Ovid (Marcus Corvinus Book 1)

by David Wishart

  'Sure. Scylax.'

  I felt the first prickle of excitement. 'He say what it was about?'

  'Nah.'

  I recognised the guy now: the big Spaniard who kept the sand raked in Scylax's exercise yard. 'You didn't think of telling my slave Bathyllus, I suppose? He knew where I was.'

  The sarcasm bounced off like dried chickpeas from a breastplate. The guy didn't even blink.

  'Master said I was to see you personal,' he said. 'You weren't in, so I waited. Till you were in, like.'

  This boy was wasted raking sand. I could've used him as a doorstop.

  'Okay, sunshine,' I said. 'Give me a chance to fetch the lads and I'll be right with you.'

  Scylax was binding a new grip on a wooden training sword when we walked in. His eyes shifted from me to my four Gauls and I saw them widen. Three of the lads looked pretty chewed, but they were happy as hell after their scrap and I hadn't had the heart to trade them in for new models.

  'Daphnis found you all right, then,' he said.

  'Daphnis?'

  Scylax shrugged. 'Not my fault. The poor bastard had the name when I bought him.' He laid the sword aside. 'I've got the information you wanted.'

  I could feel my heart speeding up. 'You've found Big Fritz?'

  'Yeah. Pure fluke. His name's Agron and he's got a metalsmith's shop in the Subura.'

  'Whereabouts in the Subura?'

  'Let me get my boots on and I'll take you.'

  I shook my head. 'Oh, no. I'm grateful, believe me, but this is my business. I'll take care of things from here on in myself.'

  'No chance.' Scylax stood up. In his bare feet he was even shorter than usual. 'I've found your boy for you. Now I want a piece of the action. Or at least an explanation.'

  'Look, Scylax, don't crowd me, okay? I'll tell you later. Promise.'

  'Screw your later.' He stood square in front of me like a concrete block. 'Come on, Corvinus. You owe me. And whatever trouble you're in is getting worse. So now tell me I'm wrong.'

  'Things're hotting up, yeah,' I said reluctantly.

  'Another fight?'

  'Just a titchy one.'

  'Titchy one, hell.' Scylax's slabwood face split in a grin and he nodded towards the Sunshine Boys. 'It'd only take me a month to turn any one of these marble-crushers into a first rate gladiator. That's a four-man army you've got there, boy, and it still gets dented. Who were the opposition? Praetorians?'

  'Near enough.' I hesitated, wondering how little I could get away with. 'You ever heard of a gang of legionaries turning bandit?'

  Scylax's jaw dropped. 'You got mugged by legionaries?'

  'Only one of them qualified for sure that I know of. But the rest had regular army stamped all over them.'

  'Fuck!' He spat onto the bare boards at his feet. 'How many?'

  'A dozen. Maybe more. I didn't count.'

  'No wonder you got creased.' He was staring at me. 'You're lucky to be alive, friend.'

  'We had help. A squad of Rome's finest who happened to be passing and needed the exercise.' I told him the story. 'So what's your explanation?'

  'You get them sometimes. Men who've been drummed out. Thieves. Cowards. Runners. But not that many, not in Italy, and not bunched together in dozens.' He paused. 'Not freelance, anyway.'

  'That's what I thought.'

  'You got someone's back up recently? Someone bigger even than you are, with military connections?'

  'I might've done. Look, Scylax, I'm not holding out on you but I don't want you involved.'

  'Screw that.' Scylax had picked up a pair of thick hobnail soldier's boots and was putting them on. 'From what you tell me this Agron guy could be trouble, private army or not. And I'm not having my patron carried home on a board for nobody. Okay?'

  'Okay.' I conceded defeat. Not that I had much option. 'Suit yourself. Only if you find in the near future that you and your balls have parted company don't say I didn't warn you.'

  He grinned, and we set off for the Subura.

  We were walking along Tuscan Road, the Sunshine Boys doing their battering-ram routine with the crowds so we could actually move in a straight line at a decent speed. Mind you we'd've been okay even without the lads. No one crowds Scylax.

  'You want to tell me how you tracked the guy down?' I said.

  'It was a fluke.' Scylax frowned. 'Couple of days ago this friend of mine gets involved with a knifeman outside the Shrine of Libera and busts the hilt of his dagger on the guy's front teeth. He goes into the nearest metalsmith's to get it fixed and guess who's swinging the hammer?'

  'Your friend didn't give himself away, I hope.'

  'Nah.' Scylax spat into the roadway. 'He's subtle, old Bassus. Just got his knife fixed, paid for it and left. We won't be expected, don't you worry.'

  We'd passed the spice sellers now and were into the perfume makers' stretch. I stopped at one of the better class booths and poked about a bit, but there wasn't anything Perilla would touch with a ten foot pole. Scylax bought a tub of bright yellow cream from a guy squatting on the pavement.

  'Piss-awful stuff, but it keeps off the flies when you sweat.' He passed it over. 'You want to try some?'

  I took a cautious sniff and nearly threw up.

  'What the hell is that?'

  'Jupiter knows. Guy calls it Gorilla Juice.'

  'I'll take the flies any day.' I passed the box back. 'What did you say Big Fritz's name was?'

  'Agron. Bassus got that much. The guy's an Illyrian, like we thought.' Scylax stopped suddenly. 'Okay, I've done my bit, boy, and now it's your turn. Let's take some time out for explanations.'

  I sighed. 'Look, I can't tell you, okay? Not yet. Later, maybe, when this thing starts to make more sense. But not now.'

  Scylax shook his head and carried on walking.

  'You're in trouble all right,' he said. 'Right up to the eyeballs.'

  We were well into the Subura by now and I could see the Shrine of Libera up ahead, half hidden in the ramshackle chaos of the hawkers' booths and the swarming crowds of Rome's poorest citizens. No wonder Scylax hadn't been able to track the guy down. Even leaving numbers aside, the Subura's a law to itself. If you're part of it you can disappear like water into sand, and it'll lie itself blue to hide you.

  'That's Metalsmiths' Row on the left,' Scylax said. 'Agron's shop should be about half way down.'

  We found it, and it was closed. Seriously closed. Heavy wooden shutters had been pulled across the entrance and fixed with a metal padlock.

  'Maybe he just took the day off.' Scylax sounded guilty.

  'Oh, sure! Like for his grandmother's funeral. We're just through with the Floralia, for Jupiter's sake! Who the hell takes a day off at this time of year?'

  'You looking for Agron?'

  I turned round. A little fat guy had come out of the cookshop next door holding a slathery bunch of what I hoped were sausage skins.

  'Yeah. Know where he is, friend?'

  'Your name Corvinus?'

  Shit. 'Yeah, that's me.'

  The guy gave me a look like I'd just sodomised his pet cat.

  'He said you might be round after your friend called to get his knife fixed.' So much for Scylax's Bassus. Sure, he was subtle all right. Subtle as a ton of concrete. 'Said to tell you he was sorry to've missed you but that he'll be in touch if your nose is still troubling you. That make sense?'

  Despite myself, I laughed.

  'What's funny?' Scylax demanded.

  'Nothing. Private joke.' The guy might be an enemy but he had style. Style and brains. Ovid's last name was Naso, The Nose, so it was a double pun.

  'You know where he went?' Scylax turned back to the sausage-seller.

  'Nah.' The man disappeared back into his shop. Scylax was going in after him but I pulled him back.

  'Let's take this easy,' I said. 'You'll scare him off.'

  'I'll feed the little fucker to his own customers. They won't know the difference.'

  'Easy!' I pushed past him and went into the
shop. The guy was already stuffing the skins with a disgusting mess from a cracked bowl. His shop smelt of burnt grease, cheap olive oil and long-dead meat. 'You sell them, friend, or just make them?'

  The man scowled. 'Blood puddings, meatballs or Lucanian sausage?'

  'Real Lucanian sausage? All the way from Luca?'

  The fat fingers gave the filled tube a vicious twist. 'You on the stage or something?'

  'Okay. Just grill us up a couple of your best, right?' I remembered the Sunshine Boys waiting patiently outside. 'Make it a dozen.'

  I took a gold piece from my pouch and threw it on the table. The shopkeeper's eyes went straight to it, but he kept his hands in the bowl.

  'Sausages're two coppers each,' he said. His eyes never left the coin. He wouldn't make that much, I knew, in a month.

  'So we're rich mugs,' I said. 'Now tell us about Agron. And don't forget the sausages because my lads outside get nervous when they're hungry, okay?'

  'You're wasting your time.' He reached up to the hook above his head, pulled down a string of sausages and laid them on the grease-blackened grill. 'I don't know nothing.'

  'Come on, Corvinus, let me handle this.' Scylax spoke quietly. He didn't move a muscle but the fat cook showed the whites of his eyes. Scylax has that effect on people.

  'Last chance, sunshine,' I said. 'Before I let my friend here ask the questions. What's your name anyway?'

  'Tarquin.'

  'Fuck!' Scylax muttered.

  I ignored him. 'Right, Tarquin. Take it slow and easy and just tell us what you know.'

  'Look, I've told you, I don't know nothing!'

  'That's right. Start at the beginning, take us through the middle and stop when you come to the end. The guy's Illyrian, right?'

  The fat man sighed.

  'Yeah,' he said. 'Comes from Singidunum, wherever the hell that is.'

  'On the Danube, west of Sirmium.'

  'Yeah. Right. Whatever. If you say so. He came here first about nine, ten years back. Maybe twelve, I can't remember. Patron bought him the business and set him up nicely.'

  'Who's his patron?'

  'How the hell should I know? You purple-striped bastards're all the same.'

  'Watch your mouth,' Scylax grunted.

  'So he's an ex-slave?' I said.

  Tarquin eased the tip of a spatula beneath the half-cooked sausages and flipped them over with a deft twist of the wrist. 'Nah. Soldier. Patron used to be a military man out that way. When he got his discharge he tagged along with the guy to Rome.'

  Jupiter Best and Greatest! 'You ever see him? The patron, I mean?'

  'Nah. What'd one of your lot be doing round here? Present company excepted, of course.'

  'Agron ever mention his name?'

  'Nah. And I never asked neither.'

  'He's still around?'

  'The patron? Search me. Maybe he is, maybe he isn't.' He reached into a crock and pulled out two greasy, stale-looking loaves. 'Maybe he's pushing up the daisies someplace. How many plates you want?'

  'We'll take them with us. That's all you can tell us?'

  'That's it.' He picked up the gold piece and slipped it into the pouch round his waist. 'Enjoy your meal, gents.'

  We fed the bread and sausages to the Sunshine Boys, who wolfed them down as if they hadn't seen food for a month. I thought they'd toss their guts up on the way home but they didn't. Gauls must have cast-iron stomachs. Or maybe they just like five-day-old dog.

  So Big Fritz had been a soldier. And his patron had been a military man who'd held a command ‘out that way’. Although it was tantalising that particular gobbet of information didn't get me very far. ‘Out that way’ to a guy like Tarquin could mean anywhere from the Rhine to Thrace. Or even at a push South Spain or Egypt. And the ‘military man’ could've been anyone from Tiberius down to Pomponius the decurion. He could even be my father...

  I dropped Scylax off back at the gym and went home. I didn't go round to Perilla's that evening. Bathyllus couldn't find any oysters and anyway I didn't have the energy.

  * * *

  Varus to Himself

  We have been marching all day. The weather is worsening, the road is no more than a track. The attack should have come this morning, at the edge of the forest, but there has been nothing, there has been nothing, only minor skirmishing between my outriders and an enemy who slip back into the trees like ghosts and draw them on to their deaths...

  Where is the German army? Where is Arminius?

  He has betrayed me. Set it down, Varus. Set it down, you fool. He has betrayed me.

  Trust. Yet he is Roman. Fabius said it. Fabius said it. Arminius is more Roman than I am...

  I believed in him!

  Traitor. Traitor. Venal, gullible traitor!

  We could go back. We could still go back. But then what of Rome? I have let him gather his army, I have helped him unite the tribes. I am responsible, no one else, and I must be the one to destroy him. If we can pass this forest we will be in his own heartland, and we are still three legions. If we only had a map. Guides...

  Vela has come and gone, asking –begging – for orders. I smelt his fear, the forest-fear that he has kept bottled up throughout the march, which I mistook for knowledge of my treachery. I told him to burn the surplus baggage carts. If we are to come through this and smash Arminius then we must move quickly. We are still an army. For how much longer only the gods know.

  We are all dead men.

  Traitor!

  28.

  My head was so full that night that I couldn't sleep. Instead I sent Bathyllus for a flask of mulled wine and settled down in my study to think things over.

  The Illyrian Rebellion had almost crippled us. Sure, we pulled through eventually – the good old Roman Eagle always does, somehow – but it had taken two years for the situation to be normalised; which means we smashed the buggers. End of story, and hooray for us.

  Only it wasn't the end. A year or so later Quinctilius Varus is massacred with three full legions in the Teutoburg, the northern frontier defences are suddenly non-existent and the Roman Eagle is up the creek without a paddle for the second time in three years.

  And in between the two disasters Augustus's granddaughter gets caught with her pants down while her husband Paullus goes for broke conspiring against the emperor. Or whoever...

  There had to be a link. The Paullus conspiracy had to fit in somewhere. And how it fitted in, I was sure, hinged on the identity of our fourth conspirator.

  So what about Varus as a candidate? Standing in, as I'd suggested to Perilla, for Augustus himself? I sipped the mulled wine and went over in my mind what I knew about the guy. Ex-consul. Governor of Africa, then military governor of Syria, where he put down the Jewish revolt. Finally appointed by Augustus to be his personal viceroy in Germany...

  Of which task he made the most almighty balls-up within living memory.

  I shook my head. It didn't make sense. Oh, sure, given that Augustus was playing the conspirators' game, or pretending to, Varus was the natural choice for the job. He was the emperor's man beyond question, and he had a lifetime's experience as a diplomat and a general. A good all-rounder, experienced, tried and tested over a career stretching back thirty-odd years...

  So how the hell had a guy like that managed to make such an almighty cock-up? How had the man who'd put down the Jewish revolt practically single-handed let himself be outgeneralled by a pack of unshaven louts who couldn't form a tortoise to save themselves?

  The usual excuse was Arminius: a clever, smooth-talking Romanised bastard who'd twisted the poor senile governor round his little finger and then stamped on his balls. But that, I felt, wouldn't wash. Varus wasn't senile, he wasn't a military tyro, and as an ex-governor of Syria he'd dealt with guys that would’ve run rings round Arminius without so much as working up a sweat. So there had to be another explanation, and the obvious one was good enough to be going on with.

  Varus's cock-up was intentional, and something had gone w
rong.

  The jug was almost empty. I tipped the last of the mulled wine into my cup and considered shouting for Bathyllus to bring me some more; but it was late, I'd already sent the little guy to bed and I suspected that another jugful would be one too much for me. I sipped at what was left, spinning it out.

  Say at the start Varus had been quite genuinely Augustus's agent, his job being to guarantee the conspirators the protection of the Rhine legions. Only then Augustus tells the old guy that he's changed his mind, and that now Varus will be stringing the conspirators along. No legionary backing, no final bolthole. The whole thing's suddenly a sham. But maybe the scam's too tempting. Maybe Varus thinks that the way things are going the conspirators have a better-than-evens chance of pulling it off. And even although it involves a certain amount of risk his treason's in a good cause because Augustus would secretly welcome the chance to throw the Wart out on his boil-studded arse. Also if Postumus makes it past the starting gate then Varus is going to be very, very popular with the new regime. So Varus decides to carry on playing it for real. He sets out to screw up Germany, alienate the army and force the emperor to do what the poor bastard really wants to do all along...

  Yeah, I thought. I'd go for that as a working theory.

  Except that if Varus had doublecrossed Augustus then why should the emperor cover up for him instead of nailing him by his foreskin to the Senate House gates?

  Shit. I swallowed the last of the mulled wine at a gulp. Varus was too good a candidate to pass up that easily. It was a shame the old bastard was dead. Maybe I could find a Babylonian necromancer and get him to call his spirit up from Tartarus or wherever. Bathyllus would know at least a dozen...

  Then I remembered. I had one more valid option. Varus himself might be dead but his sister Quinctilia was still alive. Maybe she could tell me something. I thought of waking Bathyllus and sending him round to arrange a meeting, but of course it was far too late. Anyway, I was finally getting sleepy. That last mouthful of mulled wine had been one too many. Tomorrow morning would be early enough. I settled back on the couch and closed my eyes.

  I was at a dinner party. Round the central table, lit by hanging oil lamps, reclined three figures. Silanus I recognised at once. He lay on the couch to my left dressed in an expensive party mantle, his arm draped across the shoulder of a naked woman who stared up at him with dead, empty eyes. The other guy, on the host's couch, was propped up on his left elbow, his pose stiff and formal, like the figure on an old tomb. His face was covered by a wax death mask.