Ovid (Marcus Corvinus Book 1) Page 5

  Fifty yards back a man was crossing over to my side of the road. He was the sort of guy you can't help but notice, half the size of Augustus's mausoleum and twice as ugly, but without the gorilla-like shamble some really big men have. A professional sword-fighter, maybe. Or an ex-soldier. Someone, anyway, who knew his size was the other guy's problem. I saw what was going to happen before it did; in that part of town you can't make any sudden changes of direction if you want to stay popular, and even crossing the street takes time. The big guy went slap into an oil-seller, knocking him flying and drenching half a dozen peaceful citizens with lamp oil. If I'd had time I would've stuck around to broaden my vocabulary but the rain was getting heavier and the sky directly above me was as black as a Nubian's backside.

  I'd got about three more yards when the storm broke; and as storms go it was a beaut. Rain lancing down out of the black sky hissed and bounced on the pavement like hail and swarmed into the gutters. Suddenly the street was a muddy brown river full of cabbage leaves, drowned insects and mule droppings. Everyone ran for cover, me included; only there was nowhere to run. My cloak was soaked through in seconds. My ears were full and my eyes were full, and it was sheer luck that I spotted the open doorway to a potter's shop. I shot inside like a rabbit going to ground

  The shop was dim and quiet after the chaos outside. I stood for a moment cursing and trying to wipe the rainwater out of my eyes with my already sodden cloak. Then I turned round.

  The big guy who had flattened the oil-seller was standing between me and the doorway. Right between me and the doorway. And that, in the Subura, meant trouble.

  I looked round. The shop was empty. Great. All the potters' shops in Rome to choose from and I had to pick the lemon.

  'Your name Valerius Corvinus?' You could've taken the guy's accent and hung your boots on it. A foreigner. German, maybe.

  'What's that to you?' Trying not to make it too obvious I got my hand round the hilt of the little insurance policy I keep strapped to the underside of my left forearm.

  He stepped forwards without answering. Like I say, he was no beauty. Now my eyes were used to the darkness I could see the deep well healed scar down the left side of his face. Part of his left ear was missing, too. I'd been right. Sword-fighter or soldier, he'd been in scraps before.

  'Hey, you know what you remind me of, pal?' The dagger was free now but I didn't show it. I needed all the edge I could get. 'The gorilla they keep in Maecenas Gardens. Only he's better looking.

  Subtle as a brick, sure; intentionally so. But if I thought I could goad him into doing something he'd come to regret I was mistaken. He only grinned at me revealing teeth like the broken tombstones on the Appian Way.

  'You're Corvinus all right,' he said. 'I've been told to have a word with you, friend.'

  I drew the dagger out all the way but he didn't move or even blink. That worried me like hell. Sure, I didn't expect the guy to run screaming out of the shop but a certain shift towards caution on his part would've helped my ego. As it was he still had the edge. I took a sharp look behind me and to either side to check the ground I had to work with. Could be better, could be worse. On the plus side the place was a poky little hole with cooking pots stacked up on shelves around the walls. No space to manoeuvre so he'd have to come at me from the front. On the other hand it was one of these closed-off street-side rooms either side of the main entrance you get in most city houses, that the house owners rent out to small retailers. So no back door, right? If I wanted to walk out of this it'd have to be over Big Fritz's dead body. Which was, as they say, a real bummer.

  I held the knife out in front of me flat like I'd been taught, the point waving from side to side across the width of his belly, balanced myself on the balls of both feet and waited for him to come at me. That would show him he was messing with a professional. He gave me a look like I was something with six legs he'd just found in his salad, turned his head aside and spat.

  'Put the knife away,' he said. 'You won't need it. This is just a warning.'

  'Yeah? Who from?' I lowered the dagger but didn't sheathe it. I wasn't that crazy. I'd already checked out his hands. They were both in view and they were empty; but then again they were the size of shovel blades and whatever this guy did for a living it wasn't play the harp. A clout with one of these would send you straight through the other end of next year's Winter Festival.

  'None of your business.' He was still completely relaxed. It takes one of two qualities to look that cool when you're unarmed and facing a cornered man with a knife: either total headbanging stupidity or absolute confidence that you can take the bastard without breaking sweat. And Big Fritz for all his beer-and-barley-bread accent was no headbanger. 'You're being warned to stop asking questions. Do what you're told or you'll get hurt.'

  'So what's Tiberius got against a dead poet, then? Or is the boil on his backside just playing him up too much?' Yeah. Cocky as hell. I should've known better.

  'I told you,' he said. 'You ask too many questions. Leave well alone. And just to make sure you get the point...'

  I'd been watching his eyes and I swear he didn't signal the move. One minute he was standing facing me, the next instant he was a forward-leaping blur. My hand with the knife came up years too late. His fingers closed around my wrist, pulling down and twisting outwards. The dagger rang on the stone floor and what felt like half the Capitoline Hill collided with my ribs as his shoulder thudded into my chest. Then I was flying backwards against a wall that broke and gave and showered me with a tumbling hail of earthenware.

  By the time I'd picked myself up battered and bruised but with nothing broken but my pride Big Fritz had left.

  So we were playing for real now. I was tempted to give it up then and there. Sure I was. For about fifteen seconds, while I shook the remains of half a dinner service out of my ears. Then the old Messalla blood began to stir, the legacy of twenty generations of arrogant straight-nosed patrician bastards who'd get up from their deathbeds just to spit in an enemy's eye, and I knew that I couldn't do it. I had to see it through if it killed me.

  If it killed me. Yeah, and it well might, if today was any sample. I knew that. But next time I'd be better prepared.

  7 .

  I called round at Perilla's next morning. I must've looked even worse than I felt, which is saying a lot, because when she saw me her jaw dropped like she'd been sandbagged.

  'Corvinus! What on earth happened?'

  I eased myself into the chair her slave Callias brought. Chairs hadn't been too high on my list of favourite furniture since yesterday's little incident. Twenty pounds of shattered Best Local Domestic make a lousy cushion.

  'Nothing much,' I said. 'A meeting with the security arm of the imperial civil service. They'd like us to withdraw our application.'

  Perilla didn't get it at first. Then when the penny dropped she didn't believe it. 'You mean Tiberius had you beaten up?'

  'Just leaned on, lady. Beaten up comes a grade higher.'

  'But this is dreadful!' She got up from her chair, walked over to the half-curtained-off sitting area and stood looking out through it into the garden beyond. When she finally turned round her eyes were bright and her mouth set in a firm line. 'Getting my stepfather's ashes back isn't worth this. Forget I asked you. Please.'

  'And miss out on all the fun?' I tried to grin, but my mouth wasn't working too well because at some stage in yesterday's proceedings I'd tried to swallow a casserole.

  She sat down facing me. I noticed that despite the usual cool calm and collected exterior her hands were clenched together. 'So what happened? Exactly?'

  I told her the gory details. Maybe I embellished a little as far as numbers went, to save face. I wasn't too proud of myself.

  'But what's worrying me most,' I finished, 'is whether with this fat lip I'll be able to play the double flute.'

  She was instantly concerned. 'But I never knew! Is that so terribly important to you?'

  A lovely girl, Perilla, read her Ar
istotle with the best of them no doubt, but she'd as much sense of humour as a tunny. I was still explaining the joke when Callias came back in with a brimming goblet of wine. He set it on the table beside me, bowed and left. I drank as easily as my cut lip would let me.

  No, it wasn't the rotgut stuff I'd had last time. I knew it wouldn't be before I let a drop of it past my bruised lips. The first thing I'd done that morning before calling on Perilla was to send Bathyllus round with a jar of my own Falernian; good stuff from the family's own vineyards six miles from Sinuessa, Faustian no less and five years older than I was. I'd warned Bathyllus to tell Callias from me that if he served me anything else or let on to Perilla that he'd done a swap I'd personally see to it that he found himself floating down the Tiber with his prick tied in a clove hitch. I didn't mind getting leaned on for Perilla's sake but I drew the line at drinking Hubby Rufus's apology for horse piss.

  'So how well did your stepfather know Julia, then?' I said when the Falernian had begun its magic journey southwards.

  'What?' Perilla's head came up like she'd sat on a wasp.

  'You heard me. Julia. The old emperor's granddaughter. The one that was sent to Trimerus for adultery.'

  'So you've made that connection.'

  I didn't quite know what to make of her tone. She wasn't exactly angry. Maybe ‘bitter’ came nearest. As if somehow I'd disappointed her but she'd been expecting it.

  'Oh, come on, Perilla! You must've thought about it yourself. The Julia thing's so obvious even I got it without busting a blood vessel.' She said nothing so I pressed my advantage. Or what I thought was an advantage. 'If Ovid was having an affair with Julia then her grandfather would have a right to boot him up the backside, wouldn't he? Especially since the lady was married at the time. And it'd be a private family matter, too, so it wouldn't be any concern of the state. All that worries me is why...'

  'Corvinus.' You could've used Perilla's voice to make chilled grape sorbet in midsummer. 'Let us get one thing clear. There was no affair with Julia. My stepfather was a dozen years older than she was, he loved my mother, and furthermore he was the most moral man in Rome.'

  I didn't laugh. It was a close-run thing and in my present weakened state I nearly ruptured myself, but I didn't laugh.

  'Oh, yeah. Sure,' I said. 'That's why Augustus banned his poetry for giving impressionable young gentlemen and ladies an itch in their drawers.'

  'You're confusing the poetry with the poet!'

  'Maybe. But Ovid's seemed pretty autobiographical to me. From what I've read of it the guy must've gone round in a permanent crouch. Not that I'm being critical, you understand.'

  'It seemed autobiographical because he was a great poet!'

  'Look, no arguments, right? If you say –'

  But she wasn't finished with me yet. Perilla was beautiful when she was angry.

  'I knew him, Corvinus, and you didn't. He was the gentlest, faithfullest, most moderate...'

  I held up my hand. 'Yeah, okay. Okay! Fair enough, I'm sorry. Birds fed out of his lily-white hand and he blushed to his socks if a girl so much as tickled his inclinations. Sure. I'll take your word for it. But come on! There has to be a connection with Julia. Both of them exiled in the same year's too pat.'

  'Stranger things have happened.'

  'Don't bet on it.' I took another swig of wine. Beautiful. 'Okay, so let's take it another way. Your stepfather said he was exiled for something he saw and didn't report, right?'

  She nodded briefly. Her mouth still looked like someone had cemented it up from the inside.

  'So if he wasn't directly involved with Julia what's wrong with the theory that he knew she was being humped and didn't pass the information on to Augustus?'

  'Nothing, except that there would be no sense in hushing up the charge. After all if Augustus was willing to let the crime itself become public why should he worry about whatever Ovid saw? And why should he punish him so harshly?'

  'Yeah, sure. I thought of that. But maybe what Ovid saw had other implications. Connected with the adultery but not part of it.'

  'How do you mean?'

  'I'm not sure myself. Maybe nothing. It's just an idea, but if there was something else then it might've made all the difference. Anyway we need more information, and that won't be easy to come by. In fact I'd bet you a basket of lampreys to a pitted olive that we'll find people's mouths sewn up tighter than a gnat's arsehole.'

  Perilla was frowning; at the crudity, I thought (the phrase had slipped out), but I was wrong. 'Is all of this necessary?' she said.

  'All of what?'

  'This...digging into the past. Sifting through old bones. All my mother and I want is to get my stepfather's ashes back. We couldn't care less what he did.'

  I sat back and stared at her in amazement. The lady was serious. She was actually serious! She honestly, genuinely couldn't care less about trivial things like reasons. To me, now, getting the ashes was incidental; or rather they were only part of the game. I couldn't give up whether Perilla wanted me to or not. I was hooked, I had to know what Ovid had done, for my own satisfaction if nothing else. And I knew, somehow, that the two things went together, that we'd never get imperial permission for the return of Ovid's body unless we solved the mystery of his exile.

  'Yeah, it's necessary,' I said simply. 'Believe me.'

  'All right.' The directness of her reply both surprised me and gave me a warm feeling inside. 'So if we do want information then who do we ask?'

  I noticed the "we". It seemed we were on the same side again. The warm feeling increased.

  'Smack in the bullseye,' I said. 'That's the problem, lady.'

  'And the answer?'

  That's what I liked about Perilla. If there was a problem then there must be an answer. Simple. QED.

  Only in this case it wasn't.

  'Hold on a minute,' I said. 'Let me think.'

  I took a swallow of wine. This one was a real bummer. It was no use approaching any of my own age-group. Although they'd be the most amenable, like me they'd only have been kids ten years back when Julia was exiled, so none of them would be able to tell me much more than I already knew. Even if they weren't sycophantic sods like Caelius Crispus. On the other hand the older people, the thirty-plusses who'd have the information from personal experience, were mostly my father's cronies and I knew all I'd get from them was a blank stare and a raspberry. I couldn't risk going to a total stranger or one of my father's political enemies either, because I'd need to be sure that whoever I asked would keep his mouth shut whether he told me anything or not. If it got around that young Corvinus was poking about for skeletons in the imperial cupboard it could net me more than just a few cuts and bruises. Tiberius was no tyrant but that didn't mean he'd put up with some smartass bastard shoving his nose into the family secrets. That sort of thing was a shortcut to a fly-speck island of my own, or worse. So what did that leave me with? Sod all, so far as I could see. Unless...

  I suddenly remembered the fat senator who'd helped me out at the palace.

  'Lentulus.'

  'Who?'

  'Cornelius Lentulus. You don't know Cornelius Lentulus? Down the Market Square they call him the Great White Elephant. And not just because of his size either.'

  'Corvinus, I really don't know what you're talking about.'

  'Lentulus knows everything. And he never forgets.' I took a long pull at the Falernian and let it trickle gently past my tonsils. 'What's more he doesn't give a toss for anyone's opinion but his own. Lentulus is perfect. We talk to Lentulus.'

  'You're sure?'

  'Sure I'm sure.' I finished the wine and stood up. 'In fact I'm so sure that I'll go round now and catch him before he starts getting ready for his dinner party.'

  'What dinner party?'

  'For Lentulus there's always a dinner party. With any luck the old bugger will be half-pissed already.'

  'You're going straight away?' I thought I could detect disappointment in Perilla's voice, but maybe it was just wish
ful thinking. 'Now?'

  'Yeah. Like I say this is the best time to catch him.' Then I had another idea, completely selfish and totally unconnected with Ovid. 'Look, uh, if he does give me some information can I come back here afterwards? Maybe early this evening?'

  'Of course.' Was she redder than usual or was it my imagination? 'Come for dinner. I haven't any guests tonight. Or any night for that matter.'

  Perilla never ceased to surprise me. As I left I wondered which of us had made the running. I'd thought it was me, but thinking it over I wasn't so sure. And that was interesting.

  I saw my mother's litter on the way; I'd forgotten that she and her new husband lived on the Caelian too. The curtains were open so I waved, but I don't think she saw me. I thought about going over and saying hello properly – I hadn't spoken to her for two months, at least – but in the end I decided against it. After my run-in with Big Fritz I wasn't exactly personable. She'd only have asked awkward questions, and worried.

  * * *

  Varus to Himself

  I wrote last about who we are, here in the wilds of Germany. I find I have been too sparing in describing Ceionius's role. I called him, without qualification, my ally. Perhaps I should say a little more.

  I do not like Ceionius. You may have guessed. As I said, he is venal, cowardly and a thoroughly unpleasant character. However, we must all use the tools which come to hand, and that to one side the man is perfectly serviceable. He may be a louse, but he is an efficient louse, which is all I require. Ceionius has a nose for intrigue, and a talent for it, which is unique in my (extensive) experience. Generals are public men, especially when in the midst of their armies. Like it or not, when they engage in treason they must have faceless (but not faithless!) allies who can come and go on their dark business and arouse no suspicion in the breasts of the godly. Such is Ceionius, par excellence.

  His faithfulness, I may say, is beyond question. I have ensured that it should be. The man has certain propensities which, were they to become known at Rome, would in the current moral climate prove the end of him militarily, politically and socially. Perhaps even physically. He is, naturally, aware that my silence on the subject is conditional on his continued co-operation.