In at the Death

2

When I got back home Bathyllus had the door open and the obligatory wine-cup ready poured and waiting. As usual. How he does it Jupiter only knows. Oh, yeah, sure, all good major-domos come equipped with precognition as standard to some degree, but Bathyllus’s is something else. A couple of years previous as an experiment I’d tried taking off my sandals round the corner and sneaking up on the bugger barefoot, just in case it was something to do with the distinctive sound the leather soles — my leather soles — made on the marble steps. I never even got half way. Getting caught by your major-domo outside your own front door in broad daylight with your footwear in your hands and a good half jug into the game, which I was at the time, doesn’t do much for your master-of-the-house gravitas, either: you could’ve heard the bastard’s disapproving sniff in Baiae.

I took the offered cup and sank the first restorative mouthful. ‘Have a good morning, Bathyllus?’

‘Not particularly, sir, no.’

Uh-huh. Now that was a sniff. Not to mention a snap, which put things a stage higher. Also, now I came to notice, the little bald-head didn’t look too cheerful all round; in fact, on a pissed-off scale of one to ten I’d rate him a good fifteen, and that meant trouble. Real trouble.

We were talking seriously peeved here. In terms of gravity the military equivalent would be losing Syria.

I set down the wine-cup. Carefully, so as not to spill it on the polished table-top: a seriously-peeved Bathyllus can leave you with third-degree sarcasm burns just for provocative breathing.

‘Uh…everything okay, little guy?’ I said. ‘I mean, generally speaking, as it were?’

He drew himself up to his full five feet nothing.

‘I suggest you judge for yourself, sir,’ he said. ‘In the atrium.’

You could’ve used his tone of voice to pickle mummies. Shit; make it Syria plus the Rhine-and-Danube. Whatever the trouble was, we’d got it in spades. I left the wine-cup where it was, hared off through the lobby and into the atrium…

‘Oh, hello, Marcus.’ Perilla looked up from her chair with a bright smile. ‘You’re back early.’

I was goggling at the thing lying next to her. ‘What the hell is that?’

‘Don’t be silly, dear. What does it look like?’Good question. All I could see was an anonymous mound of greyish-black hair. ‘It’s a dog, of course.’

‘Perilla, where the fuck did you — ?’

‘Don’t swear. She’s a Gallic boarhound and her name’s Placida. We’re looking after her for a few days.’

‘We are what?’

‘While Sestia Calvina’s in Veii. Didn’t I tell you?’ Like hell she had. Quite deliberately not. ‘Say hello to Marcus, Placida. Nicely, now.’

The mound of hair gave a huge sigh one end and farted at the other. Our atrium, big and open as it was, was suddenly not the place to be.

‘Look, lady — ’

— which was as far as I got before the mound opened a bloodshot eye and erupted to its feet. Paws. Whatever.

‘Ow — Oo-oo-oo! Ow-ow-ow-ow-oo-oo-oo!’

Oh, bugger! I stepped back. Quickly.

‘Perilla…’

‘Placida! Placida! Nicely, I said!’

‘Ow-oo-oo-oo!’

I took another step back, but I was running out of atrium. Gods! This was a dog?

‘Placida! Down! Behave yourself!’ Perilla had a grip on the brute’s collar. Not that it seemed to notice, mind. ‘Don’t be silly, Marcus, it’s only a howl! She’s quite harmless.’

‘Is that right, now?’ Jupiter Best and Greatest! I had my back to a pillar and I wasn’t going nowhere. I’d seen beasts half that size given star billing at the games and matched against tigers. Winning the match, too, paws down. Standing, its muzzle was above the level of my groin. Not a happy thought, given the distance between us.

The brute shook its head, spattering everything inside three lateral yards with white-foamed drool, farted again and grinned, revealing a mouthful of yellow fangs. My balls shrank.

‘There,’ Perilla said, letting go. ‘That’s much better. Good dog. Good dog, Placida! Who’s a clever girl, then?’

Shakeshakeshake. Splattersplattersplatter.

Grin.

Oh, fuck. I stared at the thing in horror. Well, it certainly explained Bathyllus: when you’re the sort of guy who tuts over a muddy footprint in the lobby or a smudged mirror anything that can cover the furniture to a mean depth of two inches in spit and make the place smell like a barnful of incontinent goats all inside ten seconds flat is the stuff of nightmare. What amazed me was that he hadn’t gone over the wall already with his buffing rags and polish packed in a carpet-bag.

We’d have to go careful here. Tact, Corvinus, tact. I unpeeled myself from the pillar. ‘Ah…I’m not criticising, lady,’ I said. ‘Perish the thought. But if we are really stuck with the thing then wouldn’t it be better to keep it outside? In the fresh air, as it were?’ Preferably on a barge off Ostia, at the end of a fucking hawser half a mile offshore.

‘Oh, no. Calvina was most particular about that. And Placida’s not an it, Marcus, she’s a she.’ She fondled the beast’s long, drooping ears. ‘Aren’t you, precious?’

Slobberslobberslobber. Grin.

‘Uh…Perilla,’ I said. ‘Let’s just think about this a minute, shall we? Maybe — ’

Which was when Bathyllus came in with the wine-cup I’d left.

‘Ow-oo-oo-oo!’

‘Placida!’ Perilla snapped. ‘That’s enough!’

I had to admire the little bald-head’s sang-froid. Not an eyelid did he bat; in fact, the brute could’ve been invisible.

‘Your wine, sir,’ he said. ‘Lunch will be about ten minutes. Cold pork and vegetable rissoles.’

Shakeshakeshake. Splattersplattersplatter.

Fart.

Oh, hell.

Long, pregnant pause. I’d never actually seen human nostrils flare, but Bathyllus’s made a pretty good attempt, although at that point sniffing wasn’t a sensible option. He hadn’t missed the effects of the multiple spittle fallout, either. You could tell by the way he blanched.

And then it happened. Without any warning Placida ambled across to the square of smooth tiling by the corner of the pool just under our best bronze of Diana tying her hair, spread her back legs and squatted…

‘Placida! No!’ Perilla shouted, but the damage was already being done, and spreading. I glanced at Bathyllus…

There’s a bit in one of these old Greek plays where Atreus king of Mycenae invites his brother Thyestes to a banquet, serves him up a stew made from Thyestes’s chopped-up kids and then at the end of the meal has the severed heads, hands and feet brought in on a platter. The actor playing Thyestes is masked, sure, but if he wasn’t the expression on his face at that point would’ve been a dead ringer for Bathyllus’s.

‘Oh, Placida!’ Perilla said.

Grin.

A few days, eh? Life was going to be fun, fun, fun.

We escaped to the dining room while a tight-lipped Bathyllus organised clean-up operations and Placida was dragged off in ignominy.

‘It was an accident,’ Perilla said as she lay down on her couch. ‘She is housetrained really.’ She paused. ‘At least, Calvina told me she was.’

Yeah, right; I’d just bet she had. I’d never met Sestia Calvina — she was one of Perilla’s poetry set — but she was evidently a smart cookie. ‘Listen, lady,’ I said. ‘Tell someone your canine horror-on-legs is liable to piss on the Carrara and your chances of taking the deal further are zilch. You’ve been conned.’ I threw myself down on the other couch and took an irritated slug of Setinian. ‘In any case, what the hell prompted you to take the brute in at all? If Calvina was going off to Veii why couldn’t she just have left it at home with her slaves? Why pick on us?’

Perilla straightened a fold in her mantle. ‘Marcus, I told you. Placida’s a she, not an it. And she’s got a lovely nature.’

Right, and I was Queen Semiramis. Nothing that howled, spat, farted and pissed all at complete random and simultaneously could possibly be described as having a lovely nature. Also, I knew prevarication when I heard it. ‘Don’t faff,’ I said. ‘Just answer the question.’

‘She likes company.’

‘Slaves are fucking company. And handling the seamier side of the domestic grind’s their job.’

‘She needs a family atmosphere. A proper family atmosphere, not just — ’

‘Perilla, that thing creates its own atmosphere, and I don’t know about you but I found it fucking unbreathable. If we have to — ’

‘Stop swearing, dear, it isn’t necessary. She hasn’t exactly made a good first impression, I admit — ’

‘Hah!’

‘- but once she’s settled in — ’

‘Settled in?’ I put the cup down. ‘Jupiter bloody God Almighty! Just how long is Sestia Calvina planning to stay in Veii?’

‘About a month. But — ’

‘A month? You said a few days!’

‘Ah. Yes. Well, actually, it’s a month.’ She paused and tugged again at the fold in her mantle. ‘Or maybe two. Calvina was…well, to be honest she was a little vague on that point.’

I groaned. Oh, hell: smart cookie was right. If I ever got within grabbing distance I’d kill the woman with my bare hands. ‘Look. Perilla,’ I said. ‘Two months of that and we’ll all be gibbering. Plus being short one major-domo through stroke, seizure, heart failure or desertion. Although the little guy may flip before then and poison the brute. And if so I for one won’t blame him.’

‘Don’t be silly, Marcus.’ At least she had the grace to look uncomfortable. ‘Bathyllus will come round. Placida’s a lovely dog really, very gentle and affectionate. She just happens to have some…well, some unfortunate habits.’

‘Yeah. Right.’ Gods! Thank Jupiter for open-plan architecture and a through draught. ‘Why the fuck couldn’t Sestia Calvina have a sparrow for a pet like everyone else?’

‘Her brother brought Placida back from Gaul. And Calvina always has been rather eccentric.’

‘Eccentric? Lady, if that’s eccentric then I’m a fucking — ’

‘Marcus! Stop it!’

I subsided. Bathyllus was tooling in with his minions and the lunch trays. If he’d looked any more put-upon he’d’ve had bow legs and a crouch, and the serving was pointed. Which meant plates were put down with a snap like sling-bolts.

‘Uh…very nice, Bathyllus,’ I said. ‘The pork looks good. Very…ah…porky.’

‘Thank you, sir.’ Sniff. Snap. ‘Meton will be gratified. Reheating leftovers can be so tricky.’

Ouch. Apropos of which… ‘Has he, ah, met our guest himself yet, little guy? Meton, I mean?’

Snap.

‘Oh, yes. They get on very well together.’ Snap. ‘There is, I think, a great similarity of character.’

I swallowed. Hell. One of life’s little constants is that Bathyllus and Meton hate each other’s guts because where Bathyllus is the complete control freak Meton is the anarchist’s anarchist. If Bathyllus had decided that Placida was our friendly chef’s canine soul-mate — and from what I’d seen of her I wouldn’t be surprised — then we’d got an uphill struggle on our hands. I’d bet that bastard in the kitchen would play it for all it was worth, too.

Trouble was right.

With a final sniff Bathyllus buggered off.

‘Now.’ Perilla helped herself to the rissoles. ‘Change the subject. You haven’t told me how your meeting with Natalis went.’

Shit; in all of this I’d completely forgotten about Natalis and young Papinius’s suicide. I filled my wine-cup and told her.

When I got to the bit about how much he was prepared to pay she blinked at me.

‘But that’s ridiculous!’ she said. ‘Fifty thousand sesterces is a fortune!’

‘Natalis can afford it. With Prince Gaius showering his precious bounty on the team and all set to step into the Wart’s clogs when he hangs them up he’s seriously rolling.’

‘Even so, it’s a lot of money just for information.’

‘I said: the kid’s mother’s from Leontini and his grandfather was Natalis’s first patron. That’d weigh. Also he seems to’ve had a genuine affection for the lad himself. Besides’ — I reached for the pork — ‘reading between the lines I’d guess he has an unrequited crush on Rupilia. At least, I hope for the sake of my imagination that it’s unrequited.’

‘Hmm.’ She reached for the salad bowl. ‘So why do you think he did it? Papinius? Commit suicide, I mean.’

‘Jupiter knows, Perilla. You know what kids are that age, they take everything seriously and personal. Oh, sure, from what Natalis told me he seemed a sensible, balanced type overall, but Natalis could be wrong. Has to be wrong, because the kid’s dead.’ I sank a mouthful of wine. ‘Nineteen years old. Just getting started. What a fucking waste of a life.’

‘So what do you do now?’

I shrugged. ‘Talk to people. Rupilia, the factor of the tenement where it happened. Any friends I can get names for. The mother, first. She lives near the Octavian Porch. I’ll do that this afternoon.’

‘Oh, good.’ Perilla gave me a dazzling smile. ‘Then you can take Placida.’

I almost swallowed my wine-cup. ‘What?’

‘She needs to be exercised. She didn’t get out this morning, and a walk across the city would be perfect for her.’

Hell’s bloody teeth! I had to knock this on the head right now or as sure as eggs was eggs I’d regret it later. ‘Now look, lady,’ I said. ‘You got us into this mess, you can just — ’

‘Nonsense, dear, she’ll be no trouble. And since you’re walking anyway…’

This was getting silly. ‘Perilla, we have a whole houseful of skivvies here! Give her to one of the chair team! These lardballs could do with walking a bit of the fat off, in fact — ’

Perilla set down her spoon. ‘Marcus,’ she snapped, ‘I’ve already told you! I promised Calvina that we’d do our best to make Placida feel part of the family, and besides, it’s a chance for the two of you to get to know each other. Be sensible, please!’

So that was that. Oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit! And I’d’ve liked to know where that ‘we’ had suddenly appeared from, too.

I was getting very bad vibes about all this; very bad.

Ah, well. At least we’d be out in the open air.