Trade Secrets

ONE

Fascinating things, babies. So long as you keep a respectful distance, that is, because the little buggers can be really devious. Witness the existence of projectile vomiting.

Which was currently relevant: as of the evening before, we’d got Marilla and her doctor husband, Clarus, over on a visit from Castrimoenium, plus of course the grand-sprog, young Marcus Cornelius, born at the start of the Winter Festival so now pushing five months old, as promising a little bruiser as ever dirtied a nappy and presently ensconced on the atrium couch opposite snoring his socks off against his grandmother’s shoulder.

‘You want to hold him for a while, Marcus?’ Perilla said. ‘I have to go upstairs to change. They’ll be here in an hour.’

True; it was the lady’s monthly poetry-klatsch morning, when her literary pals met to juggle their anapaests, and this time she was hosting. Not exactly my scene. By the time the cultured hordes rolled up for their cakes and honeyed wine I’d be long gone.

‘No, I think I’ll pass,’ I said. ‘I’ll leave it to the experts.’

‘Oh, come on, dear! He’s perfectly harmless! And I’m no more an expert with babies than you are.’

True again; it’d become obvious pretty early on that Perilla couldn’t have kids herself, and we’d adopted Marilla in her early teens when her bastard of a real father took his well-earned final nose-dive down the blunt end of the Capitol. Even so …

‘No, I’m OK,’ I said.

‘Coward.’ Perilla stood up carefully, prised young Marcus loose, and handed him to Marilla on the other couch. ‘You really should take your grandfathering duties more seriously.’

‘Yeah, well, I’ll wait until things reach the conversation stage.’

Clarus, on the couch next to Marilla, grinned. ‘Corvinus, he won’t even be able to put two words together for another two years at least,’ he said. ‘And handling an actual conversation will take just a little longer.’

‘Really?’

‘Trust me.’

Jupiter! It was a different world, this!

‘So what are your plans for today, dear?’ Perilla said to Marilla. ‘You’re very welcome to join us if you like. Albia Tertia’s giving a short talk on the funerary epigrams in Cephalas’s Anthology with her own translations, which should be quite fun. Tertia’s always good value.’

I glanced at Clarus and caught the wince and slight look of desperation. Right; not a literary man, by any means, Cornelius Clarus, unless you could call medical treatises literature. Particularly the ones featuring illustrations of dissected body parts. Marilla wasn’t exactly a fan, either, to put it mildly. I could’ve told Perilla she was on a hiding to nothing for a start, but she was probably only being polite.

‘No,’ Marilla said carefully. ‘No, we thought we might do a few touristy things while we’re here. Clarus has been to Rome before, of course, lots of times, but we’ve never really got round to it. I thought today we’d take a boat trip from the Sublician Bridge upriver to Augustus’s Mausoleum. And Clarus wants to go to the Pollio Library. They’ve got a rare manuscript of Erasistratus he’d like to take a look at. But that can wait for another day.’

‘On the sensory and motor nerve systems,’ Clarus elaborated.

‘Is that so, now?’ I said.

‘It’s fascinating stuff. He also has a lot to say about bodily degeneration due to sudden or chronic diseases.’

‘Really.’ Gods! Some people had a weird definition of ‘touristy’, let alone what constituted good reading material. Still, everyone to their own bag. Me, I’d be spending the time more constructively with a leisurely shave in my usual booth off Market Square, followed by a few hours propping up the bar at Renatius’s with the other punters, soaking up the booze and generally putting the world to rights.

‘Are you taking young Marcus?’ Perilla asked. ‘On the boat trip, I mean.’

‘No, we’ll leave him behind with Mysta,’ Marilla said; Mysta was the nurse. ‘It’ll make a change, getting away on our own for a while, particularly since Clarus is busy most of the time. Besides, he’s had a bit of diarrhoea these last few days, so it might not be a good idea.’

It was my turn to wince: ah, the joys of parenthood. Still, she’d brought the glad news out deadpan, so I assumed she was pretty much hardened to small unpleasantries like that by now.

‘Very well, dear,’ Perilla said. ‘I’ll see you later. Have a nice time.’ She turned to go. ‘Oh, and you too, Marcus, if you really do insist on going out.’ The barest sniff as she made for the stairs; Perilla doesn’t altogether approve of me passing up an opportunity to broaden my cultural horizons, particularly when the alternative choice of venue is Renatius’s wineshop on Iugarius where most of the punters are plain mantles at best, with a fair sprinkling of freedmen. Me, I’ve always thought that was a definite plus: reasonably close to the centre as Renatius’s is, the purple-striper brigade wouldn’t be seen dead doing their drinking and social networking there. The wine was good, too, which set the cap on it.

Marilla stood up, still holding the sleeping Sprog.

‘I’ll get changed as well,’ she said to Clarus. ‘Marcus seems to be flat out, so I’ll put him in his cot and tell Mysta what’s happening. Give me ten minutes?’

‘Sure.’

She left. Clarus was grinning.

‘What’s so funny?’ I said.

‘Oh, nothing.’

Uh-huh. Me, I can tell how many beans make five, and I’d seen the look of panic on his face when Perilla handed out her invitation change to one of relief.

‘You hadn’t any plans for the morning at all, had you?’ I said.

He shook his head. ‘No. Or nothing definite, anyway. It’s only our first day, after all. That was pretty fast thinking on Marilla’s part.’

‘You’re learning, pal. Both of you. Although Marilla’s had a lot more practice.’

The grin widened. ‘Simple self-preservation,’ he said. ‘And man’s a learning animal. Mind you, the tourist thing’s true enough, in general terms. The visit to the Pollio, too, but like Marilla said that can wait.’ He settled back on the couch. ‘So. How are things in Rome under the new regime?’

‘Pretty quiet, all things considered. Certainly no ructions. It’s early days yet, sure, but Perilla thinks Claudius will make a good emperor, and from what I’ve seen I’d tend to agree. Particularly after Gaius.’

‘You’ve met him? His wife’s a cousin of yours, isn’t she?’

I kept my face straight. ‘Messalina. Yeah. We haven’t had much to do with each other in the past, mind.’ And we’d have a hell of a lot less, in future, if I had anything to do with it; that lady I wouldn’t touch with gloves and a ten-foot pole. ‘He’s a nice enough guy in himself, Tiberius Claudius, if you make allowances. There again, me, I’d settle for sanity.’

Too right I would: Gaius’s last six months had been hairy, for all concerned, me included. Perilla had made the right decision after all: Rome and the empire were better without him.

‘How’s the sleuthing going? You never did tell us how that Surdinus business you were working on before the Festival turned out in the end.’

I shrugged. ‘It went OK.’ I wasn’t going to elaborate: Clarus was close-mouthed as they come, but there were some things it was better – and safer – for him not to know. Him or anyone else, for that matter. ‘More or less. Not one of my best.’

‘You get whoever did it?’

‘Yes. In a way.’

He grunted; a very intelligent guy, Clarus, and he knew obfuscation when he saw it. Well enough to drop the subject, certainly.

‘Anything on at the moment?’

‘Uh-uh,’ I said. ‘Not that I’m complaining. Having a bit of quality time to myself will make a pleasant change.’

Which, in retrospect, was a pretty silly thing to say. Considering the number of evil-minded gods hovering around with their ears pricked, it was just plain asking for trouble. But then I always did have a big mouth.

It was well into the afternoon when I rolled back in, by which time the poetry gang had usually dispersed to their respective homes, leaving the Corvinus household a blessedly poetry-free zone.

Only this time, as it transpired when I came into the atrium holding my customary welcome-home wine-cup, they hadn’t. There was one of them left.

Bugger.

‘You know Tullia Gemella, Marcus?’ Perilla said. She was looking a bit chewed.

‘Ah … yeah.’ I gave the lady sitting across from her a nod. An overstatement there: I knew the name, sure – one of the recent and extremely keen recruits, with a thing, according to Perilla, for lyric pieces involving shepherdesses, rustic swains, and a general atmosphere of bosk – but I’d never actually seen her in person. The adjectives ‘large’ and ‘imposing’ sprang to mind. Also the phrase ‘a strong personality’: even although the lady hadn’t opened her mouth yet, she just radiated self-possession, confidence, and a knowledge of her own considerable worth. So must Hannibal have looked when he was faced with the Alps and muttered: ‘I’ll bloody have you lot for a start!’

Well, it explained Perilla’s chewed look, anyway; in the time between the end of the poetry-klatsch meeting and my arrival, Things must’ve been Fraught.

‘Pleased to meet you, Tullia Gemella,’ I said. ‘I’ll just-’ I turned to go.

‘No, don’t leave, dear,’ Perilla said quickly. ‘We’ve been waiting for you to get back. Gemella wanted a word.’

‘Yeah? What about?’

‘Her brother’s been murdered.’

I’d been taking a sip of the wine, and I almost swallowed the cup.

‘What?’

‘Two days ago.’ Add an unlikely ‘prim’ to the list: Gemella’s tone and manner suggested that the guy had committed some sort of social faux pas. ‘At least, that’s when his body was found.’

I went over to my usual couch and lay down. Hell. Hell and damnation. So much for the quality time idea.

‘Gemella happened to mention it at the meeting,’ Perilla said brightly.

‘The silly fool got himself stabbed,’ the lady said. ‘In Trigemina Gate Street, of all places.’

The knee-jerk response was, Oh, dear! I’m sorry to hear that, but I stopped myself just in time from making it.

‘You like to elaborate, maybe?’ I said.

That got me a frown that suggested I’d just committed a social faux pas myself, but that she was prepared under the circumstances to overlook it. ‘Certainly,’ she said. ‘Shortly after sunset, two days ago, my brother Gaius Tullius was found stabbed to death at the Shrine of Melobosis in Trigemina Gate Street. Or rather, just off the street in question, because the shrine is a little way down an alley to one side. The body was discovered by a courting couple.’ She coughed. ‘Or so the local Watch told us. Seemingly the shrine is quite a popular venue with people of that sort.’

‘“Us”?’

‘Actually, his wife, to be precise. And she told me, the poor girl. Now I should say at the start, Valerius Corvinus, that I’d very little time for Gaius myself, brother or not, but he was family, and I understand from Rufia Perilla here that murder is quite a hobby of yours.’

The faintest of disapproving sniffs that suggested she put that on a par with screwing goats, but I let it pass; I’d be taking it up with the loose-mouthed lady later.

‘His wife being?’ I said.

‘Her name’s Annia. You’ll want to talk to her, no doubt. She and Gaius have a little pied-a-terre in Ardeatina Road, just past the Capenan Gate and overlooking Asinianus Gardens.’ Another sniff. ‘Not the best address, I know, and a long way from the centre, practically out of town altogether, but she seems to like it, which is the main thing.’

‘So what was your brother doing in Trigemina Gate Street? That’s the other side of the city.’

‘Ah,’ she said carefully. ‘I’m afraid in that regard I have no information to give you. He had his reasons, I’m sure, which may or may not, unfortunately, have been legitimate, Gaius being Gaius. Certainly he’d have business contacts near the river. Who and where precisely they might be I have no idea, but of course his partner would be able to tell you that.’

‘His partner?’

‘Gaius was a businessman, a merchant, rather, part-owner of an import-export business dealing mostly in glass and pottery. His partner’s name is Publius Poetelius. They have a small office on the Sacred Way near its Market Square end. Again I can’t give you precise details, but I’m sure anyone will be able to point you in the right direction if you ask.’

‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘OK, lady. Now tell me what you’re not saying.’

That got me the frown again, in spades.

‘I beg your pardon?’ she snapped.

‘You say you didn’t like the guy, and that his reasons for being in Trigemina Gate Street might or might not have been legit, “Gaius being Gaius”. To me, that’s pretty conclusive. Your brother was some sort of crook, right?’

She bridled. ‘Certainly not! Or at least not as far as I’m aware.’

‘So what, then?’

Spots of colour appeared in her ample cheeks, fighting their way through the rouge.

‘Nothing of great import, at least in a criminal sense,’ she said at last. ‘He … spread his favours. Where women were concerned, I mean.’

I had to stop myself from laughing. Gods! So might a particularly prim Chief Vestal look and sound when asked in court to provide a detailed eyewitness description of a flasher.

‘You’re saying he had a mistress?’ I said.

The spots of colour deepened. ‘My brother was not one to do things by halves, Valerius Corvinus. Let alone quarters or eighths. I’m sure you understand me, but if you don’t then again I suggest you consult his partner on the matter. I expect Poetelius can tell you far more about that aspect of Gaius’s character than I can.’

‘Did his wife know?’

‘I’d be very surprised if she didn’t, poor woman, but I wouldn’t care to comment further on the subject.’ She stood up. ‘Now I really have taken up enough of your time. The rest is up to you. Perilla, my dear, thank you so much for a most enjoyable meeting. A pleasure, as always.’

And she was gone. Perilla and I were left looking at each other. The lady was having the decency to look sheepish, as well she might under the circumstances.

‘Who the hell’s Melobosis?’ I said.

‘One of the Oceanides. Not a particularly prominent nymph. I didn’t know she even had a shrine in Rome.’ Perilla cleared her throat. ‘Look, I’m sorry for landing you with this, Marcus, particularly when we’ve got Clarus and Marilla staying, but Gemella was quite … pressing.’ Yeah, that I’d believe. Like half a ton of marble. ‘And she really is genuinely upset, far more than she seemed. Of course, if you’d rather, I can tell her you can’t help.’ She paused, frowning. ‘Or perhaps sending her a note to that effect would be better.’

I grinned; it wasn’t often the lady chickened out of a head-to-head: strong personality was right. And despite what I’d said to Clarus, it’d be nice to be looking into a clean, straightforward murder again; it might get the nasty taste of the Surdinus affair out of my mouth, for a start. ‘No, that’s OK,’ I said. ‘I can have a word with the wife, at least. See what she says. It’s really her business, after all, because Gemella’s only the guy’s sister. I’ll do that tomorrow.’

Which is what I did.