Old Bones (Marcus Corvinus Book 5)

by David Wishart

  'You sure he'll last the trip there and back, pal?' I said. The horse's head drooped dispiritedly. He looked like he'd had the lot – glanders, mange, the strangles, you name it – and hadn't quite come out the other end of any of them.

  'Fulgor's okay.' The man gave the animal a slap on the rump that nearly had him over. 'Just point him in the right direction and he'll take you there.'

  Shit: Fulgor? 'Yeah, but I'd sort of envisaged sitting on his back while he did it,' I said. 'In his present state that'd seem to be pushing things.'

  The guy sniffed. 'You don't want a horse then I can hire you a mule,' he said.

  'No mules. I wouldn't trust these bastards as far as I could throw them. Or they could throw me.'

  'Then Fulgor's the best I can do.'

  I sighed. 'Fine. How much?'

  He named a price, I halved it, we dickered and I finally paid over as much as would've kept the brute in hay and barley mash for a month. They all see the Roman coming.

  Gingerly, I lifted myself into the saddle. It was like balancing on a ruckle of bones. If I'd had a stick I could've played a tune on the brute’s ribs.

  'Okay, Flash,' I said. 'Let's move.'

  To be fair, when he got going he wasn't all that bad. With the run downhill from the town gate, once we hit the open plain we were moving at something between a trot and a canter, and there was still a chunk of the afternoon left when we reached Pyrgi.

  The town wasn't much, even more run-down than Caere. Sure, it'd been a sizeable place in its day, but that had been three or four hundred years back when Etruria was still a viable proposition and the Confederacy's merchant fleet were having rings run round them by slick-as-virgin-oil market-conscious Cumaean Greeks. Now Pyrgi just sat there between the Caeretan plain and the sea like a faded old grandmother paddling her toes and sulked.

  I found Titus Tolumnius's pottery business no bother, about fifty yards in from the gate between a wheelwright's and a line of butchers' shops. In contrast to them it looked prosperous: a yard stacked with every kind of pot from the big vats used to ferment wine to the sort of casserole that the local housewives cooked their beans and sage in. Just inside the entrance a couple of slaves were loading a cart with what looked like oil jars wrapped in straw. I dismounted and tethered Flash to a ring in the perimeter wall.

  'The boss handy, lads?' I asked.

  They nodded towards the back of the yard where a small, thin-faced guy in a sharp green tunic was supervising the unloading of a kiln. I gave them a wave and carried on over.

  'Titus Tolumnius?' I said.

  He glanced up frowning. 'Who wants him?'

  'My name's Corvinus. Marcus Valerius Corvinus.'

  He'd caught the purple stripe on my tunic now, and the frown changed to a smile: Roman purple-stripers aren't thick on the ground in places like Pyrgi, and seeing one tends to set the local businessmen's abacus fingers twitching.

  'I'm Tolumnius,' he said. 'How can I help you, sir?'

  Amazing the change the scent of money has on diction. No doubt one of Perilla's smartass Greeks has written a book about it. 'I'm interested in wine jars,' I said. 'The bulk carriage variety.'

  'Amphorae?' The smile broadened. 'We can supply you with these. How many would you be wanting?'

  'Say seven or eight hundred. That's for starters, probably well over the thousand, but it depends on quality.'

  His eyes bulged. 'Ah...yes. A thousand amphorae. Well, now...'

  Uh-oh; maybe I'd overdone it here. It was a bad sign that even the guys unloading the kiln had stopped to look at me with their jaws hanging. Still, I'd made an impression, and that was the main thing.

  'You got a problem, friend?' I said, giving him my best patrician stare.

  'No. No problem.' He was shaking his head so hard I was afraid it'd drop off. 'We can handle that for you. And the quality will be excellent, I can promise you.'

  'Uh-huh. You won't mind if I check on that? Maybe have a look at a sample of what I'll be getting?'

  'Not at all! Not at all!' He was practically rubbing his hands, and you could've used his tone of voice to deep-fry fish. 'If you'd like to come this way...' He led me across the yard to where a dozen or so of the seven-gallon jars were stacked on their pointy ends against the wall. 'Here you are, sir. You won't find finer quality in Pyrgi. And if you happen to need a shipper I can recommend my brother. He has his own ship, very reliable. I'm sure we can work out a most attractive package.'

  'Yeah.' I was examining the nearest jar. These things are pretty standard, of course, except for the potter's mark. I'd seen this one before, although unlike the jars at Vipena's place it didn't have the disfiguring chisel scars. 'Nice stamp.'

  He looked at me strangely. 'Sir?'

  I pointed. 'TOL. That'd be short for Tolumnius, wouldn't it?'

  I got the distinct impression that if financially-induced politeness hadn't stopped him he'd be backing off a step or two. Coming from a bulk wine dealer like I was supposed to be the question was about as sensible as 'You pour the stuff in at the top and plug the hole afterwards, don't you?'

  'Uh, yes, sir, that's absolutely correct,' he said.

  'Fascinating. You use any other letters, ever?' I wasn't watching him, but I could feel him stiffen. 'Just for variety. Like HOLC maybe?' No answer. 'HOLC as in Holconius, for instance? Publius Holconius, the Pompeian wine-shipper?'

  There was a long silence. I looked up. The guy had gone as green as his tunic. Bull’s-eye!

  'Who the hell are you?' he said.

  'I told you. My name's Marcus Corvinus.'

  'Okay, Corvinus. Get the fuck off my property and don't come back.'

  It was quite a change. Not only – understandably – was the guy a lot less friendly, but he sounded a lot tougher, too. I wondered if I'd underestimated Titus Tolumnius. However, it was too late to back down now.

  'You've got a wine scam going with your brother and your cousin Gnaeus Vipena,' I said. 'Vipena's heat-treating his wine and passing it off as prime Falernian under Holconius's mark. He makes it, you jar it, your brother Gaius ships it to Ostia and sells it and you split the considerable profits three ways. Now's your chance to tell me I'm wrong. So go for it.'

  I waited. Nothing. Finally Tolumnius turned away from me in the direction of the two slaves who'd been loading the cart.

  'Rufus! Grumio!' he yelled.

  They glanced up, straightened, and came over at a run. Uh-oh. Mistake. I stepped back: lugging seriously heavy industrial containers around for a living does wonders for your muscle development, and those guys looked like they wrestled gorillas in their free time.

  'Throw this bastard out,' Tolumnius said quietly. 'He shows his face again, you flatten it for him. Clear?'

  The two nodded and moved forward, grinning. I held up my hands, palm out, and they stopped. 'Okay, sunshine,' I said to Tolumnius. 'I'm going. And forget the amphorae order. I'll take my business elsewhere.'

  'Now you listen to me, Corvinus.' Tolumnius was still speaking quietly, 'because I'll say it once and once only. Make trouble over this and you're dead, purple stripe or not. Remember that. Never ever forget it, or the gods help you. You understand?'

  Now was not the time for heroics. 'Yeah, I understand,' I said. 'Have a nice day, pal.'

  As I turned and walked back to Flash I could feel the three pairs of eyes burning into my back all the way.

  Dead, Tolumnius had said. Like Navius. And he hadn't had a purple stripe to protect him. If I'd wanted another suspect I'd just got one in spades.

  21.

  Even though I cut out the round trip and went straight home – I could take Flash into Caere the next day, or Lysias could – it was almost dark when I got back. I was starving. Perilla and the Princess had eaten hours ago, but I had Bathyllus scare up whatever they'd left and serve it up with a jug of wine on the terrace.

  Perilla was there already, watching the sunset. 'You want to talk to me while I eat, lady?' I said to her, once I'd planted a smacker betwee
n her nose and her chin.

  She sniffed. 'It seems the occasional hurried meal is the only time I can talk to you these days. I thought this was supposed to be a holiday.'

  Uh-oh. She sounded seriously peeved, which was fair enough. Still, what could I do? I only had ten days, and if I hadn't nailed the killer by then I'd be standing up on my hind legs in court with nothing to offer but an ingratiating smile and a load of half-baked theories. Neither of which was going to do Papatius a lot of good. 'Yeah, well,' I said uncomfortably, pulling up a chair. 'We're getting there.'

  She fixed me with a long hard stare. 'Corvinus, it's a mystery to me why you're going anywhere at all. And I'd be grateful if you didn't use the plural. You may be getting somewhere but I am not, not to speak of. That is precisely the problem. Apart from one of your mother's dinners with the added fillip of a corpse cooling downstairs and an extremely boring visit to two gossipy old cats whom you wanted me to butter up for reasons of your own I haven't been out of the house. Oh, I beg your pardon, I was forgetting Hilarion's funeral. Compared to the other outings you arranged for us that was a positive pleasure jaunt.'

  Ouch. Maybe I should go out and come in again, preferably as someone else. 'Uh, yeah.' I sank back into my chair. 'Yeah, right.'

  Bathyllus oozed up with a loaded tray. 'Meton presents his compliments, sir,' he said. 'He asks me to remind you that he is a chef and that warming up leftovers is the province of a cookshop hash-slinger. Despite this he hopes you will enjoy your meal.'

  I groaned. Shit. Of course I hadn't had a chance to let Meton know I wouldn't be back for dinner, and in that bastard's book missing one of his carefully-orchestrated meals without letting him know beforehand is tantamount to treason. However, Perilla was one thing, Meton was another.

  'Tell the pernickety bugger to go and fry himself!' I snarled.

  'Certainly, sir.' Bathyllus poured the wine. Not an eyelid did the little bald-head bat.

  A thought struck me. 'Hey, Bathyllus.'

  'Sir?'

  'You two talking again?'

  'Yes, sir.'

  'You mind telling me what the argument was about this time?'

  He put down the jug and began setting out plates of lamb in a thick bean sauce, carrots in cumin and a meatball ragout. If they were reheats they looked okay to me, but then I only went by normal human standards of edibility. Besides, like I say I was so starved I'd've eaten boiled horsemeat.

  'Sponges, sir,' he said.

  Maybe hunger had affected my hearing, too. 'Uh...sorry, little guy, but was that "sponges"? As in the things that grow on rocks and you use in lavatories to..?'

  'Yes, sir.'

  'Right. Right.' Don't ask, Corvinus, don't ask! 'Fine. So long as you're all pals again.'

  'Indeed.' Bathyllus sniffed and left. I picked up my spoon and began to eat. Jupiter, that little bugger got weirder by the day.

  'So,' Perilla said. 'How is the case progressing, in actual fact?'

  'You really want to know?'

  'Not particularly, but I suppose you'll tell me anyway.'

  Snappy, but at least she'd expressed an interest. And I knew Perilla. Whatever front she put up, deep down she was just as keen to find out whodunnit as I was.

  Probably.

  'Forget Papatius,' I said. 'He didn't do it. Gnaeus Vipena, now, he's a real possibility. Him or one of his business associates. And I'll take side bets on Mamilius and Gaius Aternius.'

  She stared at me. 'Aternius? Marcus, you can't be serious! He was put in charge of investigating the murders!'

  'Maybe so, but the guy's as bent as a wooden drachma. Him, his uncle and the rest of his family.'

  'That's nonsense. You simply don't like the man because he's smooth, good-looking and sophisticated and he made a play for your mother.'

  'Yeah, well, all that too.' I tried a meatball. Warmed over or not, the sauce – it had marjoram and lovage in it – was excellent. 'But I don't like his smell, Perilla. There's something rotten about that bastard. I don't know quite what it is yet, but if there isn't a connection between him and the case I'll eat my sandals.'

  'But what makes you suspect Gaius Aternius, for goodness' sake? He isn't even local.'

  I put down my spoon so I could count off on my fingers. 'One. He's in a hell of a hurry to put Larth Papatius in an urn. Two. In addition to trying to get Mother on a slow trip to Lake Sabatinus he's playing footsie with Sicinia Rufina who following the death of her son is now a wealthy childless widow with a gleam in her eye. Three. I have it on the authority of a certain Titus Perennius who fell foul of him that he and his uncle are two of the biggest sharks in Caere. Four. Cominius's father witnessed that document of sale that old Larcius Arruns has been causing trouble over for the past fifty years. That do you?'

  Perilla sighed. 'No, it will not do me. In fact, I don't think I've ever heard such a farrago of nonsense in my entire life.'

  'Nonsense it isn't, lady.' I picked up my spoon again. 'And what the hell's a farrago?'

  'Marcus, even if all that is true it's neither relevant nor in any way evidence of guilt. You know yourself that there's a strong case against Papatius, Aternius has been a friend of the Navius family for years, he's a bachelor and by your own account Sicinia is still an attractive woman. As far as his business reputation is concerned, wineshop rumour...I assume you met this Titus Perennius in a wineshop?' I winced. 'Exactly. Wineshop rumour is a long way from being hard fact. And as for your last offering the gods alone know what it has to do with anything whatsoever, on earth, above it or under it.'

  Jupiter on a tightrope! Well, she had a valid point; several valid points. Maybe I was building sandcastles here. Still, I had that itch at the back of my skull that told me there was something screwy. And, like I said, I didn't like Aternius's smell. I scooped up the last meatball, ran a bit of bread round the dish to soak up the sauce, then started in on the lamb and carrots. Perilla let me eat for a bit, then she said:

  'What about Vipena?'

  At least I was on better ground here. 'The guy's a crook,' I said. 'No theorising this time, solid proof.' I told her the story of the visit to Papatius and the trip to Pyrgi. 'Navius was right to call him a hypocrite. He was doing the same as Navius was planning to do and Vipena was slating him for, monkeying around with wine, only where the kid was acting above board what Vipena was up to was actually criminal.'

  'Selling heat-treated Caeretan as Falernian. Could he get away with that?'

  'Sure.' I bit on a carrot and chewed. 'No problem. You get whacky Falernian in wineshops all over Rome; all over the empire, for that matter. Not just Falernian, any high-class wine: Faustinian, Caecuban, Setinian. Most ordinary punters've never tasted the real top-grade stuff, so they wouldn't know the difference anyway. All they're interested in is the chichi label on the flask their jug comes from that shows what big spenders they are. And the wineshop owners aren't complaining. They get their Falernian at a price that may be double or three times what they pay for ordinary wines, but it's still a hell of a lot less than it should be, and it means they can put it up on their boards and raise the tone of the place with a clear conscience.'

  'It sounds big business.'

  'It is. Profitable, too, which means the wide boys who run it are no pushovers. On his own Vipena might be just a long drink of water but his cousin's another matter. Tolumnius is bad news. The scam could've been chugging along for years, and if Navius looked like causing trouble then I doubt if he'd've thought twice about shutting the guy's mouth permanently. And I'd guess his brother's the same.'

  'What about Clusinus's murder? Not to mention Hilarion's?'

  I frowned. 'Perilla, I just don't know, okay? Sure, on present showing they'd have no motive for killing anyone but Navius. On the other hand, with Papatius out of the picture the other deaths don't make sense anyway, and Vipena and his pals are as good a prospect as any.'

  'So what happens now?'

  'I have another talk with Vipena.' I drained my cup and refilled it.
'Maybe if he knows the game's up he'll cave.'

  'Marcus, be careful.' She had on her serious look.

  I grinned. 'No problem. Vipena I can handle.'

  'It wasn't Vipena I was thinking of.'

  Yeah, well; she was probably right. Still, you didn't make an omelette without breaking eggs, and ten days was ten days.

  'I'll be okay,' I said...

  Which, as a prediction, was pretty much of a bummer. But then predictions never were my bag.

  22.

  Early the next morning I sent Lysias back to Caere with Flash and walked into Vetuliscum. I had a busy day ahead of me; as well as bearding Gnaeus Vipena in his den if I was going to find out anything about Titus Clusinus it meant another talk with Vesia. Then there was Quintus Mamilius and his blue-eyed boy Decimus. That I wasn't looking forward to, but it was one interview I couldn't put off.

  Mamilius first, to get it over with. I called in at the farmhouse but there was nobody around, not even a housekeeper. I wondered what the old guy's domestic arrangements were, how he managed the ordinary day-to-day things like eating and laundry. Pregnant granddaughter or not, I couldn't think of Mamilius as a murderer; which was strange because as far as Navius was concerned anyway he had as good a motive as any and better than some. The trouble was I could easily be wrong. I had a soft spot for straightforward, no-nonsense characters like Mamilius and a natural down on canting frauds like Vipena and smoothies like Gaius Aternius, and I knew it; given the choice, I'd rather have one of the last two guilty. It might not be the way the world worked, but it had what Perilla would call a dramatic rightness to it.

  Well, we'd simply have to see. Certainly Mamilius had questions to answer, and neither of us could duck the fact.

  He was harvesting apples in the orchard behind the farm: the two slaves beating the higher branches with poles and Mamilius and his son holding either end of an old blanket to catch the fruit. He looked up as I came over, and when our eyes met I saw his jaw tighten. He motioned the slaves to stop, then laid the blanket down and waited, his back straight like we were on a parade ground. Decimus was staring at me wide-eyed and slack-mouthed. He started to gibber something, but Mamilius reached over and put a hand on his arm. The slaves were watching too, and their faces wore the same expression as Mamilius's did. I felt like I'd just stepped onto a stage and the other performers were waiting for me to act my piece; that they knew the scene already, didn't like it but accepted that it had to be played out as written. It wasn't a comfortable feeling, either.