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  ‘Gabinius?’

  ‘Quintus Gabinius. The Lugdunensis governor. Solid chap, first rate at his job. You’ll like him.’

  Gods, we were moving in high society here, right enough: personal use of a government yacht and imperial procurator status, no less. Pressured into it or not, I couldn’t complain that I was being short-changed. Which raised an interesting question. I tucked the scroll into my mantle-fold.

  ‘Ah … if you don’t mind me asking, Caesar,’ I said, ‘why should you involve yourself here?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Well, OK, presumably, given his name, this Claudius Cabirus was a client of your family, yes? A current one, I mean?’

  ‘Naturally.’

  ‘Still, for you to go to all this trouble just for a client he must’ve been special in some other kind of way, right?’

  ‘No.’ Claudius picked up a book-roll that had fallen off the desk. ‘No, not at all. As I said he was an important man locally – in fact, I understand he was to be officiating priest at the opening ceremony for this year’s Gallic Assembly – but he was of no great importance in the grand scheme of things. Certainly not political importance, if that’s what you mean. In fact he was a p-perfectly ordinary middle-class merchant. A wine-shipper. Quite prosperous in Gallic terms, but not what we’d call particularly rich.’

  ‘Then I’m sorry, but I don’t understand your interest.’

  ‘Oh, the answer’s simple enough, my dear fellow. Call it a personal debt, if you like. A very long-standing one, in fact.’

  ‘“Debt”?’

  ‘Two years before I was born, his father saved mine from a very unpleasant death in what is now Treveran Augusta; which, incidentally, is where the family is from, originally. P-pulled him in the nick of time from in front of the horns of a dozen bulls that had escaped from the local slaughterhouse. Hence the personal debt aspect of things.’ He smiled. ‘If it hadn’t been for the Cabiri, Rome would not now be experiencing the inestimable p-pleasure of having me for emperor. We – my mother, while she was alive, and I – have kept a grateful eye on the family ever since.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ Well, it made a change to have an emperor who took his debts seriously. Inherited ones, what was more. ‘So. What can you tell me, sir? About the murder itself, I mean.’

  ‘Very little, I’m afraid. Only what Gabinius put in his report, which wasn’t much. He was killed at his home, as I said just short of a month ago. Stabbed through the heart while he was taking his after-lunch nap.’

  ‘He have a family?’

  ‘A wife – Diligenta, her name is; two grown-up sons and a daughter.’

  ‘Any particular enemies?’

  ‘Not that I know of. Certainly Gabinius didn’t say, but then I w-wouldn’t have expected him to, not in an everyday official report. Nor indeed to go into things to that length, particularly just now with all the preparations for the British campaign. His mention of the death was more in the nature of a postscript than anything else.’

  Yeah, fair enough. Provincial governors were busy men at the best of times, and although the guy probably wouldn’t be directly involved militarily with Claudius’s upcoming plans to expand the empire, he’d have his share of the bread-and-butter side of things to see to. Major military campaigns involve a lot in the way of extra-to-the-norm supplies and equipment; it all has to come from somewhere, and finding that ‘somewhere’ is a governor’s job. Gabinius just wouldn’t have the time to spend on a simple murder, of an imperial protégé or not, nor would he have the staff to delegate, and Claudius would know it.

  Hence, presumably, me. Ah, well. It made a change, anyway, and I’d never been west of Ostia. Plus if I was travelling as an emperor’s personal rep at least we’d be doing things in style; Perilla would enjoy the novelty. Which reminded me …

  ‘I can take my wife along, yes?’ I said.

  ‘Oh, my dear fellow, but of course you can! Take whoever you like, within reason. In fact, I was going to suggest it myself. Rufia Perilla will enjoy the trip immensely. Not a p-particularly interesting place, Gaul, outside the old Province, a bit rough and ready, but as I said Lugdunum is charming. Make sure you sample the local wine, too. Very respectable indeed, on its home ground, and I speak from experience.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Yes, I’ll definitely do that.’

  ‘Jolly good.’ Claudius beamed and picked up his pen. ‘Oh, I almost forgot. Nothing to do with your mission, but you’ll have a travelling companion. I thought that since everything will be laid on transport-wise as far as Lugdunum I might as well kill two birds with one stone.’

  ‘Oh?’ I said. ‘And who’s that?’

  ‘One of my own people, a doctor by the name of Lucius Domitius Crinas. I’m sending him to make a survey of the medicinal hot springs near the German border, with a view to developing them for the use of the legions stationed there. After you reach Lugdunum he’ll be carrying on to Moguntiacum, where the Fourteenth Gemina and Fourteenth Gallica are based.’

  Bugger! My son-in-law Clarus aside, doctors I can do without, particularly on long journeys like this would be. Still, the person making the arrangements being a ruling emperor, there wasn’t a lot I could do about it. And you never knew; like Clarus, the guy might buck the trend and turn out to be OK company. We’d have to wait and see.

  It’d only be as far as Lugdunum, anyway.

  Claudius reached for his writing tablet. ‘Well, that’s about it,’ he said. ‘There’s n-nothing more to be said, really. Certainly no more information I can give you. So unless you have any questions yourself …’

  I could recognize a polite dismissal when I heard one. I stood up.

  ‘Not at the moment,’ I said. ‘Thank you, Caesar.’

  ‘Oh, tush, tush! What for? You’re the one doing the favour, my dear chap. Thank you, and good luck to you. And of course you’ll tell me how things went when you get back. We’ll have you round to dinner, you and Perilla. A quiet family dinner, not one of those silly big affairs like the last time. Messalina will be delighted.’

  Yeah, I’d just bet she would; skeleton at the feast wouldn’t be the half of it. And it wasn’t something I was particularly looking forward to, either. I said nothing.

  He stretched out his hand, and I shook it.

  ‘Thank you again, Valerius Corvinus,’ he said. ‘Do give Perilla my very best regards. And have a p-pleasant and successful journey.’

  I left.

  So much for that. Now all I had to do was break the glad news to the lady that her holiday arrangements were shot to hell.

  TWO

  Actually, it wasn’t quite as bad as I’d thought it’d be; quite the reverse in fact. Which was fair enough, really: Castrimoenium wasn’t exactly just down the road, but the trip only took a few hours even travelling by coach, and we saw the kids often enough one way or the other during the rest of the year to make missing one visit no great deal. Besides, there was the novelty of the thing: like I say, we’d never been anywhere that side of the Pond before, and the lady is always ready to broaden her touristic horizons. The fact that we’d be travelling first class at government expense could’ve had something to do with it as well, mind.

  So I sent a skivvy down to Clarus’s and Marilla’s to explain, and just before dawn the next morning we set off in the coach and luggage-cart for Ostia; the ‘we’ being the two of us, Perilla’s maid Phryne, and Bathyllus. Oh, sure, no doubt everything would be laid on where we were going, bought help included, but I couldn’t do him out of the chance to brag that he was buttling for an imperial procurator, however temporary the job happened to be. Besides, it’d give the little guy a well-deserved break and let him see a bit of the world. Meton, though, was another matter; shit-hot chef though he might be, the joys of sharing that surly anarchic bugger’s company all the way to Lugdunum and back was a pleasure I could do without. Besides, it’d probably only lead to trouble: wherever we’d be putting up, the chances were the catering side of
things would be well up to scratch, and given Meton’s contempt for his culinary colleagues in general he was an international incident waiting to happen.

  Like Claudius had said, the government yacht was waiting for us, which was par for the course: these things have to be ready to sail at a moment’s notice, and because they’re equipped with a full set of oars and oarsmen for use at need they’re independent of wind. Fast as hell, too, given the right conditions. Which, according to the captain who met us on the quayside, we had.

  ‘Wind’s strong and steady from the east, sir,’ the captain said, handing Perilla across the gang-plank as the luggage was unloaded from the cart. ‘You couldn’t’ve asked for better. If it keeps up, which I think it will, we’ll have you in Massilia well inside of three days.’

  ‘That’s great.’ I edged cautiously after her; Italy, in the form of the quayside, was solid enough, but that was where reliability stopped. The captain put out a hand to steady me.

  ‘You haven’t had much to do with ships in the past, Valerius Corvinus, have you?’ he said.

  I grinned. ‘Is it obvious?’

  ‘Don’t worry, sir, I haven’t lost a passenger overboard yet. Particularly while we’re still in dock.’ Yeah, well, that was a relief. Even so, I wasn’t taking any chances. ‘You and the Lady Rufia have the aft deckhouse to yourselves, of course.’ He paused and pointed. ‘That’s at the, ah, back, over there. You should find it very comfortable.’

  ‘Your other passenger arrived yet?’ I said. ‘The doctor. Domitius Crinas, wasn’t it?’

  ‘That’s right. No, not yet, but we’re expecting him at any moment.’

  I nodded. ‘Good. Good.’ It wasn’t, but there was no point in being churlish. At least, evidently, we weren’t being expected to share the deckhouse with him. Be grateful for small mercies.

  The lady was already heading aft, and I followed her. She pushed open the door and went inside.

  ‘But this is lovely, Marcus!’ she said. ‘A proper room!’

  Yeah; I had to admit that it was a lot more swish than I’d expected, and that was putting it mildly: despite what I’d said to the captain, we’d done our share of travelling by sea, and although we’d bunked down in deckhouses before – you could get them, or a share of them, usually, if you paid a whopping surcharge on top of your passage money, which was essentially a bribe for the captain to move out – this one had them all beat, hands down. Which again, I suppose, was par for the course given that this was a yacht purpose-built for transporting VIPs, and you couldn’t expect these guys and girls to slum it like ordinary mortals, let alone bed down under an awning in the scuppers as usually happened when you shipped on a merchantman. The room was much bigger, for a start, big enough for two bunks, a small table with a couple of couches and a dressing table to be squeezed into the floor space without looking too embarrassed about it, plus shelves for storage fixed to the walls. I was impressed.

  ‘Look, dear.’ Perilla reached up to the sliding panel above and between the two bunks. ‘We even have a window.’

  She slid it aside. Sure enough, you could see the line of the quay through the space it left. Very handy, although a bit too small and far above the ground to throw up through when the time came. Which, personally and from grim experience, I’d say was the prime purpose of a window on board ship. Me, I was more interested in what was on the table: a silver wine decanter with matching cups and some cold nibbles and fruit. Yet further proof that your ordinary bog-standard merchantman this definitely wasn’t.

  I lay down on one of the couches, poured a cupful and sipped. Not imperial Caecuban, sure, but a very passable Falernian. Claudius was doing us proud.

  Bathyllus and Perilla’s Phryne had just finished stowing the gear that we’d need for the trip and left to make their own bunk-down arrangements when there was a tap on the door and the captain put his head round it.

  ‘That’s Domitius Crinas come aboard now, sir,’ he said. ‘He says he’d like to introduce himself, if you and the lady are willing.’

  ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘In here’s fine. Wheel him in.’

  And a moment or two later, he did. Lucius Domitius Crinas was mid-thirties, max, and he could have modelled for a statue of Apollo. Done it better than the original, what’s more. I saw Perilla’s eyes widen.

  ‘Valerius Corvinus,’ he said. ‘Lady Rufia Perilla. I’m delighted to meet you.’

  ‘Ah … likewise.’ I held out a hand and we shook. It was like having your fingers caught in a vice. ‘You want some wine?’

  ‘Thank you, no. I don’t, as a rule, or just the occasional cup, very well watered and taken with a meal.’

  Oh, gods! This did not sound promising. ‘You mind if I do?’ I said, reaching for the decanter.

  ‘Personally, no, not at all. But then it’s not my liver.’

  Delivered with the most disarming of smiles. Yeah, I could just come to love this guy, I could see that already.

  ‘Rhetorical question, pal,’ I said, filling the cup.

  ‘Indeed, and I apologize. However, if you did want a professional opinion based on my first impressions of you as a physical type then I’d advise you for your own good to go just a little easier on the sauce.’

  Perilla gave a muffled grunt. I set the decanter down.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘Oh, dear. Now I’ve really offended you. I spoke with the best of intentions, believe me. Forget that I did so.’

  Yeah, well, if he was running for Best Travelling Companion of the Year he’d blown his chances all over the shop right from the outset. ‘And what might those impressions be, exactly?’ I said. ‘Just out of interest, you understand.’

  ‘You really want to know?’

  ‘I really want to know. Humour me. No pun intended.’

  ‘Then from your colour and general condition I’d diagnose an excess of yellow bile produced by a derangement of the liver, which excessive consumption of wine can only aggravate. Your behaviour, from what I’ve seen of it so far, confirms this. You find yourself prone to bouts of anger. You tend to be peevish and irritable with very little provocation. You—’

  ‘Now listen, friend!’

  ‘You are, in fact, a classic bilious subject. You have problems with excess wind, don’t you?’

  ‘The only excess wind around here is—’

  Which was when the captain put his head round the door again.

  ‘We’re about to cast off, lady and gentlemen,’ he said. ‘If you’d like to come on deck.’

  ‘I think that’s an excellent idea,’ Perilla said brightly. ‘Don’t you, Marcus?’

  ‘Uh … yeah. Yeah, all right.’ I glared at our co-passenger, who gave me a sunny smile back. ‘We may as well.’

  Evidently this trip was going to be fun, fun, fun. If some god had made me the offer, I’d even have been willing to swap the bastard for Meton.

  They untied the yacht and we left in style. At a fair rate of knots, too. Even when she’s well up to speed, with the wind at her back, your average merchantman will roll like a pig in muck; the Leucothea – that was the yacht’s name – most emphatically didn’t; forget the pig, think greyhound, and one after a hare, at that. Like the captain had said, it was a perfect day for sailing: a brisk breeze from behind us, with the result that we creamed along at a rate that would’ve left even your well-above-average merchantman standing. It was like being perched on top of a racehorse, with the difference that you didn’t have to hold on for dear life to the bloody thing’s mane. Me, I’m no sailor, not even the fair-weather sort; the first pitch, and I’m heaving my guts out. With the Leucothea, I didn’t feel so much as a twinge. Magic. Barring the downside of having to share the boat with our master of tact Domitius sodding Crinas I could even get to like this.

  A few hours out, we picked up the dolphins.

  If you’re looking for just one thing that makes travelling by sea a pleasure – and otherwise your options are limited, to say the least – you can’t do better
than dolphins. Those things are brilliant; it’s the grins that get me, like the whole world’s a joke and they’re the ones who are playing it. This time, there were at least a dozen of the buggers, half each side of the boat. They were keeping pace with us, slipping through the water like they’d been greased. I watched, fascinated.

  Perilla came and stood beside me.

  ‘You know, dear,’ she said when after we’d been watching them in silence for a good five minutes, ‘so far, for a change, as cases go, this one’s turning out to be quite pleasant.’

  ‘Don’t get too used to it, lady. It hasn’t properly started yet.’

  ‘Pessimist.’

  She was right, though, even so: again leaving Crinas aside, I’d had worse starts to a case than a cruise on a luxury yacht with a set of dolphins for company.

  … at which the lad himself joined us at the rail.

  ‘Marvellous creatures, aren’t they?’ he said.

  ‘They’re OK.’ I gasped as one of them leaped clear of the water scant yards from us, shook itself in a shower of rainbow droplets, and plunged back beneath the surface slick as a knife. ‘Beautiful!’

  Crinas nodded. ‘Did you know, Corvinus, that dolphins are the only animals, land or sea, that feed on their backs?’

  ‘Actually, that’s not true,’ I said.

  He frowned. ‘Really?’

  ‘You haven’t been to many senatorial dinner parties, have you?’

  Perilla choked. Not that it fazed Smarty-pants for a moment, mind.

  ‘They’re also,’ he said, ‘the most helpful of wild creatures where humans are concerned.’ He turned to Perilla and flashed her a twenty-candelabra smile. ‘You’ve heard, perhaps, Lady Rufia, how the fishermen of Latera go about catching mullet?’

  ‘No. No, I haven’t.’ Gods! Was that the faintest smidgeon of a blush? And the lady had actually patted her hair! ‘Where is Latera?’