David Wishart: Bodies Politic

Trust me. Organising a wedding is a pain in the rectum.

Not that there was any great hurry now. Perilla’s Aunt Marcia had passed away just after the Winter Festival, bolt upright in her chair where she’d nodded off after dinner. Hyperion the doctor had been there at the time, as well as Clarus and Marilla, and he’d said in his letter that it had been the best way for her to go. Still, it was the end of an era: Marcia and the villa in the Alban Hills had been a fixture for more years than I liked to count. The villa itself wouldn’t be gone, mind, Aunt Marcia had made sure of that. Once Clarus and Marilla were hitched in four months’ time the couple would take it over lock stock and menagerie as the old girl’s posthumous wedding present.

So there I was, holed up in my study with an abacus while Perilla was scouring Rome for dress material to kit out the bridesmaids. I’d just added up the column of figures for the sixth time and got my sixth different answer when Bathyllus scratched at the door and sidled in. He had his propitiatory face on, which was fair enough because in the Corvinus household interrupting heavy arithmetic is the domestic equivalent of invading Parthia.

‘Yeah, Bathyllus,’ I said. ‘What is it? Plague of rats in the kitchen? Housemaid gone berserk with a cleaver?’

‘No, sir.’ Not a flicker. ‘A visitor.’

I laid the tablet down and brushed the torn-out hair off the desk. ‘What kind of visitor?’

‘A freedman by the name of Dion.’

‘Who the hell’s Dion?’

‘I don’t know, sir, and he wouldn’t elaborate. I did ask him to call back tomorrow but he says it’s important.’

‘Is that so, now?’ Odd, but then I could do with a break. Whoever the guy was, and whatever he wanted, it couldn’t be any worse than another bout of wrestling with prenuptial arithmetic. Mind you, I’d take that to cruising the shops with Perilla any day. ‘Okay, then. Wheel him in.’

I poured myself another cup of well-watered Setinian – abacus-wrestling needs a clear head, but you can take abstinence too far – and sat back in my chair just as the door opened again and the distraction came in. He was a middle-aged guy, Asian-Greek by the look of him, very prim and proper, on the plump side and with a definite lack of hair under the freedman’s cap.

‘Marcus Valerius Corvinus?’ he said. Educated voice, with a slight Greek accent. ‘It’s kind of you to see me. I’m Naevius Sertorius Dion.’

If the last name meant nothing to me, the first two certainly did. I set the cup down. ‘Naevius Sertorius? As in Naevius Sertorius Macro?’

‘Yes, sir. I was the commander’s secretary. He freed me in his will.’

I knew Macro, sure: ex-commander of Praetorians, Gaius’s right-hand man until our fledgeling emperor told him and his wife to kill themselves, and one of the most dangerous bastards I’d ever met. ‘So?’ I said.

‘He left a letter for you, sir.’ He drew it out from his belt and laid it carefully on the desk.

I looked but didn’t touch. Odd was right. ‘Why should Macro write to me? And the guy’s been dead for almost three months.’

‘He thought it better that there should be a delay, sir. I’m sure the letter will explain, if you’d be good enough to open it.’

Polite but firm; very firm. And from his tone of voice and the expression on his face I knew that freedman or not the guy wouldn’t be fobbed off by a promise to read the thing later. If I wanted him out of my study, letter unread, it’d mean calling in the bought help to drag him through the door by the heels. I was beginning to get a bad feeling about this.

Bugger.

I reached for the roll of paper and broke the seal:

‘Naevius Sertorius Macro to Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus. Greetings.

When you read this, Corvinus, both I and Ennia will be dead, on the emperor’s orders. What excuse he’ll offer publicly or in private I don’t know, but whatever it is it will be the product of misinformation and calumny.

I fully realise the extent of the favour I am asking you to perform for me. We were never friends, you and I, but even when circumstances inevitably placed us on opposite sides I have always had the greatest admiration for your integrity, your persistence, and your skill in sifting truth from fiction. As indeed has the emperor. That last is important, and the prime reason for this letter, since if anyone can clear my name with Gaius then it is you.

Accordingly, I beg you (and you know that I am not a man who begs easily) to try to do so if you can, to the best of your abilities. I can give you no prior help; or rather – since of course I have my own suspicions on the matter – I will offer you none, because these suspicions are subjective and may be unfounded. Better that you are left to yourself; that approach has served admirably hitherto, and I therefore see no reason to depart from it.

I have asked Dion to keep this letter back – he is aware of its general tenor – until such time as my death is no longer recent, and so as an issue of general concern and interest: I think that, given Gaius’s present state of mind, this would be the wisest – and the safest – course of action. Our new emperor is very young and has his foibles but at root he is a decent and fair-minded man, and once time has distanced him a little from events I am sure that, if supplied with the appropriate evidence, he will be amenable to their reassessment. If nothing else, my rehabilitation will remove the stain from our children, and knowing that you will be working towards it when we are gone will ease both my and Ennia’s minds greatly.

Believe me, Corvinus, that whatever the outcome you have my grateful thanks and my very best wishes.

Macro.’

I let the page fall. Shit.

Dion was watching me closely. ‘Well, sir?’ he said.

‘Well what?’

‘Will you do it? Look into the circumstances of the master’s death?’

I sighed. ‘Listen, pal. Contrary to what your ex-master seemed to assume I’m not a complete idiot.’ Decent and fair-minded, right? From what I’d seen of the bugger – and I’d seen a fair amount of him over the years – the adjectives fitted Our Gaius like bedsocks did a snake. ‘Macro was chopped by the emperor’s order. End, finish, close the book. Even if there is any dirt to be dug I put one spade in the ground and I’ll find myself told to slit my own wrists. Quite rightly so.’

‘But he’s innocent! He didn’t do anything!’

‘Calling someone like Macro innocent is like saying Brutus and Cassius were old Julius’s bosom chums. Now come off it, Dion, you know I can’t help, even if I wanted to. Which I don’t. I’m sorry, but if the guy didn’t deserve chopping this time he’d already deserved it a dozen times over.’

‘ If he had,’ – Dion was angry, but he was holding it in – ‘ If he had, then he was acting for the good of Rome. Sir.’

Yeah, well, I’d heard that one before, too. It was funny how often the good of Rome coincided with the good of whoever claimed it as an excuse, and Macro had been as altruistic as a fox in a hen-run. ‘Fine’ I said. ‘I won’t argue. But the answer’s still no. And that comes with bells on. Now just go, okay? Thanks for coming, but I’m busy.’

Dion drew himself up. ‘Valerius Corvinus,’ he said, ‘I am gravely disappointed in you. And so would the master be.’

‘Yeah. Yeah, right.’ I reached for the abacus. ‘The door-handle’s behind you. Just turn it and push.’

‘ Whoever poisoned the emperor’s mind against the commander had reasons of his own for doing it. Thanks to you it would appear that he will get clean away, and that, sir, might not in the end be to the good of Rome at all. Forgive me, but from what Macro said about you I’d expected far, far more. Evidently I was wrong and so was he. You couldn’t care a fig for the truth.’