Last Rites (Marcus Corvinus Book 6)

by David Wishart

  I tapped on the door and pushed it open. Furius Camillus looked up from his desk. He didn’t look happy, to put it mildly; in fact, if he’d been a younger man, or a less self-controlled one, I had the distinct impression he’d’ve been busting up the furniture.

  ‘Ah. Corvinus,’ he said. ‘Come in, my dear chap. Close the door and take a seat. I was just going to send for you. There’ve been developments.’

  Angry or not, the guy sounded embarrassed. I thought I knew why, too. I pulled up a chair.

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ I said. ‘Your application for an investigative commission into Sextius Nomentanus’s finances has been refused and you have orders to drop the case down a very deep hole.’

  He blinked. ‘Correct,’ he said. ‘In both particulars. Corvinus, I am bitterly sorry. Not to say ashamed.’

  Well, it was all I could’ve realistically expected. I’d been through this before, and there was no point getting angry myself, certainly not with Camillus. ‘That’s okay,’ I said wearily. ‘It happens. Sertorius Macro, right?’

  ‘Indeed.’ Camillus spoke through gritted teeth. ‘Gods, I hate that bloody man! What the hell right has he to–’

  ‘He was the guy behind Nomentanus. Or rather, his boss Prince Gaius was.’

  Camillus sat motionless for a good half-minute, staring at me. Finally, he nodded.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, I see. That would explain it.’ Then, simply: ‘Why?’

  ‘Gaius was responsible for the deaths – ostensibly suicides – three months ago of his own mother and brother. Macro had orders from him not to let the fact go public.’

  ‘Sweet gods! Sweet, merciful gods!’ The deputy chief priest’s face had gone the colour of milk. ‘You’re sure?’

  I shrugged. ‘I’ve no proof, if that’s what you mean, and I’m never likely to have; but, yeah, I’m sure. It’s the only explanation that makes sense. Certainly Gaius was behind the murders, whatever his reasons were.’

  ‘Gaius himself? Not Macro?’ There was a hint of quiet desperation in the tone that I recognised: like a drowning man reaching for a life raft he knows probably isn’t there but feels he should make the attempt anyway. Macro as a villain was one thing, but taking in the idea that Rome’s next political master was a parricide – let alone living with it – wouldn’t come easy to someone like Camillus.

  ‘Uh-uh.’ I shook my head. ‘Macro might have the clout to stop an investigation here at Rome, but the rest of it – the money angle and the fake treason rap that nailed Proculus – are out of his league. He’s no Sejanus, not yet, much as he’d like to be. It has to be Gaius.’

  ‘Not necessarily.’ The initial shock over, Camillus had gone very quiet and stiff. Now he cleared his throat. From his impersonal, clinical tone we could’ve been discussing a fine point of ancient liturgical practice. Understandable: this conversation wasn’t just verging on treason, it was over the edge and halfway beyond. ‘Oh, no one genuinely believes that Agrippina and Drusus starved themselves willingly; their deaths were too convenient and too close together for coincidence, especially in conjunction with Asinius Gallus’s.’ He paused. His eyes stared past me at the far wall. ‘However, the consensus of opinion is that all three… fatalities… originated in a direct order from the emperor.’

  ‘Tiberius had years to get rid of Agrippina and Drusus.’ I could’ve added that the Wart had good reason, too, especially in the lady’s case, but Camillus wouldn’t know that. ‘He didn’t. Why do it now?’

  ‘To secure the succession.’ Camillus was looking more uncomfortable than ever. It was to the guy’s credit that we were having this conversation at all; me, I’ve got no hang-ups about airing the dirty linen of politics, but even the best broad-striper spends most of his life tiptoeing round the washing-basket. The line between hypocrisy and self-preservation is pretty thin at that level. ‘Agrippina and Drusus were the last of the Julian family, and Gallus was their last major supporter.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ I said. ‘So if our next emperor’s a Julian himself – which Gaius is – then why kill them at all? The crown prince’s own mother and brother? That’s some coronation present.’

  Camillus blinked and sat back. ‘Put like that,’ he said, ‘it does seem a little… anomalous. Your alternative explanation, please.’

  ‘Okay.’ I’d thought about this on the way over; in fact, I’d thought of nothing else since I’d woken up with the pieces of the puzzle neatly assembled. Sure, I hadn’t covered all the angles and never would, things being as they were, but it held together. And the way things had panned out it had to be right, in outline at least. ‘First of all, look at it from Gaius’s point of view. He may be a Julian by birth, but he’s Tiberius’s grandson by adoption. He’s crossed over the fence and the family’s an embarrassment, especially his mother who’s hated the Wart for years. And an elder brother would just be a complication. If Gaius is to establish his credentials as Tiberius’s successor then they’re better off dead.’

  Camillus was still looking at the wall somewhere to the side of my left ear. ‘That,’ he said, ‘if we’re speaking dispassionately, as I assume we are, would be an equally strong reason for the emperor himself to have them killed. As I said, to ensure the stability and ease of the succession.’

  ‘Granted. All I’m saying at this point is that in theory Gaius has as much motive for wanting the pair of them dead as Tiberius does. Fair?’

  Camillus hesitated. ‘Yes,’ he said finally, like he was dragging the word up with a hook. ‘Fair.’

  ‘Fine. Now we get down to character. In your honest opinion, is Gaius Caesar congenitally capable of engineering the deaths of his own mother and brother?’

  Camillus was silent for a long time. Then instead of answering the question he murmured, so softly that I had to lean forward to catch the words, ‘“There are worse crimes than murder.”’

  I said nothing.

  ‘That was what young Lepidus meant, wasn’t it? That Gaius was not simply a murderer but a parricide?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said quietly. ‘Yeah, I think so.’

  ‘Sweet holy Jupiter!’ The guy was looking ill. ‘So Lepidus knew?’

  ‘He knew. How he found out I’m not sure, nor how Gaius – or Macro, rather – knew that he knew. Cornelia was easier. Macro must’ve had Lepidus watched. Then it was just a case of creating an opportunity.’

  ‘And of course when Cornelia was murdered the boy realised that he had been the cause of her death. The innocent cause. And that he was powerless even to bring her killers to justice.’ The chief priest closed his eyes briefly. ‘No wonder he committed suicide. He was a good Roman. Corvinus, this is horrible. What can we do?’

  ‘Nothing.’ I felt pretty gut-sick myself. ‘Tiberius may even have known about Agrippina and Drusus from the start.’ Yeah, I’d bet he had, at that: the Wart didn’t miss a trick, he was a cold-blooded bastard where political necessities were concerned and he wasn’t in any doubt about his grandson’s character. He wouldn’t mind taking the rap, either: the tough old bugger was used to being slandered, and the deaths of two more relatives added by popular opinion to his score would be like water off a duck’s back. Still, that didn’t make Gaius’s crime any less. Anything but. ‘File and forget, Camillus. Put it down to dirty politics.’

  Camillus half smiled. ‘“Dirty politics”,’ he said. ‘A good phrase. The two words seem to go together more and more naturally these days.’ He stood up; stiffly, like the old man he wasn’t. ‘I’ve lived too long, Valerius Corvinus. Much too long.’

  I didn’t say anything, but I knew what he meant. Maybe we all had.

  ‘Well, you’ve fulfilled your task, young man.’ Camillus suddenly took to straightening the objects on his desk, aimlessly, like he needed to feel his hands busy with something, but his voice was brisker. ‘You’re right, of course; there is nothing to be done, in Gaius’s case at least, especially if he had the emperor’s… cognisance.’ His mouth twisted as if the word hurt him. ‘Th
e same, unfortunately, goes for Macro. For the present, at any rate.’

  Yeah. I thought that that would be the verdict. Not that it made swallowing it any easier, mind. I kept my expression blank.

  ‘As for those more directly involved, Sextius Nomentanus and Lepida,’ Camillus cleared his throat again, ‘I hold myself to my promise. Leave them to me, and to friends like Lucius Arruntius. Aemilius Lepidus is a sick man, he won’t last much longer and losing both a son and a daughter before he dies would hit him hard, but in Lepida’s case punishment is only deferred.’ He looked at me directly; hard and cold. ‘They’ll pay, both of them, one way or another, you have my oath on that. I owe it both to Cornelia and the boy. Not to mention my own conscience.’

  ‘Yeah. Right,’ I said. I got up.

  ‘You have plans for the Festival?’ He followed me to the door.

  ‘No. Not really.’ I felt empty.

  ‘Nor have I. I think a quiet few days are in order. The past month has been very tiring.’ He hesitated. ‘My thanks again, young man. Remember, the fault isn’t yours. You did your best.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Some best: five innocent deaths, counting Chilo the Watchman’s, and I was walking away from them. It was getting to be a habit. ‘Have a good Festival, Camillus.’

  What else could I do? I went home.

  36.

  Not straight home; I took in Renatius’s wineshop off Market Square – the place I’d got stewed in the afternoon of the dinner party with Gaius Secundus – and set about drowning my sorrows. Or some of them, anyway. At least I couldn’t fault the weather: by some freak it was almost as warm as March, and most of the outside tables were taken by guys from the Square and the government buildings round about it catching an early lunch. I grabbed the last free bench and ordered up a jug of Spoletan – Renatius was an Umbrian, and proud of it – plus some bread, cheese and olives to fill in the corners.

  Yeah, well; that was that, then. Like Camillus had said, I’d done my best and it wasn’t my fault we were screwed; certainly if Gaius and Macro were involved there wasn’t much point taking things any further, not to mention dangerous to try. It rankled, sure, and the incompleteness left a bad taste in my mouth, but I’d been through this scenario before a couple of times and I was getting pretty philosophical about it. There ain’t no sense in bucking the system; especially when the system can roll over and squash you like a beetle without even noticing.

  I felt bad about all the deaths, though. Camillus had said that Nomentanus and Lepida would pay, and I trusted him, but the promise of payment in the abstract wasn’t exactly satisfying. Call me a ghoul if you like, but I wanted blood, and I wanted it now.

  Wants don’t get. And at least the case was solved before the Festival; just in time, too, because the next day was the first of the three. I stretched out my legs, sank half the wine in my cup and began to feel better: Renatius’s Spoletan is good stuff, and he doesn’t overdo the water, either. Hell; what was I beefing about? Spoiled case or not, this was my first Winter Festival in Rome for ten years. I could go down to the Festival Market in Argonauts’ Porch with the other punters and buy the candles, the clay dolls and the sticky animals no one ever got round to eating, do the usual holiday things. Who needed sleuthing, anyway?

  ‘Hey, Corvinus!’

  I looked up. Gaius Secundus was limping towards me with a candelabrum under his arm.

  ‘Hey, Secundus.’ I made space on the bench and signalled to the waiter. ‘Last-minute Festival shopping?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He parked himself and set the thing down. ‘Present for Gemella.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ I took a closer look and grinned. Whoever had sold him it had seen the guy coming. Rampant cupids was the phrase that sprang to mind, and the artist seemed to have a penchant for grapes. Having that on the table when you were eating would be a sure-fire way to indigestion. ‘She’ll love it.’

  He shot me a look that was pure old-Gaius and laughed. ‘Actually, yeah, she will,’ he said. ‘It’ll go perfectly with the other five. What’re you doing down the Square, anyway? Besides getting pissed and sneering at expensive artwork?’

  ‘Unfinished business.’ I sipped my wine. ‘With the chief priest.’

  His face sobered. ‘The Vestal murder?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I thought you’d solved it. The runaway slave.’

  ‘That’s right.’ I didn’t want to go into details; certainly not the finer ones. Luckily the waiter came over at that point and I ordered a plate of sliced sausage and a second cup. ‘So how’s life with you?’

  He helped himself to a piece of my cheese. ‘Not bad. You still interested in Sextius Nomentanus, by the way?’

  I played it careful. ‘Uh-uh. Not any more, pal. The guy’s a dead-end.’

  Secundus chuckled. ‘He’s that, all right. Or was that a joke? You knew already?’

  ‘Knew what?’

  ‘He was found on the Aventine early this morning. Near the Raudusculan Gate.’

  I set my cup down. ‘Nomentanus is dead?’

  ‘They don’t come deader. Knife through the heart.’ He mopped a scrap of bread in the olive oil. ‘The Watch think he was tomcatting and got himself mugged. He was wearing a plain mantle, but luckily the local Watch commander recognised him.’

  That would be Lippillus, and it didn’t surprise me: Lippillus recognised everyone, and a city judge would be as easy to place as his own grandmother. Shit, though! While Secundus started in on the olives I leaned back and thought things through.

  It couldn’t’ve been Camillus’s doing, that was certain. And not Macro’s, either. Sure, like I’d said to Perilla the guy might well have been booked for a seat on the Ferry, but if Macro had ordered his ticket punched he wouldn’t’ve bothered putting the brakes on Camillus’s investigative commission: auditing stops at the grave in this city, and slamming down the shutters on a dead man’s accounts would’ve been pointless. Not to mention eyebrow-raising. Which left the simple, straightforward Watch explanation of an Aventine hug. That was likely enough not to strain anyone’s credulity, because knifings in the Raudusculan were two a penny; still, my skin prickled. I’d wanted blood, and I’d got it.

  Maybe there was such a thing as divine justice after all.

  Lippillus himself was waiting for me when I got in, perched on a couch in the atrium with his short legs swinging like the disreputable dwarf he was. Perilla was feeding him Meton’s dried-apple cake. I held up a hand before he could speak.

  ‘Yeah, I know, pal,’ I said. ‘I heard already. Sextius Nomentanus, right?’

  Lippillus swallowed a mouthful of sponge. ‘The lads found him tucked in an alleyway near the Crocodile. Neat job: one stab, between the ribs. He probably didn’t have time to blink.’

  ‘Marcus, if you two are going to talk anatomical details I think I’ll go elsewhere.’ Perilla got up. ‘Besides, I have work to do.’

  I grinned. ‘Yeah, okay, lady. Catch you later.’ When she’d gone I turned back to Lippillus. ‘How did you make the connection? With me, I mean? Nomentanus was after your time.’

  ‘The Hippo said you’d been in asking about him. I thought maybe you’d like to be kept informed.’ He paused. ‘Also that you might be able to help finger the guy who did it.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Well, the first bit didn’t surprise me: Lippillus could add up faster than an abacus, and the Crocodile would be a logical starting point. The second I wasn’t so sure about, especially under the circumstances. My sympathies were all with the killer. ‘So what happened exactly?’

  ‘Exactly, I don’t know.’ He reached over to the wine jug on the table and poured for both of us. ‘Nor does the Hippo.’

  ‘Genuinely?’

  ‘Yeah. I knew it might be important so I leaned on him a little. Nomentanus was seeing one of the girls on a regular basis–’

  ‘Phoebe.’

  ‘Right. He went upstairs, came down half an hour later, had a drink – it must’ve been about an hour after sunset –
and left. That was the last the fat guy saw of him.’

  ‘He was alone?’

  ‘Yeah. The Hippo says he thinks one of the other customers – not a regular – may have left at his back but he can’t be sure. The place was full at the time.’

  I took a swallow of wine. ‘He remember anything about the customer?’

  ‘No. Not much. Big guy in his twenties, rough type, maybe a carter. You get a lot of carters in the wineshops by the gates.’

  ‘Not after sunset you don’t.’ Sunset was when the carts moved out to make their deliveries. ‘And carters tend to stick together. They’ve got their own favourite watering-holes.’

  Lippillus grinned. ‘You sure you don’t want a Watch job, Corvinus?’ he said. I gave him the finger. ‘Okay. So not a carter. That sort of thing, though.’

  ‘He been in before?’

  ‘The Hippo couldn’t swear to it either way. It’s possible, the guy looked familiar, but like I said the place was packed and he didn’t have the time to notice him properly.’

  I sighed. Yeah, well; it was suspicious, sure. Still, a solo mantle in the Raudusculan – plain or striped – would be a prime target for an enterprising knifeman after a fat purse, and conspiracy theory didn’t necessarily apply. Besides, whoever the guy was who’d zeroed the bastard, vested pecuniary interest or not, he deserved Rome’s congratulations and a pension. ‘So that’s that, then,’ I said.

  ‘Maybe. Nomentanus was a city judge. On the other hand the powers-that-be aren’t exactly screaming for action.’ Lippillus gave me a quizzical glance over his wine cup. ‘And that’s strange, Corvinus. These two things just don’t go together. Unless of course besides being seen as a damn fool to go tomcatting alone on the Aventine after sunset the guy’s blotted his copybook in other ways.’

  There’d been half a question in his voice. I answered it; I owed him that much.

  ‘He was Myrrhine’s boss.’

  Lippillus set his cup down and stared at me. Then he whistled softly. ‘Uh-huh,’ he said. ‘Even so, murderer or not, for a city judge not to get automatic five-star treatment we have to be talking political here. Right?’