Parthian Shot

12

The next day was the start of the Augustalia.

Unlike in the Greek towns to the south, where they go in for that sort of thing, as a festival it’s never been all that popular at Rome, not where ordinary punters like me are concerned, anyway; scarcely surprising, because instead of the usual healthy Roman diet of racing meets and all-day sword-fights what you get at the Augustalia is a non-stop orgy of culture. Which was why instead of being happily out sleuthing or relaxing in a wineshop I spent the morning sitting through a lyre recital followed by readings from the Greek lyric poets before going home for a quick bath, a change of mantle and the trip out to Marcellus Theatre for Euripides’s bloody Medea.

I hate the Augustalia.

I grizzled like hell. Not that it had any effect.

‘I contracted for a play, lady,’ I said as we piled into the litter for the lyre concert. ‘Just a play. Where did these extras suddenly spring from?’

She kissed me. ‘Stop grumbling, dear. If I’d told you beforehand you would’ve made other arrangements, and you didn’t. You hardly ever go with me to these things. A bit of culture is good for you. Besides, it’ll give your mind a rest from murder and politics.’

Well, at least she was back to her feisty self after the wobbler of two days back. Still, ‘rest’ wasn’t exactly the term I would’ve used: by theatre time I’d had Alcaean glyconics up to the eyebrows, my brain was a wrung-out dishrag, and I was really, really looking forward to the Euripides: concert halls are tricky, sure, but you can sleep in a theatre.

Not that I was missing much because the big E’s Medea isn’t exactly a laugh a minute (pace Perilla, it’s not entirely free of murder and politics, either, but that’s by the way). I woke up just after the screen had revolved to show the slaughtered kids and the queen getting ready to fly off in her dragon-chariot. Perfect timing, in other words. As we made our way towards the exit through the drift of nutshells and apple cores I was feeling pretty smug.

Not so Perilla.

‘Marcus, I’m ashamed of you!’ she snapped. ‘That was an extremely good production!’

‘Yeah. The effects were nice. I liked the effects. Especially the — ’

‘No one else in our row was sleeping! I looked!’

‘Yeah, well, maybe the poor buggers don’t have understanding wives.’ Smarm, smarm. ‘In any case — ’

Someone shouted my name. I looked down the rows, towards the VIP seats at the very front. An old man in a fancy embroidered mantle was waving to me. When he saw he’d got my attention he pointed towards the exit door on his level. I waved back and gave him the thumbs-up.

‘Who was that?’ Perilla said.

‘Prince Phraates. I think he wants us to meet him outside.’

She frowned. ‘Marcus, no! We are going straight home to dinner! You are not getting involved with — ’

‘Oh, come on, lady!’ I grinned. ‘I’ve had six solid hours of culture today, four of which I didn’t bargain for. You’re a weasel, and you owe me. Besides, the guy probably only wants to say hello.’

‘Corvinus, I will kill you!’

Before she could object any more I grabbed her arm and steered her to the exit. Sure enough, Phraates was waiting for us beside a snazzy carriage in the open space between the theatre and Apollo’s temple. How he’d arranged the carriage — it was just after sunset, and he would’ve had to get it there in violation of the bylaws — I didn’t know, but there it was. Parthian princes can get away with these things.

‘Ah, Corvinus,’ he said. ‘Did you enjoy the play? What did you think of Jason? Wasn’t he superb?’

‘Yeah. Yeah, he was all right.’ Beside me, Perilla snorted. I ignored her.

‘And this must be your wife, Rufia Perilla.’ Phraates smiled at her and got a stare in return that was straight off a December Alp. Oops; this might be embarrassing. ‘You’re the poet Ovid’s stepdaughter, are you not, my dear? I had the honour of sitting next to him at a dinner party once. A very long time ago now, of course, but I’ve never forgotten. He was quite the most intelligent, civilised and humane man I had ever met. I’m delighted to make his daughter’s acquaintance.’

Gods! Talk about smarm! I glanced at Perilla. Forget the frozen stare: the lady was thawing so fast you could hear the crackle. ‘Ah…really?’ she said faintly.

Phraates gave her another smile and turned to me. ‘I was wondering,’ he said, ‘if you and your wife might care to join me for dinner tonight. Nothing special, but it would give us a chance to talk a little in private.’

Uh-oh. I shot Perilla a quick sideways glance. ‘Yeah, well, I’m afraid tonight’s a bit difficult. You see — ’

‘Also, Rufia Perilla,’ — Phraates turned back to her — ‘I do have something a literary scholar like yourself might be interested in seeing, which you could perhaps examine while Corvinus and I have our talk. The manuscript of Euripides’s Helen.’

Pause; long pause. Perilla’s ears had gone pink. Finally, she said: ‘The..ah…original manuscript?’

Ladies don’t drool, but I could see she was coming pretty close.

‘Oh, yes. It’s quite authentic. I bought it in Athens some years ago from a direct descendant, and it has some fascinating marginal notes in the poet’s own hand. But of course if you’ve made other arrangements for this evening then — ’

‘No! Oh, no!’ I don’t think I’d ever heard the lady squeak. She did it now. ‘No arrangements! None at all! Certainly not! No!’

‘Well, that’s excellent.’ Phraates beamed. ‘We can all go in my carriage, naturally — it isn’t far, just the other side of the Agrippan Bridge — and you can use it to return home. Corvinus, perhaps you’d care to leave your wife here while you instruct your litter-slaves.’

‘We’ll instruct them together.’ I was grinning from ear to ear. I wasn’t going to miss this; no way was I going to miss this! I took Perilla’s arm and pulled. ‘Come on, lady. Instructing the slaves time. Back in five minutes, Phraates.’

I hustled her towards where we’d left the litter and accompanying lardballs parked, further round the curve of the theatre.

‘What happened to the “straight home to dinner”, then?’ I said.

Perilla sniffed, but her ears were still pink and it spoiled the effect. ‘Don’t be silly, dear. Your Prince Phraates is perfectly charming and it was a very gracious invitation. How could we refuse?’

‘Easy, lady. I was just about to. You were the one who sold out, and you did it in spades. For a bit of smarm and a look at a second-hand bookroll. I’m ashamed of you.’

She looked at me like I’d suddenly come out in purple blotches and sprouted feathers. ‘Marcus, that is an original manuscript of a Euripides play! Do you know how many of these are extant?’

‘No.’

‘Well, neither do I. But I’ve never seen one, nor am I ever likely to otherwise. I am not passing up the opportunity.’

I shrugged. ‘Fine. So you explain things to Meton. He’s been slaving over a hot stove all afternoon and when we roll in at two in the morning the guy is not going to be greatly chuffed.’

She stopped. Her eyes widened and she put a hand to her mouth. ‘Oh, gods!’ she said. ‘I’d forgotten all about Meton!’

‘Right. Your job, lady. I’m staying out of this one.’

‘He’ll be absolutely furious!’

‘Yeah. Blazing.’ I kept my face straight.

‘He’s probably…making…the sauce…right at this minute.’

Our eyes met. I don’t know which of us actually started laughing first, but ten seconds later we were hugging each other helplessly and getting scandalised looks from the other theatregoing punters.

‘It’s not really funny, you know,’ Perilla said at last, when she could breathe.

‘Uh-uh. Not in the slightest. We’ll be living on boiled cabbage for a month. Still, it’s done now.’

‘Let’s hope Phraates gives us a good dinner, then.’

We instructed the litter-slobs to carry the glad news to the Caelian and went back to where Phraates was waiting.

On the way to the Janiculan we postmortemed the Medea, or at least Phraates and Perilla did. Me, I looked out of the window and thought.

I was impressed with Phraates, seriously impressed: slice it how you will, in comparison with just having yourself made Great King of Parthia bringing Perilla all the way round from freezing-daggers-drawn to pink-eared-and-squeaking in thirty seconds flat takes some doing. Phraates had managed it without breaking sweat. It hadn’t been a spur-of-the moment thing, either: he’d obviously done his homework in advance, finding out the lady’s full name and family background and choosing just the right bait to hook her. Which was interesting. Me, I wouldn’t bet the guy hadn’t set the whole accidental meeting up from the start, including the business of the handy carriage; and that took careful planning. Geriatric, nothing: Phraates was a very smart cookie indeed. In which case -

‘Wouldn’t you agree, Corvinus?’

I turned round. ‘Hmm?’

Phraates smiled. ‘Forgive me. I’ve broken your train of thought. I was just saying to your wife that for me the intriguing thing about the Medea is how it manages to oppose so successfully two very different but equally cogent moral systems.’

‘Yeah? I thought it was just about a witch who murdered her own kids.’

‘Marcus!’ Perilla snapped.

Well, maybe it had sounded a bit crass at that, and we were his guests after all. He was only trying to bring me into the conversation. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know much about literature,’ I said. ‘And plays aren’t really my bag.’

‘Indeed?’ The old guy didn’t seem all that put out, or maybe it was just good manners. ‘A pity. I always think, myself, that the theatre can teach us a lot about life. Certainly as much as true history or philosophy. I’m quite a devotee myself.’

‘Never mind Marcus,’ Perilla said. ‘Do carry on, Prince.’ The lady sounded almost gooey. Jupiter! This was Perilla?

He turned back to her. ‘Well, if you’re sure. You see, where your sympathies lie in the Medea depends on your choice of standpoint.’

‘In what way?’

‘According to his own moral code, Jason is completely justified in what he does. On the other hand, Medea is also correct, morally, in condemning him because in terms of her code his marriage to Creon’s daughter is a total betrayal of herself.’ He was still smiling. ‘So which of them is right in the end?’

‘Surely they both are,’ Perilla said. ‘That’s the essence of the tragedy. But by murdering her own children Medea sets herself beyond the pale.’

‘To the Greek mind, yes. Although the Greeks themselves put a high value on avenging treachery. And to even the score the poet is careful to dignify Medea’s chain of reasoning. Myself, I feel that Euripides was trying very hard to send his audience home a little more open-minded than when they sat down.’

‘Oh, come on, pal!’ I said. ‘The bitch was a murderess!’

Phraates shook his head. ‘No, Corvinus. I’m sorry, you’ve misunderstood. I’m not justifying her actions totally, and I don’t believe that Euripides was, either. However, I do think that the play’s intention was to make us think…less in blacks and whites, as it were. Jason and Medea come from completely different backgrounds and, as I say, they follow different moral codes. The instinctive reaction is to favour Jason’s and regard Medea’s with horror. However — and this is the point — that does not make hers any less viable. Nor does it make her — judged by her own standards — a less moral being than Jason is.’ He shrugged. ‘Well. Perhaps we’re getting a little too serious here for a pre-dinner chat. That’s the Agrippan Bridge ahead. I’ll apologise in advance for the meal; I eat quite simply when I’m at home, and I’m afraid you’ll have to take pot-luck. It’ll be nothing like the banquet poor Zariadres put on for us a few days ago.’

I didn’t answer, just settled back against the cushions. I may not be a literary buff, but I’m not stupid, either. And I’d bet a barrel of oysters to a pickled walnut that whatever the devious, smart-as-paint old bugger had been talking about there it hadn’t been Euripides.

I don’t get over to the Janiculan a lot. Not many city guys do, for much the same reasons: barring the heavily-built-up tenement area in the bulge west of the Sublician where the city proper has spilled across the river, most of it’s either commercial ground heavy on warehousing and storage or — on the slopes of the hill itself — real upmarket residential; what the property marketeers call urban villas. Mega-rich country, in other words, although most of the money’s new: businessmen, entrepreneurs, grain- or oil-trade speculators, that sort of thing. The old families tend to stick with their ancestral mansions built in the days when the other side of the Tiber was nothing but fields and virgin woodland, along the Sacred Way or on the slopes of the Quirinal or the Viminal. Getting the Fabii or the Cornelii to pile their bits and pieces onto a mover’s cart and shift west of the river after three or four hundred years would take a major earthquake, at the least.

Even for the Janiculan, Phraates’s place was certainly something, taking up quite a slice of east-facing slope. Once through the gates the carriageway led up through parkland and stretches of formal garden that wouldn’t’ve disgraced Maecenas Gardens itself, and the villa, when we finally reached it, covered the best part of half an acre. Serious stuff. As the carriage came to a halt slaves rushed out with torches and a major-domo who could’ve done Creon in the play we’d just seen without changing costume opened the door and bowed.

‘Tell the chef we’ve two more for dinner, Hermogenes,’ Phraates said, getting down. ‘We’ll eat in the blue dining-room.’

‘Yes, lord,’ the major-domo murmured. I glanced at Perilla. Not a batted eyelid. Right; well: some people seemed to manage it okay. Me, if I told Bathyllus we had two surprise mouths for the nosebag I’d have a sniff and a kitchen rebellion on my hands.

Phraates dismissed the carriage and bodyguard — we’d been flanked from Marcellus Theatre by what seemed like half a cohort of mean-looking heavies armed with clubs; clearly the guy wasn’t taking any chances of a second attack — and led the way up the marble steps.

‘Come in, please,’ he said.

I’d been expecting something pretty upmarket, sure, but even so I was gobsmacked. For size the formal atrium would’ve done justice to a city-centre public hall, and the decor left most art galleries in the shade. To provide that amount of statues and wall paintings must’ve taken an army of artists. Not second-raters working from catalogues and skimping on materials, either.

‘We’ll go somewhere more amenable, I think.’ Phraates had taken off his embroidered mantle and handed it to a bowing slave in exchange for a silk dressing-gown. The major-domo was waiting respectfully. ‘The east sitting-room, Hermogenes. See that the wine is taken there, will you? And some fruit juice for the lady Rufia Perilla. That suit you, my dear?’

Perilla dimpled and blushed. Sickening. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘Yes. Certainly.’

‘This way, then.’ We carried on through the atrium towards the panelled doors at the far end. ‘The wine will be Greek, Corvinus. I hope you don’t mind.’

‘No. Not at all.’

‘I prefer Greek wine to Italian myself, although I’d value your opinion. This one’s a rather nice Samian I laid down about forty years back, and it’s at its best. I don’t drink much these days, but I do find a cup or two of it is very pleasant before dinner. If you’d rather have a Caecuban or something similar then please do say. Hermogenes would be delighted to look out a decent jar for you.’

‘Right. Right.’

The major-domo moved ahead of us and opened the doors, then stepped back and bowed again. Beyond was another pillared hall in flecked-pink marble, with a fountain spilling water into a broad pool at its centre. Phraates led the way down a cedar-panelled corridor and opened another door.

‘Here we are,’ he said. ‘Make yourselves at home. If you’ll excuse me for a moment I’ll just go and get the manuscript I promised. Then, Corvinus, perhaps we can have our little chat.’

He left.

The room was a lot smaller and a lot less formal than the atrium, but the decor was just as pricey. The three couches were antiques, wood inlaid with ivory and upholstered in red satin with a matching table, and although there weren’t any statues or wall paintings the walls, like those of the corridor, were panelled in fine-grained wood. The floor was covered with carpets, in the Parthian style. I noticed there was another door, presumably leading to a side room.

‘Nice,’ I said.

Perilla settled herself on one of the couches. ‘I like him,’ she said. ‘Phraates, I mean.

‘Yeah, lady. I noticed. I think the word is “dripping”.’

‘Stop it, dear. You know what I mean. He’s not at all what I expected.’

I lay down on one of the other couches. ‘Well, he’s lived in Rome all his life. That makes him a Roman, practically.’

She frowned. ‘No, I don’t think it does,’ she said slowly. ‘Or not quite. He’s not Roman. Something somewhere in the middle of Roman, Greek and Parthian, perhaps.’ She paused. ‘He isn’t married, is he?’

‘Uh-uh.’ I stretched out. ‘As far as I know, he has a long-term live-in Greek mistress. And a son, of course. Damon.’ I’d been wondering about the dining arrangements. The mistress, sure, I doubted if she’d be joining us — social niceties aside, the Greeks are like the Parthians: barring the ordinary domestic side of things men and women tend to lead their own lives, and the villa would have separate women’s quarters — but Damon was another matter. After my talk with Nicanor I’d’ve liked the chance to see Damon at first hand.

‘That’s curious, isn’t it?’

‘What’s curious?’

‘Damon’s not a Parthian name. It’s Greek.’

‘He’s illegitimate. And his mother’s Greek.’

‘Yes, I know. But Phraates recognises him, or I assume that he does. I’d’ve expected him to have a Parthian name, myself.’

‘I don’t know how these things work. Maybe — ’

The door opened and a slave came in with the wine tray, cups and two jugs. He set it on the table, poured a cup and handed it to me, then did the same with Perilla’s fruit juice.

‘Thanks, pal,’ I said. The slave bowed — still without a word — and left. I sipped…

Forget Euripides; this was real Greek poetry.

‘How’s the fruit juice?’ I said.

‘It’s apple, and chilled. Absolutely delicious.’

There was a plate of dried fruit and nuts beside the jug. I was helping myself when Phraates came back in.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘They’ve brought the wine.’ He poured himself a cup. ‘What do you think, Corvinus?’

‘Best Samian I’ve ever tasted.’ It was, too, by a mile. I’m not generally taken with Greek wines — they tend to be on the heavy, sweet side — but this one was superb.

‘I’m glad. I thought it was rather nice.’ Phraates was holding a book-roll canister. ‘Here we are, Rufia Perilla. My part of the bargain.’ I swear he winked at me as he handed it over. Like I say, Phraates was a seriously smart cookie. The lady took it like it was spun glass. ‘We’ll go into the adjoining room so we don’t disturb you.’