White murder marcus corv.., p.39
White Murder (Marcus Corvinus Book 7), page 39
‘Yeah?’
‘When we get to Catana, if you’re asking questions about Maximus then watch your back. It’s his home ground, and he has a lot of friends there.’
Something cold touched my spine. If you go to Sicily then watch your back... ‘Yeah. Yeah, I’ll do that,’ I said. ‘Thanks for the warning.’
‘No problem. And now if you’ll excuse me I’ve got things to do. We’re calling in at Tauromenium; not for long, only three or four hours, but it’ll give you and your lady a chance to stretch your legs.’
‘Fine.’
I watched the coast for a bit longer then went back to the deckhouse, my brain buzzing.
Maybe the captain had been ribbing me about the sulphur, or maybe we were just lucky with the wind, but the approach to Tauromenium wasn’t all that bad, and the strange thing was that Etna directly to the south but screened by the rising ground wasn’t too obvious either. Certainly what countryside we could see between the shore and the hills looked fertile: lush and rolling, with vineyards, orchards and bank upon bank of red flowers.
Tauromenium was a different matter entirely. From what the captain had said, I’d imagined a cosy little town with a market-place an easy stroll in from the harbour, with maybe – I’d been fantasising here, sure, but what the hell – a convenient wineshop that I could pass the time in while Perilla did her rounds of the local sites. What I actually got, when we rounded the headland and came in clear sight of the place, would’ve given an eagle migraine: a town on a mountain, seven hundred feet above its harbour, at the top of a zigzag track that gave me, in my weakened condition, palpitations at the thought of climbing. I may be a natural hoofer, but my idea of distance tends to favour the horizontal rather than the vertical. I gazed in horror.
‘Oh, shit,’ I murmured.
‘Come on, Marcus, don’t be silly.’ Perilla was up on deck too, looking disgustingly windswept and healthy. ‘A bit of a walk will do you good.’
‘Walk, yes. Climb’s different.’
‘There is a road.’
‘Yeah, I can see there is. Even so, I hope you packed the crampons.’
‘Don’t grouse, dear. We’re on holiday.’
We pulled in at the quay, and I saw the mules. The captain caught my eye and grinned. Bastard! He’d known all along, of course, and so had Perilla. Me, I don’t usually go a bundle for any four-footed method of transport, but given the alternatives of a trip to Tauromenium on two legs or on four I was all for the latter. Not that I was against an outing in principle, far from it: four hours wasn’t much for a there-and-back stint, but if you’ve been tossing about on a boat for what seems like forever you grab whatever chances are offered. And there might still be the wineshop.
We hired the mules and took the half-hour trip up (and up) into town.
I’m not going to describe Tauromenium, let alone give you the potted history Perilla gave me on the way. It was a nice enough place, not that it had all that much going for it, apart from some stupendous views of Etna at one end and the coast we’d just sailed along at the other. The lady and I did the sights, such as they were, on our own: Bathyllus, well-provided before we left with holiday pocket-money, had wandered off somewhere with Phryne – the little guy had got over his seasickness faster than I had, but he was still moping – while Meton had headed straight for the market with a gleam in his eye and a song on his lips. Eventually, by way of a theatre and a couple of incidental but unexciting temples, I managed to steer Perilla in the direction of a tight little restaurant that I’d spotted right at the start, perched on the cliff edge and with a trellised courtyard overlooking the sea. We sat down and ordered grilled red mullet, fresh bread and olives in their oil, a salad and a jug of the local wine, while Perilla had a sort of diluted fruit juice cordial with herbs in it which the proprietor swore by; which didn’t altogether surprise me, but then that was her business. Then I stretched out my legs and took my first sip of wine for two days. Not bad, not bad at all. Thin, sure, but made from good grapes and cellar-chilled to just the right temperature. Made even better by the scent of the grilling fish that had my mouth watering in anticipation. I sighed. The lady was right; case or not, a holiday was just what I needed.
‘Feeling more human now?’ Perilla said.
‘Uh-huh.’ I took a long swallow of the straw-coloured wine. Delicious. ‘Maybe there’s something to be said for travelling after all.’
She smiled. ‘It’s certainly a lovely spot, and it’s so nice to get off the ship, isn’t it? Not that we’ve far to go now.’
‘Yeah. Now about this connection with Natalis –’ I said.
The smile faded. ‘Marcus, can’t we leave that, please? At least until we get to Catana. Sleuthing’s all very well, but it isn’t everything in life. Why don’t you forget about murders and poisonings and just enjoy yourself for once?’
Jupiter! Well, I supposed the lady had a point, and it was her trip too. And she was right: nothing of a town though it might be where tourism was concerned, once you’d actually managed to reach the place Tauromenium was a lovely spot, and a complete change from Rome. Quieter, for a start: I hadn’t heard so much as a donkey cough.
We sat for a while in silence and watched the afternoon sun glinting on the sea. If you’re going to look at large expanses of water then sitting under a vine-trellis with a cool jug of wine beside you is the best place to do it, and it gets my vote every time. Watching it from the heaving deck of a boat is a complete mug’s game.
‘We should have brought Marilla,’ Perilla said eventually. Marilla’s our adopted daughter, squirrelled away in the Alban Hills with the lady’s old Aunt Marcia. Her choice, not ours. Certainly not Perilla’s.
‘There wasn’t time.’
‘No. I suppose not. Still, she would’ve enjoyed it. We don’t get away all that much. Not as a family, anyway.’
Uh-oh; the lady was in one of her pensive, maternal moods. She doesn’t get them often, and they don’t last long, but they always make me nervous. Luckily I was saved by the fish: a dozen beautifully-grilled little mullet with a sprinkling of sea-salt, olive oil and mountain herbs that would’ve had Meton crying his eyes out, along with a loaf of crusty bread, the home-grown olives and a green vinegar-and-oil salad. We hadn’t exactly been living on hard-tack and bilgewater for the past three days – or at least Perilla hadn’t – because the Polyphemus had made regular stops, but a meal like this was special.
It cheered Perilla up, anyway. By the time she made a start on her third mullet the mood had vanished. We didn’t have time for dessert, but the break had been long enough. I paid and we walked back down the steep mule-road to the harbour: downhill’s different.
Two of the menials were there already: Phryne had persuaded Bathyllus to buy a straw sun-hat that made him look like a louche prune. Meton rolled up ten minutes late dragging one of the biggest barbels I’d ever seen; the gods knew where it’d come from – barbelsare freshwater fish – or how he expected to cook it, especially when we were arriving in Catana the next day, but that’s Meton for you, a professional to his fingertips. We all piled aboard , and half an hour later we’d left Tauromenium behind us.
37.
You don’t realise how big Etna is – I mean longways, as it were – until you sail past it. At Tauromenium we’d been more or less level with the northern slopes; Catana, at its southern end, is a good thirty miles as the crow flies further on. Sure, there’re foothills either side and a lot of the distance is base, but that is one big mountain.
We got to Catana a couple of hours after dawn next day: there had just been enough light, when we drew level with them, for Perilla to point out the lumps of black rock sticking out of the water, that the ship’s namesake had thrown at Ulysses when he came this way and did a runner from the big bastard’s cave. Me, I’m no more credulous where these old stories go than the next guy, but it still gave me a shiver. Even if Perilla was right and what had done the throwing was the volcano a long time before Ulysses came on the scene it wasn’t a comforting thought. The countryside between coast and mountains might be a farmer’s dream now, but anything capable of beaning you with forty tons of rock at a distance of several miles deserves a bit of respect. I just hoped Etna had settled down in the last thousand years.
Catana’s not like Tauromenium. It’s a lot more prosperous, for a start, largely because the city fathers had the good sense to back Augustus (before he was Augustus) in the civil war and the place was raised to the status of a colony. Also, lying as it does at the northerly end of the plain that stretches from the foothills of Etna south towards Leontini, it’s a lot more accessible: the harbour is part of the town, which is directly behind and around it.
We anchored at one of the quays – like the rest of the town, the harbour and its mole are built of irregular lumps of black basalt and tufa blocks from the old lava flows – and disembarked, plus luggage. I’d been worried about transport, especially after Tauromenium, but it was no problem: there were plenty of carts for hire, even a carriage, and no ban, like there is in Rome, on wheeled traffic within the city boundaries during daylight hours. I left the dickering to Perilla. Bathyllus, whose job it really was, may be an organisational genius, but he’s no dickerer, especially when he’s sporting a sun-hat that’d make a mule laugh, and Meton is worse than useless because if he doesn’t get his way – completely, and immediately – he gives the whole thing up and wanders off in a sulk. Me, I just shrug and pay, which offends the bastards’ professional sensibilities as well as turning out expensive as hell. As a dickerer, Perilla’s perfect, if unorthodox: she just names her price, fixes the most likely-looking candidate with her eye and doesn’t let go until the bugger gives in. Simple but effective.
Phrontis the captain had recommended a place he knew just beyond the town’s north gate, the self-contained half of a villa that one of the more enterprising Catanans had built to catch the upper side of the tourist trade: like I say, Etna’s the island’s prime tourist attraction and after corn and sulphur gawpers from Rome are the city’s biggest earner. It might be already taken, of course, even this early in the season, but that was the risk you ran when you travelled on spec, and it sounded a hell of a lot better than putting up at an inn. Meton could cook his barbel, for a start. Apropos of which, I noticed that, while Perilla negotiated the hire of the carriage and a cart, he was standing to one side with his precious collection of knives and his best omelette pan clutched in one massive hairy fist and the barbel in the other, in a pose that would’ve had an artist of the Realist school screaming with joy and reaching for his brushes: Pensive Ape with Kitchenware and Fish.
Perilla concluded arrangements, and the carriage-driver and carter, both wearing that numb, what-the-hell-hit-me look that showed they’d been well and truly hired, loaded the ten tons of luggage onto the cart. Then we said goodbye to Phrontis and trundled up Harbour Road in the direction of the centre.
It felt funny being in a city again after seeing nothing but water, sky and the same faces for four straight days, and the fact that we were headed for the north gate meant that we got the through tour. Nice place, Catana, although the black lava used in most of the buildings and for all of the paving slabs made it quite samey. A lot of it was new, probably part of the civic improvement scheme of the past fifty years, but some must’ve been forced by earthquake damage: living within striking distance of Etna has its drawbacks. There was the scent of money around, mind, which there hadn’t been at Tauromenium; I noticed a pretty snazzy public hall over to the left of the market square, and the jutting curve of a theatre beyond it.
‘Oh, look, Marcus!’ Perilla said. ‘There’s the temple of Ceres! Isn’t it marvellous?’
‘Very nice.’ Bugger; why is there always a temple? This one was a whopper, too, dominating the main square, faced with marble and with a long altar in front decorated with statues either end. I could almost hear the lady making a tick on her things-we-had-to-see list. ‘Let’s just get settled in first, okay?’
We carried on up the main drag past a line of prosperous-looking shops and through a suburb of upmarket houses with walled gardens to the north gate. Just past it the coachman took a left onto a dirt track between two fields of beans, and with the turn I saw Etna again. We must’ve been heading straight towards it. Gods, that thing was big! Close, too: the town’s agricultural hinterland, field upon field, stretched up towards the foothills, then merged with the tree cover that stretched most of the way up the slopes. Above it was the volcano itself: bare rock heaving into the sky, with broad patches of snow at the crown and half-hidden by cloud. Maybe it was because we were beyond the city smells now, or the sight of the mountain had made it more noticeable, but the air seemed to have taken on a definite and sinister reek of sulphur. The hairs on the back of my neck stirred.
‘Maybe we’d be better off looking for something in town, lady,’ I said.
‘Don’t be silly, dear. It’s quite safe.’
Yeah, right; I’d bet that was what they’d told Damocles when he asked about the sword. Even so, not the site I’d’ve chosen for a country house. Having an active volcano practically in your back garden isn’t exactly conducive to calm, tranquillity and a good night’s sleep. Still, it was too late to change plans now.
The track ended up at a big walled villa in an oleander grove. Home sweet home for the duration, or at least I hoped so. Barring little accidents like unexpected volcanic eruptions, that was.
We passed through the gates. A slave pruning the whatever-it-was plant that climbed up the villa’s front gaped, then ran inside and came out with a short tubby guy clutching a bread roll. Obviously the enterprising owner, hauled from his breakfast. I got out, but let Perilla do the talking. Five minutes later, our accommodation was arranged and the coachman and carter, helped by the plant-pruning slave, were ferrying in the luggage.
‘It’s absolutely lovely, Marcus!’ Perilla was beaming. ‘And not expensive at all.’
‘Yeah.’ I looked round the sitting-room. The furniture was heavy and dark, with a lot of gilt – my bet was the guy had bought it wholesale from a cat-house somewhere; it even smelled of scent – but the room opened out into a small private garden that looked ideal for lounging of an evening with a jug of wine. ‘Mind you, I think that side of it came as a bit of a surprise to our landlord.’
‘Nonsense, dear, he was quite satisfied. I offered a very fair price. Especially since it’s so early in the season.’
‘Right. Right. I just thought, when he choked on the roll, that he might’ve been expecting a bit more, that’s all.’
Meton loomed in from the direction of the kitchen. I felt a momentary qualm, but the guy was smiling. Or doing what passed with Meton for smiling, which was not scowling too hard.
‘Everything okay, Meton?’ I said cautiously.
‘Callias’s chef doesn’t have no asafoetida,’ he rumbled – Callias was our tubby host – ‘and I’m missing an eighteen-inch fretalis, but otherwise it’s not bad. Not bad at all.’
I breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Callias’s chef – he was stocking our kitchen with the basics on account – must be shit-hot. ‘Not bad’ in Meton’s terms was the culinary equivalent of a laurel wreath and a major ovation. ‘Great,’ I said. ‘That’s just great.’ I paused. ‘Ah...what’s a fretalis, pal?’
He ignored the question. ‘Only if it’s all right with you I’ll go back into town straight away and suss out the market.’ His eyes beneath the beetling brows gleamed with an unholy light on the last word. With Perilla it’s temples; Meton’s bag is markets, especially the more outré variety. Obsessive isn’t the word; set him down waterless in the middle of the Arabian desert and the first thing he’d look for would be truffles.
‘Fine. Go ahead.’ I fumbled with my purse and handed him half a dozen silver pieces. ‘Enjoy.’ The first rule, when we arrive anywhere, is get rid of Meton. Easily done, but pricey. Still, when it came to dinner time you got value for money.
Meton loomed out again. I wondered if the Catanan stallowners had an inkling as to what was about to hit them. Maybe they did: some of those doom-and-gloom soothsayers’re pretty good.
Bathyllus was next. ‘That’s everything stowed, sir,’ he said. ‘Phryne is dealing with the mistress’s wardrobe. And I’ve ordered the baths heated. We have access to the owner’s suite, and I thought perhaps you and the mistress would like to bathe.’
I caught the faintest suggestion of a sniff; not the usual Bathyllus-type sarky-bastard sniff, but a genuine one. A not-so-subtle hint, probably. Yeah, well; the little bald-head had a point. Four days aboard a merchantman with very basic sanitary arrangements don’t do wonders for your state of cleanliness, especially if you’ve spent a large part of them tossing your guts out. ‘Good idea,’ I said. ‘Oh, and Bathyllus?’
‘Yes, sir?’
‘Make enquiries next door about local wine suppliers, would you? Then arrange delivery of something suitable.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Now that was a sarky sniff. Still, the bastard ought to know the priorities by this time.
We had a leisurely bathe followed by lunch. I’d just chased down the last scrap of bread and sausage with a swallow of the wine we’d brought with us when Perilla suggested an investigative trip into town.
‘I’ve made a list from Timaeus, dear,’ she said. Timaeus of Tauromenium, if you’re wondering at all; I’d met him, through his History of Sicily, ad nauseam at regular intervals over the past couple of days. ‘The temple of Ceres, of course, is an absolute must, but he mentions several other interesting shrines such as –’
Oh, gods. I held up a hand. ‘Look, lady, let’s knock this on the head right now, okay? Visit as many temples as you like, but don’t drag me along.’
‘But, Marcus –!’
