Bodies Politic Read online

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘Plus, I’ll be careful with the mantle. Pristine condition, I promise. Bargain?’

  She frowned, then kissed me. ‘Oh, very well, bargain. But turn up looking like you’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards and I will personally kill you. Understood?’

  ‘Understood.’

  Excellent!

  CHAPTER TEN

  There’d been no word of Dion that day, so the next I saw Perilla off in the litter in plenty of time for the reading and set off for the Palatine myself. I hadn’t been kidding when I’d said that, even if one of the kids did turn up with news outside the Pollio as arranged, I’d probably be there before her: she’d be taking the long way round, whereas the more direct route along Staurus Street and up the Staurian Stairs might be knackering on the legs but it was a good twenty minutes shorter. Besides, our litter team were lardballs with all the pace of arthritic tortoises. I could give them half an hour’s start and still beat them to the finish.

  Arrive fresher, too. The heat was off the day and there was a cool breeze blowing. Perfect walking weather.

  I came down off the Caelian with its more upmarket houses into the tenement area that fills the dip between it and the Palatine, cutting off the view you get from the higher ground of the definitely-upmarket private and public buildings along its eastern ridge. Me, I like the tenement areas. Oh, sure, your average tenement is a crumbling, overcrowded, smelly eyesore with poky rooms that’re hell to live in, but then most families only use them for sleeping: which means that unless the weather’s really bad they spend their spare time - what they have of it - on the pavements outside. The last couple of hours before sunset, when work’s finished for the day, is traditionally family mealtime, and so what you get is a succession of ad-hoc street-parties, with chairs and folding tables and portable cooking stoves crammed into most of the space between the buildings, the blue haze of burning charcoal, the smell of soup and bean stew and grilling sausages, and people by the hundred: mothers dishing up or gossiping with each other, men sitting around shooting the breeze, beefing about their bosses or arguing racing form while they drink their after-work wine, and kids weaving in and out playing tag or screaming that they hate cabbage. Quiet it isn’t, but then Rome isn’t a quiet place, most of it, any hour of the day or night. If you want peace and quiet, try the Alban Hills, but for me you can keep them. I’ll take the street parties. I’m happy here.

  I walked along Staurian Street to its end where the Stairs lead up the back of the Palatine Hill. It’s a long, hard climb: they’re steep and narrow, wide enough for two people to pass abreast but not much more, and closed in either side for most of their length. This time of day they were deserted, although even at busy times that didn’t vary much: the Palatine’s definitely upper-class ground, your ordinary punter, unless he’s a slave or a workman, has no reason to go there, and the more well-heeled wouldn’t be slogging up a long flight of stairs on foot in any case. It’s only stupid eccentrics like me that don’t like litters who do silly things like that.

  I started to climb.

  I’d got about three-quarters the way up, and I’d stopped for a breather, when I noticed the cart at the top of the flight. It was piled high with stones - probably a mason’s cart; they’d be doing some road repairs - and it was parked tail-end-on, so that it practically blocked the exit. Bugger! Well, there was just enough room to squeeze past on either side. Stupid place to leave the thing, though: there was plenty of space in the open ground beyond.

  Then, as I watched, the cart began to move. Backwards. Its rear wheels dropped down the first of the steps, and the sudden tilt sent part of its cargo rattling over the tailgate while the weight of the rest pulled the front wheels over the lip. I stared in horror as the thing started to bounce and jolt down the flight towards me, gathering speed as it went.

  Oh, shit!

  There was nowhere I could run. If I tried back the way I’d come I hadn’t a hope in hell of reaching the bottom before the cart caught up with me, even if I didn’t trip in the first few steps and break my neck tumbling down the stairs, which I probably would. And even if that didn’t happen I’d be crushed where I lay under the wheels. On the other hand, to stay where I was would be suicide: there wasn’t a hand’s breadth of clearance either side, and unless the damn thing stuck on the way, which didn’t seem likely with the momentum it was building up, it’d squash me against the wall like a bug.

  Bloody, bloody shit! Think, Corvinus!

  Up was the only way out. Twenty yards ahead, if I remembered rightly, there was a break in the wall where the masonry had crumbled, leaving a hole. It wasn’t much, sure, but it was the best I’d got.

  If I was right. If it was big and deep enough. And if I could reach it in time.

  Too many ifs. Fuck!

  I started running up the steps towards the oncoming cart, breathing hard with pure terror. Shit, where was it? Blank wall, blank wall all the way. They’d fucking repaired it! Just when I needed the fucking City Works department to be their fucking inefficient selves they’d fixed the fucking thing!

  Stones rattled past me, bouncing up like slingshots, shattering themselves against the side walls. One caught me on the shoulder, and I winced. The cart was no more than a dozen yards away now, and coming like a bat out of hell.

  And then I saw it. Sweet Jupiter, I’d almost missed the thing in the shadows! I raced up the last few yards, lungs bursting, and dived sideways...

  The cart’s wooden side scraped my back as I pressed myself as far as I could go into the hole, hard up against the crumbling masonry, and it was gone, thundering down the steps behind me. I stayed where I was, shaking and gasping for breath.

  From far below came a shattering crash. Then there was silence.

  Somewhere a bird sang. I don’t know what the hell kind it was, but at that moment it was the sweetest sound in the world.

  Gods!

  ***

  I didn’t bother with the rendezvous in front of the Pollio; like Perilla had said, if any of the kids had spotted Dion then I’d know soon enough, and I was far too shaken at present to care about little things like that. I went straight to Vinicius and Livilla’s place, next to the palace.

  The front door was open, and there was an expensive-looking slave on duty outside. He was wearing a smart red tunic with silver trimmings, which made him a hell of a lot better-dressed than I was, currently.

  ‘I’ve come for the poetry reading,’ I said.

  He gave me the once-over and his eyes widened; but then he just said, ‘Yes, sir,’ and led me inside and through what looked like a major art gallery to one of the big public rooms.

  It was packed to the gunnels with Rome’s brightest and best, tucking in to the pre-show drinks and nibbles. I’m not absolutely sure what a cynosure of all eyes is, but when I stepped across the threshold I was it. In spades. As an equivalent conversation-stopper, a fart at a funeral comes to mind.

  Perilla was there already, talking to a woman who I recognised as one of her literary cronies. When she saw me she came over like a bolt from a catapult.

  ‘Marcus!’ she hissed. ‘I told you! What the hell do you think you’re - ?’ She stopped when she saw the cuts and bruises, and her face went pale under her makeup. ‘What happened?’

  ‘An accident with a cart,’ I said.

  ‘A cart? It’s not sunset yet! There aren’t any carts!’

  ‘It’s complicated. I’ll explain later.’

  A dapper-looking guy in his mid-forties was coming towards us. ‘You must be Valerius Corvinus,’ he said, holding out his hand. We shook. ‘We haven’t met. I’m Marcus Vinicius.’

  ‘Uh...yeah,’ I said. ‘Pleased to meet you, sir.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but -’ He gestured delicately at what was left of my mantle, which wasn’t much. ‘Did you have a problem on the way here?’

  I grinned; I felt like laughing, but I knew that was just hysteria. ‘Yeah. You could say that. A bit of an a
ccident on the Staurian Stairs.’

  ‘Good gods!’ He’d noticed the blood and the bruising too, now. ‘Are you all right? No, don’t answer that.’ He looked round and signalled to a slave, who came over. ‘Tynnias. Fetch Theodorides. Now, man! Do it quickly!’ He turned back. ‘Theodorides is my doctor. He’ll take a look at you. Meanwhile, get this down you.’ He held out the winecup he was holding.

  Thank Jupiter for a man who had his priorities right. I took it and drank. Caecuban. Beautiful, and just what I needed.

  ‘You fell?’ he said.

  ‘Uh-uh. Runaway mason’s cart.’ Beside me, Perilla gasped, but she didn’t say anything. ‘Almost got me.’

  ‘On the Stairs?’

  ‘Yeah. Some idiot had left it parked off the brake at the top and it must’ve rolled backwards somehow and gone down the steps.’

  ‘Good gods!’ he said again. ‘They’re only a few feet wide! You’re lucky to be alive, man!’

  ‘Yeah. Yeah, I know.’ A slave was passing with a jug. I grabbed his arm, got him to refill the cup and downed that one too.

  A thin-faced Greek in a plain mantle was hurrying over, with the slave Tynnias in tow. The doctor, obviously. Well, that’s imperials for you: they even have their own medical staff on the household roll.

  ‘Theodorides,’ Vinicius said. ‘Take Valerius Corvinus to the bath suite and patch him up.’ Then, when I started to protest: ‘No, I won’t hear of it, Corvinus! And Tynnias, fetch a clean tunic and mantle!’ He turned back to me. ‘Take your time. We’ll talk later, when Theodorides has finished with you and you’ve had a chance to freshen up. Meanwhile I think Seneca’s about ready to start, so I’m afraid I must...if you’ll excuse me?’

  ‘Sure. Thanks.’

  He left in the direction of a fat, jowly purple-striper who was moving purposefully towards the podium at the end of the room clutching a thick book-roll.

  ‘This way, sir,’ the doctor said, plucking at my sleeve.

  ‘You’re all right, Marcus?’ Perilla said anxiously. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m fine, lady,’ I said. ‘All surface, no bones broken. Go and enjoy.’

  I let myself be led off. Well, you had to look on the bright side. At least I’d miss the bloody recitation.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I did, but not by much, despite the fact that I was away for a good hour and a half, which was what it took for the doctor to sponge my cuts and examine the bruise on my shoulder, and for me to wash off the mortar from the Staurian wall in Vinicius’s bath suite and change into the fresh tunic and mantle that Tynnias had brought me. Also to sink another half pint of Caecuban while all this was happening.

  When I rejoined the party I was feeling almost human again. They were applauding, but not very enthusiastically, which suggested that Seneca’s poetry had been the pulp-factory-fodder that Perilla had said it was. Mind you, if I’d had to choose in advance I’d still’ve taken it in preference to being almost squashed flat by a stonemason’s cart. But then maybe I’m just getting old.

  ‘Marcus?’ Perilla was there, beside me. ‘How are you feeling?’

  I was looking around the room; Rome’s brightest and best was right, if you kept your tongue firmly in your cheek while applying the phrase, with a generous sprinkling of four-star imperials. Not counting Vinicius I could spot three of these straight off, even if I didn’t know them personally. First, the nondescript, middle-aged guy in the plain mantle, who twitched while he talked like he had the palsy and favoured his right leg whenever he moved: Gaius’s uncle, the idiot Claudius, who the imperial family had kept under almost permanent wraps since he was born, and quite rightly so from the looks of him. The broad-striper he was talking to was smiling and nodding like he wished he was a million miles away, but at a party you can’t flatline a gabby imperial, even although he is a no-brainer who’s boring your socks off, and the poor guy was stuck for the duration. Second, Livilla,Vinicius’s wife, Gaius’s sister, about six feet to our left, against the wall behind the Marsyas statue, talking to the fat would-be star of the show who was lapping up her compliments like a cat at a cream-bowl. Livilla was fairly hefty herself, thick in the body but pretty enough in the face. Not, from reports, that there was very much going on behind those heavily-made-up eyes. To distinguish between Gaius’s youngest sister and a brick, intellectually speaking, would be a decision that went to the wire.

  Third was Agrippina...

  Agrippina. I’d never met her either, but I recognised her as soon as I saw her. An Imperial with a capital ‘I’, straight from the Livia mould, and that bitch I’d remember even if I made ninety. She and her sister were chalk and cheese, with Livilla being the cheese, and a full-fat one at that. There was none of her sister’s flab about Agrippina. Early twenties or not, she was bone-dry, angular and hard, more flint than chalk, and by the gods the lady had presence and she knew it. She was talking to a young man with a squeaky-clean broad-striper mantle. I suddenly thought of female spiders, and the hairs rose on my neck.

  There was no sign of her husband Domitius Ahenobarbus. Him I’d’ve spotted anywhere.

  ‘Marcus?’

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘I asked you a question. How are you feeling?’

  ‘I’m okay, lady. I told you, no bones broken. Just scratches.’ I fielded a cup of wine from a passing slave’s tray. ‘Where’s Ahenobarbus?’

  ‘He’s dying.’

  ‘What?’ I nearly dropped the cup.

  ‘Or the next thing to it.’

  Well, I wouldn’t grieve for the bastard, nor would many other people. Still, it was a facer. ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Absolutely. I asked Vinicius. Oh, very discreetly, but I thought you’d want to know. A combination of dropsy and alcohol. His doctors don’t think he’ll last the year.’

  Bloody hell! ‘Does Agrippina know?’

  ‘Of course she does.’

  ‘Ah, Corvinus.’ It was Vinicius himself, coming up on my blind side. ‘Suitably restored?’

  ‘Yeah. Yeah, thanks. I’m fine.’

  ‘You missed a treat.’ I glanced at him suspiciously, but his face was bland. ‘Annaeus Seneca was in marvellous form. As usual. A true showman.’

  ‘I’m not into poetry myself, sir,’ I said. ‘Can’t tell bad from good, I’m afraid.’

  ‘That can be an advantage. Certainly a blessing, in some circumstances.’ He turned to Perilla. ‘Your stepfather, now, Rufia Perilla, he was a poet. I’m sorry I was too young ever to meet him. His Metamorphoses are a lovely idea; Circe the enchantress changing men into swine is such a telling comment on the morality of our times, isn’t it?’

  ‘I, ah, don’t think my stepfather meant it like that.’

  ‘Poets can say more than they intend, or even what they know, my dear. It’s one way of telling good from bad. And speaking of your stepfather, there’s someone who’d be delighted to meet you.’ He raised his voice. ‘Anteius! Over here, please!’

  The young guy talking to Agrippina said a few final words to her and came across. He was big-built, with a florid complexion and reddish hair: Northern Italian, probably, maybe even with more recent Gallic blood.

  ‘Gaius Anteius, Rufia Perilla and her husband Valerius Corvinus,’ Vinicius said. ‘Anteius is a fellow-poet, Perilla. A close friend of Seneca’s. He’s one of our new quaestors.’

  That explained the squeaky-clean mantle. ‘Pleased to meet you,’ I said. We shook.

  ‘You’re in distinguished company, Anteius.’ Vinicius patted his arm. ‘Rufia Perilla is Ovid’s stepdaughter, and an excellent poet in her own right. Now if you’ll excuse me I must just go and check on the wine supplies. Glad to see you’re little the worse for your experience, Corvinus. I’ll have my carriage take you back, even so.’

  ‘Hey, no, that’s okay,’ I said. ‘We can manage in the litter.’

  ‘I insist. It’ll be waiting for you outside whenever you’re ready. In the meantime, enjoy yourselves.’ He smiled, and was gone.

>   ‘You’re from the north?’ Perilla said to Anteius.

  ‘Yes. My father has estates near Mantua.’ The guy was blushing; one of nature’s ingénus. Well, the family must be rolling right enough: even these days, a Cisalpine Italian his age didn’t make the first rung on the senatorial ladder easily, not with so many youngsters from the top Roman families in contention. ‘What was he like? Your stepfather?’

  ‘You enjoy his work?’

  ‘It’s brilliant,’ he said simply. ‘I’ve read every line a hundred times. He’s even better than Virgil, and as a Mantuan myself I shouldn’t say that.’

  Perilla laughed. ‘Well, he wasn’t at all like you might imagine from his poetry. A very quiet family man. If you’d met him you might have been disappointed.’

  ‘Oh, no! He was a genius, everyone says so. I was talking to Cornelius Gaetulicus a couple of months ago, and he said Publius Ovidius Naso was the greatest lyricist Rome had ever produced, streets ahead of Catullus. He models his own style on your stepfather, although he says he’ll never be a fraction as good.’

  ‘Gaetulicus?’ I said.

  He stared at me. ‘The erotic poet, of course.’

  ‘Ah,’ I said. ‘Right. Right.’

  ‘He knew your stepfather, you know.’ He turned back to Perilla. ‘Not well; he was only my age when Ovid was exiled. In fact, I think he only met him twice. But he said he was the most intelligent man in Rome. Not the cleverest, but the most intelligent. And, of course, an absolutely brilliant poet. His banishment was a tragedy.’

  ‘Yes,’ Perilla said quietly. ‘Yes, it was.’

  ‘Why did Augustus do it? Do you know?’

  ‘Yes. But it’s a long story.’

  ‘Where did you - ?’ I began; but I was interrupted.

  ‘Gaius, dear, Seneca would like a quick word.’ Agrippina. Her hand was on Anteius’s arm. ‘I’m sorry to drag him away,’ she said to me, ‘but you know these sensitive artists. Everything has to be done now.’