Food for the Fishes (Marcus Corvinus Book 10)

by David Wishart

  ‘So who killed him? Do you know?’

  ‘No. It wasn’t me did it, anyway; I wouldn’t dirty my hands, and like I say he was still paying. I don’t know who killed his son, either, and I care less, because apart from the girl they’re all filth in that family, the new wife included.’ He scowled. ‘That’s the only thing I regret. The girl had spunk; she’d seen what happened, too, and she spoke up against her father. For what good it did her. I’m sorry about young Licinia, I always have been.’ He stood up. ‘Well, you’ve got the whole thing, whether I like it or not, and I can’t say I do. It’s water under the bridge. What happens now?’

  He was watching me carefully, and I knew despite the easy manner that the answer I gave him would be important. Maybe terminally so. I shrugged.

  ‘Nothing. Not as far as the Fadia case is concerned, anyway. If the guy did murder her then he’s dead and burned himself. That’s the end of it.’

  ‘So long as you don’t spread the story around.’

  ‘Why would I want to do that?’

  ‘You wouldn’t, boy. Believe me. You really wouldn’t.’

  Our eyes locked.

  Uh-huh.

  ‘Message understood,’ I said.

  ‘Fine.’ He held out his hand. ‘Deal?’

  ‘Deal,’ I said, and shook.

  Philippus grunted. ‘I’ve got business up here for a while,’ he said. ‘Go back downstairs, see if that young bastard Florus is in yet. I’m not asking the whys and wherefores, but if your wife can take him for everything that’s in his purse you’ve got my blessing. That lady has spunk, too. I saw it straight off.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Yeah, she has.’

  ‘And when you’re finished with him you hand him over to me. Me and Florus - and that shyster Nerva, when he’s got over crying for his brother - we’ve got a little chat coming to do with that scheme of theirs you mentioned involving the converted grain barge.’

  ‘Apropos of that,’ I said, ‘I thought maybe you and Aulus Nerva might have a deal going already.’

  I was watching him carefully. He didn’t even blink.

  ‘Did you, indeed?’ he said. ‘Such as?’

  ‘A three-way arrangement, with Florus. Co-financing.’

  He laughed. ‘I don’t need to co-finance with nobody! I told you: I’ve got all the money I need already for any investment I want to make. And even if I hadn’t I wouldn’t deal with Aulus Nerva. He’s his father’s son, and that’s enough for me. I said: I wouldn’t touch any of that family with gloves on, not for any reason. They’re all shit, and I wouldn’t trust any of them the length of my arm. No, believe me, this is one conversation Florus is not going to enjoy, but if he’s got any sense he’ll listen. Him and Nerva both.’

  I grinned. Well, maybe that particular theory had been misplaced after all. Still, I didn’t feel all that cut up. I was beginning to like Philippus, and if you can spread a little sunshine then life ain’t too bad. ‘One last thing,’ I said. ‘If I wanted to hire a slinger in Baiae how would I go about it?’

  The dagger-point eyes fixed me. ‘A slinger? What kind of slinger?’

  ‘Just the usual. Good, not top-notch military standard, but one who knows the pouch from the strings. And who doesn’t have any qualms about his target wearing a mantle.’

  ‘Hold on, now, Corvinus!’ He was frowning. ‘You buying or complaining here?’

  ‘Complaining. One of the buggers nearly took my head off on the way home yesterday.’

  His eyes widened. ‘Is that so, now?’ he said. ‘Not doing too well, are you?’ I didn’t answer. ‘Okay. Leave it with me. You may not believe me, but I’m straight. I’ll put the word around, sure, but at present I haven’t got any more idea than you have. Now push off; I’m busy.’

  I went downstairs.

  21

  Perilla was waiting for me when I came back down, in a corner with Calliope. She smiled brightly.

  ‘Finished, Marcus?’

  ‘Yeah. All done.’

  ‘Philippus is a charming man. Not at all as you described him.’

  Gods! There was no answer to that. ‘You been enjoying yourself?’

  ‘Very much so. This is all fascinating. Quite a different world. And Calliope and I have been having a very interesting chat.’

  ‘Yeah. I’ll bet.’ I glanced at the girl. She was looking pretty red about the ears and carefully avoiding my eye.

  ‘Did you know that the men here sometimes play for sex?’

  ‘Jupiter, lady!’

  ‘In place of their winnings, I mean. The girls pocket those, or at least a part of them. Philippus doesn’t mind, so long as both parties play fair, and –’

  ‘Perilla, just shut up, okay? No sign of Florus, presumably?’

  ‘No, not yet. But Calliope says he –’

  ‘There he is now, madam,’ Calliope said. ‘Excuse me, sir. I’ve got work to do. If you need anything, just call.’

  She escaped.

  I’d turned round. Florus was chatting to one of the punters near the entrance. He hadn’t seen us.

  ‘Come on, Aristotle.’ I pulled Perilla to her feet. ‘Now’s the time to put our money where your considerable mouth is.’

  He looked up when we were about three tables away: too late to run, which from his horrified expression he’d’ve liked to do.

  ‘Hey, Florus,’ I said. ‘How’s it going?’

  His eyes moved. Definitely shifty. I wondered again what the guy had to hide. Still, he recovered well. ‘Corvinus. And...your wife Perilla, isn’t it?’ He smiled, showing a lot of teeth. ‘We met in Bauli. With Helvius Priscus and your mother-in-law.’

  ‘Yes.’ Perilla gave him another of the bright smiles back. ‘That’s why I’m here, in fact. I’m deputising. Priscus said you and Licinius Nerva suggested a rematch, but he can’t play any more, so you have me instead.’

  The expanse of teeth vanished. Florus looked fazed. Yeah, well, Perilla’s go-straight-for-the-jugular approach can have that effect, and the guy wasn’t exactly the sharpest cookie in the box. ‘Uh...Corvinus?’ he said weakly.

  ‘Nothing to do with me, pal,’ I said. ‘It’s the lady’s show. I’m just here to watch.’

  He turned back to Perilla like he’d been hit a whanger with a sockful of damp sand. ‘You...ah...want to play me? At dice?’

  ‘Twelve Lines. If you don’t mind, that is. Yes, I do.’

  He blinked, twice. ‘But the house rules don’t allow –’

  ‘Oh, that’s all arranged. Calliope!’ The girl with the bowsprits came over with a Twelve Lines board and a box of counters. ‘Where would you like to sit?’

  Times like these, you just stand back and marvel. I’d seen Perilla take on a pack of tourist-sharks on the quayside in Antioch and reduce them to forelock-tugging submission in ten seconds flat. A weak-chinned bugger like Aquillius Florus didn’t stand a chance. There was an empty table just beside us. He collapsed onto one of the chairs like he’d been hamstrung. Perilla and I sat opposite. Calliope laid the board between us, opened the box and began to set out the jet and ivory pieces in the usual three rows of five either side.

  ‘Now,’ Perilla said. ‘The rules, before we start. No reneguing, agreed? A piece once played is played.’

  ‘Uh...agreed.’ Florus mumbled. ‘Are you sure –?’

  ‘Absolutely. We use the full dice throw whenever possible. If it isn’t possible, for whatever reason, then as many pieces move as can, highest numbers the priority. Fifteen gold pieces on the game. Or call it twenty: the house takes a tenth of the winnings, that’s right, isn’t it, Calliope?’

  ‘Yes, madam.’ Well, she’d got the house staff’s full attention, anyway. Plus, by the looks of things, their full support: Calliope was grinning.

  ‘Fine. Twenty it is, then. You agree, Aquillius Florus?’

  ‘Ah...’

  ‘The wager.’ Perilla said patiently. ‘Twenty gold pieces. Does that suit you?’

  He swallowed. ‘Uh...yeah
. Yes, twenty’s –’

  ‘Excellent. Then let’s begin, shall we?’

  ‘Ah...some wine? Please?’

  ‘Certainly.’ She gave him another dazzling smile. ‘Marcus?’

  ‘Sure. The Rhodian was good last time. Okay with you, Florus?’

  He nodded, dazed. I suspect that I’d’ve got the same nod if I’d suggested fermented goat’s-milk.

  ‘And a fruit juice of some kind for me, Calliope,’ Perilla said. ‘Thank you.’ The girl went off. ‘Now. White starts. Shall we throw for white? Highest wins.’ She picked up one of the three dice and rolled it. ‘Four. Not very good, but never mind. Your turn, Florus. Oh, dear, a three. Black for you, then. Ready?’

  Here we went. I noticed that play around us was stopping, like a ripple spreading across a pool. Perilla threw the dice.

  A six, a one and a four.

  Not a bad total, but that didn’t matter; there was a long way to go. The basic aim of Twelve Lines - if you don’t know the game - is to get all your fifteen counters round the board and take them off the other end while your opponent’s doing the same in the opposite direction. Singletons can be hit and sent back to the start, so it’s a good idea, especially when you get within hitting distance, to secure lines with two or more men. Unless, of course, you get to the point where you know you’re going to lose in a straight race and decide to play a back game. Back games are chancy things, and I’ve never mastered them myself. Which is, like the lady said, why Twelve Lines isn’t my bag and she always thrashes me.

  The six and the four made Perilla’s seventh line, and she moved a single piece onto line four.

  Florus threw: six double three. The rule’s one die per piece - you can’t double up in Twelve Lines - so I’d expected him to move a singleton to the seventh and use the two threes to make one of the lines immediately beyond his starting position, but he played from the second and third to the fifth and sixth, which with his seventh singleton gave him three on consecutive lines. Interesting: safe enough at the moment, sure, with Perilla still well over to her side of the board out of hitting range, but it suggested the guy intended to play an aggressive game. Which might be good or bad, depending on the run of the dice. We’d have to wait and see.

  This time Perilla threw five, four, one. She covered the singleton on line four with the one, used the five to add another man from the second rank to her seventh line and put a single counter from the back onto line five. The lady, obviously, had decided on the slow, cautious approach, waiting for Florus to make the first mistake.

  Calliope brought the wine. Florus gulped his first cupful down, held it out for a refill and gulped that one, too. Yeah, well, I knew the feeling: after being Perilla’d the bugger needed it.

  I sat back for the long hard slog.

  ‘Slog’ was the word. I’d been wrong about Florus. Weak-chinned and intellectually-challenged in other respects though the guy might be, when it came to Twelve Lines he was no pushover, and with half a pint of the Rhodian under his belt he settled in and played a very nice game indeed. Too nice by half for my liking: I was glad it was Perilla who’d taken him on, because I could see even at this early stage that he’d’ve creamed me without breaking sweat. The lady had noticed it as well, and she wasn’t happy: fifteen minutes in she’d lost a lot of her bounce and was twisting a stray curl at her left temple, something she only does when she’s tired or thinking hard. That worried me. Shit; we might have bitten off more than we could chew this time. Twenty gold pieces wasn’t a fortune, sure, but it wasn’t peanuts either. And if Florus won the game unless Mother accepted that we’d given it our best shot - which, knowing Mother, was about as likely as an oyster winning the hundred-yard sprint - I’d have to make good my promise in another way.

  This could get expensive. If I ever got Priscus alone somewhere dark and quiet I would murder the bugger myself.

  We were at that point in the game where things begin to get complicated. Perilla had all her counters on the top six lines her side, with no singletons but the tenth and eleven lines clear. Par for the course: when you’re covering lines in the top half of the board you need to leave some space for your opponent to move to, or because of the one-die-one-piece rule the game’s deadlocked. Also, because you have to use all the numbers on the dice where possible, there’s a good chance of getting an opponent’s singleton where you can hit it and send it back to start. Florus was almost in the same position, but with only one line free - the tenth - and a singleton killer back on his fourth line. This is when the luck of the dice really matters: if you can move a piece to your opponent’s side of the board and cover it without leaving a singleton on your own side vulnerable, then great. If you can’t, then that’s when the game starts to hot up, because the chances are one of you will be hit on the next go. Which may, of course, leave the hitter himself vulnerable.

  I took a swig from my winecup and crossed my fingers. Florus’s throw: five, three, one. Good and bad: it left him a singleton on Perilla’s eleventh and opened up his own eighth line, but it meant that to make a safe hit Perilla would need a four, a three or a two plus another of the same numbers in the roll to cover.

  Six three one. The three gave her the hit, sure, but it was a forced move that left two of her men vulnerable on her own eleventh and Florus’s tenth. Florus threw three-two-two. Good and bad, though mostly good for him because it meant he had the option of hitting - and covering - both of his target lines. Perilla’s eleventh would give him an island on her half of the board, but his own singleton on the fourth was still vulnerable and he was allowing her a good chance of getting the first man of the game off the end. On the other hand, if he chose to hit that one instead he’d close his own tenth line, leaving only the eighth open. Tricky.

  Florus chose the first option, leaving his singleton still exposed and using the spare two to move a man from his ninth to his eleventh line.

  Okay: so we were into the rough stuff now.

  Perilla threw again: six, five, four. Decision time again. The six was good: it meant she could either hit Florus’s singleton or cover her own on his tenth. She covered, brought her man on with the four and moved a piece from her seventh to her twelfth. Florus’s next throw was four-two-one. Easy-peasie: the four covered the singleton and he shifted a man from his seventh to his ninth line and another from eleven to twelve.

  Level pegging, more or less: both of them had islands on the other one’s side, plus an empty line, and killing pieces within striking distance of it at the back.

  I looked up.The play around us had stopped altogether, and a few of the punters had drifted over to watch. Yeah, well: a woman playing at Philippus’s was a first, and it was shaping up for a good match. I didn’t blame them...

  ‘Marcus, do you have to sit there breathing into my ear like that?’ Perilla snapped.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re putting me off. Go away, I need to concentrate.’

  ‘What about all these other guys?’ There were six or seven of them now, standing around the table.

  ‘Them I don’t mind. You I do. You’re making me nervous. Now just go away and let me get on with it.’

  Gods! Yeah, well, if she didn’t want the moral support she didn’t, and it was the lady’s prerogative. And the game still had a long way to run. I stood up, picked up my winecup and went walkabout.

  Outside our little circle of interest there were plenty of other games going on: dice, mostly, but a few of the more cerebral punters were playing Twelve Lines or Robbers. Like I say, Twelve Lines isn’t my bag, and I didn’t bother at all with the Robbers guys - it’s a slow game, with lots of thinking between moves, and the real aficionados get pretty sarky with onlookers, especially when they offer unsolicited advice - but a few of the dice games were real needle matches. Played for high stakes, too. I hung around one or two, but when curiosity got the better of me I drifted back over to Perilla’s table and did a bit of rubbernecking from where she couldn’t see me. It didn’t look
all that good, not from a cursory glance, anyway, and Florus was looking a lot happier. Shit. I moved away again.

  ‘Hey, Corvinus.’

  I turned. Philippus was beckoning from an empty table in the corner by the stairs. I went over.

  ‘How’s it going?’

  I shrugged. ‘Could be better. I don’t know for sure; the lady doesn’t want me to watch.’

  ‘That so, now?’ He grinned. ‘Well, don’t let it worry you too much, boy. I’d be the same myself. So would you. And if not having you there sharpens her game it’s all to the good. Right?’

  ‘Yeah. Yeah, I suppose so.’

  ‘I thought I was finished with you, but I’ve been thinking again and maybe I haven’t after all. This won’t take long, so we needn’t go back to the office. Here’s fine. Okay with you?’

  ‘Sure.’

  He pulled up a chair and sat down. ‘Now. I said I didn’t want to know, but I’ve a reason for asking, so maybe you’ll tell me. This game your wife’s playing with Florus. It has something to do with your stepfather?’

  I sat down opposite him. ‘Uh...yeah. You could say that.’

  ‘Rooked him, did they? Florus and Nerva?’

  ‘Yeah, maybe. That’s what Mother thinks. I don’t know for sure myself, but –’

  ‘They rooked him. Oh, I know these two buggers. Not here, though, they know better than that because they’d be out on their backsides if they tried it. Somewhere else.’

  ‘Bauli. A wineshop.’

  Philippus nodded. ‘Fine. Then like I said to you upstairs I hope your wife takes that bastard Florus for everything he’s got. Good luck to her. Thanks, Corvinus. That’s all I wanted to hear.’

  I stood up. ‘Okay. In that case –’