Ovid

3

Later that afternoon, I was having a pre-going-out-to-dinner nap in my study when Bathyllus put his head round the door. If ever human face showed terror, Bathyllus's did.

'I'm sorry to disturb you, sir,' he said, 'but the Lady Rufia Perilla is here.'

The effect that woman had on him was frightening. I reckoned if we could bottle it and feed it to the troops we could add Britain to the empire inside a month. Maybe Parthia as well.

'Shit!' I rolled off the couch, knocking over the statuette of Venus Braiding her Hair which stood on the side table. Bathyllus, tactful as ever, said nothing as he tidied up my rumpled tunic while I stood and scowled. Sure, if I'd been given official permission for the ashes to be returned I'd've been delighted to see the lady back so soon. As it was she was as welcome as a dose of fleas, and I didn't fancy having to explain what'd happened under the scalpel-like gaze of those beautiful golden eyes of hers. Not that I'd failed permanently, of course not. Perish the thought. The Valerii Messallae don't give in that easy. However, I wasn't looking forward to the next step, which was pulling a few strings in the Old Boy network. That meant trading favour for favour, naturally, and some of the things you get asked to do would turn your hair grey.

At least this time I was meeting her sober. Or fairly sober. Well, not exactly drunk. Well,…

I stepped into the atrium like it was the arena and I was top of the menu. Rufia Perilla was standing in the open sitting-area admiring the fresco I'd had done recently of Orpheus and the Maenads, and the early evening sun glinting through the portico from the garden beyond kissed her hair with red gold. She must've heard me coming because she turned round and — unbelievably — smiled. My heart gave a lurch. Or maybe it was indigestion.

'You've been to the palace,' she said.

'Yeah.' I lay down on the master couch. Bathyllus was already bringing a chair, and Perilla actually smiled at him as he set it down. He looked lost for an instant. Then he beamed. I could almost see the little bastard's hair curl.

Bathyllus is bald.

'Some wine, sir?' he murmured. Shit. The perfect butler. You could've scooped the smarm off him with a spoon.

'Yeah. Honey-wine for the lady, Bathyllus. Setinian for me. The special.' It was the strongest we had, and I was going to need something pretty strong if I wanted to live through the next half hour with my balls still attached. 'And go easy with the water, okay?'

'So we can arrange for my stepfather's remains to be brought back,' Perilla said when he had gone. 'Corvinus, that's wonderful!'

Normally her use of my last name without the addition of the more formal family one would've set me quivering. Not to mention the smile that went with it. As it was I felt sick as a dog.

'Actually, Lady Rufia…' When you're at a disadvantage, crawl.

'Oh, call me Perilla, please. Mother will be delighted. As to the funeral arrangements, we still keep up the old villa on the hillside above the Claudian-Flaminian junction. We'll bury my stepfather there, in the orchard. He'd've liked that.'

‘Perilla…' Jupiter! It was like trying to dam a river with your bare hands.

'You're invited to the ceremony, of course.'

'Perilla, listen to me. I'm sorry, but — '

She waved me down. 'How long do you think it would take for a ship to go to the Black Sea and back? There must be something from Corinth, surely. Ten days? A month? We'd best say two to be on the safe side. Which means we can arrange the funeral for-'

'Wine, madam?' Bathyllus, reappearing with his tray of winecups, succeeded in doing what I'd been trying to do, and interrupted her.

Perilla frowned. 'I don't, normally. But perhaps just a little of the Setinian. To celebrate.'

It was now or never. I jumped in with both feet. 'Perilla, listen to me. The funeral's off. No ashes. You understand?' Her mouth opened, but I pressed on. 'They turned us down.'

There was a terrible silence, like just before a volcano erupts and even the birds stop singing. For one crazy moment I considered sending Bathyllus to check that my will was safe in the desk.

'I beg your pardon?'

'You can't bring your stepfather back from Tomi after all. At least, not yet. Permission's been refused.'

She was staring at me as if I'd suddenly grown two heads. 'What do you mean, permission's been refused?'

I took the flagon from Bathyllus's tray, poured myself a whopper, and drank it down. Maybe it'd be better if I tried this drunk after all. 'I saw one of the imperial secretaries. He was very apologetic, but there was nothing he could do.'

Perilla drew herself up to her full seated height. I could almost hear the ice crackling.

'Do you mean to tell me, Valerius Corvinus,' she said, and her voice was straight off a glacier, 'that you allowed a civil servant to dictate to you, a patrician from one of the oldest families in Rome?'

I temporised. 'Yeah, well, not really. He was only passing on the decision, so you-'

'And who made the decision? The emperor himself?'

'The guy didn't actually say so, not as such, not in as many words, but that was the implication, yeah.' I was beginning to sweat.

'Valerius Corvinus.' Perilla's voice was terrible. 'Did Tiberius himself refuse to grant the request or did he not?'

I poured another cup of wine and drank it off. The stuff was beginning to work. Maybe another one would do it.

'How the hell should I know?' I said.

That was a mistake. Perilla shot to her feet like a rocketing pheasant. She was stiff with anger.

'You,' she said, 'are a disgrace to your name and the memory of your grandfather. He'd never have given up like that. Not to mention the first member of your family.'

I poured again. 'That bastard only had a Gallic champion to fight,' I muttered. 'Not a bloody harpy.'

'I beg your pardon?'

'Nothing.' Shit. I took a large swallow. 'Anyway, who says I've uppen gived?' I noticed that Bathyllus hadn't moved. He stood there with the wine things, stiff as a novelty standing-waiter bronze. 'Given up. 'Course I haven't. We'll just have to try another approach, is all.'

'Corvinus,' she said coldly, 'I think I'll go now, if you don't mind. Before you get even more beastly drunk than you are at present.'

It's good stuff, the special. I actually had the nerve to raise my winecup to her. She glared at me and turned to leave. As she stormed out the sunshine caught her hair again in a net of molten gold. Ah, well. You win some, you lose some.

I was just congratulating myself on getting rid of Perilla when Bathyllus told me I had another visitor. One even less welcome.

My father.

Like I said, we didn't get on and I hadn't seen him for months, barring the occasional brush in the streets when we exchanged dignified and meaningless salutes. Not, in fact, since the divorce. I was upstairs when Bathyllus announced him, getting ready for that evening's party. I changed back into my lounging tunic and went downstairs, the bile sharp in my throat. Bathyllus had left the study door open and I could see Dad's tall thin figure inside. He was standing by my desk examining the title label of a Greek novel I'd been skimming through, his lantern jaw clenched in disapproval.

'Hi, Dad. How's it going?' I said. He turned, as angry as I'd hoped he would be. My father is so uptight about the social niceties that when they burn him they'll find a poker up his rectum inscribed "Property of the Senate and People of Rome". 'Interested in my dirty book collection?'

He put the novel down slowly. Actually, it was pretty well written, and not dirty at all, but I wasn't going to tell him that. It would've spoiled the bastard's evening.

'How are you, Marcus?'

'Okay.' I motioned him to the study's only couch and sat myself in the desk chair. Bathyllus put his nose round the door and I sent him for the wine.

We stared at each other in silence.

'I saw your mother today,' he said finally.

'Nice of you.'

He held up a placating hand. 'She's happy enough.'

'Oh, whoopee.'

My father's mouth turned down. 'The marriage wasn't working, son. Ending it was good for both of us. You know that.'

'For you, maybe,' I said. 'Not for me. And Mother tried her best. She'd never have divorced you. If she had done it'd've been for a reason, not just because it suited her at the time. Not because a new wife would be politically convenient.'

His sallow face flushed with anger. 'It wasn't like that at all! And I won't have you judging me!'

'Thank the gods you don't!' I shot back. He turned away.

There was a polite cough outside the door and Bathyllus reappeared. We sat in stony silence, glaring at each other while Bathyllus poured. When he'd gone, I handed my father a winecup.

'So what do you want?' I said. 'To what do I owe the inestimable pleasure of your fucking presence, Dad? Tell me and then get out.'

He set the cup down untasted. His hands were shaking; but then mine were, too.

'I'm here on official business, Marcus. You caused a bit of trouble at the palace yesterday.'

I took a long swallow. 'You've been misinformed. I didn't cause any trouble. I made a perfectly reasonable request and when it was turned down in what I considered to be an unsatisfactory way I asked for an interview with the emperor.'

'That wasn't what I heard. I was told you got quite abusive.'

'No more abusive than the situation merited.'

'And that you assaulted an imperial secretary.'

'Come off it, Dad!' I set the winecup down hard on the desk, and the wine leapt up over the rim. 'What do you expect? The bastard told me he wouldn't let me see Tiberius. He wouldn't let me! Who the hell is a government clerk to tell a patrician noble that he can't see the emperor?'

'What he told you, and quite correctly, was that your request had already been turned down at the highest level.'

'Meaning by the emperor himself.'

'Meaning presumably just that.'

'Without doing me the courtesy of talking to me first? Without the grace at least to explain his reasons?'

'The emperor doesn't have to give a reason, Marcus. If he says a request is refused, then it's refused, and there's an end of it.'

'Oh, yeah! Sure!' I stood up and turned my back on my father. If I hadn't I think I would've hit him. 'That's your credo, isn't it? The emperor's always right, long live the emperor. If Tiberius passed a decree praising dog turds you'd have half a dozen of them in aspic on your dinner table the next day.'

'That's not fair, son.' My father's voice was calm. 'Tiberius is the First Citizen, the head of state. When he makes an executive decision…'

I turned round. 'Look, let's get this clear, right? I'm not complaining about the decision. I'm not a child. I can take no for an answer. What sticks in my throat is how the Wart's judgement — if it was his judgement — was delivered, and that I was barred from exercising my right…' I stopped, then repeated the words slowly, 'my right, Father, to a personal interview. And if you think I'm going to let the matter rest there then you can go and screw yourself.'

'Oh, yes, you will, Marcus, unless you're a complete fool!' my father snapped. 'That's why I'm here. That's what I've come to tell you, and you'd better listen or you're in real trouble. Leave it alone. You've asked and you've had your answer. Now tell that Rufia Perilla woman there's nothing you can do, and forget about her.'

I walked back over to the desk, picked up my winecup and emptied it at a gulp. 'How did you know about Perilla, Dad?'

'I told you. This is official.'

'Okay,' I said, turning the cup slowly in my hands. 'So just tell me one thing. What did he do? What did Ovid do, to make the Wart hate him so much?'

Now the next bit is interesting. I was looking squarely at my father when I spoke, so I saw exactly what happened to his face. It was like a door slamming shut. One moment his expression was as open as my father's ever can be, the next his eyes were blank as marble. That was interesting enough; but as I said I was looking directly at him and saw something more. It was no more than a flash, like the glimpse of lamplight behind a closing door, but there was no mistaking it. None.

What I saw was fear.

Varus to Himself

I am mad to write this. A traitor's first and cardinal rule is to commit nothing to writing, and thus far I have obeyed it scrupulously. To produce written evidence of one's treason is to raise up a witness against oneself who will shout louder than a hundred calumnies. And that is the last thing I wish to do.

So why write at all, you ask me (I ask myself?) Certainly not for the edification of posterity. Posterity can go and hang itself: my eyes will be the only ones to read this, and I will burn it as soon as it is complete. Nor is it in any way a confession, a private mortification of a spirit tortured by guilt. To hell with that. If I ever had a conscience I lost it long before puberty, and besides, in common with most traitors I am, if not exactly proud of my treason, at least content in its company. So not that either.

Perhaps it would be best to call what I am about a justification; an appeal for understanding, by myself to myself. Oh dear, oh dear! That sounds terribly precious, but I am very much afraid that it is the truth. In extenuation, I suspect that I am not alone among traitors in wishing to justify my treason. The disease is endemic to us. Paullus was the exception, fortunately for me and for others: he died silent. Although in fairness, of course, Paullus was not a true traitor.

So call this a justification, then, of treason undertaken for the best of motives. Or wait, that is unfair and untrue. I would not have you think me a filthy altruist. No, what I am doing is, frankly, profitable and will provide materially for what I hope will be a long, comfortable and very self-indulgent retirement. The fact that it will benefit Rome is to me, alas, a comparatively minor issue, although satisfying to contemplate. Had Arminius appealed to my gentlemanly instincts (assuming, for the sake of argument, their existence!), or had he been niggardly with his rewards, I doubt very much whether venal old Varus would have co-operated. Ah me. Sad, is it not? Sad but true.

You see? I am being completely honest. But then by their own lights most traitors are.

So, then. We are agreed in calling this a justification. Now let me set the scene for you. Who are we, and where?

We are three legions. Fifteen thousand men, plus cavalry, auxiliary troops, baggage carts and mules. The pride and power of Rome and of her first citizen Augustus, with its impedimenta, returning south for the winter to the not-quite-province of Germany of which I am the emperor's governor and viceroy. The campaigning season being successfully completed, we are en route from our summer camp on the Weser to Vetera on the Rhine, where (the gods help us!) my headquarters are located: a distance, as the crow flies, of some hundred and fifty miles, although as the Roman marches it is further and, alas, entails considerably greater effort.

So much is public knowledge. What follows is for your eyes only. Soon, perhaps somewhere between the Ems and the Lippe, news will reach us of trouble to the east among the large and warlike Cheruscan tribe.

And then?

And then, my gentle and imaginary confidant, the final act of my treason will begin.