Ovid (Marcus Corvinus Book 1)

by David Wishart

  'You're not invited, Corvinus. Daphnis and I can handle this on our own.'

  'The hell you can!'

  'You want this to work or not?'

  His hand was gripping my tunic. I shook it off. 'Scylax, this is non- negotiable. Include me in. I mean it.'

  'I said any purple-striper would stand out. Have you looked at the edge of your tunic recently, boy?'

  'Come on! I can borrow another one if that's all that's worrying you.'

  'Screw the tunic. You've got patrician written all over you, friend. Or do you think you've time for a nose job?'

  'Oh, let him come, boss.' I turned round. Unbelievably, it was Daphnis. Slapped all over his face was the evillest grin I'd seen in a long time. 'The guy's a born piss-merchant.'

  Humour, now. Puns, even. Launderers' Street meant laundries; and city laundries send their slaves round the public privies to collect the stale urine. Not the most salubrious job in the world, but one appropriate for where we were going. Daphnis was definitely rounding out into someone I might grow to dislike. All the same I kept my mouth shut. I wasn't about to pass up an ally just for the sake of a cheap retort. And after all I owed the guy.

  Scylax shrugged. 'Okay. Fair enough. If Daphnis says you're in then you're in. Just don't blow it, right?'

  'Why should I blow it?' I hoped I sounded more confident than I felt. 'There's one more thing. I want someone else along.'

  'Jupiter, boy!' Scylax growled. 'Why don't we just take a fucking army and be done with it?'

  'This guy might qualify. Anyway we can split up two and two in case we have to cover another entrance.'

  'What other entrance? This is a tenement. Unless you think the guy can fly.

  'Stranger things have happened.'

  'Not in my book.' It was a token protest. I was right and Scylax knew it. Two pairs were better than a group of three. One man from each to stay put, the other to cut loose if necessary.

  'You won't regret it,' I said. 'Agron's good.'

  Scylax stared at me like I'd grown an extra head. 'We're talking about the Illyrian? The guy who beat you up?'

  'That's him.'

  'And you say I won't regret taking him along?'

  'Yeah.'

  He shook his head slowly. 'Shit, Corvinus, you've got even less between the ears than I thought you had.'

  'It's my responsibility.'

  'It could also be your funeral. And your girlfriend's.'

  'Let me worry about that.'

  He agreed. It was touch and go, but finally he agreed. I just hoped that neither of us was making a mistake.

  38.

  Launderers' Street was off the Corneta, right next to Tannery Row and not far from the knackers' yards and the meat market. Not a salubrious area, in other words. There was a breeze of sorts, but that was no help. Wherever it was blowing from smelt worse.

  We'd split up already. Scylax and Daphnis had gone on ahead while I stopped round at the blacksmith's shop to pick up Agron. That was tactics. In Rome apart from purple-stripers with their retinues at one end of the scale and gangs of wide-boys looking for trouble at the other only Egyptian tourists go round in threes or more. And any tourist stupid enough to go sightseeing in the Subura is asking to come out minus his purse, if he comes out at all.

  The other two were already in place when we got there, lounging in the shade of a dusty oleander opposite one of the high-rise tenements: ‘slaves’ killing time while their master's mantle was being cleaned in one of the shops nearby. As we passed Scylax raised his hand as if he were brushing a fly from his face.

  'So how about that jug of wine?' Agron said.

  I'd worked out a compromise with Scylax; not very flattering, but I had to agree it was sensible. I could tag along and bring Agron with me, but we had to stay out of the way until we were needed. Daphnis had suggested a wineshop on the opposite side further down the street, because (and I quote) 'if the bastard can't blend in there he can't blend in anyplace.'

  Daphnis was really beginning to get up my nose.

  The wineshop was empty. I didn't realise why until the fat Syrian who owned the place brought us our wine. It looked, smelt and tasted like the spillage you get on the floor of a vintner's cellar, murky rotgut stuff I wouldn't've passed off on my slaves. As I sipped it I looked out and down the street towards the tenement. We'd picked a table just inside the door but set slightly back, which meant we could see out but we were under the shadow of the lintel. The street wasn't too crowded and I doubted if we'd miss much. Barring the quality of the wine we couldn't've had a better place to watch from.

  'So tell me about your life, Agron,' I said. 'You came straight to Rome right after Germany?'

  He poured himself a cupful of the rat-piss from the jug. 'Yeah. I was with the Eighteenth. After the massacre what was left of it was disbanded. No Eagle, right?' A legion's Eagle is sacred. Totally and absolutely. Lose the Eagle and the legion's dead forever. Dishonourably dead. 'Sure, I could've got a transfer, but I'd had enough of the army by then. And survivors weren't popular.'

  'How do you mean?'

  'You've never been a soldier. A defeat as total as that, if you live it says something about you.' His voice was bitter. 'The best die, the worst survive.'

  'That's shit and you know it.'

  'Sure it's shit, but it's what everyone believes. Not just the know-nothings in the wineshops, either. The survivors were barred from Rome. Officers, anyway. The rest of us had a pretty bad time of it too.'

  Yeah. I'd heard of that. The blanket ban of exile showed how hard the disaster had hit Augustus. How personally the old man had taken it.

  'Were there that many? Survivors, I mean.'

  'There were a few. Some of them were runners, sure. But others like me just happened to be lucky. If you can call it luck. Anyway, I came to Rome, and the mistress got Asprenas to set me up in the blacksmith's shop.'

  'Generous of him.'

  Agron shrugged. 'He gets his cut, like patrons always do. And it didn't cost him anything, he was left it by a friend that died. Anyway, I've had the business ever since. That's it. You want more, you tell it yourself.'

  I glanced down the street towards the small square where Scylax and Daphnis were sitting. Daphnis was facing us with his back against the tree, his eyes half-closed.

  'So you're Asprenas's client now?' I said. Sure, I was pussy-footing. I still wasn't sure where the big guy's real sympathies lay; and if Asprenas was our man I'd have to find out pretty damn quick.

  'The general was my real patron, but yeah, I look after the family's interests. Run errands.' He grinned. 'Lean on young smartasses occasionally.'

  'Save their lives, too.' I'd never actually thanked the big guy for that. Maybe it was time I did.

  'That had nothing to do with you. I told you.'

  'You know who these guys were? Or who sent them?'

  'No. It wasn't any of my business.' He frowned. 'You ever wonder why Tiberius should use garbage like that?'

  'How do you mean?'

  'Where's your brain, Corvinus? The guy's the fucking emperor. If he wants you stopped then why aren't you coughing your guts up in the Tullianum?'

  I sat back. It was a simple enough question; so simple that it rocked me. The Tullianum was the old prison off the Market Square, reserved for guests of the state waiting for the authorities to get round to shortening them by a head. Also, of course, for any private citizen the emperor took a violent personal dislike to, although that function wasn't exactly public knowledge.

  'Maybe he just didn't dare,' I said.

  'Oh, yeah. Sure. Daddy's Little Boy's got clout. So forget the Tullianum. There're still a dozen other ways the Wart could've used. If it'd been me giving the orders I could've got rid of you long since. The Wart doesn't. He sends in the local knife-men and the sweepings from the legions to do his dirty work on the quiet. So the question I'm asking is why.'

  'Easier. Quicker.' I was making excuses, and I knew it.

  'Screw that. I
told you, there're neater ways. Official channels. Why not use them?'

  The guy was right. This was a top-level scam, an imperial level scam. It had to be, for everything to fit in. Even if Asprenas was involved it could only be as a middle-man, an agent for Tiberius and Livia. There'd been a dozen ways I could've been stopped dead officially, with the minimum of risk and the minimum of fuss; but none of them had been used. And that could mean...

  Shit. I had to think this through.

  Maybe I was wrong. Maybe this wasn't an official cover-up at all. The Wart and his mother didn't get on too well these days. I knew that. So if Livia was acting behind the Wart's back it would explain why she hadn't been able to use official channels to shut me up...

  Yeah. Only that didn't make sense either, right? Tiberius needed the cover-up just as much as Livia. Maybe even more so. After all, the guy had to know about how his mother had got him the throne. He had to know about the murders and the exiles. And of course he had to know about...

  About...

  I stopped.

  Oh, Jupiter! Jupiter Best and Greatest! Oh, holy shit!

  Agron was staring at me. 'Corvinus?'

  'Hold on.' If I was right, I was saved, I was home and dry! 'Hold on,’ I said. ‘Let me think! Just let me think, okay?'

  What was it Pomponius, the decurion in charge of the rookie squad, had said about Tiberius?

  He was the best. Maybe he's First Citizen now, but the General's Army first and last. A real professional.

  A real professional. A soldier. The highest compliment Pomponius could pay anyone. Jupiter, it made sense! It made all kinds of sense! The Wart was Army. And yet he'd agreed – must have agreed – to a scheme that might send a whole province and the security of the Rhine frontier down the tube...

  Three Eagles lost! Three sacred Eagles...

  The Wart would never have done that, not to win a dozen empires. Never in a million years. And that meant...

  'He doesn't know,' I whispered. 'Jupiter Best and Greatest, the emperor doesn't know!'

  'Corvinus, what the hell..!' Agron was gripping my arm. 'Get a hold on yourself!'

  The landlord was staring at us and absently wiping a winecup with a rag. I turned away from him, towards the street. I tried to keep my voice low, but I was trembling with excitement.

  'Listen! The Wart wasn't involved in the Varus scam! The rest, the murders, yeah, sure, maybe even the Paullus plot, I don't know and it doesn't matter. But he didn't know about Germany!'

  'Gods, Corvinus, will you shut up? Everyone's–'

  'No, listen!' I had to get this out or I'd burst. 'He doesn't know there even was a scam! The whole German idea was Livia's, only it went wrong. And now the empress is pissing acid that her son will find out, because if he ever does he'll nail the bitch's hide to the palace gates! That's who's been trying to stop me! Not Tiberius and Livia! Livia!'

  And that's when it happened.

  Like I said, we were sitting in the shadows just inside the wineshop door with the pavement only a step or so beyond. As I spoke the empress's name a nondescript guy who was slouching past stopped as if I'd planted a hook in his neck. His head whipped round...

  For the space of two heartbeats he stared straight at us, his eyes wide, his unshaven jaw slack. Then he turned and was off like a hare up the street back the way he'd come, in the other direction from the tenement. I saw Scylax and Daphnis spring to their feet, but they were a good hundred yards away and unless they sprouted wings they didn't have a hope in hell of catching him.

  'Fuck!' I was on my feet myself now. I knew we'd blown it and that it was my fault. The guy would've known what I looked like. Sure he would. Scylax had been right. I should've stayed at home. 'Agron, for...'

  That was as far as I got. The big Illyrian was still sitting on his stool, his eyes wide and his face drained of colour. Then, suddenly, he was up, pushing past me and sprinting down the street after the fleeing man. There wasn't much else I could do so I went after him, although I knew I couldn't match his speed or his skill at dodging between pedestrians. I was in time to see the guy throw a frantic look over his shoulder and duck into one of the little side alleys.

  Someone – a woman –screamed just as Agron half-rounded the alley corner. He pulled up sharp like he'd found there was no alley there at all, just a brick wall; and everything, suddenly, went very quiet.

  I saw why when I caught up, by which time Scylax and Daphnis were right behind me. When they saw they stopped too. Daphnis took one look and threw up all over the pavement.

  The guy was dead. Very dead. On the corner just inside the alley's mouth was a scythe sharpener's booth. The owner must've hefted a scythe butt down just at the wrong moment and the upturned blade had taken the running man square across the throat. I thought of Davus, although this time there was more blood. A lot more blood. A crowd had collected from nowhere, the way crowds do after an accident. Through the ringing in my ears I could hear the booth proprietor saying over and over again, like some kind of charm: 'I couldn't do nothing. I couldn't do nothing.' A young girl in her early teens sat huddled in the corner between the alley wall and the booth making little grunting noises like a pig with asthma. Her cloak was drenched with red as if someone had poured a full jug of wine over it. The ringing in my head changed to a hot buzz, and the sounds of the street suddenly faded to nothing...

  I felt my arm gripped. Scylax steered me out of the alleyway.

  'Come on, boy,' he said. 'We're not involved in this.'

  'Yeah, but we can't just...'

  'You want to explain things to the magistrates?'

  That got through. I stumbled after him back up the street. The others followed. They looked pretty shaken, too. You expect decapitations in the arena, they don't shock there, but street corners are different.

  'I need a drink,' Scylax said. 'Any wine left in that jug, Corvinus?'

  'What jug?'

  'Come on, boy! Where you are there's always a jug!'

  'Oh yeah. Sure.' I still couldn't get my brain to move. 'That jug. Help yourself.'

  We went back to the wineshop in a bunch. There was no point now in pretending we weren't together, not with the guy we were trailing lying in two bits down an alleyway.

  The fat Syrian shot us a suspicious look when we walked in, which was understandable under the circumstances; but Suburans learn pretty young to mind their own business if they want to keep breathing, and when Scylax met his gaze he suddenly lost interest. I ordered another round of the rotgut and paid with a silver piece. The Syrian didn't offer any change but I didn't make a fuss. After what we'd just seen even rotgut at ten times the proper price was welcome.

  'Some shave, eh?' Daphnis was getting some of his bounce back, and a lot of his basic nastiness.

  'I noticed you lost your breakfast pretty quick, friend,' Agron said sourly. Daphnis shut up and sat scowling. The Syrian, oiling over with the wine, gave him a quick look from under his thick scented eyebrows and left us to it. That's another thing Suburans are good at. Gauging situations.

  'So what happened?' Scylax set down his empty cup. I reckoned he'd sunk a good half pint at one go.

  'The guy spotted Corvinus,' Daphnis grunted. 'I was watching him. He took one look inside here and turned tail.'

  Scylax turned to me. He looked dangerous. 'That right, boy?'

  I had my mouth open to answer, but Agron beat me to it.

  'Wrong. It wasn't Corvinus he recognised. It was me.'

  'What?'

  'I recognised him too, which is why he ran. That bastard was dead before the scythe touched him. Ten years dead.'

  39.

  When someone says something like that the flesh crawls on your bones. Daphnis's hand came up to make the sign against bad luck and even Scylax drew in his breath.

  'What the hell's that supposed to mean?' he said.

  Agron lifted the winecup to his lips and set it down empty. His eyes were staring into space.

  'His name was Ceionius,'
he said. 'He was one of Varus's camp commanders. And he died in the Teutoburg along with the rest of them.'

  You could've heard a pin drop.

  'Screw that,' Scylax said at last. 'He was no ghost. The guy was flesh and blood. Especially blood.'

  Agron's face was expressionless. 'Maybe so. But I saw him captured myself. And the Germans weren't taking prisoners.'

  'Where were you at the time?' Daphnis sneered. 'Hiding?'

  Agron turned towards him slowly.

  'That's right, friend,' he said. 'I was hiding. You want to comment, maybe?'

  'Cut that out, Daphnis!' Scylax growled. 'So who was this Ceionius guy?'

  'Like I told you. One of the camp commanders. A slimy little bastard who'd have sold his grandmother for a copper coin. If the Germans hadn't killed him his own men would've, eventually. I'd've done it myself.'

  I'd started to pour more wine into my cup and decided against it. Treatment for shock's one thing, but I didn't want to take the lining off my palate. 'You say he was in the massacre?' I said.

  'Yeah. He was one of the officers who suggested surrender.'

  'Tell me.'

  Agron shrugged.

  'What's to tell? A bunch of them came to the general's tent second day demanding he ask the Germans for terms. Ceionius was the spokesman.'

  That fitted with the theory I'd worked out for Vela. Asprenas, of course, wasn't on the march, but he'd've needed an agent to make the right suggestions at the right times. Varus might've survived a surrender to Arminius physically. Politically it would've left him, and Augustus, dead meat. Which was the object of the exercise.

  'So what happened?'

  'The general told him to piss off. He tried again the next day but it was too late. Arminius had us where he wanted us and it was all over bar the shouting. He threw down his sword and surrendered when the Germans broke our line.'

  'Just like that?'

  'Just like that.'

  'Consistent bastard, anyway,' Scylax grunted.

  'If you saw him surrender,' I said, 'how come you were so convinced he was dead?'

  'I told you. The Germans weren't taking prisoners. Anyone left alive had his guts wound round a tree-trunk.'