‘Certainly. Although you did start it.’
‘Balbinus has found a pal for you. A female pal.’
‘Really?’ She didn’t sound exactly thrilled. ‘Who’s that?’
‘Her name’s Julia Optima. She’s the wife of one of the local senators, quite a lively lady, according to Balbinus. He’s sending her round after breakfast tomorrow.’
‘That’ll be nice.’
‘Yeah, I thought you’d be pleased.’ I smiled. ‘It’ll make a pleasant change from going around with your friend Smarmer.’
‘For your information, I haven’t seen Domitius Crinas for two days,’ she snapped. Definite points of colour high on the cheekbones.
‘Had a bust-up, have you?’
‘Don’t be childish. As a matter of fact, he’s busy in connection with his work, at the spa in the Lenus Mars sanctuary.’
I indicated the book she’d been reading when I came in and had set down on the table. ‘That why you’ve turned to literature?’ I said.
‘Certainly not! I’ve discovered a collection of works in what amounts to a small library upstairs. One of them was the part of Posidonius of Apamea’s Histories dealing with the Gauls, which I’m ashamed to say I’ve never read. Having nothing better to do, I was simply rectifying the omission.’
I grinned. ‘That so, now?’
‘That is so. Did you realize …? No, better still, I’ll read it to you.’ She picked the roll up, opened it and scanned the contents. ‘Ah. Here we are. “When the Gauls leave the battlefield, they hang the heads of the enemies they have killed from their horses’ necks. On returning home, they nail the heads to the doorposts and lintels of their houses. I have seen these grisly trophies myself, on many occasions, and although they made me shudder at first have become quite inured to the spectacle over time, and now find it quite natural.”’
‘Strong stuff.’
‘Isn’t it? Of course, Posidonius was writing about the situation a hundred years ago. No doubt things have improved since then.’
‘You can’t stop progress, lady. Still, it’s a shame those quaint old customs are dying out. You’ll have to ask Julia Optima what she does with her spare heads when you see her.’
‘Marcus, that’s not fair. You haven’t even met the woman.’
‘Yeah, well, from Balbinus’s description of her – or rather reading between the lines of it – she’s a proper character. It should be interesting.’
Bathyllus shimmered in. ‘Excuse me, sir. Madam,’ he said, ‘the chef was wondering that since you seem both to be at home now you’d like to eat early.’
We’d obviously got our Perfect Butler back, in spades. And a chef who actually consulted you about mealtimes was a welcome change from Meton. Back home, you had to be on the dining-room couches with bib tucked in and spoon in hand when the sun touched the horizon, no earlier and certainly no later, or risk some very cutting comments. Particularly when it was fish.
‘Tell him that’d be great, Bathyllus,’ I said. ‘Procurator Laco isn’t eating tonight?’
‘No, sir. He’s dining with a business colleague, and since the conversation is liable to be mainly of a financial nature he thought that you and the mistress would prefer not to be included in the invitation.’
‘Very considerate,’ I said. It was; me, I’d rather not have to sit through a couple of hours of fiscal chit-chat, thank you very much.
So, it was just us for the moment again.
We could draw a line under the case for today. We’d see what tomorrow brought.
EIGHTEEN
I wasn’t in a tearing hurry to get started next day, mainly because the only item on a skeleton-thin agenda was a talk with the keeper of the tavern where Drutus’s servant Anda had put up, in the hopes that the guy had mentioned something useful before he handed in his lunch pail. Besides, after Balbinus’s rather tongue-in-cheek encomium of her I was interested in hanging around and seeing how this Julia Optima turned out.
She breezed in as promised just after breakfast. Just after breakfast, which was Disquieting Feature number one, or rather one and two combined if you count the ‘breezed’. Perilla definitely isn’t your chirpy morning person, she doesn’t usually start to wake up until halfway through her second omelette, and even then she generally likes to take things at her own pace until midday at least. Breezing is definitely out. The lady, to put it mildly, was not amused.
Disquieting Feature number three …
Yeah, well, in retrospect, if I’d been Balbinus I definitely wouldn’t’ve used the word ‘feisty’, which, translated into male terms, has overtones of jolly wizard romps in the junior officers’ mess followed by a wholesome, bracing cold plunge in the local icy torrent. Maybe ‘Amazonian’ came closest; certainly I hadn’t been all that far out with my severed heads crack, because total stunner or not – which she also was – I could just see this lady going in for that kind of DIY home improvement in a big way. Being good at it, too. She was just under six feet and built to match, with flaming red hair, and she trailed Bathyllus into the dining room behind her like an apologetic afterthought.
‘The Lady Julia Optima, sir. Madam,’ he said, and exited like he’d been greased.
‘Pleased to meet you.’ Add a voice that a senior centurion would’ve given his vine-stick for. Although he’d have to be a very unusual First Spear indeed, mind; I’d bet that, once you got down to cases, there was nothing butch about Julia Optima. ‘Saenius Balbinus told you I’d be coming?’
‘Uh, yeah. Yeah.’ I indicated one of the wicker chairs. ‘Have a seat, Julia Optima. You’ve breakfasted?’
‘Hours ago.’ She pulled the chair over and sat. It creaked. ‘Call me Optima, please. And you’re Perilla,’ she said to Perilla.
‘Evidently I am.’ I glanced at the lady: expression you could’ve used to pickle cabbage and a tone straight off the sharp end of a Riphaean blizzard. ‘Delighted.’
If Optima had noticed either the expression or the tone she didn’t show it. Which, I suspected, was par for the course, because I’d lay odds, even on this brief acquaintance, that she had an ego the size of the Capitol.
As, indeed, had Perilla; pace Balbinus, this did not look promising. Fortunately, though, it was none of my concern. Time, I thought, for a rapid strategic withdrawal before the plaster started flaking off the walls.
I stood up.
‘Well, ladies,’ I said, ‘if you’ll forgive me I’ll leave you to it. Things to do, I’m afraid.’
‘Connected with the murders of that merchant and his servant,’ Optima said. ‘Yes, I’d heard about that. A dreadful business, simply dreadful. You’ve no idea yet why it happened?’
‘Uh-uh; not at present. I’m working on it.’ I leaned down and gave Perilla a chaste kiss on the cheek. ‘See you later, lady. Have a good day.’
‘Thank you, dear. I shall at least endeavour to do so.’
Sarky as hell; thank the gods I was out of it before the sarcasm really started to bite. I grinned and left.
OK. So. The Anda angle. For what it was worth.
The tavern in question, over by the city’s east gate, was easy to find. Like Balbinus had said, it was the only one on offer, a two-storey wooden building with a thatched roof and stables to the side from which came a strong smell of horse manure. There were a couple of locals sitting on the bench beside the door, drinking what was probably beer from leather mugs. They stopped chatting when they saw me coming and favoured me with a couple of silent stares that didn’t look remotely this side of friendly. I remembered what Balbinus had told me about toleration for Romans only being skin deep around these parts; evidently where Gaulish taverns – as opposed to wineshops – went the depth of skin concerned wasn’t all that much. I gave them a cheerful nod, got a grunt from one of them in reply, and pushed open the door.
We’d definitely gone downmarket here with a vengeance. There was a counter, sure, like you’d find in any ordinary decent-sized wineshop, but there the similaritie
s ended. Instead of the flasks of wine in their rests behind the bar there were two or three hefty wooden barrels with spigots, and a shelf of the leather mugs. The floor was beaten earth covered with rushes, not fresh ones at that, and what punters there were at this early hour were standing around with mugs of their own. The chatter gradually died away to nothing as they turned to face me. In the corner to my right, a dog scratched for fleas.
Chichi Eighth District wine bar in Rome it most definitely wasn’t.
I walked over to the bar where the landlord – presumably – was rinsing used beer mugs in a basin. The water in it didn’t look all that fresh, either.
‘Morning,’ I said. ‘You serve wine at all?’
He set the mug he was holding down, reached under the counter, brought up a jug and poured in some of the contents, all without a word. I tried a sip. One was enough; wine it may have been, technically, but if so it was pushing the definition to its limits. Ah, well; Perilla would be pleased I wasn’t using the investigation as an excuse to soak up some extra booze on this occasion.
‘The name’s Valerius Corvinus,’ I said. ‘I’m looking into the deaths of a guy called Drutus and his servant Anda. I understand they were staying here. Or at least Anda was.’
‘True enough.’ The man reached for another dirty mug, plunged it into the basin, and set it down on the counter. ‘So?’
‘So I was hoping you might be able to help with some information.’ Silence. ‘Come on, friend! They were Gauls! And I was told they were pretty popular locally. Where I come from, that’d mean something.’
‘Last time I looked, this wasn’t Rome.’
‘Yeah. So I’d noticed. Me, I wouldn’t be too proud of the difference.’ My four-day tour of the wineshops re the Cabiri family mystery all over again. Ah, the hell with it; at least I’d tried, and it’d been a long shot to begin with. I took two or three coppers from my belt-pouch, tossed them on the counter, and turned to go. ‘Thanks a lot. Enjoy your day.’
I’d got halfway to the door when he said:
‘Wait a minute.’
I turned round. He’d set the last of the mugs on the counter and was drying his hands with a cloth.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘What do you want to know?’
Hey! ‘Anything and everything. I’m getting pretty desperate here.’
He grunted; it could even have been a chuckle. ‘You could’ve fooled me. We’ve never had a Roman in this place before, not one who ordered a drink, anyway, and I’ll bet it’ll be long enough until we see another one. That right, lads?’
There was a murmur of agreement and a few muttered comments that I suspect I was lucky not to catch, accompanied by sniggers. Even so, I could feel the mood in the room ease, and the background noise started up again. I walked back to the counter.
‘Now,’ the landlord said. ‘What sort of information?’
‘I told you. I don’t know; anything that might be relevant. All I know is that they ate here – both of them – early that evening and then went out. They didn’t say where they were going, or why?’
‘Nah. Drutus – well, he had a fancy woman, with a stall in the market, so I had a fair notion where he was bound. I hardly ever saw the man all the time he’d been coming here, and that was fifteen years, at least, ’cept when he dropped by to pay for stabling his horses and for Anda’s shake-down in the hay loft.’
‘So the fact that they had a meal together was unusual?’
‘First time I remember it happening, ever, at least since he found himself a lady friend about ten years back. Oh, Anda on his own, sure, he was practically one of the family. He always ate upstairs with the wife and me when I shut up shop at sundown.’
‘Not this time, though.’
‘Nah.’
‘Whose idea was it?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, somebody must’ve told you about the changed arrangements. Was it Drutus or Anda?’
‘Oh. Right. It was Anda. Came in here mid-afternoon, in a proper taking. Said he needed a favour; that he and Drutus were going out that night on business, they needed to talk something over in private beforehand, and could they have the use of the room upstairs while they did it.’
‘Hang on, pal,’ I said. ‘Anda told you they were going out on business somewhere after dark?’
‘Yeah. That’s right.’
‘That’s not what you told the authorities.’
‘No.’ His eyes challenged me. ‘Can’t say that it is.’
Fair enough, and I could sympathize in retrospect; like I’d said to Perilla, honest merchants and their servants didn’t do business in the small hours, and he’d just told me that Anda was practically family. You didn’t peach on family, whatever the reason.
‘OK,’ I said. ‘He say where, or why? Or business with who?’
‘No, that was all. Luckily the wife had arranged to go and see a friend that afternoon, so she’d cooked the dinner in advance; it was just beans and vegetables, served cold, and a loaf of bread, so it was easy to stretch it four ways instead of two. I was busy here myself until sundown, naturally, so letting them use the room and giving them something to eat while they talked was no skin off my nose. Drutus paid me well for it, too, cash up front.’
I felt a slight prickle of excitement: maybe we were getting somewhere after all, although I couldn’t in all honesty see that being very far. Still, it looked as if the servant was the one who’d made the running here, not his master, and that was unusual in itself where a business deal was concerned. The big question was, what did the running involve? Presumably, setting the fatal meeting up without having either the time or the opportunity to contact Drutus. And it had been important, that was sure, vitally important: our tavern-keeper friend here had said Anda had been ‘in a proper taking’ when he’d asked for the favour. Excited? Worried? Frightened? It could be any of them, but if so the implications were different …
Shit! I was close to something, I could feel it!
‘So what happened then?’ I said.
‘Nothing. They came as arranged and went straight upstairs. I brought the food up a few minutes later when I had the chance and left them to it. They were gone by sunset, and that was the last I saw of them.’ He was frowning. ‘Look. Anda was a good man, a good friend, and good company; well-travelled, been all over before he settled down with Drutus these twenty years back, so he’d got a lot of stories to tell. I’ll miss him, me and the wife both. You get the bastard who killed him, right?’
Uh-huh; twenty years, right? It was interesting how often the phrase twenty years kept on cropping up in this case. More than interesting.
‘I’ll do my best,’ I said. ‘Thanks, pal.’
‘You’re welcome.’ He was still frowning. ‘One more thing. I don’t know if it’ll help or not, but talking about it I’ve just remembered.’
‘Yeah?’
‘When I took the stew up and opened the door they were sitting at the table with their heads together, talking, or Anda was. He clammed up straight off when I came in, but I just caught the last few words. “He’s lying. He’s never been there.”’
‘What?’
The guy repeated it. ‘Mean anything to you?’ he said.
I was thinking furiously. ‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘Maybe it does, at that. Thanks again, friend.’
I left.
Hmm.
I was crossing the market square on my way back when someone called my name. I looked round: an elderly guy, very well-dressed, standing a few feet away and chatting to a much younger man.
‘I’m right, aren’t I?’ he said. ‘You are Valerius Corvinus?’
‘As ever is.’ I went over to join them.
‘Julius Secundus. I think my wife called on yours earlier today. At the suggestion of Saenius Balbinus.’
Right; the local senator. I could see what Balbinus meant about him being a dry old stick: sixty-plus, and not a very well-preserved sixty, at that. Mummies came to mind. His friend,
on the other hand, was mid-forties, max, and built along the lines of Perilla’s pal the good doctor.
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘In fact, I left them planning their day.’ Or not, as the case might be; I might find blood on the walls when I got back. ‘Very kind of her to take an interest.’
‘Oh, nonsense, my dear fellow. I’m sure Optima will be absolutely delighted to help entertain a visitor to our city. Our pleasure entirely. I thought when I saw you passing that I’d just introduce myself, tell you that if there’s anything else we can do to help then by all means just let us know.’
‘That’s very good of you, sir,’ I said.
‘Not at all, not at all.’ He glanced at the man he’d been talking to. ‘This is Sulinus, by the way.’ No family name; not a Roman citizen, then. ‘He’s one of our more prominent merchants.’
We nodded to each other. ‘Pleased to meet you,’ I said. ‘What line are you in?’
‘Antiques, mostly.’ Strong, confident voice. ‘The quality end of the market. But I specialize in silver- and goldware.’
‘Nice. Must be lucrative.’
‘I get by.’
Secundus chuckled. ‘Rather better than that,’ he said. ‘Sulinus has been a regular supplier of mine for years. It’s my hobby, you know, my one vice. I’m interested in antique Gallic silverware, in fact quite passionate about it, and I have quite a collection. You and your wife must come round for dinner and inspect it while you’re in Augusta.’
‘That’d be great,’ I said politely. Bugger, we’d got another Priscus here; my stepfather’s bag was semantics and early local Italian antiquities, particularly Etruscan ones, and he regularly bored the pants off us at dinner parties round at Mother’s lecturing us about them. I’d bet that this guy was the same. Well, at least he didn’t bleat or drool, and the chances were Perilla would get through the dinner without having sauce spilled all over her mantle. Plus the fact that our social calendar wasn’t exactly straining at the seams at present. ‘We’ll look forward to it.’
‘Good. I’ll have Optima arrange things. She does so enjoy her social life, the poor dear, but we don’t have many guests ourselves. Well, I mustn’t keep you; you obviously have things to do, and as I said I only wanted to introduce myself while you were passing.’
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