Ovid

14

When I finally got to Perilla's she was out.

'The mistress is at the Lady Marcia's, sir,' Callias told me. 'She said for you please to join her there if you called round. It's near the Temple of Cybele.'

'Yeah, I know where the Fabius place is,' I said. 'Great. Thanks a lot, Callias.' The Lady Marcia was Fabius Maximus's widow and, if you remember, a relative of Perilla's mother's. She was practically a neighbour of mine, a bit further up the hill. I could've saved myself a journey. Perilla hadn't thought of stopping by with a message. Oh no. I was only her patron, wasn't I?

I whistled to my four new bodyguards kicking their heels on the corner. They lumbered across flexing their biceps and eyeing Callias like they were wondering how far he'd bounce. These four were the biggest, toughest guys I owned, huge Gauls whose idea of fun was cracking nuts between thumb and forefinger. And I don't mean the kind that grow on trees either.

I'd had it up to here with being mugged. Next time anyone wanted to try it they'd have to get past the Sunshine Boys.

The Fabius mansion was one of the biggest and oldest in Rome, taking up the space between Romulus's hut and the house of Augustus; which as far as neighbours go is pretty impressive stuff. I had one of the Sunshine Boys knock on the door, shouted my name into the septuagenarian door slave's ear, and was ushered inside. The Boys settled down with their backs against the wall to play dice; at least the three who could count up to six did. The fourth seemed happy just to leer at the passing litters.

Perilla was sitting in the garden with an elderly lady I assumed was Marcia. She was wearing my earrings, I noticed, and a sky-blue cloak that went well with the peacock that was strutting up and down beside her. She smiled as I came through the colonnade.

'Oh, hello, Corvinus. You got my message, then?'

Not a trace of guilt in her lovely voice, not a spark of conscience in her lovely eyes. What the hell. I sighed and sat down on the chair the slave had brought for me.

'It must've missed me,' I said. 'Sorry I'm so late. I had to call in on a client.' I glanced sideways at the old woman. She hadn't moved, hadn't even acknowledged my presence. Her attention was fixed on the peacock, which was getting itself hyped up for a display. I remembered my manners (yeah, I do have some) and added: 'So introduce me to your aunt.'

Perilla's mouth opened to reply; but just then the peacock spread its tail with a rustling whirr and the old woman turned towards me. I saw bright mad eyes in a doughy lifeless face made even more ghastly by makeup, and a slack mouth in constant motion that dropped spittle.

'Aunt Marcia's out at the moment,' Perilla said quietly. 'This is my mother.'

The peacock shivered and turned in a slow circle, its tail a mass of dead staring eyes, watching me. Watching…

I carried it off somehow, don't ask me how. Jupiter knows what I said; I can't remember a word, only that I was sweating all the time. Then a female slave came out and led the old woman inside leaving us alone. We sat in silence for a while.

'It's one of her bad days,' Perilla said at last. 'She's never rational but at least sometimes she's there, at least she acknowledges your existence and talks to you.'

'How long has she been like that?' I was still shaking. If there's one thing I can't take it's madness and madmen. I can't handle the lack of contact, of common ground. It sends me to pieces every time. I knew a guy once, an army officer who'd seen active service all over and won every decoration going, who was terrified of the touch of a feather against his skin. He couldn't go near a poulterer's shop without breaking out into a cold sweat. That's how madness gets me.

'She's got worse over the last few years,' Perilla said. 'She'd never been entirely well since my stepfather was exiled. Then the strain of working for his recall, managing his estate, plus all the trouble with Rufus…' She hesitated. 'It was just too much for her. She lives here now, as she did before she was married. Aunt Marcia's very good.'

'Can't you do something for her? I mean, there must be doctors, Greek doctors…'

'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!