Ovid

5

Suillius Rufus's place was on the slopes of the Esquiline not far from the Maecenas Gardens. It was good sound sycophant's property, flashy enough to impress but not sufficiently grand to attract dangerous envy in these luxury-sensitive times. The slave who opened the door for me wore red. Given the look of the place that could've only been for one of two reasons, first the chichi visual pun on Rufus's name, second because the Red team at the racecourse was Tiberius's favourite. Or at least everybody thought it was Tiberius's favourite. Personally I had my doubts. The Wart was quite capable of spreading a rumour like that just for the fun of watching guys like Rufus fall over themselves trying to lick his arse.

The wall mosaic in the lobby was politically correct too. Forget your bourgeoise "Beware of the Dog" tat, this was Art: a more-than-life-size Divine Augustus, golden rays of glory streaming from his noble brow, seated on a pink cloud between the goddesses of Piety and Liberality, shedding his gracious lustre on the tiny City of Rome below. All beautifully and tastefully done in stones the size of my little fingernail. You could even make out the goddess's nipples.

The thing must've cost an arm and a leg. I nearly threw up all over it.

I gave my name to the slave and he led me through the marble pillared atrium into the garden (the pool, I noticed in passing, had a Venus and Cupids bathing in it. Another compliment to Augustus's adoptive Julian ancestors, perhaps. Or maybe Rufus was just a randy bugger). The day had brightened but it was still cold. Perilla, sitting in a chair under the shelter of an arbutus and dressed in a fetching little yellow number that looked more for show than warmth, didn't seem concerned. Scattered around her feet were half the contents of the Pollio Library; which was more or less what I'd been expecting. Since her last visit I'd done a bit of homework on sweet little Rufia Perilla. She was a pretty smart lady, not just a poet's stepdaughter but a poet herself and a mean mind where the literary heavies were concerned. As a peace offering to one of my usual bubbleheads I'd've brought perfume or maybe a little trinket from Argyrion's in the Saepta. For Perilla I'd chosen a book; a very rare copy of some Alexandrian pansy who wrote about shepherd-boys (no, I don't know which one. He was expensive, that's all I know).

Why I should be apologising to her when she'd been the one to call me names I've no idea. But that's the way things work. Understand that and you understand women.

'Corvinus!' she looked up smiling from the scroll she was reading. 'Lovely to see you!' Yeah, good news. It seemed like I was forgiven after all, even without the book. I handed it over anyway. She looked at the title label and purred with the sort of pleasure I keep for baked sturgeon with a quince sauce. 'Oh, how absolutely marvellous! Thank you!' She turned to the slave. 'Callias, bring Valerius Corvinus a chair and some wine.'

Obviously a lady of some sensitivity. Maybe I'd misjudged her.

The slave shot off and was back in record time. He had a harried, chewed look about him that I recognised, and I felt for the poor bastard. Being a slave in Perilla's household must've been as wearing on the nerves as being chief manicurist to Cleopatra's leopards.

I sat down and sipped at the wine. It was Falernian and so ought to've been good, but it was third rate stuff. Whatever the absent Rufus's qualities were (and he must've had some besides an ability to use his tongue to good advantage) they obviously didn't extend to a discriminating palate. Or maybe it was the fault of his cellarman. If so the guy should be crucified with a flask of the stuff up his rectum. I set the cup aside as unobtrusively as I could.

'Now.' Perilla laid the book aside and settled back, giving me the kind of smile that would have any Greek sculptor worth his salt reaching for his sketchbook. 'Don't tell me. You've seen the emperor and he's agreed.'

'Uh…actually no. That's not why I've come.' The smile faded from her face but at least she didn't freeze up on me.

'But you're making progress.'

'I'm trying. Believe me I'm trying. There's just nothing doing.'

'Why not?'

I shrugged. 'Your guess is as good as mine. All I get are solid refusals right down the line. I think it might have something to do with your stepfather's crime.' She didn't say anything, so I lightened it up a bit. 'What did the old guy do? Personally promise to hand Armenia over to the Parthians? Rape Livia? Rape Augustus? Burst one of the Wart's boils?' Silence. 'Oh, come on, lady! I'm your patron, remember?'

'I don't know,' she said at last. 'My stepfather never told us.'

Jupiter! 'What do you mean, he never told you? The guy had been punished already. The secret was out.'

She shook her head. Today the golden hair was tied up in a tight braid, simpler than was fashionable but suiting her perfectly. A single curl lay tantalisingly against each temple. I could smell roses.

'We asked him,' she said. 'At least my mother did, I was too young. But he wouldn't even tell her. He said it was too dangerous.'

My scalp tingled. 'Dangerous? Dangerous to who?'

'Himself, I suppose. Or maybe to my mother and me. Anyway, he wouldn't say.'

I couldn't believe this.

'Come on, Perilla! Sure, I know nothing was made public, but your mother must've known what he did, or be able to guess at least. They were very close, weren't they?'

'Yes. Very,' she said softly.

'And you're telling me he clammed up on her? Totally?'

'Maybe she does know.' Perilla had lowered her eyes and her voice was barely a whisper. I waited for more, but it didn't come. There was something I didn't understand here.

'Then why don't you ask her outright?'

'Because it wouldn't do any good.'

Again that phrase. I'd heard it from the secretary, and from Crispus. It sounded strange coming from Perilla. 'Didn't Ovid say anything before he left? Or give any clues in his letters? He did send letters, didn't he?'

'Oh, yes.' Perilla plucked a sprig of leaves from the bush beside her and turned it absently between her fingers. 'He talked about…whatever he'd done quite often, in fact. Not just in his letters. In his poems as well.'

Now we were getting somewhere! 'Okay. So tell me.'

'He says he made a mistake. He saw something he shouldn't have seen, and he didn't report it.'

'And?'

'That's all.'

I leaned back. Shit. The more I got into this thing, the more tantalising it became, and the more it slipped away from me. Hints and rumours. Like mist or water through the fingers.

'What do you mean, that's all?'

'Just what I say. Oh, there's more, lots more, but that's the gist of it. That and what he didn't do.'

'Didn't do?' I was beginning to sound like a third rate tragedian's chorus.

'He says he didn't profit personally from whatever it was. And he hadn't killed anyone, or committed forgery or fraud or treason.'

'That doesn't leave very much.'

'No, it doesn't.'

'So what you're saying,' I spelt it out, 'is that Ovid did nothing whatsoever? That Augustus sent him to Tomi just for seeing something he shouldn't have seen?'

'And for not reporting it. Yes, that's right.'

'But it's crazy! It makes no sense at all! Jupiter's holy prick, we're talking about exile here!'

'Nevertheless, Corvinus, that's all there is. And please don't swear. I don't like it.'

'But what could he have seen that deserved that sort of treatment? To be packed off to the Black Sea for the rest of his days, without a trial, with no reprieve. Not even to be allowed back for burial.'

'I don't know.'

'Come off it, lady! You're his f… You're his stepdaughter!'

Her lips set in a firm line, and she looked away.

'I've told you that's all there is,' she said, 'and I would be grateful if we could drop the subject.'

Now I may not know my Bion from my Moschus but I know damn well when a woman isn't telling me the truth. And if ever beautiful woman lied in her teeth that woman was Rufia Perilla. You expect obstructions from nit-picking bureaucrats and timeservers like my father and Crispus. You don't expect them from the client you're trying to help.

I got up. 'Okay, don't tell me. I'll find out for myself. Anyway, I've got to be going now. I've a long night of debauchery ahead of me and I need to get tanked up first. Thank you for your hospitality, Lady Rufia.'

She turned back to face me, and she had the grace to look guilty; but that was all.

'Thank you for the book,' she said. 'It was kind of you to think of it.'

'My pleasure.' I was almost as angry as I had been in the Secretary's office. 'I'll see you around, okay?'

As I walked past her she laid a hand on my arm. 'I really don't know why my stepfather was exiled. I'm not hiding anything from you. Honestly.'

'Sure,' I said; but I'd stopped. I could no more've carried on walking back to the house with those fingers burning into my skin than thrown a party for my father and that new wife of his.

She lowered her eyes, but not before I'd seen the glint of tears. 'I may have thoughts of my own on the subject but they're just that. Thoughts of my own.'

'Care to share them?'

She shook her head. 'No, they're probably wrong anyway. Certainly they don't make much sense.'

There was a lump in my throat the size of an egg. I told you I was a kind-hearted sucker. However, I had my pride as well. Valerii Messallae don't melt easily.

'Suit yourself,' I said. I had my arm back now. There was nothing else to keep me.

'You'll still keep on trying? To get the permission, I mean?'

'Of course,' I said stiffly. 'You had my promise.'

She got up and before I knew what was happening she'd kissed me lightly on the cheek. It was the sort of bird's peck you'd expect from your kid sister but from the effect it had on me you'd've thought she'd given me a complete no-holds-barred Corinthian tongue job. I muttered something suitably noble and patron-like about doing my best and escaped as quickly as I could.

I'd given Perilla my word that she'd have her stepfather's ashes back, and I intended to keep it, whatever the cost. But as of this afternoon I'd as much idea of how to go about it as an oyster's got of woodcarving.

* * *

Varus to Himself

Vela has just come in for the sentries' watchword. I gave him Inflexible Vigilance, a joke which, of course, he did not recognise as such. Numonius Vela is my second-in-command, with special responsibility for the cavalry. That, too, is a joke.

I have always viewed horses as stupid creatures. They have as much sense (and no more) as will prevent them throwing their riders in battle and ensure that they go cheerfully to possible disembowelment. In other words, they are blessed with the perfect military virtues. Horses and Vela have much in common. He is a turnip-head incapable of following a reasoned argument beyond its first most obvious premise; a nonentity of staggering blandness. Solid is the word that springs to mind — or perhaps stolid, for Vela has no stiffness, no backbone. He is thick and starchy as overcooked porridge. You could reach out your hand and knead him, body and soul. This is not to say he is a moral man. If Vela is incorruptible (and he is; oh, he most certainly is!) his virtue is a product not of choice but of mental and spiritual sloth.

In short, dear confidant, Numonius Vela is a bore of the first order. I view it as not the least of my trials that I am compelled to march through Germany in his company.

Perhaps I should give you other names, and the faces to fit them. I will not weary you with a long list; we are few, we band of brothers, despite the thousands of breathing souls who surround us. Three — not counting Vela — will be sufficient.

Egregious Eggius first, and least. My Camp Commander, or one of them. One of the Old Breed, a Roman par excellence, who might have stood with Horatius on the bridge but would have drawn the line at anything so cowardly as chopping it down. Where Vela is a cold-porridge soldier, Eggius is all pepper and fiery spices, a damn-your-eyes man destined for glory or the grave; the latter being his more likely destination, and good riddance to him so long as he does not drag the rest of us in as well. I cannot bring myself to like Eggius, but he has his uses, largely because of a natural antipathy for Vela. Which is, I may say, reciprocated and affords me much quiet amusement.

Next, Marcus Ceionius, my other Camp Commander and, of necessity, ally. Venal, greedy (although as you know I speak as should not), cowardly and rotten as a ten-day-old fig, which facially he unfortunately resembles. He, too, may win through to glory, but it will be glory undeserved and achieved by guile rather than merit. If, as is more likely, the grave claims him before his time it will be with a common soldier's javelin in his back. The men hate him, and with good reason. It is rare to meet someone with no redeeming qualities. Ceionius comes as close as is humanly possible.

Third and last, your humble servant: Publius Quinctilius Varus. Ex-consul, ex-this, ex-that (I shall never, after all, see sixty again). Augustus's viceroy and general of this glorious army. Bon viveur, lover of coined gold and (not least, this!) traitor against the state. That, I think, will do for the present. After all, I do not wish to alienate your sympathies completely.

You will notice of course that I have not described Arminius, who is the most relevant character of all. Patience. I must, like every good general, keep something in reserve. You will meet Arminius in his place, and I promise you that you will have your fill of him.

Heigh ho. Off we go.