White murder marcus corv.., p.19
White Murder (Marcus Corvinus Book 7), page 19
Something cold touched my spine. Medicinal supplies, eh? Sure, Rome’s doctors had to get their raw materials from somewhere, but three times out of five anything that called itself a medicinal supplies shop turned out to be as dodgy as a back-street import-export business. And on the Sacred Way, too. There’re a lot of very respectable properties along the city’s oldest road – some blue-blood patrician houses, for a start, that’ve been there since Cincinnatus cut his first furrow – but you get a few other old-established firms as well; in fact, firms belonging to the oldest profession in the world, where Cincinnatus probably slid in the back door while his wife was busy at her distaff. And where you get brothels, you get whacky herb shops. They go together like nettles and dock-leaves, and much for the same reasons: you catch things, you gotta cure them.
More to the point, from my view, the ladies – and they were usually ladies – who ran these places didn’t believe in over-specialisation. They could turn their hands to anything in that line, and most of them branched out into areas that might be dubious but were perennially popular. Including the one that required thin lead sheets, an iron pen, basic literary skills and a nasty imagination.
Egyptians are especially good at that sort of thing; in fact, they’re known for it. And with a name like Serapia I doubted that Laomedon’s girlfriend was a pillar of the established religious community.
One got you ten the lady dealt in fixes.
Click.
I put a lining on my stomach before I left with Maior’s bread-and-cheese special (the cheese was good, too, a mature Vestinian that Agron would’ve loved) and headed on for the Pincian. I was sorely tempted to turn right instead of left when I hit Broad Street and check out Serapia’s whacky leaves shop, but that could wait for another time. You don’t change horses in mid-stream, and I was half way to the Pincian already.
Wise decision. Like I said, it was a beautiful day for walking, and it got even better. Once I was past the Saepta and Agrippa Field the crowds slackened off; not that this part of town’s ever all that crowded anyway. The narcissi were out at the edges of Mars Field to my left and the sun glinted on the chichi residences set into the hill slopes of the Quirinal to the right and the Pincian straight ahead.
You don’t get tenements in this part of Rome. Nor, consequently, the riffraff that go with them. The Broad Street region is one of the priciest in the city, and what residents pay for is space and privacy. They don’t frequent wineshops, either - or not the cheap-and-cheerful sort I patronise, anyway. Seventh District wine drinking is a sedate and definitely upmarket affair, and the local equivalent is likely to be closer to an extensive private club, probably with bath suites attached so the well-heeled punters can sink their cups of Falernian – real Falernian – in the pampering company of half a dozen nubile slave girls who cater for their every whim. Or, of course, nubile slave boys if their tastes run that way.
I found one of these places on Pincian Road itself, between the Gardens of Pompey and Lucullus. I thought at first it was an urban villa – one of these countryside-in-the-city places with picture galleries by the mile and ornamental gardens you need a map to get round – but there were tables on the manicured lawn inside the fancy wrought-iron gates and a small army of waiters carrying trays of snow-cooled wine flagons and saucers of peeled grapes. I went in. I might be wearing a purple-stripe, but after a morning hoofing it over a large part of the city I wasn’t looking too impressive, and the guy who came over looked like he was within an inch of ushering me out at the end of a pole.
‘Yes, sir,’ he said. ‘What can we do for you?’
‘You got a wine list, pal?’ I said. First things first; the Pincian’s a long way from the Flaminian Circus, and Maior’s Privernian was only a fond memory.
‘Yes, of course, sir.’ He reached into the belt of his natty primrose tunic and produced a scroll that wouldn’t’ve disgraced one of the encomia that provincial cities send to the Wart on his birthday. I unrolled it and read.
Two minutes later I was still reading. I needn’t’ve bothered asking. I could’ve demanded any premier cru wine between Tibur and Naples and I’d be asked to name the year. I’d’ve got it, too, so long as it wasn’t any later than the death (or whatever) of the Divine Augustus. The prices matched. For what they were asking for a jug, at Renatius’s I could’ve bought the whole flask.
There again, Renatius’s cellar didn’t boast any stocks of prime grade Velletrian. I ordered a half jug together with some olives and Lucanian sausage and settled onto one of the crimson-upholstered couches in the portico. I got some curious stares from the sharply-dressed punters in the group to my left but when I tipped them a wink and a leer they suddenly lost interest and went back to discussing shipping costs and the dreadful mess poor old Quintus was making of his new import tax nonsense.
Primrose came back with the wine and nibbles. Forget the terracotta jugs you find in most wineshops, or the chipped Samian they bring out sometimes when you’ve ordered a wine at the top of the board. This one was silver, and it came nestling in a snow-filled wine cooler with a running band of nymphs and satyrs round the middle. The Lucanian sausage was neatly sliced, with a dinky little silver knife beside it and a fingerbowl and napkin on the side in case you did happen to get a spot of grease on your fingers. While I watched, the guy lifted the half jug from the cooler with a napkin of his own like he was taking a sacred object from a shrine, poured the Velletrian into a matching cup, nudged the little dishes of olives and sausage into a more aesthetically-pleasing relationship with the whole, inspected the result critically and stepped back.
‘Will that be all, sir?’ he said.
‘Yeah.’ I reached for my purse, took out too many of the contents and handed them over. ‘No. One more thing, pal. You know if a guy called Eutacticus lives around here?’
The conversation round the next table stopped dead. Perilla uses a phrase sometimes, the cynosure of all eyes. I’d never been absolutely certain what it meant, but now I knew. If I’d asked whether it was okay to strip off and do a belly dance on the lawn the looks I was getting would’ve been the same.
‘Ah...yes, sir.’ Primrose’s fine-chiselled features set like concrete. ‘I believe a gentleman of that name does live just up the hill. The house with the tritons on the gates. You can’t miss it.’
‘Fine. Fine.’ He scurried off as if I’d lit a fire at his tail. I gave my neighbours another leer and a wink and they quickly went back to discussing high finance. Then I sipped the wine. Beautiful. Better than beautiful. Mind you, it should be at the price.
You don’t hurry prime Velletrian. It took me a good hour to finish the half jug, and by that time the sun was well past its mid-point. I speared the last slice of sausage – it was Lucanian Lucanian; what else? Even I could tell that – balled up my napkin and strolled to the entrance, chewing. I could feel eyes on my back all the way.
Primrose was right; I saw the house with the triton gates straight ahead of me almost at once. It was a beaut, gleaming white marble frontage with a terraced ornamental garden in front sweeping down to the perimeter wall. It even had a brook running past it, with waterfalls. Profits in the betting business must be sky-high, right enough.
There was the usual guy on the gate, sitting to one side on a folding stool picking his teeth and communing with nature. There were also, however, two very large tunics who looked like they might spend their free time arm-wrestling gorillas. I didn’t give much for the monkeys’ chances, either. They glared at me like I’d spat in their salads and flexed their very considerable muscles.
Not the time for socialising, obviously, and anyway I’d got what I wanted for the moment. I carried on walking, giving them a nod in passing but getting as much response from the marble tritons. My back burned all the way up the road.
I was sweating when I turned the bend out of sight of the house. Jupiter! Maybe that had been a mistake. Still, it was done now, and at least I knew where Eutacticus hung out. I carried on past Lucullus Gardens then took a right at the next road and headed towards High Path and home.
Bathyllus was waiting for me with the usual tray. I took off my mantle and sank a quarter pint of the Setinian. After the Velletrian it tasted thin, but you can’t live on these heights all the time.
‘All right, Bathyllus?’ I said. ‘How did the pickling expedition go?’
‘Very successfully, sir.’ The little bald-head was looking sleek, and I noticed a scent of after-shave powder in the air. ‘We got quite chatty over the trotters.’
‘Great! You’re making giant strides.’
‘I’m not sure Tyndaris’s master absolutely approved of my presence, however. On his visit to the kitchen to investigate the sounds of hilarity he did make several adverse remarks concerning over-fraternisation.’
Ouch. Knowing Petillius I could imagine what these might be: he’d probably suspected a full-blown orgy below stairs with the wine flowing like water. But hilarity?
Bathyllus???
‘Uh...this “chatty” you mentioned involved quite a bit of laughter, then, did it?’ I said carefully.
The little guy looked shocked. ‘Not on my part, sir!’ I breathed again. At so much as a chuckle from our major-domo the world would end because humanity would have nothing left to hope for. ‘That was Tyndaris. She has an extremely lively sense of humour.’
I’d imagine the lady would have a pretty effective laugh, too, to reach all the way from the servants’ quarters. Probably the kind that knocks pigeons off their perches at fifty yards and stuns passing bullocks. For the first time I felt a twinge of sympathy for our water-drinking neighbour. Still, this didn’t augur well, on any account. A house-owner is responsible for the behaviour of his domestics, and the last thing I wanted was an irate Petillius hammering on my door to complain that our head slave was instigating a cachinnatory disturbance. Especially since I suspected that our coachman was already squiring one of the guy’s maids. ‘Maybe you and Tyndaris should keep it down a little in future, pal,’ I said. ‘Or bring her over here on the next occasion, if Petillius doesn’t mind.’ That was another unwritten law of relations between neighbours which this time worked in my favour. Slaves don’t have much of a social life to start with, they’re not allowed by law to contract proper marriages, and consequently most house owners turn a blind eye to a certain amount of coming and going between households. If this produces the odd unexpected small bundle nine months later then that’s life: the situation is usually resolved amicably, and at least the girl’s master can chalk up a free addition to the ménage. With Petillius, of course, you couldn’t make that assumption, but the chances of Tyndaris presenting him with an end-of-year bonus courtesy of our Bathyllus were so close to zero you couldn’t work them out on an abacus.
‘That might be possible, sir,’ Bathyllus said. ‘The lady did express an interest in my non-slip polish for marble tiles and I suggested a demonstration. I will put it to her tomorrow.’
‘Fine. Fine. Just both of you watch your step, okay? And I don’t mean on the tiles, either.’
‘I haven’t the slightest intention of venturing out on the tiles with Tyndaris, sir.’
I gave him a sharp look, but his face was as bland as ever. Jupiter! I must’ve misheard that one, or else it had been a fluke. Bathyllus wouldn’t recognise a play on words if it bit him in the knee, and he sure as hell never made any. The only other explanation was that Tyndaris was charming him out of his shell; but if so I wondered what sort of monster was hatching. ‘Uh...right.’ I said. ‘Good, Bathyllus.’ I took a settling swig from my cup. ‘Is the mistress around?’
‘Yes, sir. In the garden, talking to Alexis.’
I went out. Perilla was in the far corner, the sunless bit where Alexis keeps his compost. She turned round.
‘Oh, hello, Marcus,’ she said. ‘Alexis was suggesting a rockery here.’
I gave her the coming-home kiss. ‘A what?’
‘It’s just an idea of my own, sir.’ Our smart-as-paint gardener was blushing. ‘A pile of big stones planted between the spaces with small perennials. I thought if I could find some of these Rhaetian mountain varieties they would do very well. Perhaps aquilegia caerulea or hepatica angulosa. Both of these would take shade, and –’
‘These things can grow on rocks?’ Jupiter! You learn something new every day.
‘No, sir. Not exactly. You fill the spaces with earth. The plants grow between the stones.’
‘Why not just make a pile of earth and be done with it?’
‘They’re mountain plants, sir. I thought it might lend a bit of verisimilitude. And the plants would grow better in something approaching their natural environment.’
‘That being a mountain, right?’
‘Yes, sir.
I sighed. ‘Alexis, I don’t know how far we are above sea level on the Caelian but we’re a hell of a way under Rhaetia. And mountains at the bottom of the garden I can do without. How high does this pile of rocks have to be before it constitutes a “natural environment”?’
The kid gave me a wild look. ‘Only two or three feet, sir. I never said that –’
‘Yeah? And that’s a mountain?’
‘Not exactly.’ I noticed with interest that the guy was starting to sweat. ‘It sort of replicates the natural growing conditions in which –’
‘Marcus, I think we can trust Alexis to know what he’s doing,’ Perilla said quickly. She took my arm. ‘Come back inside and tell me how the case is going.’
I followed her. Artificial mountains for plants. Jupiter! They’d be raising beans in water and farming fish next.
Bathyllus had put the wine jug on the table within easy reach of my couch. I topped up my cup and settled down.
‘So,’ Perilla said, lying down opposite me. ‘Did you have a word with Cario?’
‘Yeah. He was the guy who set up the meeting, all right. But he isn’t the killer. Or at least I don’t think he is.’ I told her the tale.
‘You’re sure he didn’t do it?’ she said when I’d finished. ‘Yes, I know that I said the timing doesn’t match, and it doesn’t, quite, but blackmail is too strong an incentive to ignore simply on that account. The story of his being involved in the accidental death during the mugging puts him in the wrong, certainly, but again you only have his word for it that the incident actually happened. And Cario didn’t admit to arranging the interview with Pegasus until you gave him no option.’
‘He didn’t have to tell me Pegasus was blackmailing him at all, lady.’
‘He had to tell you something to explain the meeting. Blackmail is an obvious excuse. And he was careful that the story should reflect more badly on Pegasus than on himself; furthermore, that it would be difficult to confirm.’
Yeah; I hadn’t thought of those aspects, and to be fair I couldn’t fault them. ‘So you think Cario’s guilty after all?’ I said.
‘No, not necessarily. Of course not. But I wouldn’t discount the possibility on the evidence available.’ Perilla twisted a lock of hair. ‘One thing, though. If he isn’t it calls a major element of your theory into serious question.’
‘Yeah? What’s that?’
‘That the murder was premeditated. If Cario is innocent then ipso facto Pegasus wasn’t lured to the wineshop by his killer. The crime could have been committed on the spur of the moment by anyone passing at the proper time.’
Shit; she was right. That was something else I hadn’t thought through. Of course, it would mean that whoever killed the guy had to have been in the area for reasons of his own and seen his chance. That left the field open again. There was always Uranius, naturally; again, I only had his word for it that the murder had already been committed when he passed the wineshop, and the timing was so tight that it was well within the bounds of possibility he’d left the old nurse’s flat slightly earlier than he’d claimed or she’d remembered. Added to which, with marriage to Galatea as a possible prize he certainly had a motive. All the same, I couldn’t believe in Uranius as a killer; no more than, when push came to shove and pace Perilla, I could believe in Cario. So who else hated Pegasus enough to kill him, was capable of a sudden, spur-of-the-moment murder, and had a plausible reason for being on Iugarius?
‘Laomedon,’ I said.
Perilla looked at me. ‘Pardon?’
I sat up. ‘We’re back to Laomedon. He has a new girlfriend on the Sacred Way, and he spends most of his free time at her place now. If he were going from there to the stables or vice versa he’d have to go along Iugarius. He could’ve spotted Pegasus going into the wineshop, or better into the alley for a piss. And a quick spur-of-the-moment knife in the back would be just his style.’
‘What’s this about a girlfriend on the Sacred Way?’
I told her what I’d learned at Maior’s. ‘She deals in suspect substances, and you know what that means. Remember the fixes? It all ties in.’
‘Laomedon denied killing Pegasus point blank. And you told me you believed him, because he didn’t have the intelligence to lie convincingly.’
‘True, but he also said –’ I stopped. Oh, shit. Oh, gods.
‘Marcus?’
‘Laomedon claimed – or good as claimed – that he knew who the murderer was. On the other hand, he suggested that no one had killed the guy. Maybe he was right on both counts.’
‘Corvinus, you are not making sense!’
‘Sure I am. His girlfriend’s a witch. Or the next thing to it.’
Perilla’s mouth set in a line. ‘We’ve been through this before,’ she said. ‘There are no such things. Witches do not exist.’
A good woman, Perilla, and clever as they get, but sometimes her mind is so closed against the obvious that you can knock all day and still not get an answer. Me, I wondered if anyone had told the witches. Time for a little diplomacy. ‘Yeah, well. Maybe they don’t,’ I said. ‘Still, the woman’s worth talking to, right?’
‘Of course she is. I’m not denying that. I only said –’
‘Fine. Fine. We’ll leave it there.’ I paused. Then another thought struck me; not a very pleasant one. ‘Uh...Perilla?’ I said.
