David Wishart - Bodies Politic

‘It’s okay.’ Given the choice between frying in Rome and being bored out of my skull in Baiae surrounded by the top five hundred’s glittering best I’d take the big city every time.

Bathyllus had reappeared with the chair-toting skivvies. He hovered while Mother and Priscus settled themselves.

‘I’ll have a vervain mint, Bathyllus,’ Mother said, arranging the folds of her mantle. I winced. ‘Chilled, if you can manage it. Helvius Priscus will have the same.’

I glanced at Priscus, who was doing his sad tortoise act in the other chair, and he gave me the faintest of shrugs. Well, the guy was happy enough, and for an octogenarian with all the salient features of a reanimated Egyptian mummy he seemed to be thriving.

‘Top that up for me while you’re about it, little guy.’ I passed him the jug. ‘And another fruit juice for the mistress.’

‘You drink too much, Marcus,’ Mother said.

‘First today.’

She looked at me – Mother’s no fool, far from it – then turned to Perilla. ‘How are the wedding preparations going?’

‘Oh, we’re getting there, Vipsania,’ Perilla said. ‘It’s a bit awkward, with the ceremony being in Castrimoenium, but Marilla was insistent.’

‘I think she’s very sensible, myself.’ Mother sniffed. ‘The Alban Hills are much more picturesque than Rome. Besides, Clarus’s family are all locals, aren’t they?’

I stiffened slightly, but she didn’t mean anything by it: Mother may be related to old Agrippa, who was Augustus’s right-hand man, but she’s no snob. And Marcus Agrippa had been provincial Italian himself. As, for that matter, had Augustus.

‘Mmmaa!’ Priscus said. Bleated. We all turned towards him. ‘Before I forget, Marcus, and speaking of Clarus, I wanted to consult the lad’s father about a skull I came across recently. Pre-Etruscan, almost certainly Iapygian. Personally I think it shows Illyrian features, which of course would be most significant in determining the provenance of the Messapians. Although there again the features may be native Cretan, which in its turn would link them with Caria.’

There was a silence. Finally, Mother turned back to me. ‘Yes. Well anyway, dear, the reason we dropped by was to ask you a favour.’

Oh, bugger. Mother’s favours had a nasty habit of blowing up in your face, like one of these super-smart Greek experiments with steam hydraulics. ‘Ah…what would that be, now?’ I asked cautiously.

‘It’s to do with our wedding present. You know, the busts?’

Right: Mother and Priscus had wanted to commission a pair of portrait busts of Marilla and Clarus from a Greek sculptor rejoicing in the name of Archimenides. ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Not a problem, is there?’

‘Very much so, I’m afraid. We’re back to square one now because yesterday the silly idiot got himself squashed by a marble block falling from a crane. And as I said Titus and I are off to Baiae tomorrow.’

‘So you want me to find another sculptor.’ Bugger. Double bugger.

‘Oh, no. At least, we’ve got a name.’

‘I did that,’ Priscus said.

‘In fact, you know him. Or at least you know someone who knows him.’

‘Mother -’ I said.

‘Larcius Paullus.’

‘I don’t know anyone called Larcius Paullus.’

Mother sighed. ‘Paullus is the sculptor, dear. You know, the trouble with you is that you never listen.’

‘Young chap, totally brilliant.’ That was Priscus. ‘An Ostian native, if you’ll believe it, but the family’s Greek on the mother’s side. He did a bust three months ago of my friend Septimius Gallus. Spitting image, peas in a pod. And he wasn’t even dead at the time.’

Oh, gods. ‘Look, Mother, can we start again? Please?’

‘Certainly. You really shouldn’t drink so much, dear, it rots the brain. Paullus is Agron’s wife’s nephew. We thought the Graeco-Roman connection on the sculptor’s side would be quite a nice touch. Very appropriate.’

Things were finally beginning to make sense. I’d known Agron almost as long as I’d known Perilla; in fact, he’d been mixed up in the Ovid business. He wasn’t Greek himself – he was Illyrian, originally, an ex-legionary – but his wife Cass was. And, come to think of it, I knew Paullus as well, although I’d never met the kid: he was the young wizard with the charcoal-stick that I’d got to do me lightning sketches of the visitors to Publius Vitellius’s house. Yeah, that’d be seven years back, so he’d be in his late teens now. Evidently the artistic kid had made good.

‘Oh, thank you, Bathyllus.’ The little guy had smarmed over with the loaded tray, and Mother took her chilled vervain mint. ‘Lovely.’

‘A pleasure, Madam.’ Crawl, crawl. Sickening.

‘So, Marcus, I can safely leave it in your hands, can I? We’re not giving him much time, of course, especially since he’d have to go through to Castrimoenium to take their likenesses, but I’m sure he can manage and that we’ll be delighted with the result. He seems a very capable boy, and as Titus said he really is quite brilliant.’

‘Yeah,’ I said, reaching for the fresh jug that Bathyllus had brought. ‘Yeah, he is. No problem, Mother. I’ll fix it.’

Damn right I would; in fact, the sooner I got over to Ostia the better, because I’d just realised how I could track down Dion.

I rode to Ostia the next morning, setting off at dawn before the heat started to bite: it’s only fourteen miles, sure, down a good road, but with my expertise on a horse, or lack of it, it would take me three hours, easy.

Agron was doing well for himself these days. With Ostia’s harbour silting up worse by the year and the local boat-building industry in consequent decline, he’d turned the boatyard he’d inherited through Cass over to making carts and furniture, which financially had been a very smart move. I saw him in Rome quite often – he came through on business once a month and stayed with us, or if it was a quick visit he and I would split a jug and a plate of cheese in Renatius’s – but it was a good four years since I’d been to his place, a tenement building on the edge of town near the old Sullan Wall. He and Cass – Cassiopeia, she was Alexandrian Greek originally – owned the whole thing, from doorstep to slates, which I reckoned was a sensible investment: his family was up to six now, and counting. By the time the kids reached the marrying stage he’d be able to fill the place, easy.

I parked the mare at a handy trough and went inside. Forget your picture of a tenement on the Aventine or in the Subura; Cass made sure this one was kept in good repair, and clean. The same went for the tenants. Me, I wouldn’t be surprised if she held defaulters down in the horse trough and scrubbed them herself.

Agron’s flat took up the whole first floor and I could hear the sound of kids running around screaming from the ground-floor lobby. I gritted my teeth, climbed the holystoned stairs, raised my fist and knocked; although with that racket going on whether anyone would hear anything hitting the door short of a sledgehammer was a moot point. Amazingly, it opened.

‘Marcus?’

‘Hey, Cass,’ I said.

‘What are you doing in Ostia?’ Her broad face split into a grin as she hefted the grumpy-looking bobble-hatted gnome she was carrying further up against her hip. A big woman, Cass, almost as big as Agron, which was really saying something. Mind you, to control the bacchic rout of kids that she’d got she’d have to be.

‘I’m -’ I began, but I was drowned out by a prolonged scream from inside that froze my spine and turned my guts to jelly.

Cass turned round. ‘ Tertia! Stop that! And if you make Quintus sick again, my girl, you’ll be in real trouble!’