Ovid

9

I got back to Perilla's just on dinnertime. I'd gone home to change first (never go calling on a lady with a grubby mantle), and I'd also paid another visit to Cadmus's; not for the ring (I'd got that already) but to pick up a snazzy little pair of earrings I'd seen that I thought would look great against her hair. Alexandrian poets are okay in their place but I didn't want her to think I was some sort of culture freak. It would only lead to misunderstandings later.

She'd chosen the subfusc look: a matronly mantle, the minimum of jewellery, and a hairstyle that could've come straight off the Altar of Peace. As a statement it was predictable but disappointing. I swallowed down my lust and prepared for a staid little domestic evening.

She liked the earrings though. Even if she didn't let me put them on her myself.

Callias served the honeyed wine (I hate that stuff but I was on my best behaviour), supervised the serving of the hors-d'oeuvres and then faded into the woodwork. I made a mental note to slip him a fat tip before I left. Tact in slaves is a thing to be encouraged, especially if you've designs on their mistress.

'Well, Corvinus,' Perilla said as we settled down to the quails' eggs and stuffed dormice. 'How did your visit go?'

I gave her the salient points, glossing over, of course, the doom-and-gloom aspects of the situation. There was no need for both of us to worry about my ending up with my throat slit. 'So we've got a couple of good leads,' I finished. 'Silanus being back in Rome's a definite plus.'

'You intend going to see him?'

'Yeah. I thought I might. It seems the logical next step.'

'Why should he tell you anything?'

'He's got no reason not to. The whole thing's over and done with. And it's too good a chance to miss. After all why mess around with middle-men? If anyone knows what your stepfather saw our Silanus is the lad.'

'Do you know where he lives?'

'Not exactly.' I rubbed a quail's egg between my palms to remove the shell. 'But I can find out. Lentulus said he has one of those fancy farms the other side of the Tiber. It shouldn't be too difficult to track him down. And I'm interested to find out how he managed to seduce Julia and get away with it while her husband got chopped. A trick like that might come in useful some time.'

'Paullus was executed for treason, not because he was Julia's husband.'

'You're telling me there's no connection? Come on, Perilla!'

She selected a fish-pickle-and-honey canape. 'If so then it's certainly not an obvious one. We're talking about different crimes. In one Paullus is the victim, in the other he's the culprit. Now if Julia had been married to Silanus and Paullus had been the seducer I could see your point. That is if you consider seduction of the emperor's grandchild per se as treasonable. Which personally I don't.'

My head was beginning to hurt. I'd missed an opening there, I was sure of it. But I'm not used to discussing abstract problems over dinner. Wheel in the pygmy contortionists and stuff the Aristotle.

'Besides,' Perilla finished the canape and picked up a baby squid filled with sausagemeat, 'Silanus was punished. You said yourself he'd gone into voluntary exile. And he'll never hold public office again. Surely for a man of his standing that's punishment enough.'

I frowned. 'Okay, okay. Have it your way. Maybe I've just got an over-suspicious mind, maybe everything is above board. But it won't hurt to talk to the guy at least.'

Perilla laid the squid down and turned these lovely golden eyes of hers on me. 'You will be careful, won't you? It all sounds terribly politically sensitive. Don't go treading on any more toes. You've been beaten up once already over this. I'm sorry. Leaned on.'

'Look, Perilla, the case is dead meat. It might've been sensitive five years ago when old Augustus was emperor. But Paullus is dead and buried, Tiberius is in power and Silanus is persona grata again. Okay?'

'What about Julia? She's still alive on Trimerus, isn't she? Or have I missed something?'

I sighed. The gods preserve me from feisty women. 'Julia's nothing to the Wart. She isn't even a relation.'

'She used to be his stepdaughter.'

'Until he divorced her mother.' Tiberius had been married to the elder Julia, the one who'd died at Rhegium. 'And from all accounts he never could stand that particular lady. It was a marriage of convenience, and you know what they're like, don't you?'

It was just a throwaway line, I swear it, but as soon as I said the words I knew they were a mistake. A bad mistake. Like asking Oedipus's wife how her son was doing these days. Perilla lowered her eyes to her plate and her long slim fingers teased at the squid in front of her. The silence grew and kept on growing.

'Shit,' I said at last. 'Look, I'm sorry if I…'

'No, that's all right.' Her head came up. 'You aren't married, are you, Corvinus?'

'Uh-uh. I run too fast.'

She didn't smile. 'I am. But of course you know that. I've been married for six years.'

Jupiter! How the hell did I get out of this? I tried to keep the conversation light.

'Congratulations. Any kids?'

Straight in again with both feet. Maybe it was my imagination, but I think she shuddered.

'No,' she said quietly. 'No children.'

'That's…uh…that's tough.' Desperately, I looked around for something to hang a change of subject on, but there's only so much you can say about stuffed olives and raw vegetables.

'Maybe I should explain a little about…' she hesitated. 'About my relationship with my husband.'

I didn't say anything. I'm a pretty good judge of mood, especially where women are concerned. Sure, with one of my bubbleheads I'd've been crowing long before now. When a lady starts bad-mouthing her husband under conditions like these you can usually be sure that the evening will follow a pretty predictable course. But this was no come-on. The ice was back for a start, and whatever Perilla had in mind it definitely wasn't busting a mattress strap together. She was sitting stiff in her chair — no enervating couch for this Roman matron — and staring down at her plate.

'We met just after my stepfather was exiled. I must have been twelve, maybe thirteen. Rufus had been married before and his first wife had just died when he asked my mother for my hand in marriage.'

I shifted uncomfortably on my couch. I'd've welcomed Callias back at that moment with open arms, honey-wine included. Even a minor incursion by German berserkers wouldn't've come amiss. However, we were stuck with no interruptions. If there were going to be confidences then I'd just have to grit my teeth and live through them. I didn't even dare risk a polite grunt.

'It was a good match.' Perilla's eyes were still lowered. 'Rufus wasn't well off but he came from a good family. He was popular with Augustus, marked for promotion and a good political career. My mother had noble connections, not very strong ones — she's a distant cousin of Marcia, Fabius Maximus's widow — but things being as they were we were hardly popular any more at court. All in all I suppose I was very lucky really.'

I sipped my wine. The click as I set the cup down on the table top was as loud as a door slamming but she didn't seem to notice.

'We should have begun to suspect when Rufus suggested a traditional marriage,' she said. 'You know the kind I mean, where the wife's property passes to the husband absolutely.' I nodded, although she still wasn't looking at me. Marriages like that were still common enough in pukkah-patrician families, especially the ones that supplied the priesthoods, but they'd gone out of style generally for obvious reasons. 'Should have but didn't. Luckily Uncle Fabius — he was still alive then, and the head of the family — put his foot down. Rufus as I said wasn't particularly rich, and he had a bad reputation where money was concerned. So we compromised. He could have me after my sixteenth birthday but not my money.'

Callias put his head round the door, presumably to ask if we'd finished with the starters. Before I had a chance to signal him the bastard had worked out what was going on and shot back out of sight fast as a greased eel. I reconsidered the tip in favour of a surreptitious knee in the groin on the way out. Perilla hadn't noticed him. Her eyes were still fixed on her plate and her fingers were systematically tearing the tiny squid in front of her into smaller and smaller pieces. There wasn't a lot left of it now.

'We'd been engaged for about a year before I realised that it was the money he was interested in. Did I tell you that Augustus had left my stepfather his property when he exiled him? Anyway, Rufus had been badgering my mother from the first to let him take care of the family finances. It got quite nasty. If it hadn't been for Uncle Fabius I think he'd've had his way in the end.'

'So why not break off the engagement?' I asked quietly. 'He'd no legal right to you or your money until the wedding. Why not just tell the guy to sod off?'

Perilla shook her head. 'You haven't met my mother, Corvinus. She wasn't ill then but she still wasn't very strong-minded. And it was her money after all, not mine. Or Uncle Fabius's. My stepfather had made her caretaker of his estate.'

'But Fabius Maximus was one of Augustus's closest friends. Surely he could've done something?'

'He did what he could. But he'd no formal legal standing, only the right to advise. And Augustus had no love for my stepfather, remember. The wedding took place on schedule as agreed.'

'So Maximus just let the shit get away with it?'

Perilla smiled and nodded slowly.

'He let,' she said carefully, 'the shit get away with it. As you so graphically put it. At least as far as the marriage was concerned. He didn't have any option there. The money, luckily, was a different matter.'

I was getting interested despite myself.

'So what happened?'

'We got married. Rufus kept on at mother but there was nothing he could actually do, not while Uncle Fabius was alive to advise her. Mother always listened to Uncle Fabius. Besides, as you say, he was a good friend of the emperor.'

'But then Augustus died.'

'That's right. Augustus died. Closely followed by Uncle Fabius. Which was what Rufus had been waiting for. He'd been worming his way into Tiberius's favour for some time, you see. And when Tiberius became emperor Rufus went to him and asked that my stepfather's estate be formally transferred to himself as the property of a convicted criminal. We fought the claim in the courts and we won eventually, but it was a close-run thing. Now of course the estate is safe. With my stepfather dead it's my mother's absolutely and Rufus can't touch a penny of it.' For the first time she looked up from the fragments of squid and forcemeat that lay crumbled on the table in front of her. I'd expected tears but her cheeks were dry and her eyes were hard and cold. 'So now you know. Now you know how I feel about my husband. Why I hate him.'

The silence stretched out between us like a winding-sheet. I don't think I'd ever been so completely lost for words. Or so embarrassed. Or so bitterly sorry for another human being. Or so helplessly angry.

It was Callias who saved the situation. Forget the knee in the balls, I was really warming to that little bugger. He came in like one of these gods the Greek playwrights dangle above the stage to sort things out when they get their pricks tied in knots over a too-complex plot. Not that he was hanging from a crane, of course, but you know what I mean.

'Shall I serve the main course now, madam?' he asked.

Jupiter! I could've kissed him, and kissing male slaves isn't my bag, especially if they're as ugly as Callias. Perilla gave herself a sort of shake.

'Corvinus, I'm terribly sorry,' she said. 'I've been boring you. You should have said.'

'Hey, no, that's okay. It was fascinating.' Oh yeah! Well done, Corvinus. Another bummer in the conversation stakes. 'I mean no, it doesn't matter. Honestly.'

Callias, bless him, didn't wait for further permission. He signalled to his minions who were waiting outside and they oozed in, cleared away the starters — most of which were untouched — and served the dinner proper. It was good plain stuff: pork in a sauce of honey and cumin, lentils with leeks, and a sea urchin ragout that made my mouth water just to look at it. Added to which Callias hadn't forgotten my instructions about the wine. I took the first cup at a swallow and held it up for more.

Perilla sat back in her chair. 'You do the talking for a change, Corvinus,’ she said. ‘Tell me about your family.'

Some particularly evil-minded god must've been hovering round the dinner table that evening. Oh, no, I thought. No way, lady. Having just lived through one downer there was no way that I was going to be responsible for the next. At some of the more literary (or pseudo-literary) dinner parties the guests produce tiny articulated silver skeletons which they jiggle while declaiming merry odes on the subject of fate, death and bodily corruption. As a form of entertainment that's never much grabbed me. The thought of going in for a little soul-bearing of my own re my father and our relationship (or lack of one) made my balls shrink. So instead, and apropos of nothing, I began to trot out a few items from my usual store of dinner party winners. Suitably expurgated, naturally. Which in the event proved the best thing I could've done.

I never really thought I'd ever hear Perilla laugh, but she did, especially when I told her the one about the Vestal and the vegetable marrow. We'd both had more than a few cups of wine by then and the expurgation was wearing pretty thin; in fact she'd got to the silly stage when she'd laugh at (and agree to) anything, and I suspect that if I'd really wanted to get her into bed I could've done it without much trouble. With one of my usual bubbleheads I wouldn't've thought twice, but Perilla was different. She'd hate me for it in the morning, I knew, and I suspected that I wouldn't be too popular with myself either. So just before midnight I thanked her, said goodnight, and slipped old Callias all the cash I'd got on me. Then I whistled up the lads with the torches and went home.

I wondered on the way if I was getting soft. Or had misread her. Or misread myself. All of them were possible plus a few more. No doubt I'd be feeling pretty smug and virtuous in the morning, but at that precise moment I just felt lonely.