Sejanus (Marcus Corvinus Book 3)

by David Wishart

  Protected. Right. Protected was the word. Marius was someone I just had to see.

  Just then Perilla came in wearing a clean mantle. I shifted over on my couch to give her room.

  'You want to join us now you're sauce-free and respectable, lady?' I said.

  She settled down beside me. 'Marcus, this is lovely. A banquet. What on earth happened?'

  'Ask our resident military genius.'

  'Bathyllus?'

  'Not Bathyllus. The real military genius sitting over there looking smug and hogging the larks'-tongue pastries.'

  'Cut it out, Corvinus.' Lippillus blandly reached for another canapé. 'It was simple. I'd've come round before if I'd known you were having problems.'

  'Tell her about the smoke bomb.'

  Lippillus explained while Perilla shelled a quail's egg and dipped it in fish pickle.

  'You must give us the recipe,' she said. 'We may need it again some time.'

  'I doubt it. Your husband here intends effecting a few domestic changes with an omelette pan.'

  'Oh, he didn't mean that.' She leaned over and kissed my cheek. 'Did you, Marcus?'

  'Yeah, well...'

  'Pity.' Lippillus took a swallow of wine. 'You can send Meton to us any time. We could use a good chef, and Mother could keep him in the cupboard.'

  I grinned. Yeah, as an experiment that might just work. Not that I intended making it, even on a temporary basis. Living in close proximity to Marcina Paullina might have its compensations. The guy might not want to come back.

  'This is lovely, anyway.' Perilla popped in the quail's egg and licked the sauce from her fingertips. 'Absolutely delicious. Marcus, the mushrooms, please.'

  'I thought you weren't hungry.'

  'What on earth gave you that idea? I'm starving.'

  'But in the litter you said...'

  'Yes, I know.' She spooned mushrooms on to her plate. 'But then I can pretend to eat the nonsense Vipsania serves, even while I'm being splattered by her husband, whereas you can't. Besides, I doubt if her silk-route food will ever catch on. You feel hungry again too soon afterwards. Oh, incidentally' –she reached into a fold of her mantle and took out a pendant – 'I brought this down for you. It belonged to my mother. A present from Sidon.'

  I picked the thing up and examined it. It was a small jet cylinder with tiny stick figures cut into the surface. Obviously some sort of primitive seal. And from Sidon, Phoenicia. Phoenicia as in Carthage...

  Hey! I kissed her while Lippillus looked on smiling.

  'I love you sometimes,' I said. 'You know that?'

  'Yes, dear. Just be careful, won't you? And I don't mean with that.' She indicated the seal.

  'Aren't I always?'

  'Not especially. Are these meatballs over there beside your left elbow, by the way?'

  I passed her the meatballs, plus the rest of the snails and what was left of the guinea-fowl. It was the least I could do, when she'd given me the key to Marius.

  13.

  Next morning I called in at Phlebas's in the Saepta to get Marius's address, then crossed the Tiber to the Janiculan. Not my usual stamping ground, in fact I hadn't been in this part of the city for years; not since I'd interviewed Torquata's brother Decimus Silanus about what he didn't do to Augustus's granddaughter Julia, in fact. Silanus was still around, and rich as ever, as far as I knew. Not that I cared: him I didn't want to see again, ever. I just hoped this visit wouldn't have the same sort of ending.

  Marius was out riding, and his head slave showed me into the garden. It may not have been quite as grand as Silanus's but you could still have squeezed my modest patch of the Palatine into the bit where they kept the compost.

  'Perhaps you'd care to wait for the master in the summerhouse, sir,' the slave said.

  'Sure. Wherever.'

  He took me there. It was fitted out as a small dining room overlooking the villa itself, and open on three sides. Very nice, and very pricey.

  'Some wine, sir?'

  'Yeah. Yeah, that'd be great.' I lay down on one of the couches and looked around while he went to get it. The garden was neat as a new mantle. Marius obviously had money, but there were signs of taste here too, which you don't always get on the Janiculan: old money tends to prefer the east side of the river where the family has lived for generations, even if the houses are smaller and if the wind's in the right direction you can spit into your neighbour's fishpond. There were the usual bits and pieces; rose garden, formal hedges, a few bronze and marble statues. Not too many of these, either, and that impressed me too: the recently-wealthy tend to crowd them in like they were a job lot up for public auction. Also I might not be an expert but Marius's selection looked like good copies of good originals. Not provincial taste, either. If he didn't have style himself (and there was no reason why he shouldn't) he knew how to buy it.

  The wine came – Setinian, and good as mine – and the slave left me alone. I looked up at the house. It was big, but not showy. A balcony ran the length of the first floor, and I was calculating the number of rooms that led off it when a girl walked out of one of them holding a birdcage. She saw me watching and went back inside.

  She was a stunner: glossy black hair, ivory skin, big eyes. I remembered what Priscus had said about a daughter. Yeah, well, I doubted if we'd be introduced. Spaniards, even Romanised ones, keep their female relations on a tight lead. A pity. Those eyes were something.

  I was half way down the second cup when Marius got back. Knowing Priscus, and despite what he'd said about the man not being his type, I'd expected a dried-up academic prune. Marius was a fit forty, built like a wrestler, with a Spanish nose you could've used to fell trees bisecting a face that wouldn't've been out of place on the First Spear of a crack legion. Heavily-muscled, too. Not a man to cross, I suspected, and a long way from Vibius Celsus.

  'No, don't get up, Valerius Corvinus,' he said. His accent had the Hispanic twang, but the vowels were good. He gripped my hand and almost crushed the fingers. 'I'm sorry to keep you waiting. It was such a pleasant morning that I made the most of it. You like riding?'

  'It’s okay,' I said. ‘But it’s not really my bag.’

  He turned away and signalled to the slave. I had the feeling I'd lost a point, and I suspected I knew where: when you're talking to a Spaniard, to be less than wildly enthusiastic about horses is almost as bad as telling a Greek you don't like arguing. The slave came over with a fresh wine cup – the set was silver, like Celsus's, but beautifully decorated –and poured for both of us.

  Marius put his cup down on the summerhouse table and reclined on the other couch. 'You don't mind if we stay out here?' he said.

  'No. Not at all.' He'd surprised me again. Obviously Marius was that rarity in Rome, a fresh-air freak. Still, if you lived on the Janiculan it made sense to get your money's worth. Besides, from my point of view there was always the chance that the girl with the eyes would come back out.

  He had manners, too. We'd chatted about this and that for a good ten minutes before he finally asked politely what the hell I wanted.

  'Just some information, sir,' I said. 'My wife and I were round at my stepfather Helvius Priscus's for dinner last night and he happened to mention you were an expert on Carthaginian curios.'

  'Hardly an expert, certainly not in Priscus's terms.' Marius smiled. 'But I do have an interest. My family are from Cartagena. We have Carthaginian blood.'

  Uh huh. That would explain the money. Cartagena's silver mines supply a pretty sizeable chunk of Rome's coinage, and although they're owned by the state the old local families still get their cut one way or another. It explained how Marius fitted into the scheme of things, too. If he had traditional connections with the Cartagenan mines then he was Rich with a capital R. Silius and company would've welcomed him with open arms. They wouldn't've asked too many questions, either.

  'Priscus would disagree,' I said. 'He was pretty impressed with your qualifications.' No harm in buttering him up a little. 'Anyway, I was wondering if
maybe you could tell me something about this.' I brought out Perilla's pendant and handed it over. 'It belonged to my wife's mother.'

  He took the thing from me like it was made of cobwebs and examined it carefully. Then he looked up.

  'It's a cylinder-seal. Phoenician, not Carthaginian. Although Carthage was a Phoenician colony the art was quite different.'

  'Yeah. My wife said it came from Sidon.'

  'Not originally, I think.' He held it out to me. 'You see the central figure?' It was a seated woman in a wig, her head surmounted by a disc between two tall horns. 'Ba'alat. The Lady Goddess. There were other Ba'alats but this one ruled Byblos. And she's very old, Corvinus. Very old indeed.'

  'Yeah? How old exactly?'

  'Much older than Carthage. Older even than Sidon.' He shrugged. 'Perhaps three thousand years.'

  I whistled. I was genuinely impressed. 'Is that so?'

  'That's so. If the Egyptians have their dates right. It's a beautiful piece, in excellent condition, perhaps unique. Were you considering selling?'

  'No. Perilla – my wife – was just curious about it.' I held out my hand and he passed the pendant back reluctantly. 'Three thousand years, right?'

  'At least.'

  The skin on my palm prickled where the stone touched it; when that thing was carved Homer hadn't been born; in fact, Troy hadn't been built, let alone taken. And Rome wasn't even a twinkle in Jupiter's eye. For the first time I had an inkling of the feeling that drove Priscus. It was eerie.

  Marius leaned over and filled our cups from the jug the slave had left on the table.

  'You're sure you won't sell?' he said. 'I'd give you a good price.' Casually, he named a figure that had me staring. Forget Phlebas. I didn't know that numbers as big as that existed outside property registers. Rich was right.

  'Uh, no,' I said eventually. 'No thanks. Like I say, it has sentimental value.'

  'A pity. If you change your mind just let me know.' He stood up suddenly. 'Perhaps you'd like to see my own collection? I have nothing nearly so old, nor so fine, but it would put your piece in context. And perhaps you would...appreciate it more.'

  'Yeah. Yeah, that would be great.' I meant it: I needed the time and the excuse to stay. Marius was no Celsus, I'd known that as soon as I saw him, and there was no way I was going to mention the Julian scam straight out, let alone ask him what part he'd played in it; no way at all. However, maybe I could pick something up indirectly.

  'We'll go in, then,' he said. 'More wine?'

  'Sure.' I emptied my cup.

  'Good. I like a guest who appreciates wine. And riding always gives me a thirst. Simo!' he called to the slave hovering in the portico. 'Another jug, please. We'll be in the Carthage room.’

  'Collection' wasn't the word; maybe 'hoard' comes nearer. The room was stacked thick as a magpie's nest. Jupiter knew where all the stuff had come from, or how much it had cost to put together. I wouldn't've thought there were that many bits of Old Carthage in existence.

  'Impressive,' I said. It was. Not just the amount or the cost, but the single-mindedness of it.

  'Rome tends to dismiss Carthage.' Marius was frowning. 'Jealousy, of course. And fear. Naturally there's the arch-bugbear Hannibal, who almost destroyed your empire before it was properly started. I understand your mothers still use the name to frighten recalcitrant children, even after two hundred years.'

  'Yeah.' I remembered once after I'd raided the pantry three nights in a row my old nurse had scared me half to death by saying that next time old Hannibal would jump out from behind the door and cut my little wollocks off. The name still made me shudder. It would any Roman, whatever their age. 'Yeah, they do.'

  'The culture was alien, you see. You Romans have never been able to tolerate alien cultures. Not on equal terms, and not when they pose a threat to your own interests.'

  You Romans. Well, fair enough, I suppose the guy was Spanish, but there was an edge to the words that I didn't quite like. We moved along a row of fragmented slabs and stopped in front of the carving of a horned god flanked by two rams.

  'Ba'al Hammon,' Marius said. His hand went out briefly, palm first.

  'Uh-huh. That the one they burned children to?'

  He glanced back at me. 'Rome practised human sacrifice within living memory, Corvinus. Captured enemy leaders are still strangled in honour of Jupiter Capitolinus. And what are your gladiatorial games if not a survival of the Etruscan blood-letting ceremony at funerals? Don't accuse the Carthaginians of barbarity, please.'

  Uh-oh. The guy was serious, too serious to contradict, and his eyes glittered. For the first time I wondered if he might even be mad. Oh, shit, I thought. First Celsus, now Marius. Two in a row. Maybe I should make my excuses and go before he started biting chunks out of the furniture.

  He moved on to another slab. This one showed a series of figures.

  'The myth of Keret.' His finger touched a helmeted figure in a kilt, clutching a knife. 'A Phoenician folk-hero. He was defeated in battle by enemies invading his country. The Supreme God arranged for him to have a magical son who drove out the invaders.' He smiled. 'This was long before the Romans came, naturally.'

  'Is that so?' I said. Just then there were footsteps on the wooden floor of the corridor outside. I looked up expecting the wine slave, but it was the girl with the beautiful eyes. She was even more of a looker than I'd thought. She paused when she saw me, then came in.

  'I'm sorry, Father.' The eyes were lowered; she could've been fifteen, certainly no older. 'I thought you were alone.'

  'That's all right, my dear.' Marius opened his arms and she moved into them like a fish drawn in by a line. He kissed her forehead, and I thought she shuddered. 'This is my daughter, Corvinus. My Ta'anit.'

  'Yeah?' Something was wrong somewhere, although I couldn't quite put my finger on it. 'Unusual name.'

  'Oh, officially she's Marilla.' His lips brushed her hair. 'A good solid Latin name. But to me she is Ta'anit-pene-Ba'al, the Face of the Lord. Isn't she beautiful? Quite perfect. And she will breed perfect sons. Marvellous sons.' He paused. 'Magical sons.'

  The girl looked up at me with scared, ashamed eyes, and I knew.

  'Yeah,' I said softly. Oh, Jupiter! Jupiter Best and Greatest! Madness was only the half of it. 'Yeah, she is beautiful.'

  Someone coughed: the wine slave this time, for sure. He'd come too late for me. My skin was crawling, and my belly churning. All I wanted now was to get out.

  'Master, Crito is downstairs,' he murmured.

  'Tell him to wait.' With his free hand Marius held out his cup for the slave to fill. 'I have a guest.'

  'No,' I said. 'That's okay. I'd best be getting back.'

  'Really? But you've only just arrived.'

  'Yeah. Well.' I tried a shrug. 'You know how it is. Thanks for the information. And for the tour.'

  'You're welcome.' His fingers were absently teasing open the neck of the girl's tunic. 'And if you do decide to sell that cylinder-seal then let me know first, won't you?'

  'Sure.' I handed the slave my empty wine cup. 'Thanks again. Don't worry, I can find my own way out.'

  I was glad to get into the fresh air of the Janiculan; but then after Marius's house even a walk along the Tiber would've smelt good.

  14.

  I was almost clear of the Janiculan and heading along the path towards Trans-Tiber when the guy stepped out in front of me from behind a rock. I was lucky; I had a moment to duck, and the iron bar just brushed the top of my hair and clipped my left shoulder. As I drew my knife I was thinking, Oh, shit, not again! This was my second visit to the Janiculum in ten years and I'd been mugged both times. It seemed I'd only to set foot across the Sublician for the word to go out to the local yobbos that Corvinus was out to play.

  At least this time I'd give myself better odds. Ten years back there'd been three of them, all professionals, and although this guy was big he was no Suburan hard-man. Most of him was flab, and he was breathing heavily already. He'd hesitated when he s
aw the knife, losing the advantage, and now we were standing staring at each other like actors who've forgotten their lines.

  'Boo,' I said at last.

  He scowled – no sense of humour, these amateurs – and swung the iron bar on a collision course with my left temple: predictable as hell, and years too late. I ducked into the swing and took him in his exposed side, but the jerkin he was wearing turned the knife and it only cut leather. We grappled, and I straightened up and drove the top of my head hard into his chin. His head snapped back and he let go, falling away from me and lashing out with the bar as he went. The tip caught the blade of my knife and sent it clattering out of sight among the stones somewhere to the left.

  Bugger! I backed off quickly. It had been a fluke, sure – Ganymede was looking as surprised as I was – but it left me knifeless and facing three feet of iron thicker than my thumb. Not the best of scenarios, and it served me right for being cocky. Ten years ago I could still have taken him without breaking sweat. Now I wouldn't've liked to bet any more which of us would come out the other end. He moved forward, grinning now and breathing hard, while I started thinking about which way to dive and whether or not I could kick his kneecap loose when I did...

  'Hey! You stop that!' The shout came from behind me. I wasn't fool enough to look round, but Ganymede's head went up and his grin slid away like oil off a hot griddle. Then he turned and ran. Fast: he may not' have been able to fight for nuts but where running was concerned he could've given a hare lessons. I stooped for a rock and flung it at his head, but it fell miles short.

  'After him, Lamprus!'

  I turned round finally just as something that was just arguably human hurtled past me and threw itself along the path. Gods! If that was Lamprus then I wished the other guy luck, iron bar or not. Then I saw who'd been doing all the shouting. A prim little man in a neat lemon tunic was picking his way carefully across the open ground towards me. If this was what I had to thank for saving my life, I thought, then it was positively embarrassing.