There was a frantic scrabbling among the rocks up ahead. Yeah, right; so chummie had decided to cut and run for it after all, had he? Fine by me; absolutely fine. I shouted and, ignoring the pain in my ribs, forced myself to make the final spurt...
Which was when I found out that there had been a ditch after all. Not a proper, man-made one, just a narrow channel formed by a small spring or the winter run-off on the track’s further edge. It was no more than a generous hand’s-breadth wide, but it was deep enough, when my foot went into it, to throw me off balance. I came down hard, right on my sore ribs, my head hit a sizeable chunk of rock flat on, and chasing phantom slingers suddenly didn’t seem quite so important any more.
The combination had me out of it and gasping for a good two or three minutes. By the time the pain had faded from sheer bloody murder to agonising and I could pull myself back up and take a wider interest in things there wasn’t no one left around but us chickens.
Bugger.
Yeah, well. Some you win, some you lose, and at least I wasn’t lying back there with my skull smashed like an egg and what brains I had spread over half Campania. I brushed myself off and started the long limp home.
15
Bathyllus’s precognitive faculties were obviously at their usual razor-sharp level, and when I hobbled up the drive he was already standing by the open door with the obligatory jug and cup, eyes fixed in horror on what was left of my mantle and tunic. No surprises there: as far as sartorial elegance went, I wouldn’t’ve given a month-old scarecrow a decent run for its money. I took the cup from the little guy’s nerveless fingers and drained it. Beautiful!
‘Dinner started?’ I said.
‘Yes, sir.’ He poured a refill and cleared his throat. I could see that the muscle in his right cheek was beginning to twitch: a normal day’s wear and tear is one thing, but having the master come back in a state that would’ve disgraced a third-grade Tiber scavenger offended Bathyllus to his respectable core. ‘Ah...perhaps you’d like to change first, sir.’ He sniffed. ‘A wash wouldn’t go amiss, either.’
I grinned: from the tone, the sniff and the look I was still getting I had the distinct impression that the finicky bugger would cheerfully have made it a hosing down at short range by the local fire brigade. Not that he was totally out of line, mind: after what I’d been through that day I’d’ve killed for an hour in the bathhouse. Still, with dinner already served there wouldn’t be time for that, even if the furnace was lit. ‘Yeah, okay,’ I said. ‘Fair point, pal, no arguments.’ I stripped off the mantle. ‘Give this a decent burial, will you?’
‘Yes, sir.’ He took the thing from me in a fastidious one-finger-and-thumb grip. ‘A pleasure. Interesting day, sir?’
‘It had its moments.’
‘So I see.’ Sniff.
‘Sod off, Bathyllus.’ I was still grinning. Disapproving major-domos or not, it was nice to be home; to be alive and home. That was enough for the moment. I’d think about the implications of our friendly pebble-slinger later.
I downed the refill, held the cup out for more and then went upstairs for a sluice and a change.
When I came back down the starters were already half gone.
‘Uh...sorry I’m late,’ I said, easing myself onto the couch beside Perilla as naturally as I could manage. Evidently not naturally enough, though, because Perilla was frowning at me.
‘Are you all right, Marcus?’ she said.
‘Sure. Never better.’ I reached - gingerly - for the wine. Luckily, Diodotus’s bandaging was hidden by the tunic - she’d see it later, of course, but that was a confrontation I intended to put off as long as possible - and I’d managed to tidy up the worst signs of the cross with the homicidal slinger. ‘Just a bit stiff from walking, that’s all.’
‘Hmm.’ She dipped a stick of raw carrot in the fish sauce. ‘So how was your day?’
‘Busy.’ I’d been casting covert glances at Mother and Priscus on the other two couches. Oh, hell. Evidently there had been Developments, and I didn’t need to be an augur to see that the signs weren’t good: the equivalent of all the sacred chickens at once keeling over and handing in their feed pails. Mother was in full-scale-war rig, dressed to the nines up to and including the tiara. That she didn’t do normally for family dinners, no way, and it meant that she’d used the prinking and primping as an excuse to spend the time with her maid rather than Priscus. Added to which the old guy looked even vaguer than usual, which was the standard last-ditch Priscan defensive manoeuvre. Mother was ignoring him. I cleared my throat and grasped the nettle. ‘Ah...how about you, Mother? Anything exciting happen?’
‘Don’t ask!’ she snapped.
Jupiter! Nettle, nothing; what we had here was a combination of prickly pear, poison ivy and Medusa the Gorgon on a very bad hair day. Seriously peeved did not quite cover things. ‘Yeah, okay, if you –’
‘We went into Misenum, the three of us.’
‘Hey, that was nice! It’s a lovely drive to Misenum, especially –’
‘Yes, it is. We were passing one of the wineshops in the square when your stepfather was hailed by Licinius Nerva and Aquillius Florus. I wasn’t aware that he’d met the gentlemen, but evidently he had. How and where exactly wasn’t at once apparent, although that’ - she fixed me with her eye - ‘became clear later.’
Hell. ‘Is that so, now?’ I said.
‘Mmmaa...Vipsania, dear, I have apologised already.’ Priscus blinked at me. ‘I’m sure Marcus doesn’t want to know –’
‘Be quiet, Titus!’ When she likes, Mother has tones to her voice that would make a legionary First Spear hand in his vine-staff and take up crochet. She used them now, and Priscus curled up like a salted slug. ‘Marcus has his faults, many of them, the gods know, but as de facto if not precisely, thank the gods, de iure head of the family he has a duty to know what is going on under our noses. If’ - she shot me another look - ‘he didn’t know already and was covering up for you. Which wouldn’t surprise me in the least.’
Oh, bugger; so the shit had finally hit the fan. Well, I’d warned the old buffer. Twice. All that remained was to ascertain precise details re coverage and depth. ‘Ah...maybe you’d like just to tell me what Priscus did, Mother,’ I said.
‘I am doing so.’ Mother shelled a peahen’s egg and dunked it viciously in the salt. ‘The two...gentlemen..., as I say, hailed Titus by name as a long-lost friend and insisted that he have a cup of wine with them. Naturally I didn’t want to cause a scene so we arranged that Perilla and I would take a walk along the front and pick him up on the way back in time for a spot of shopping.’
I glanced at Perilla. The lady was keeping her head down: a bad sign. ‘Seems fair enough to me,’ I said. ‘Very reasonable arrangement.’
‘So I thought.’ Mother dunked the egg again, squashing it. ‘When we returned Nerva and Florus had gone and Titus was sitting at the table, smelling strongly of drink.’
‘Mmmaa! It was only two cups, dear. Well watered.’
‘Don’t interrupt. Despite this, Marcus, since I saw no reason why the day should be irretrievably ruined, we continued to Gratianus’s, which as you know is one of the better local jewellery shops. I bought, or at least I selected for purchase, a very nice little cameo brooch. Naturally, since Titus was carrying the money, I referred Gratianus to him –’
Uh-oh; I knew what was coming now. The daft old bugger!
‘– only to discover that Titus had nothing to pay with. Of course, I asked him why - he’d had, to my sure knowledge because I checked as I always do, at least fifteen gold pieces in his belt-pouch when we left this morning - and after a certain amount of prevarication and downright lying –’
‘Mmmaaa!’
‘– it transpired that he had lost all of it to his two wineshop friends in a dice game. Gratianus very kindly set the brooch aside for me, so that part of it is fine, but understandably I was seething. Which I still am.’ She dropped the squashed, oversalted peahen’s egg onto her plate an
d wiped her fingers. ‘There. That is the story. Appalling, isn’t it?’
‘Uh...yeah,’ I said. ‘Yeah. Disgraceful.’
‘Of course, I had everything out of him on the way home. He has been going behind my back for days, pretending to visit that Sicilian friend of his while actually frequenting gambling dens, wineshops and goodness knows where else. It is depicable and deceitful and, naturally, it stops here.’ She glared at Priscus.
‘Yes, Vipsania,’ Priscus murmured. A six-year-old caught with his hand in the preserved fruit jar couldn’t’ve said it better. Well, at least that got me off the hook: with Priscus grounded, presumably for the rest of the holiday if not for life, my half-promise to take him to the gambling hall wasn’t valid any longer. And because I’d already talked to Philippus I wouldn’t be shedding any tears on that account.
‘So there only remains, Marcus, for you to get the money back,’ Mother said.
I snapped into full attention. ‘What?’
‘You’re the head of family, dear. I understand that you know or have had dealings with these two dice-sharpers already. You may even - I don’t accuse you, but I have very strong suspicions - have been instrumental in introducing them to Titus and so allowed them to take advantage of him. You therefore have a clear duty and obligation to remedy the situation by recovering the money. And don’t try to weasel out of it, because you won’t.’
Oh, shit. ‘Mother, look, this has got nothing to do with me, right?’ I said. ‘I’m sorry, but if a guy gets involved in a dice match of his own free will he has to be prepared to –’
‘The usual conventions regarding the settlement of gambling debts do not apply, Marcus. Titus was not responsible for his actions. You’ve known him long enough to know that he very seldom is. I’m willing to set this particular instance of his gross irresponsibility down to a temporary aberration on his part –’
‘Mmmaa!’
‘– but as I say having talked long and seriously with him I have grave doubts about your role in the business. Someone must have led him astray and to my mind you are the obvious candidate. In fact the only possible candidate.’
‘Now look here! I –’
‘So I expect you - expect you, Marcus! - to make suitable amends, at the earliest opportunity.’ She reached for the stuffed olives. ‘There. That’s all I have to say on the subject. I am disappointed in you; gravely disappointed. Consider the matter closed.’
I sat back. Jupiter on a fucking trolley! How had that worked? In the course of two minutes I’d moved from uninvolved sympathetic listener to the villain of the piece, while conniving bloody Priscus came out the other end shining white as a vote-chaser’s mantle. There wasn’t no justice; there wasn’t no justice! When I got my bleating, buck-passing stepfather on his own I would kill the bastard.
Typical Mother, mind. She may have a first-class brain, but in her book the direction of a logical progression is optional: you choose where you want it to go and that’s where it ends up. If neither the destination nor the route makes sense to anyone else, then tough, and there’s no use arguing because that just makes things worse.
‘Ah...right,’ I said. ‘Right. Okay. I’ll do my best.’
‘You had better. And no cheating by substituting your own money, either.’
Hell.
‘Now.’ She settled back and unshelled another peahen’s egg. ‘How is your case going?’
I told them, missing out the little contretemps at Zethus’s and the resultant trip to Diodotus’s. It took a while - like I’d said to Perilla, the day had been busy - but at least it got my mind off the Priscus problem. By the time I’d finished Bathyllus and the minions had cleared away the starters and brought the main course. I noticed that, following a glare from Mother that would’ve filleted an anchovy, the wine slave skipped Priscus’s cup: the old guy was obviously on strict probation. Not that I had any sympathy, mind. At that precise moment I’d gladly have recycled the bleating, duplicitous bugger for catmeat.
‘They seem a most unpleasant family,’ Mother said.
‘Yeah.’ I took a swig of wine. Only a small one: I’d had Bathyllus bring a dozen jars of the Special down with us, and given him strict instructions to go easy on the water - luckily, with Priscus out of things for the duration I was the only one drinking, Mother and Perilla being on some fruit juice-honey-and-herb aberration - because Mother tended to keep count. ‘That’s putting it mildly.’
‘So who are your prime suspects?’ Perilla said.
‘Almost any of them could’ve done it, as far as motivation goes.’ I helped myself to the seafood ragout. ‘The old guy wasn’t exactly flavour of the month all round. Opportunity, now...well, that’s a different matter. Gellia’s still up there, for a start. Standard motive; she’s a good thirty years younger than her husband, they weren’t exactly compatible, and she’s got an itch in her drawers that she isn’t averse to scratching.’ (‘Marcus!’ Mother snapped. I ignored her.) ‘Also, she’s got no alibi.’
‘Could she have done it alone? What about the doctor?’
‘Uh-uh. Diodotus is clean. He was at an all-night childbirth over in Bauli. But there’s –’
‘You talked to him?’ Perilla said sharply. ‘When?’
‘Ah...’ I slid to a mental halt. Oh, shit; there went the ball game. ‘We, uh, bumped into each other in the market square.’
The lady had put down her spoon and fixed me with her eye. ‘Marcus,’ she said, ‘you’re lying. I want to know why, please.’
‘Look...’
‘I am looking. I’m also listening. I’ll find out eventually, of course, so you may as well tell me now.’
Overtones of pure natron, chilled to a temperature that’d make winter in Thule feel like an Arabian July. Well, that hadn’t lasted long, had it? And she was right: she’d see the bandages as soon as I took my tunic off. It was a fair cop. ‘We, uh, talked while he was fixing me up,’ I said. ‘Round at his surgery.’
‘“Fixing you up”?’
‘Yeah. I sort of got involved in a sort of a barroom brawl. A minor one. Nothing serious, no real –’
‘A brawl?’
‘Over at Zethus’s. Gods, Perilla, it’s only a bruised rib! Nothing to –’
‘Marcus Valerius Corvinus, I will –!’
‘Perilla, dear,’ Mother broke in calmly, ‘no quarrelling at the table, please. You can tear his ears off in private later.’ She shelled a mussel. ‘Personally, I’m not surprised in the least. If I have learned anything about my son in the past thirty-odd years it is that his brain doesn’t function like a normal person’s. If indeed, properly speaking, it functions at all.’
Jupiter on a pole! ‘Now look here, Mother - !’
‘Quite. I totally agree, Vipsania.’ Perilla sniffed. ‘We’ll discuss the brawl later, Marcus. In detail. Carry on.’
‘Ah...right. Right.’ I gathered my wounded dignity. Yeah, well, at least she didn’t know about the sling attack. That little nugget I wasn’t going to pass on, no way, nohow, never: finding out how close I’d come to having a hole drilled through my head would really put the lady off her dinner. ‘Where was I?’
‘The doctor.’
‘Yeah.’ I took a swig of the Special to help get things back on track again. ‘Like I say, Diodotus is out, as the actual murderer, anyway. He’d be capable enough, sure, especially on the planning side, but even if he hadn’t had an alibi I can’t see him and Gellia being an item, and without that he’s got no real motive. Gellia would’ve had to be the driving force, and Diodotus is no pushover. Florus, now, he’s another matter.’ (‘Ah.’ Mother leaned back). ‘He’s got the brains of a gnat, he’s tied up with Gellia and I’d bet the lady could twist him round her little finger if she wanted to. He was at Philippus’s gaming-house for at least part of the evening, sure, but only latterly; he could’ve gone there straight from Murena’s place, easy. Florus is a possibility.’
‘What about the rest of the family?’ Perilla said.
‘Who? Oh, Marcus!’
‘Hang on, lady. Middle-aged matron or not, if she believed that her father was responsible for her mother’s death then she’s got motive in spades.’
‘But, Marcus, that’s silly! The woman...what was her name again?’
‘Fadia.’
‘Very well. Fadia has been dead for thirty years. Even if your Penelope does believe she was murdered why should she suddenly decide on revenge at this stage?’
I shrugged. ‘Pass. I asked myself the same question. Even so, it’s a possibility, and six gets you ten there’s a thread there that needs following.’
Mother had been shelling a prawn. She looked up, frowning. ‘This all happened in Rome, didn’t it?’ she said. ‘Not in Baiae?’
‘Uh...yeah,’ I said. ‘Yeah, I assume so.’
‘And there was...would there have been an actual trial involved?’
I felt the first tingle of excitement: now that was an angle I hadn’t thought of. ‘Maybe,’ I said cautiously. ‘You tell me.’
She shook her head. ‘No, dear. I’m afraid I can’t go quite that far. When you first mentioned Licinius Murena’s first wife the word “trial” did slip into my head, but that’s all there was, and I’m afraid it’s too faint a bell.’
Food for the Fishes (Marcus Corvinus Book 10) Page 14
