Parthian Shot

16

Cattlemarket Square was heaving, too: everywhere was, this second day of the festival. Still, it was a more cheerful kind of bustle. The hucksters were out with their trays, and the whole place smelled of grilling meat, hot poppy-seed bread rings and roasted nuts. At the vegetable market side of the square a troupe of actors had set up a makeshift stage and were putting on one of the old Atellan farces. I hung around watching for ten minutes or so — long enough for the guy with the bag to get a handful of coppers out of me — but I’ve never found Atellan humour particularly funny. Unlike, strangely enough, Perilla: culture-vulture the lady may be, but I’ve seen her double up at jokes that had beards when Romulus had his first shave.

I finally managed to push my way through the mob and into the comparative quiet of the alleyway that led past the side of Hercules’s temple and down to the river. Okay; so where was this Mano’s, then?

If it hadn’t been for my friendly Syrian barber I’d’ve missed it altogether. ‘Alley’ was pushing things: all there was to see was a gap barely more than a body’s-width between two huge warehouses. I made my way down it.

The gap only went in for a few yards before it ended up in a wooden staircase so steep it was practically a ladder. Yeah, right, that explained things: the place must be part of one of the warehouses, probably a floored-off section up among the roof-beams. Interesting. And not your typical wineshop, by any means.

I climbed to the top of the stair. Sure enough, there was a door leading into the right-hand warehouse just below the tiled roof, and I could hear a murmur of voices.

I pushed the door open. The first thing I noticed was the smell that wafted out, a sort of sweet, herby smell like someone was burning leaves from an aromatic plant. I half-expected to be stopped, but I wasn’t. In fact, most of the punters paid me no attention.

I’d been right about the setup. Whether or not it accounted for the whole top of the warehouse, the room was pretty big, with a ceiling so low I had to duck under some of the beams. It was packed, too, even at this time of the day; not that that would’ve mattered, because although there were shuttered windows opening out on the city side half of them were closed and the darker areas were lit with tapers. They weren’t what was causing the smell, though: I noticed that although there were jugs and winecups on some tables most of the punters had tiny metal dishes in front of them hardly bigger than walnut-shell halves, that were smoking gently. Every so often a guy would pick up his dish, hold it to his nose and inhale.

Uh-huh. I knew where I was now, although I’d never been in one of these places before; not that there could be many around, in Rome at least. Try not to breathe too much, Aegle had said. Oh, ha ha. I wasn’t surprised that my Syrian barber had said I wouldn’t find any Romans here, either. We’ve got a lot of vices, sure, but qef isn’t one of them. We leave it to the degenerate easterners, along with depilatories and male cosmetics.

A man was coming towards me carrying a tray of the little bowls and a censer of glowing charcoal.

‘Excuse me, pal,’ I said.

He stopped. ‘Yeah?’

‘You wouldn’t happen to know if there’s anyone here by the name of Jarhades, would you?’

‘The juggler?’ He nodded with his chin towards one of the tables at the back. ‘That’s him over there, the man in the dark green tunic.’ Hey! Right! ‘What can I get you, sir?’

‘You have any wine?’

His mouth split in a gap-toothed grin. ‘Sure. I wouldn’t recommend it myself, mind.’

It’s always good to find someone who’s honest about his wine, especially when it’s rotgut. ‘It’ll do,’ I said. ‘Oh, and if I’m going to barge in on the guy you’d better bring another of what he’s having as well.’

‘Qef. You’ve got it.’

I paid upfront — the qef was a lot cheaper than the wine, although that wasn’t much — and made my way over.

‘Excuse me, friend,’ I said. ‘You’re Jarhades?’

At least I’d got the right guy, because he was definitely the juggler from the dinner party. He’d seen me coming, too, and his eyes were on the purple stripe on my tunic that showed under the cloak.

‘That’s me,’ he said cautiously.

‘You mind if I sit here?’

‘Suit yourself.’

I pulled up a stool. ‘The name’s Corvinus. Marcus Corvinus. And we’ve met before, in a way.’

‘Yeah? And when’d that be, now?’

‘Four days ago. I saw your act at a dinner party on the Palatine.’

He was scowling. ‘Those fucking Parthians?’

‘Yeah. Those, uh…them. I was really impressed.’

He’d been studying my face. Suddenly his expression cleared and he beamed. ‘You’re the purple-striper who shoved his oar in over Calliste, right?’

‘Ah…right.’

‘That’s different.’ He turned round and yelled: ‘Mano!’

My waiter — he must be the actual proprietor — was already on his way with the order.

‘Yeah?’ he said.

‘Bring my friend here some proper wine. Not that piss, the Syrian stuff you keep below the counter. Put it on my bill.’ He turned back to me. ‘Unless you’d like some qef.’

‘Uh-uh,’ I said. ‘Wine’d be great.’ I was trying to follow Aegle’s advice, impossible though it was. Just breathing normally was beginning to make me slightly dizzy. Jarhades seemed fine, but I supposed you got used to it.

‘So…what did you say your name was?’

‘Corvinus. Marcus Corvinus.’

‘Well, Marcus Corvinus, you put it there.’ He held out a hand, and we shook. ‘I owe you one. You want a free show, you’ve got it, any time, any place, even if I have to make a cancellation to fit you in. Erato’ll say the same.’ He chuckled. ‘Sweet holy Baal! I never thought I’d see that bastard’s nose rubbed in the dirt, but you did it proper!’

‘You know him? I mean…’

‘Mithradates? Sure, we’ve played for him and his pals a few times. The last time, though, I swore never again. Erato too. Calliste’s virgin, and she’s only thirteen. Batis held him back while we ran for it. We never saw his money, but the hell with that; we do all right without.’

‘Batis is the big young guy?’

‘That’s him. My son. Adopted son, rather. He’s Erato’s, by her old master.’ His voice was matter-of-fact. Yeah, well; it wasn’t an unusual scenario.

‘She’s a freedwoman?’

‘In a way. Her mistress wanted to sell her. She did a runner and we met in Antioch. You know Antioch?’

I tried to keep my expression neutral: admitting that your wife’s a runaway slave, especially to a stranger, isn’t too hot an idea. The authorities get very intense over runaway slaves, and there ain’t no moratorium, either. ‘I’ve been there,’ I said. ‘Nice place.’

‘Best city in the world. We’d still be there, but Erato wanted to come to Rome. Calliste was born here.’ Mano came back with the wine and the qef bowl. He set the coins I’d given him down on the table. Jarhades gestured to them. ‘Put these back in your pouch, Corvinus, and try the wine.’

I sipped. Good, sure, far above bulk-produced Campanian and Gallic, but not up to top Latian standard. Still, I appreciated the guy’s patriotism. ‘So. Tell me more about Mithradates.’

Jarhades picked up his qef bowl and inhaled deeply before setting it down. ‘That’s why you’re here? To ask me about Mithradates?’

‘Yeah.’ I waited for the next, logical question, but it didn’t come. ‘You mind?’

‘No. You’ll have your reasons, no doubt, but the hell with that. You’re no friend of his, and nor am I. I said: he’s a bastard. If I’d known he was the one who’d hired us for the evening I’d’ve spat in the agent’s face.’

I put down my winecup. ‘Mithradates hired you?’

‘Sure. For double the fee, paid upfront. Plus some more, probably, that our slimy bugger of an agent didn’t mention. Not that we knew at the time. All we knew about was the venue. When Erato saw him sitting there she nearly blew the act.’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Yeah, I noticed that.’

‘I don’t blame her. She hates Mithradates like poison. Still, we had to carry on whether he was there or not. You have to, don’t you?’ He pushed over the qef bowl. ‘You want to try this, by the way?’

‘No. No, I’ll pass,’ I said. I took a swallow of the wine. ‘You ever been to Parthia?’

‘Certainly. Been all over, when I was on my own. Not after Erato, though: her being a runaway slave Parthia was too dangerous for us.’ Things clicked. So she’d been a Parthian slave! That explained why Jarhades had been so upfront about her. If she’d run from a master on the other side of the Roman border it would’ve made a difference, but escaped Parthian slaves are no concern of Rome’s. ‘Like I say, when we teamed up we came straight here. She was fourteen at the time, just past Calliste’s age.’

I took a swallow of wine. ‘So where’s she from?’

‘Hecatompylus. That’s a Greek town just south of the Caspian. Her family sold her when she was two.’ Yeah; that wasn’t unusual, even in the empire, especially with girls. When food runs short in the poorest families selling off the youngest mouth makes sense. It’s not always a bad thing for the kid, either: leave her where she is and she’d probably starve to death anyway, and at least a slave, being property, is well cared for. ‘The guy who bought her was a merchant based in Ecbatana. Then like I say when she was thirteen her master got her pregnant and his wife didn’t want her in the house. She didn’t wait to be sold. She ran instead. The gods know how she got across the border and all the way to Antioch with the kid, but she managed it. I found her on the dockside trying to get a passage to Rome. That was twenty-odd years back. We’ve been together ever since.’

‘Where did she learn juggling?’

‘I taught her. But she was a natural, all the same, much better than me almost from the start. And Calliste’s better than both of us.’

‘How about…what did you say your son was called?’

‘Batis. No, Batis is too slow and heavy for a juggler or a tumbler. He makes a good anchor-man, though, he’s got a great sense of timing and he works well with Calliste. She trusts him, and that’s important in our business.’ He indicated my winecup. ‘You want another?’

‘Yeah, sure.’ I turned to catch Mano’s eye. ‘Let me get this one.’

‘No. I was going to say, if you’re finished I’m sure Erato’d like to thank you as well. We’re just round the corner. Unless you’re busy, of course.’

You’ve had it yourself, no doubt. I didn’t particularly want to be cast as the wineshop crony the man of the house had brought back with him, and this particular loose end looked like being played out. On the other hand, to refuse — or to lie — wouldn’t be polite, especially since the guy seemed so keen for me to come, and he obviously liked to talk.

Besides, the atmosphere in the place was seriously beginning to get to me.

‘No,’ I said. ‘No, I’m not busy. That’d be great.’

‘Fine.’ He stood up.

‘Just round the corner’ was pushing things, but it wasn’t all that far, one of the tenement blocks in the Velabrum, more upmarket than Aegle’s but still a long way from the top bracket. We climbed the stair to the second floor and Jarhades pushed the door open.

‘Hey, Erato!’ he called. Inside, I could hear the murmur of voices. Jarhades frowned; evidently this didn’t happen very often. ‘She’s got company.’

‘Maybe another day, then.’

‘No. She’d be sorry to miss you.’ He hung his cloak on one of the pegs in the small entrance hall. ‘Come on through.’

There were four people in the room, sitting around a central table. Three of them I’d been expecting: the woman, her daughter and the big guy I now knew was Batis…

The fourth I hadn’t expected at all. The fourth was Peucestas.