Family Commitments (Marcus Corvinus Book 20)

by David Wishart

  ‘And this Ventidius had a something-or-other that Gaius had asked him to hand over, yes?’

  ‘That’s right.’ We were getting to the nub of things now, and I could tell that Damon wasn’t quite as cool, calm and collected as he wanted me to think he was.

  ‘So what was it? A letter?’

  ‘No. Something longer. A dozen or so sheets of writing put together into a package.’

  ‘You have it with you?’ I kept my tone even when I asked the question, but I was holding my breath.

  ‘Sure.’ He patted the breast of his tunic. ‘Keep it strapped to my chest all the time, don’t I? You want it now?’

  Glory and trumpets!

  ‘In a minute,’ I said. ‘So long as I know it’s there, that’s the important thing. Why should Gaius choose Sextus to send it to? Why not the eldest brother, Gnaeus? He’d’ve been far easier to find, for a start, and he was an ex-consul, so he’d have some clout. Not much, sure, but some.’

  ‘That sycophantic, self-serving bastard?’ Damon turned his head round to spit. Flavillus shifted against his pillar and frowned, but said nothing. ‘Nah, Gaius wouldn’t’ve trusted him as far as he could throw him, and quite right. The master, now–’ He shook his head slowly. ‘Look, Corvinus, I can’t explain this, right, so don’t ask me to. You know what he was like yourself. But for young Gaius he never could do no wrong. Oh, sure, far as I know the lad didn’t know nothing definite about the...well, call them our business activities, but he was always a clever kid and he must’ve had his suspicions. Only they didn’t seem to matter to him, see? Odd, but that’s human nature for you.’ He paused. ‘There wouldn’t be a cup of wine going spare, would there? My mouth’s like a sand-pit.’

  ‘Sure.’ I glanced over at Flavillus, who nodded and went inside. ‘So. What did Gaius want his brother to do with the package?’

  ‘See it was put in the right hands. That’s what Ventidius said, anyway. What he’d been told to say.’

  ‘The right hands? Whose would those be?’

  ‘No idea. Me, I don’t think Gaius himself knew, either. But that was the message. All there was.’

  Okay, now we were getting to it. ‘So what were they, these written sheets? Who were they from, who were they meant for, and what were they about?’

  ‘Pass again.’

  ‘Come on, pal! You expect me to believe that?’

  ‘Your choice there, squire, but it’s the gods’ own honest truth. Ventidius didn’t know, because the lad hadn’t been told, and the package was sealed. He didn’t even know there was a document inside, as such. The master only found that out when he opened it.’

  ‘At which point you’d know what the contents were too, presumably.’

  ‘Uh-uh.’ Flavillus came back with a cup of wine. Damon took it from him, downed it in a oner, and handed it back. ‘Holy Mercury, that’s good stuff! Any chance of a refill, friend?’

  ‘Bugger off.’ Flavillus went back to propping up his pillar.

  ‘So why didn’t you?’ I persisted. ‘Know, I mean.’

  ‘Because the master didn’t tell me.’

  ‘Fine,’ I said patiently. ‘That might’ve been true enough then. But you’ve had the thing yourself for over half a month now. You saying you weren’t the teensiest bit curious? You never thought to read it?’

  ‘Yeah, well, you’ve sort of put your finger on the nub of the problem there, haven’t you, squire? What you’d call a mistaken basic assumption.’

  Oh, shit; the penny dropped. ‘You’re illiterate,’ I said. ‘You can’t read.’

  ‘Never learned, never wanted to,’ Damon said proudly. ‘Dad didn’t have the time or the money for it when I was a kid back home, and there’s never been the need since. Besides, I thought maybe if I did manage to pull off some kind of a deal in my own right being able to put hand on heart and say that to me it was pure gibberish might just save me a lot of grief.’

  There was the shadow of a half-question in his voice; no more than that, but it was there. And because the guy was Bathyllus’s brother the question needed answering.

  ‘Listen, Damon,’ I said gently. ‘A deal was never going to happen, not in a million years, not with those people, not at any price. Your master tried to make one and it killed him. If you’d tried to do the same you’d have gone the same way; that is hundred-over-hundred, cast iron certain. You get me?’

  He grunted. ‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘Don’t mean I have to like it, though, does it?’ His shoulders lifted and fell. ‘Well, fuck it. These things happen.’

  As gnomic philosophical statements went, I’d heard less cogent examples, and ones far less pithily expressed. Old Zeno would’ve been proud of him.

  ‘They do indeed,’ I said. I held out my hand. ‘Okay. Give.’

  He put his hand down the neck-hole of his tunic, fumbled around a bit, and brought out a parchment packet stuffed with sheets of paper. He hesitated for a moment, then passed it over.

  I unwrapped it. Inside, folded round the sheets themselves, was a letter. I smoothed it out, and read:

  ‘Gaius Sentius Saturninus to his brother Sextus. Greetings.

  The enclosed arrived yesterday from Rome, carried express by secret courier, for Governor Scribonianus, now fled to Issa in an attempt to escape his captors after the failure of the revolt. In his absence I opened it and have read the contents, albeit not in detail. From what I have read, however, I know that they are of vital political importance.

  Sextus, I am at a loss. In all probability, I will never see Rome again myself, and so will be unable to act personally in the matter. Nevertheless, someone must, and accordingly I am forwarding the packet to you by way of my close and trusted friend Marcus Ventidius, in the hope that it will reach you. After that...

  Well, Sextus, after that I simply do not know. You must do with it as you see fit. I only ask that you ensure that it reaches safe and responsible hands.

  The gods bless and keep you, brother.

  Farewell.

  That was it, barring the date, which must’ve been only days before the guy’s arrest and execution. I turned to the sheets themselves.

  There were a dozen or so of them altogether, small sheets of flimsy covered with cramped writing, more of a scribble than anything else, as if whoever had written it had been seriously pushed for time and had a lot of ground to cover. I skim-read: a lot of it was names and dates, with blocks of narrative interspersed. I turned to the end. There was a signature at the bottom of the last page, together with the wax impression of a seal...

  Oh, shit! Oh, holy gods!

  What I had here was a complete account, chapter and verse, of Valeria Messalina’s under-the-counter and between-the-sheets doings and adulteries, including details of her involvement in the plot against Gaius and the fomenting of the Scribonianus revolt itself. And the signature was Annius Vinicianus’s.

  I lowered the last page and found Damon watching me closely.

  ‘Important, is it, squire?’ he said.

  My brain had gone numb. ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Yeah. You could say that.’ Shit! No wonder Messalina was desperate to get her hands on the thing! Unless Claudius was a complete, blind, head-banging idiot even he would have to admit, after reading this, that his darling wife had serious questions to answer.

  So what did I do now?

  The answer to that, unfortunately, was glaringly obvious: apart from what I was doing at present, nothing. Zilch. Zero. If I was fool enough to take it direct to Claudius himself the chances were I’d be dead, one way or another, before the month was out. And for what? I’d no personal axe to grind here, none at all. In any case, I’d known all along, at least subconsciously, that it had to be something like this, albeit nothing quite as detailed or as damning. So the deal with Rufus – and Messalina – it would have to be.

  Bugger! I could have wept!

  Well, if nothing else at least and if only for my own satisfaction I could dot the i’s and cross the t’s where the case itself
was concerned. I laid the packet down beside me on the bench.

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘So what happened next? After Ventidius called round?’

  ‘We came to Rome, to see what we could make out of it.’ Damon gave me a shifty, sideways look. ‘Come on, Corvinus! I am what I am, right, no argument, and the master was the same. If young Gaius believed any different then that was his bad judgment. I’m making no excuses, for him or me.’

  ‘I never said you needed to, pal,’ I said mildly. ‘All I’m interested in are the facts.’

  ‘Fine.’ He frowned. ‘So. The master, he says he needs to make contact with a guy by the name of Suillius Rufus. You’ll know why yourself, now you’ve read the stuff’ – I said nothing – ‘but it was just a name to me then. Still is, for that matter, and to tell you straight I’m just as happy to keep it that way. Anyway, he said he reckoned this Rufus would pay through the nose to get his hands on his brother’s little package, enough to set us both up for life. So we take the let on a tenement flat and he starts putting out feelers.’

  ‘His signet ring. He sent that to Rufus to show his bona fides. To prove that he was Gaius Sentius’s brother.’

  ‘Yeah. Well, you know the next bit, or you can guess it. They had a first-off meeting, all sweetness and light and promises on Rufus’s side. Only then he has his men follow the master home, doesn’t he, and they do for the poor bugger good and proper.’ I noticed that Damon’s fist had bunched. ‘Why did he do that, Corvinus? You just tell me. The bastard had no call, none. We were asking a lot, sure, but from what the master said about how much the thing was worth we weren’t being greedy. A nob like Rufus, he could’ve afforded it, easy. And if he’d paid up that would’ve been it. The pair of us would’ve gone abroad, to Greece or Asia, maybe, and he’d never have heard from us again.’

  ‘I told you,’ I said. ‘That just wasn’t going to happen.’

  ‘Right. Right.’ Bitter-sounding as hell.

  ‘So how did you manage to get hold of the packet, yourself? Sentius give it to you for safe keeping?’

  ‘Nah, I never touched it, hardly ever even saw the thing. I said: it was the master’s show from the start, and all I did was tag along. He took up one of the floorboards in the flat and left it there hidden.’

  Well, at least Perilla’s floorboard guess had been right, anyway. Even so...

  ‘Come on, Damon!’ I said. ‘I’m not stupid, and I’ve thought all this through. Rufus’s men knew you had it, that’s clear enough, or they would’ve spent more time and effort looking. The only question is how they knew.’

  ‘It’s simple enough. The master had sent me down to the cookshop to fetch the dinner, and while I’m away the bastards drop in and start working him over. All just like I told you, right?’ I nodded. ‘When I get back and shove my head round the door the master’s dead like I said he was. Only difference is that he’s not alone; the two of them are still in there, searching the place. There isn’t nothing I can do, so I make a run for it, with the pair of them after me.’ He grinned. ‘One thing I’m good at, because believe me I’ve had plenty of practice, and that’s running. That, and not getting caught.’

  ‘So you gave them the slip and doubled back.’

  ‘Had to. That package was our future, see? The only chance for a life I’d ever have, or at least that’s what I thought at the time. So I had to check whether it was still there, where the master had put it. Which it was, along with your pal’s necklace. I take them both out, but before I can put the board back I hear the lads coming up the stairs again. I’ve just time to get to the landing and upstairs to the next floor before they get high enough to spot me.’ He shrugged. ‘That’s it. The whole boiling. I hung around until I was sure they’d left then cut and ran.’

  Leaving Ligurinus and his partner without the packet but – thanks to the missing floorboard – knowing the chances were that Sentius’s slave and sidekick had come back and taken it. Right. Simple, like he’d said, once you knew the answer.

  ‘So why didn’t Sentius tell them about the hiding place himself?’ I said.

  ‘I told you, squire. That package was our future, his as much as mine. Maybe the poor bugger just stuck it out a bit too long, until it was too late or the bastards lost patience with him. Maybe it was just sheer bloody-mindedness. The master got that way, sometimes, he was an obstinate cove when he chose to be.’ Another shrug. ‘Who knows? Who’ll ever know?’

  Yeah, fair enough, and cosmically speaking it didn’t matter all that much. Certainly it all hung together now.

  ‘Okay, Damon,’ I said. ‘That just about wraps it up. The best thing you can do now is–’

  Which was as far as I got before Eutacticus came out through the portico entrance. And he had Suillius Rufus with him.

  23

  ‘Morning, Corvinus.’ Rufus smiled. ‘I hear you’ve decided to be sensible. I’m delighted. And disappointed.’

  ‘Yeah, well,’ I said. ‘Like you said, we can’t have everything we want in life. Me, I’d just love to see you gutted for doing Messalina’s dirty business by sharking up fake prosecutions, or just for being you, but there you go. A pleasure postponed, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Indeed. This the slave?’

  ‘Yeah. That’s Damon.’

  Damon was staring at him, expressionless, but I could see a twitch had started above his right cheekbone.

  ‘So where was he hiding?’ Rufus said. ‘Come on, it doesn’t matter now. And I assume you knew all along.’

  ‘Uh-uh. I’d no more of an idea than you had.’

  ‘So he gave himself up after all?’ I said nothing; there wasn’t any point in bringing Eutacticus further into this than I had already. ‘Wise chap. Not that it’ll do him any good in the long run, of course.’ I saw Damon stiffen. ‘He’s given us far too much trouble, and I won’t take that, not from a slave.’

  My blood went cold. ‘Hang on,’ I said. ‘The deal was if I gave you and Messalina what you wanted, and here it is’ – I picked up the package beside me; his eyes went to it straight away – ‘then we were all square, right? No comeback, no nothing.’

  ‘Absolutely. And we’ve every intention of keeping to the bargain. But that was for you, Corvinus, as you very well know. This bit of offal is another thing entirely.’

  ‘Now you just wait one fucking minute, pal–!’

  ‘Relax, boy,’ Eutacticus said. ‘It’s not going to happen.’

  Rufus turned slowly, with a look on his face like he’d just caught a whiff of Damon’s industrial-grade perfume.

  ‘What was that?’ he said.

  ‘You heard. You’re on my ground, here at my invitation. You play by my rules or you don’t play at all, understand?’

  Rufus took a step towards him.

  ‘You–!’

  I’d forgotten about Flavillus, and now I never even saw him move. One moment he was leaning against his pillar, the next he was standing behind Rufus, one hand on his neck, the other pressing flat against the side of his head. Rufus froze.

  ‘Now that’s sensible,’ Eutacticus said to him. ‘You just keep it that way, because if you even breathe wrong Flavillus will break your fucking neck. So let’s just go back a bit and take that part again, shall we? Blink if you agree.’ Rufus blinked. ‘Well done. Okay, Flavillus, you can let him go for now.’

  Flavillus backed off. Rufus rubbed his neck and glared at Eutacticus.

  ‘You know who I am?’ he said.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Well, then, I–’

  ‘You’re the bastard I’m giving one last and final chance to keep to the deal you made with Corvinus here. Welsh on him, even think about it, and I’ll send you home in a box.’

  ‘Are you threatening me?’

  ‘No, I’m telling you. But the decision’s yours. Think carefully, now.’

  Their eyes locked. Finally, Rufus looked away and shrugged.

  ‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘It’s of no real importance. If you want him as ba
dly as that you can keep the little bugger with my blessing.’ He held out his hand. ‘Right, Corvinus. Let me see.’

  I passed the packet over. He read the covering letter, grunted, then laid it aside and leafed through the flimsies. I waited.

  ‘That all seems in order,’ he said. ‘Well done, Marcus, I’m grateful. And of course the boss’ll want to see you, to thank you in person. In fact, if you’ve nothing better to do we might as well go over to the palace now.’ He tucked the package under his belt.

  ‘Hang on, pal,’ I said. ‘I’ve had one of those little clandestine chats with Messalina before, and I’ve no particular wish to repeat the experience. You can give her my regards, sure, if you like, but I’d really prefer it if you both just buggered off and left me alone.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ Rufus smiled. ‘How very graphically put. But what makes you think I’m working for Messalina?’

  What?

  I left Damon with Eutacticus and we made our way down Broad Street towards Market Square and the Palatine. Understandably, it wasn’t a chatty journey; Rufus and I loathed each other’s guts, and neither of us felt particularly obliged to start the conversational ball rolling. Besides, the inside of my head was busy enough without having to worry about how to satisfy the social niceties.

  We got to the palace. I’d been expecting that we’d go in the usual way, at the front, but Rufus took me round the far side to what was obviously, from the rubbish piled outside, a servants’ entrance. I paused, eyebrows raised.

  ‘In you go, Corvinus,’ he said. ‘You’re getting the below-stairs tour.’

  So; clandestine was right. Not a heart-to-heart with Claudius himself, then, unless he’d taken to laundering his own underthings.