White murder marcus corv.., p.36
White Murder (Marcus Corvinus Book 7), page 36
‘No. I do know, however, that Lucius regards Minicius Natalis as a prime obstacle because his name crops up frequently when Lucius and Gaius talk. Much of a faction’s success depends on the quality of the leadership – you can see that from the terrible mess poor Rubrius Pudens is making of the Reds – and Natalis is an extremely good faction master. He has the contacts and the experience, of course, and also the ruthlessness to bring his faction on. If it were not for Natalis the Greens would be far less of a threat.’
I found myself grinning. ‘I thought you said you didn’t know much about racing, Sextilia.’
Her fingers reached under the cat’s chin. It purred. ‘That isn’t racing, Valerius Corvinus, it’s politics and the observance of human nature. I never denied either an interest in or an affinity for either of those things.’
True. And prim as the lady was, she had her head screwed on. Certainly she’d given me something to think about here.
‘Now.’ With a sudden movement she picked the protesting cat up and laid it gently back down on its cushion. Her lips twitched in a smile. ‘That is really all the help I can provide. Perhaps if you’ve fulfilled your purpose in coming you’ll forgive me if I talk with your wife about more important things.’ She turned to Perilla. ‘Such as your late stepfather Ovidius Naso’s own venture into playwriting, my dear. I came across a copy of his Medea in the Pollio library yesterday and was very impressed with it, although I was puzzled by some of the allusions. If your husband has quite finished then perhaps you might help me with them.’
Oh, bugger. Well, I’d had my turn right enough, and it had to be paid for. Also by the looks of things discussing plays and poetry was about all the fun the lady was getting out of life, so I didn’t grudge her her chance. A pity: there was a first-class brain there. I settled back and let Perilla take over.
We stayed for another half hour or so until the conversation flagged. Finally, Perilla got up.
‘We have to go, Sextilia,’ she said. ‘It really has been most enjoyable, hasn’t it, Marcus?’
‘Yeah.’ I levered myself off the couch. My right leg had gone to sleep and the rest of me had nearly followed. ‘Very.’ The middle bit had been, anyway.
‘I’m glad.’ The lady had her well-bred party manners on again. She rose gracefully. ‘Oh, and Valerius Corvinus?’
‘Yeah?’
‘I won’t say, Good luck with your investigation, for obvious reasons; however, I wish you well. If my husband and brother are involved, then they have only themselves to blame if any trouble results. You understand me, I hope.’
‘Sure. I understand.’ I did; Sextilia was getting as close as a gently-brought-up, conventional, mild-mannered lady could to damning her nearest relatives’ eyes and hoping they fried in hell. I had every sympathy.
‘Good. Perilla, dear, I’ll see you at our next meeting. I look forward to it.’
The slave showed us out. As we were getting into the litter, I noticed a couple of guys in tunics coming up the street from the direction of town, obviously headed for the house’s servants’ entrance. If they hadn’t stopped for an instant and done an involuntary double-take when they saw me I wouldn’t have given them a second glance; as it was, I did.
I knew them; sure I did. They were the pair of tunics who’d given us the eye at Cybele’s procession. And the one with the missing incisor looked, when our glances met, guilty as hell.
Click.
I must’ve been beaming as we swung back down the road towards dinner, because Perilla said: ‘Well, Marcus, are you satisfied?’
‘Yeah. You could put it like that.’
She smiled. ‘Glad you didn’t give up after all?’
‘Delighted.’ I leaned over and kissed her. ‘We’re off and running again. Acceptus is a major contender for the poisoning, him and Lucius Vitellius, and if they did the poisoning then they did the murder as well. One gets you ten it was a set-up; two birds with one stone. And now we’ve got solid proof.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘The thing was a Blue faction scam, lady. Our three beauties were out to hamstring the Whites and land Natalis in it at the same time. Or at least two of them were, because I’m still not sure about Eutacticus, not as far as the whole scenario’s concerned, that is. My guess is they were playing an even dirtier game than he knew about.’
Perilla sighed. ‘I’m sorry, dear, I’m not at my brightest at present. You’ll have to explain.’
‘Didn’t you see the guy out there with the tooth? Or rather without the tooth? That’s the clincher.’
‘Marcus, what on earth are you talking about? Calm down and start at the beginning, please.’
I took a deep breath. ‘All right. According to Cammius Natalis had been targeting Polydoxus for months. There were two attempts, neither of which got past the gate. One was made by the kid Stephanus who’d been approached by a Green outside a wineshop, the other by a Greens mucker-out masquerading as a hay delivery man. Yes?’
‘Yes. Of course. But –’
‘Hang on. That’s only the authorised version. I assumed – Cammius assumed, we all assumed, because it was the natural assumption and that’s the way the evidence pointed – that both attempts were Natalis’s doing, but we were wrong. Oh, sure, Natalis wanted the horse dead and he wouldn’t’ve scrupled to poison it on his own account, but he wasn’t the guilty party. Not in this case, anyway. Like I say, he was set up.’
‘Yes, but Marcus –’
‘Sextilia made an interesting point. She said that her husband and brother were planning to scupper the Whites and the Greens. Okay, so how do they do that the most economical way possible? They poison the Whites’ horse but arrange for the finger to point at Natalis.’
‘Yes, but Marcus –’
‘Obviously, Acceptus can’t involve any of his own men in the scam, even as go-betweens, because the racing world’s a small community and there’s too big a chance of them being recognised, especially if the attempt doesn’t come off and the guy with the knife or the poison is caught. In fact, if he is caught – preferably after he’s done the business – it’s all to the good because like I say the finger will point to Natalis. That’s where Lucius Vitellius comes in.’
‘Yes, but Marcus –’
‘Hold on, lady. Let me finish. We don’t know anything about the Greens stable-hand because the poor bastard met with a terminal accident right after he was caught, but Stephanus told me the guy who recruited him had a tooth missing. One gets you ten that was the same tunic we saw at the Megalensia, because although I didn’t know him he sure as hell knew me. I doubt if that was intentional – there was no reason for him to follow me around – but it was his bad luck we coincided; crooks like processions as much as anyone else, and Cattlemarket Square corner’s a popular venue for rubbernecks. Seeing him up on the Esquiline headed for Vitellius’s staff entrance is a different thing, and like I said it’s the clincher. I’ll bet a jar of thirty-nine-year-old Caecuban to a bad mussel he’s our agent-provocateur, which means Acceptus and Vitellius are eyebrow-deep in effluvia and I can prove it because Stephanus will be able to identify him.’ I sat back against the cushions. ‘There, now. QED. You were about to say?’
‘You’re forgetting about Pegasus. Not his murder, his attempt on Polydoxus. That had to be Natalis’s doing, surely.’
That came out in her best put-down voice. I grinned. It wasn’t often that I had a comeback to Perilla’s objections; this time I did. ‘Uh-uh. I’m not forgetting. I never said Natalis was pure as the driven snow, just that he wasn’t responsible for the two failed attempts. Sure it was his doing; maybe the actual poisoning was as well for all I know. What I do know now for absolute certain is that the Greens and the Blues were both after Polydoxus, with Acceptus and Vitellius running their double scam while Natalis was relying on his agent-in-place. And if both factions were targeting Polydoxus then ipso facto they both had a reason for targeting the driver. Right?’
Perilla was frowning. ‘So who was responsible for actually killing the horse?’
‘Jupiter knows. That’s the crucial question. If Eutacticus can locate Typhon then fine, but at the moment the two are neck and neck. I can make a case for either, especially now I’ve got Gap-tooth in the bag.’
We were nearly home, which suited me perfectly: travelling by litter isn’t my favourite form of locomotion, it had been a long day, Sextilia’s cake hadn’t exactly been filling and I was starving. Also, what with the only thing liquid on offer being honey wine, I’d’ve murdered for a drink. We pulled up outside the front door and got out. Bathyllus, as usual, was waiting with the tray.
I sank the first cup. Beautiful.
‘Dinner nearly ready, sunshine?’ I said.
‘Yes, sir.’ He poured again. ‘Oh, and there was a message for you. From someone by the name of Sopilys.’
I paused, the cup half way to my lips. ‘Yeah?’
‘He wants to meet you, sir. Tomorrow, in Ostia, at the same time and place as before. I got the impression it was quite urgent.’
I scowled. Shit; this didn’t make sense. When I’d seen Sopilys I’d given him Agron’s address in case he wanted to get in touch, but he’d said he’d told me all he knew. So why did the guy suddenly want to talk to me again? And urgently, what was more? ‘The messenger say what it was about?’
‘No, sir.’ Bathyllus hesitated. ‘Only that some information was involved. And that it would be expensive. He suggested that you bring with you the sum of twenty gold pieces.’
‘He suggested what?’ Luckily, I hadn’t taken a mouthful of wine because I would’ve choked and sprayed it all over my nice new mantle. Sweet gods! For someone like the erstwhile Greens’ groom and current barge-unloader twenty gold pieces was a fortune. Come to that, it wasn’t chickenfeed to me, either.
‘I was to add that the price was not negotiable.’
I glanced at Perilla, who’d come in behind me just in time to hear the monetary details. Her eyes were wide too. ‘Anything else?’
‘No, sir. That was all.’
Brain churning, I downed half the new cupful and reached for the jug. Sopilys might be a prime chancer, but he was no fool. Twenty gold pieces, non-negotiable, might be a hell of a lot of gravy, but on the other hand it argued that he had something really worthwhile to sell. Or thought he had, anyway. So what could it be?
I’d have to wait until the next day to find out.
35.
I got to Ostia next day just shy of noon – perfect timing – and went straight over to the harbour. The wharf where I’d met Sopilys last time was straightforward to find, only a couple of hundred yards from the main gates, so I parked the horse with a few others being looked after by the young entrepreneur near the port master’s office on the corniche and did the rest on foot. I’d brought the money in a small leather pouch just in case, but whatever Sopilys had to sell it’d have to be pretty damn good for me to part with all twenty coins. Maybe last time I’d been too generous: he’d asked for five silver pieces and ended up with half a big one so perhaps he had an inflated idea of what he could screw out of me. That, at least, was one explanation, and it could well be the most likely. Still, I’d be seriously displeased if I’d come all this way for nothing.
The pile of hides was gone, of course, but its place had been taken by a mound of roof tiles; whether outward bound or inward, I didn’t know. There was no sign of Sopilys. I glanced up at the sun: noon, more or less. I couldn’t remember exactly when the meeting last time had been, but I doubted if noon was much out either way. I settled down to wait.
An hour later I was still waiting, and not too happy about it; we were definitely out of time here now with no possibility of error. I wondered if maybe for some reason I’d mistaken the place, but two or three yards off there was a bollard with a sizeable lump knocked out of it that I remembered noticing before. Shit. If the little rat had stood me up I’d kill him. Finally when a boat pulled up alongside me and a gang of stevedores moved in to load the tiles I decided I’d had enough. I picked one of the men at random as he hoisted a dozen or so of them onto his shoulder.
‘Hey, pal.’
He paused in that sort of crick-neck stance you get when you’re seriously weighed down between neck and shoulder-blade. ‘Yeah?’
‘You know a guy called Sopilys, by any chance? He was supposed to meet me here around noon.’
The guy chuckled. ‘Sure I know him. Knew him, rather. If you’re waiting to meet Sopilys, friend, you’ll wait a hell of a long time.’
My guts went cold. Oh, no. Oh, bugger. ‘He’s...uh...Something’s happened to him?’
‘Little bastard got himself knifed last night in an alley round the side of Ma Glyce’s place.’ He shifted the tiles and spat. ‘Good riddance. He was a lead-swinger if I ever saw one.’
‘Ma Glyce’s place?’
‘It’s a wineshop and knocking-shop opposite the gates. You can’t miss it.’ He turned ponderously and staggered off without another word across the boat’s gang-plank.
I just stood there feeling gutted. Shit. It couldn’t be a coincidence; no way could it be a coincidence. Not the alley, sure: that was eerie in the context, but nine tenths of the stabbings, bludgeonings and garrottings that happen in the less salubrious districts of Rome – and, presumably, in Ostia as well – happen in alleys, where the mugger drags or otherwise inveigles the muggee so the business can be conducted in private. Just the fact that, a few hours after he’d sent me a message saying he had important information to sell, Sopilys was conveniently dead. On the other hand, no coincidence or not, it didn’t make sense. Ostia was fourteen miles from Rome, by his own account Sopilys had severed his ties with the stables and he was a spent coin. Except he wasn’t, obviously, because either he’d remembered something that he realised was crucially important or he’d stumbled across some new information. But even so that didn’t explain how chummie had known about it, let alone been so quick off the mark in shutting his mouth before he could talk to me.
Unless, of course, Sopilys had tried to blackmail chummie, been unsuccessful and turned to me instead on the rebound. That would be in character at least, and twenty gold pieces was an appreciable whack; certainly whatever information they represented would justify a special trip down to Ostia with a knife in your belt...
Ah, hell; I was trying to make bricks without mud here. Before I could theorise I had to have facts to go on, and the only place I’d get them was this Ma Glyce’s. I set off for the gates.
Half way there a thought struck me. Practically the last thing Sopilys had said when we’d talked was that if word got out that he’d put me on to Eutacticus he was dead. Now he was. The cold gripped my gut again, but I shook the thought away. No, that couldn’t be it, because I hadn’t mentioned Sopilys, hadn’t even hinted at him. Eutacticus was a well-informed bugger, but he wasn’t omniscient, and in any case what did it matter? If he’d let me go with practically a nod, a smile and a cheery wave he wouldn’t’ve bothered about the guy who’d put me on to him. At least, I didn’t think so...
Jupiter! I could get paranoid here. Facts first, theories later. I went through the gates and crossed the road.
Ma Glyce’s didn’t have a sign outside, but it was obvious I’d found the right place, if only from the girl hanging around the door. With advertisements like that, you don’t need signs.
‘Special price between now and sunset,’ she said. I’d heard livelier invitations to a burning.
‘Uh...right. Yeah.’ I grinned at her. ‘That’s pretty lucky, sister, because tonight’s a full moon and after sunset things might get a little tricky.’
She gave me a nervous look and edged away. I flashed her another smile, took a detour round her prominent superstructure and went in.
Not the most upmarket wineshop – let alone knocking-shop – I’d ever seen. If the old Spartans had gone in for such things, which they didn’t, not at home at any rate, they would’ve avoided the place because it was too basic. There wasn’t even a counter, just a few benches scattered round the room that looked as if they were waiting to be chopped up and used as kindling. A greasy curtain across the door in the opposite wall no doubt hid the knocking-shop side of the business from prying eyes. I was the only customer, which at that time of day was fair enough because I couldn’t see the place catering for anything but bargees, and none too picky ones, at that, and they’d all be on the waterfront hefting roof tiles.
‘You want wine?’ The old woman on the trestle stool next the curtain held up a ladle. As far as the grease-to-fibre ratio went, between her tunic and the curtain I’d’ve bet on the tunic.
‘Yeah.’ I took out my purse – not the one with Sopilys’s gold pieces in it, the everyday one – and opened it. ‘What’ve you got, grandma?’
She wheezed to herself for two or three seconds, picked up a cup from a pile on the floor and dipped the ladle into what I’d thought might be an old stew-pot set there to catch the drips from the roof. ‘That’s a copper. And less of the “grandma”.’
‘Right. Right.’ I handed over the coin and took the cup. Holy Bacchus! Eat your heart out, Garden of Delights! Still, it saved on eye-strain. ‘I hear you had a stabbing last night. Guy called Sopilys.’
‘You from the Watch?’
‘No, I’m –’
‘Only I can’t stand these buggers.’
‘I was due to meet him today. On business. You know what happened exactly?’
‘The day I don’t know what’s going on in my own place you can lay me out on the timber and throw on the torch.’
‘Fine. Fine.’ I waited. Nothing.
‘What’s wrong with the wine?’ she said.
‘Nothing.’ I took a sip; no more, because I valued my tonsils. ‘Delicious.’
She wheezed again. ‘You’re a bloody liar, son.’
