Ovid (Marcus Corvinus Book 1)

by David Wishart

  'You're talking about the emperor, Corvinus.' Fat Face wasn't looking too happy. 'Let's have a little more respect please.'

  'Oh, don't be so stuffy, Lucius!' Quinctilia said sharply. 'Corvinus is perfectly right. Tiberius may have many excellent qualities but the man's a boor and always has been. Carry on, young man.’

  Jupiter! the old girl never ceased to surprise me. Asprenas stiffened as if she'd run a needle into his backside and his mouth closed so fast I could hear his teeth snap together.

  'Okay,' I said. 'Now the Wart may not look much but he's a grade-A general. The only problem is that even when he's winning victories nobody notices. And recently he hasn't been shining all that much on the military side either. In fact he's been coming in for quite a bit of stick back home over his conduct of the Illyrian campaign. You'd agree?'

  Asprenas inclined his head stiffly, but I could see that I had him hooked. Agron, too.

  'So the empress has a problem. Somehow she has to manoeuvre things so that her baby boy can come up smelling like roses. Only he has to do it in his own right, not as stepdaddy's deputy. Diplomacy is out. The Wart hasn't got the charisma. A big military success, now, that's a different thing and it's right up Tiberius's street. The trouble is he's had them before and they haven't got him anywhere. The only way this one is going to be any different is if it fulfils two requirements.'

  'Which are?' Fat Face's lips hardly moved.

  'One.' I held down a finger. 'The Wart gets full credit, not just a pat on the back as Augustus's stand-in. Two. Connected with this.' I held the second finger down. 'The campaign's necessary to clear up a mess for which Augustus was personally responsible.' I paused. You could've cut the silence with a knife. 'Germany was perfect. If Livia could arrange for a disaster and a recovery there she'd really be cooking. Frontier policy was Augustus's baby. Also Varus was the emperor's personal choice for the German command.'

  'And if he were shown to be incompetent,' Quinctilia said, 'Augustus would share the blame. How very ingenious.'

  'It worked, too,' Asprenas had finally got his mouth unstuck. 'The massacre nearly broke him. He thought of suicide, did you know that?' I shook my head. No, I hadn't known, but it didn't surprise me. 'It's not common knowledge, for obvious reasons, but it's fact. And then of course you're right about the outcome. When the crisis was over and Tiberius came back to Rome he got his co-regency. I apologise, Corvinus. And I agree with my aunt. Your theory is both ingenious and plausible.'

  Quinctilia cleared her throat. 'There is only one flaw, young man,' she said. 'I must reiterate what I said earlier, even if my opinion is totally contradicted by the facts. Assuming he knew what he was doing, my brother would certainly not have involved himself in a scheme such as you have described.'

  We stared at her; and she stared back, completely unmoved. I wondered if Perilla would look like her in another fifty years.

  'What I said in regard to the Paullus conspiracy applies here also.' Her voice was firm. 'Doubly so. Publius may have been greedy, he may have betrayed his trust, but he was certainly not capable of treachery to that degree. Especially if the empress was involved.'

  It was time for a bit of tact. 'Lady Quinctilia.' I laid my hand on her arm. 'I realise that you must have cared for your brother very deeply, but...'

  She pulled the arm away. 'Publius was a greedy, self-indulgent pig with a grossly overdeveloped sense of his own importance. I never could stand him. Nevertheless, there were things at which even he drew the line. And treachery such as you have described would have been one of them.'

  Jupiter! 'Then maybe he was pressured into it, lady. Blackmailed, even. Whatever his reasons...'

  She held up her hand. I stopped.

  'Valerius Corvinus,' she said. 'You are a very clever and able young man. You also, as far as I can tell, have all the facts of the matter firmly on your side. That is not in dispute. However I knew Publius all his life and you did not. I tell you now that he could no more have consciously been involved in such a scheme as you describe than renounced his patrician's stripe and joined the mob.' She stood up. 'And now I think that you had better go.'

  There was grief and pride in her voice as well as certainty. I set my winecup down on the table.

  'I'm sorry,' I said, and meant it. 'I'd like to believe you. But you must see that it's impossible.'

  She drew herself up a finger's-breadth straighter. She was so tall that her pale eyes were almost on a level with mine.

  'And do you think,' she said slowly, 'that I don't know that?'

  There was no more to be said. I thanked them and left.

  32.

  I'll say one thing for litters. They give you a chance to think things through in comfort, which is just what I did on the way home. Quinctilia had rattled me more than I liked to admit even to myself. Yeah, sure, the facts pointed clearly to Varus being guilty – after all, a traitor is a traitor is a traitor – but the old girl had been convincing as hell. Maybe I was wrong about Varus after all, or at least half wrong, despite the letter. Maybe he had been set up. The question was how?

  Okay, I thought. Let's say he isn't our fourth man. Call the guy X. X's job is to get Varus into bed with Arminius. Obviously he has to be someone Varus trusts and will listen to. And he needs to be on the spot, because the scam's tricky and he has to keep a close personal eye on how things are going.

  In other words X is a high-up member of Varus's staff who's also a personal friend.

  Fine. So X moves on to the first part of the plan. He arranges for the two to come together. That's easy. Varus already knows Arminius from Rome, they've even met socially. Out there in the sticks with his polished Roman manners Arminius stands out like a rose in a desert. Compared to the other locals he's okay, he's civilised, he's one of the club. So when Arminius tells Varus that he's got a proposition to make, one that's in Rome's interests and incidentally will make Varus a penny or two for himself, the old guy's half won over already.

  So Arminius and Varus set up a private bargain. North of the river, where Roman writ stops, Germany's a loose collection of hostile tribes, one of which is Arminius's. Up to now they've been nothing but a pain in the arse, which is why we've had to keep the Rhine garrisons up to strength. Arminius proposes, with Varus's help, to weld them into a federation with himself at the head. With Arminius in charge that would leave us with a friendly client kingdom on the far bank which would take the pressure off our northern frontier. Sure, he tells Varus, it'll be dangerous in the short term. I'll have to pretend that I'm acting against Rome. Only you'll know the truth. You'll know I'm on your side. So all it needs is for Varus to turn a blind eye, maybe kick in now and again by using Roman troops against tribes that wouldn't play ball. And then there would be the money; lots and lots of money, because Roman military governors don't come cheap...

  Yeah. The greedy old sod would've jumped at it.

  So who was X, the lad who starts the ball rolling? Like I said, he had to be someone close to Varus and one of the imperial admin team. Someone high up.

  Varus's deputy? Numonius Vela?

  It fitted. Vela was a family friend, Quinctilia had told me that. He was also the second most important man in the province after the governor. And when it came time to shift the blame – the time of the final march – he would've made sure he had the hard evidence to clear himself if necessary and incriminate his boss: Quinctilia's letter. Short of a signed confession witnessed by all six Vestals and half the College of Augurs no one could ask for better. With the finger pointing at his own choice for governor Augustus himself was down the tube without a lifebelt. I'd've betted he'd oppose the detour to the Teutoburg, too, knowing that Varus would overrule him.

  The last stage of the plan fitted as well. Varus would've thought the German trap was only another part of the scam: one last bit of propaganda to really get things cooking: a victory over a Roman army in the field. Only Vela knew better. He'd made his own deal with Arminius. Sure, the engagement would be limite
d, but not all the blood would be fake. The Germans would let Varus into the Teutoburg, but they wouldn't attack at once like he expected them to. They'd wait until he was too far in to get himself out and then they'd hit him hard and keep hitting him until he didn't know which end was up any more...

  At which point they'd stop. That was the crucial difference between how X had arranged things with Arminius and how they'd actually happened. There would be no massacre. Varus would surrender, or be allowed to come out of the forest with his army in shreds. The result would be the same either way. Varus's reputation would be down the tube and Augustus's with it.

  Only, of course, it didn't happen that way either. Arminius had been playing a game of his own. He'd doublecrossed both Varus and Livia's agent and gone straight for the jugular. No wonder Vela was twitchy. He must've realised that he'd been had long before the last day when he'd cut his losses and tried to make it on his own back to the Rhine. Maybe he thought Arminius would let him through; or maybe he just panicked. In any case it hadn't done him any good. Exit Varus. And exit our fourth conspirator.

  Leaving, of course, the prime movers behind the scam, Livia and Tiberius, in the shit up to their imperial eyeballs.

  I leaned back against the litter cushions feeling pretty smug. Yeah. It worked, it hung together. I had to find out more about Vela, though. At the moment the guy was no more than a name. Maybe Perilla could help.

  But when I stopped off to talk to her the door slave said she was out, visiting her mother.

  33.

  Which reminded me of my own filial duties. I hadn't been round to my mother's in over two months, not even during the Floralia. Now might be as good a time as any. At least I looked sober and presentable: I'd put on my sharpest mantle for the visit to Quinctilia's and I still had my best litter out. It was hard luck on the litter-team that Mother happened to live out on the Caelian where we'd just been, but with my eccentric preference for walking the guys could afford to lose a few pounds anyway.

  After the divorce Mother had married a widower, Helvius Priscus. Apart from the wedding ceremony itself, when I'd given the bride away, I'd only seen the old guy twice, and I doubted if my mother had seen him much oftener, because his hobby took him away from home a lot. Priscus's bag was tombs and tomb inscriptions. Etruscan and early Republican tombs especially. Try to get him to talk about normal things, like how the Blues are doing these days race-wise or who said what to who at last night's party and all you get is grunts. Ask him about the development of orthography from its primitive beginnings to the modern day tied in with the epigraphic evidence for a vowel shift in the vernacular and you can't shut the guy up. Ah, well. It takes all types.

  Mother was looking well: she'd lost a lot of weight after the still-birth and never put it back on. When I came in she was discussing floral arrangements with one of the house slaves.

  'Marcus! Lovely to see you!' She came over and kissed me on the cheek, and I smelt the scent she has specially mixed for her by the best perfume maker in Alexandria. 'Where have you been these last few months?'

  'Only two, Mother.'

  'Then it seems longer.' She stepped back. I saw her eyes go to the bruise beside my ear, where I'd landed when Silanus's porter threw me out. 'You've hurt yourself.'

  'Nothing serious. I fell down some steps, that's all.'

  'You drink too much, dear.

  'It had nothing to do with anything I drank.'

  'Nonsense.' The smile in her eyes took the sting from her words. 'Come and sit down.'

  I stretched myself out on the guest couch as she gave the house slave his final instructions. Then, sitting down herself, she turned back to me.

  'So, Marcus,' she said. 'And what's been happening with you?'

  'Nothing particular.' I wasn't going to tell her about the Ovid affair; and with Priscus being strictly the butt end of high society I doubted if she'd have heard from anyone else.

  'Have you seen your father recently?'

  'Maybe. Why?'

  She lifted an elegant shoulder. 'Just curiosity. I saw him myself not too long ago. We had quite a civilised little chat.'

  'You spoke to him?' I remembered Dad mentioning that he'd seen Mother, but not that they'd actually talked.

  'Of course I spoke to him. Why shouldn't I? We may be divorced, but we aren't enemies.'

  I didn't answer.

  'He's worried about you, Marcus. He thinks you're wasting yourself.'

  'Nice of him.'

  'I wish you wouldn't run your father down so much, dear. It isn't fair. We don't get on, of course, but he's well meaning enough in his own dull way. And if you must know in this at least I agree with him.'

  I stared at her. I'd never heard Mother say she agreed with Dad in my life. Sure, she'd never actually said she disagreed either; she'd simply, separately and without comment, given her own opinion which happened never to be his. That isn't the same thing at all.

  'Oh, I know,' she went on. 'You're of age and can decide things for yourself. I also realise that because my father was misguided enough to leave you a large slice of his estate you're financially independent. But these things are beside the point.'

  'I'm not interested in politics, Mother. Not Dad's kind, anyway, and there doesn't seem to be any alternative.'

  'I said your father thinks you're wasting yourself and that I agree. I didn't say we wanted to force you into public office.'

  'You may not want to, but Dad does. And anyway what else is there?'

  'Marcus, I don't know! That's for you to decide. You're twenty-one now, twenty-two next month. Old enough surely to know what you want to do with your life.'

  'I do know. I want to enjoy it.'

  She sighed. 'Don't be melodramatic, dear. You'll be bored silly before you're thirty. Anyway, I'm not going to lecture you, it's your own business, not mine. I've told you what I think and whether or not you pay attention to it is up to you.'

  We were getting onto dangerous ground. I changed the subject. 'How's Stepfather?'

  'Oh, Titus is well enough. He's in Veii at the moment on a genealogical binge.' Her brow furrowed. 'At least I think it's Veii. But I'm absolutely sure the binge is genealogical.'

  'You don't find the old guy dull?'

  'Unlike your father, Titus has hidden depths.' She smiled in a very unmatronly way. I wondered if maybe I hadn't misjudged Helvius Priscus. 'You'd be surprised. At least not you personally but you know what I mean. Speaking of which, why don't you tell me about this girl of yours.'

  'What?'

  I must've looked as shocked as I felt because she laughed.

  'Oh, yes, I know all about young Rufia Perilla, Marcus. You've caused quite a little scandal between the two of you. Not that I mind personally. From all accounts the poor girl needed taking out of herself. That Suillius Rufus is a shit.'

  'How did you know about Perilla? Who told you?'

  'I don't think I can remember all the names, dear. But I shouldn't worry. Sympathy seems to be on your side. Is she applying for a divorce?'

  'Yes.'

  'I hope she gets it, then. It may be a little difficult with her husband being so close to the emperor's son, but there's nothing worse, Marcus, than being married to someone you don't like. Let alone love. Wherever the faults lie. Do you understand me, dear?'

  I stared back at her, woodenly. 'Yes. I think so.'

  'Good.' She settled back into her chair. 'Now tell me about Perilla.'

  I did. Not the personal stuff, of course, nor what had brought us together originally: if Mother knew anything about that she had the good sense not to mention it. They'd've got on well together, I thought, although they were completely different characters. Mother was glass to Perilla's marble.

  'You must bring her round for dinner some evening,' she said when I'd finished. 'I'm sure Titus would enjoy talking to her too. Rufius is such an unusual family name.' I glanced at her sharply, and sure enough there was laughter in her eyes and at the corners of her mouth. 'No, but I'm
serious, Marcus. I'd love to meet her and so would Titus. Don't worry, I'll keep the old bore on a tight leash. Perhaps we should invite your father and his new wife as well.'

  'Mother!'

  'Just a joke, dear. If you insist we take it as such. It would make for a rather turgid evening, but I'm sure Perilla wouldn't mind.'

  No, I had to admit she probably wouldn't. However although I'd promised her I'd try to get along with my father I drew the line at dining with him. I was shocked that Mother had suggested it.

  We talked for a bit longer, about this and that. I enjoy talking with my mother. She has a jay's quickness, a brightness and irreverence that is a complete contrast to my father's ponderous dignity. Then I caught the sound of footsteps behind me. A slave had entered the room carrying a tray with a wine jug and cups.

  'Thank you, Glaucus. Just pour for us and go, would you?' My mother turned back to me and smiled. 'I got this in specially for you, Marcus. I couldn't resist it.'

  Knowing Mother, I should've had my suspicions. However it had been a long hard day. I could feel the nectar bathe my tonsils already. 'Really? What is it?'

  The smile broadened. 'Pomegranate juice, dear,' she said. 'With a touch of cassia.'

  Yeah, that was Mother. To pretend I'd missed the point (not that that fooled her) I had to drink some of the stuff. When the time came to go back home I still hadn't got the taste out of my mouth.

  34.

  Perilla was out the next morning, too; and when I checked with Callias it turned out she hadn't been home at all.

  'Why the hell didn't you tell me last night?' I yelled at him.

  'I'm sorry, sir. I just assumed...'

  'You assumed what?'

  The guy was grey with worry, and I made a mental note to ease off. Shouting at the slaves wouldn't help, and it wasn't Callias's fault.

  'When the mistress didn't come home I confirmed with the Lady Marcia that she had in fact left. Such being the case, sir, I assumed, erroneously, that...ah...'

  He subsided into embarrassed silence.