a Praetorian?’

‘I’m not sure, sir, but yes.’

‘Then I’ll put the word out. You won’t have any more trouble in that direction, I promise you. And if I find the bastard he’ll be on the menu at the next Games. I’ll send you a special ticket.’

That was a relief, too. It’s nice to know you have an emperor on your side, even if he is Gaius. ‘Thank you, sir.’

I left.

‘It wasn’t the emperor.’

I’d changed out of my mantle and joined Perilla for a pre-dinner drink in the garden. Bathyllus had brought a half-jug of Setinian for me and a fruit juice for Perilla. Wine had never tasted so good.

‘You’re absolutely certain?’ Perilla said.

‘Yeah. He even gave me carte blanche for carrying on the investigation.’ I stretched out my feet and rested them on the footstool. ‘Maybe Gaius isn’t so bad after all.’

‘But that’s absolutely marvellous!’ Perilla was beaming.

‘Isn’t it? So we’re off the hook and running, lady. All we’re left with now is the problem.’

‘Oh, good. And that is, precisely?’

Yeah. Right. Good question. This thing wasn’t like a straightforward murder, with a definite victim and a definite perp. Oh, sure, there were bodies enough, but they were bodies politic and they’d killed themselves on Gaius’s orders; no difficulty there. It wasn’t a matter so much of whodunit at this point as why was it done.