'We've tried. It's no use, they can't help. In a way I'm glad. I think she's happier like this, in a world of her own.'
I shook my head but said nothing. Sweet immortal gods! How could a mumbling, drooling thing like that be happy? Me, now, I'd rather slit my wrists. Or if I was beyond that have a good friend do it for me.
'Anyway.' Perilla gathered her cloak around her and smiled a brittle smile, 'you didn't come to talk about my troubles. At least not that particular one. How are the investigations going? Did you talk to Silanus?'
'Who?' I made an effort to pull myself together. 'Oh yeah. Yeah, I talked to him. In the five minutes it took him to call his tame gorilla and have me thrown out, that is.'
'Corvinus, for heaven's sake!' Her eyes widened. 'What did you say?'
'Nothing.' I rubbed the sweat from my palms. I was beginning to feel more myself again, although a large belt of neat Falernian wouldn't've gone amiss. 'At least nothing insulting. I was my usual super-polite self. Maybe the guy just didn't like my aftershave.'
'That's nonsense. He must've had some reason to send you away.'
'Well, I don't think he was too happy when I suggested he'd been paid to take the rap.' Jupiter! That was putting it mildly! 'But that was towards the end. The hit squad was already on its way by then.' I paused. 'Could I have a drink, please? I've had a pretty hard day.'
'It isn't noon yet.'
'I know, but I'd still like a drink. Please.'
'Fruit juice?' she asked sweetly.
'Oh, come on, lady!'
'You drink too much wine,' she said; but nonetheless she signalled to a hovering slave.
'I only do it to forget.'
Her brow wrinkled. 'Forget what?'
'I don't know. I've forgotten.'
I could see her working that old chestnut out. Like I say, Perilla may've been beautiful but her sense of humour was zilch. Finally she gave it up and returned to the subject.
'What did you mean "paid to take the rap"?'
'Not to make any waves over the charge of seducing Julia.'
'But Corvinus, Silanus wasn't rewarded, he was exiled.'
'Uh-uh. You've got it wrong. There wasn't any exile. Silanus left Rome voluntarily.'
'What about the ban on holding public office?'
I shrugged. 'The guy might not be interested in politics. Just because you come from a good family doesn't mean you're wetting your pants to make consul. Look at me, for instance.'
Perilla did, and I wished I'd bitten my tongue off. Bugger.
'I've been wondering about that,' she said coolly. 'Don't you have any political ambitions? No push? No sense of duty to your family or to the state?'
I shifted ground rapidly. Lectures in self-improvement from clients I could do without. 'Yeah, well, we'll leave that aside, okay?’ I said. ‘Just admit that it does happen sometimes. A simple soul like Silanus –or a lazy bastard, if you prefer it –'
'I don't.'
'– may have decided that he prefers money and the easy life to political glory. Besides, there was a more important reason why Augustus didn't punish him.'
'That being?'
'The guy didn't screw Julia at all. No one did. This whole adultery business never happened.'
'What?'
'Sure. The charge was a fake, and everybody involved knew it.'
Perilla was staring at me like my ears'd just turned chartreuse.
'Corvinus, have you totally lost your senses?’ she said. ‘Of course Julia committed adultery!'
'Yeah? How do you know?'
'Well...' Perilla was visibly floundering. 'Everyone knows she did.'
'Everyone knows she was charged. I've just told you. The charge was a fake.'
'But Silanus admitted to seducing her!'
'Sure he did.' I was grinning. It wasn't often I was ahead of Perilla, and I was enjoying it. 'That's what he was paid for.'
'What about Augustus? He laid the charge himself. He sent her to Trimerus. Corvinus, she was his own granddaughter!'
'Look, I never said Julia was innocent. I said she hadn't committed adultery.'
'So why was she exiled?'
I opened my mouth – and stopped. I felt like I'd just run into a brick wall. Yeah. Good question. I just wished I knew the answer.
'I don't know,' I admitted. 'Not yet. But I'd swear on the teats of the wolf that suckled Romulus it wasn't for sleeping around.'
Perilla was quiet for a long time. Finally she said: 'Corvinus, I'm sorry I was so dismissive.'
Hey! Apologies? 'That's big of you.'
'Perhaps you're right. Perhaps Julia didn't commit adultery after all.'
I beamed. 'Yeah, well, I can be really persuasive when I get going.'
'No, that's not it. It wasn't anything you said.' Hell. So much for smugness. Straight in the kisser, without so much as the bat of an eyelid. The girl had as much tact as a sledgehammer. 'Only you're the second person to defend Julia that I've talked to today. I'd put it down to an old woman's partisanship but now I'm not so sure.'
One of us wasn't making sense any longer and I was pretty sure it wasn't me.
'Perilla,' I said, 'Why don't you run that one past me again? Maybe I missed something somewhere.'
Just then the slave with the wine tray arrived. Instead of answering Perilla fixed him with her eye.
'Glaucus,' she said. 'Ask Harpale to come out, would you?'
'Yes madam.' The guy poured for both of us and left. I took a careless swallow; then as the wine hit my palate and burst into song I changed my mind rapidly and sipped. This was no swigging stuff. It was real Caecuban, pure nectar from the area around Fundi, and rare as a twenty-year-old virgin in a cathouse. Old Fabius must've laid it down about the time of Actium. Anyone who treated it with less than absolute respect deserved to be boiled in vinegar and rendered for pigswill.
'Corvinus?'
'Hmm?'
'Are you all right?'
'Yeah. Uh...who's Harpale?'
'My only contribution to the investigation so far. You'll see when she arrives.'
I didn't have to wait long; not that I minded with a flask of vintage Caecuban at my elbow and Perilla to look at. Out of the house came an elderly female slave. She moved slowly and I noticed that her right foot was twisted inwards.
'You wanted me, madam?' she said.
'Yes, Harpale.' Perilla indicated a stone bench against the wall next to her. 'Have a seat, please.'
The old woman sat down and placed one hand over the other like a demure kid at her first adult party.
'This is Valerius Corvinus, the gentleman I mentioned.' The slave bobbed her head in my direction. 'Corvinus, this is Harpale. Until my Aunt Marcia acquired her she was the Lady Julia's personal maid.'
Jupiter!
15.
'She's beautiful.' I must've been staring at the old girl with a pretty feral grin on my face because she suddenly squirmed on the seat and looked nervous as hell. 'Absolutely beautiful. Where did you find her?'
Perilla frowned.
'I've just told you,’ she said. ‘My Aunt Marcia bought her when Julia was exiled. The estate was broken up and her property sold. Now please behave yourself and stop frightening the poor thing.' She turned to the slave. 'Don't worry, Harpale. He won't do you any harm. That's his natural expression.'
'Cut it out, lady.' I tried to look benign, but the old slave was watching me like a rabbit watches a snake. Her eyes were a pale washed-out blue: candid and slightly stupid. 'I only want you to answer a few questions, Harpale. Okay?'
'Yes, sir.' The woman's voice was light as a dry leaf.
'Fine. We'll start, then. You were the Lady Julia's maid. Was she a good mistress?'
The old woman's smile was surprisingly sweet and innocent.
'Oh, yes, sir,' she said. 'She was really kind. A lovely mistress the Lady Julia was.'
'Did she have many men friends?'
Harpale lowered her eyes. She might not be too smart, but she knew what I
was asking, and she stayed quiet so long that I thought I could guess the answer.
'Some, sir. Lit'rary men like the Lady Perilla's stepfather.'
'What about Silanus?'
The thin lips pursed. 'You asked me about the Lady Julia's friends.'
'So?'
'Silanus was round at the house often enough, sir. But not when the mistress was on her own. Only when the master was there. They was very friendly, sir, him and Master Paullus. Not that he came to dinner much. Not that kind of friendly. He'd drop by at odd hours. The middle of the afternoon usually. Or late in the evening. The mistress might be in the sitting-room as well, she often was, but it was the master he really wanted. You could see that, sir. Anyone with half an eye could see that.'
Uh-huh. I glanced at Perilla.
'Tell him about the man with the ring,' she said.
Harpale turned to her. 'Oh, no, madam. He didn't have no ring. That was the point.' The pale eyes shifted back to me. 'He came at odd hours too, sir. Sometimes with Silanus, sometimes on his own.'
I could feel the hairs at the back of my neck crawl. 'Did this guy have a name?'
'Not that I knew, sir. I only saw him the once, and' –her hand sketched a hood or a mantle-fold. – 'his head was covered.'
'What's this about a ring?'
'He wasn't wearing one, sir. At least,' she held out her skinny right hand and indicated the last finger, 'he had the mark, see, but the ring was missing.'
'It could've been in for repair.'
'Oh, no. He never did have no ring, so Davus said.'
'Davus?'
'The door slave, sir. He used to let the gentleman in, of course. Not that he knew who he was either, even though he did see him once.'
'You mean he saw him? Saw the guy's face?'
'Yes, sir. Just that one time, at the end, when the gentleman's hood slipped.'
'But he didn't recognise him?'
'Not that he'd admit to, sir. But Davus was like that, he wouldn't've told anyone, even one of us other slaves. Not if the mistress ordered him not to.'
I saw something I shouldn't've seen and didn't report it.
Like a guy who kept his face covered and visited the traitor Paullus at odd hours? The hairs on the back of my neck were crawling like I had fleas.
'Could the Lady Perilla's stepfather have seen this man too at any time?’ I said. ‘Seen him and recognised him?'
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Perilla shoot me a sharp look. One up for the boys. She obviously hadn't thought of that angle.
'Perhaps, sir. Davus might know that, too.'
'You mean Davus is still alive?' Beside me I heard Perilla gasp: score two. Celestial bells rang. Jupiter, I thought, if you give me this one thing...
'Oh, yes, sir. Davus is alive. Of course he is.'
I sat back in my chair. I could've grabbed the old girl and kissed her, but that would really have sent Perilla up the wall.
'So where is he now? Can we talk to him?'
The candid eyes were suddenly not candid any longer; and they were firmly fixed in the old woman's lap.
'He ran away, sir,' she said. 'Just after my mistress was arrested.'
'Where did he go?' Perilla broke in. Then, when the old woman didn't answer: 'Harpale, please tell us. This is important. You know, don't you?'
'Yes. I know.' The old woman's voice was barely audible, and I could make a good guess why. A recaptured slave gets pretty short shrift: he's branded across the face with a red-hot iron and sent to the mines, or to one of the agricultural gangs. Either way he doesn't live long, if he's lucky. 'I can't tell you where Davus is, madam. That's not my secret. But if you only want to talk to him I'll arrange it.'
I hadn't realised that I'd been holding my breath. Now I let it out.
'Yeah,' I said. 'Yeah. Okay. Any time, any place he chooses. He won't get into any trouble through me, I promise you. In fact I may be able to do the guy a favour or two.'
She was shaking her head.
'No, sir. Thank you but no,' she said firmly. 'Davus is all right, sir. He doesn't need nothing, not now. He'd like to see the mistress cleared same as I would, and if this'll help then he'll talk to you with pleasure. The Lady Julia was innocent, sir. I told them that, even when they broke my leg to get me to say different.' I glanced down at her lame foot. Yeah. That made sense. Against his master, a slave's evidence is only valid under torture. 'The mistress was no whore, sir. No more than her lady mother was.'
Everything went very quiet; so quiet I could hear the sound of the fountain in the ornamental pool inside the house.
Julia's mother, the other Julia, Augustus's daughter, had been exiled too. Also for adultery...
Gods!
'Uh... You mind running over that again, Harpale?' I tried to keep my voice calm. 'Just for the record?'
Harpale was quite composed. She could've been stating the most obvious fact in the world. Perhaps, to her mind, she was.
'Oh, yes, sir,' she said brightly. 'I was a present to the young Lady Julia on her marriage, but before that I was her mother's maid. That Lady Julia was innocent, too.'
16
We watched Harpale limp back towards the house.
'Perilla,’ I said, ‘what the fuck is going on?'
'You're supposed to be the expert. You tell me.' She sounded a bit jaundiced, but I noticed she hadn't mentioned the language. Maybe it was my bad influence.
'Oh. Yeah. Sure.' My winecup was looking empty so I topped it up. 'Okay, so what do we know? First of all Silanus never touched Julia. The whole adultery story was a lie from start to finish, a cover-up by Augustus for something else. Okay?'
'Go on.'
'But to make it plausible someone had to take the rap, and Silanus was the lucky winner, either because the bastard volunteered at a price or because someone twisted his little arm half way up his back. Right?'
'Yes, Corvinus. Or so it would seem.'
I may not be an intellectual giant but I know when someone's taking the piss; and that last remark was straight out of the blunt half of a Socratic dialogue. I looked at Perilla suspiciously. Not the trace of a smile. Maybe the lady had a sense of humour after all.
'Yeah Right. Anyway,' I went on, 'whatever reward was offered or pressure applied the guy was promised that he'd get off lightly, and he did. He wasn't formally exiled, but all the same Augustus encouraged him to take an extended trip abroad. And just for the show of things he banned him from any future political career. That might sound pretty dire for a political whizz-kid but Lover Boy Silanus hadn't any real interest in politics so he wasn't unduly concerned.'
'It also meant that he wouldn't be in Rome to face embarrassing questions.'
'Right. On the plus side, to compensate for this his brother, who is a political whizz-kid, gets Julia's daughter, a marriage tie with the ruling family, and all the extra political clout that goes with it.'
'Even although Julia herself was disgraced?'
'Even then. Augustus wasn't vindictive. None of the family were penalised when their mother was exiled. Quite the reverse.'
'But if as Harpale said the elder Julia was innocent too –'
'Yeah, okay.' I frowned. 'If Harpale's right that opens up a whole new can of worms, but we'll need more than a slave's word for it. We'll need some hard evidence.'
'If it exists.'
'Don't worry. I'll dig. There's a guy I can ask about that, a friend of my grandfather's. He's retired now, lives outside the city off the Appian Way. Leave it for the moment. We've got enough headaches to be going on with.' I poured some more wine and sipped it. 'So. If there was no adultery then why was our sweet little Julia exiled? From what Harpale tells us Silanus seems to've been involved more with Paullus. And Paullus was chopped for treason, so it's reasonable to assume the other two – Julia and Silanus – were in on the same scam.'
'What was Paullus's crime exactly? Do you know?'
'Search me. A plot against Augustus, obviously. That's something else w
e have to find out.'
'And you think Julia was involved?'
'Yeah, why not? She was guilty of something, certainly. If the adultery charge was only a cover then treason's as good a crime as any. Let's say she and Paullus were working as a husband-and-wife team and they got caught. Paullus was chopped but Julia, as Augustus's grandchild, was let off with exile.'
'So why weren't they both charged with treason? Why bother with adultery at all?'
'Perilla, I'm telling you. Julia was the emperor's granddaughter. You think Augustus would be willing to admit there was treason in the family?'
She nodded. 'Fair enough. You're probably right.'
'Sure I'm right.'
'Don't get smug. What about Silanus? You haven't mentioned him. Where does he fit in?'
'He was involved in the conspiracy too, like I said. That was obvious from what Harpale told us. If I'm right it was Silanus who blew the whole thing to Augustus. Maybe he got cold feet, maybe he just decided the game was up and he'd better save his own neck by turning informer. Either would explain why he got off so lightly, why he was so ready to admit to the fake adultery charge, and why he was given that under-the-counter reward of his.'
'And the man with the ring?'
'Ah, now.' I raised my winecup. Jupiter, this stuff was good! My brain was purring away like one of those fancy machines the Greeks come up with now and again for telling the time or counting votes. 'Our fourth conspirator. He gets the starring role. Why should anyone take their ring off when they go visiting?'
'Because it was distinctive?'
'Give me more.'
'A gold ring would show that the man was a noble.'
True enough. Only nobles had the right to wear gold rings. That was one of these stupid rules my father could've been responsible for.
'Yeah, but anyone on calling terms with Paullus wouldn't be the type to lug fishboxes in the market, would he? Still, nobles are ten a penny. It has to be more than just any gold ring.' I held out my own right hand. 'Notice anything?'
Like all narrow- and broad-stripers I was wearing a heavy seal-ring for documents. Perilla sat back.
'Corvinus, that's brilliant!’ she said. ‘The ring would have his crest on. And if he was well-known, or from a very prominent family...'
Ovid (Marcus Corvinus Book 1) Page 10