‘The kid borrowed fifty thousand from a money-lender about a month ago. Just before he died, he paid it back, plus the interest. You’ve no idea where that came from?’
‘None whatsoever,’ he snapped. ‘Certainly not from me. It’s the first I’ve heard of it.’
He wasn’t lying. I suspected that, like Dad, Allenius didn’t believe in telling lies, except as a last resort, when he’d do it with style. Twisting the truth and slithering out from under, that’s something else again; any career politician manages that easy as breathing, and Dad — and, I’d suspect, Allenius — did it all the time. But the denial came out too flat to be ambiguous, and the shock on Allenius’s face was too real to be fake.
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Just asking.’
‘Very well.’ He glanced up the alley, towards the Sacred Way. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me I really must — ’
‘One last thing,’ I said. I hadn’t intended to ask the question, but Papinius Allenius was as good a source for the answer as any. ‘You know a senator by the name of Carsidius?’
‘Yes. Of course I do.’
‘He, uh, “reputable”, if you know what I mean?’
I knew it was a mistake before the words were out of my mouth. Allenius drew himself up straight and gave me the full, arrogant broad-striper glare, point-blank range: the look that for centuries has had foreigners from Britain to Parthia wondering if their underwear is showing. ‘Reputable?’ he snapped. ‘Reputable? How dare you, Corvinus! Lucius Carsidius is a close and deeply respected friend not only of mine but of the most honourable lights of the Senate. And if you imagine for one moment that men of unimpeachable honour and integrity such as Vibius Marsus or Lucius Arruntius would associate with someone whose morals were less than the very strictest, then — ’
‘Uh, right. Right,’ I said quickly, backing off: the guy was working himself up into full Ciceronian denunciatory mode, and heads were beginning to turn fifteen yards off. ‘I understand.’
‘And so you should!’ He was glaring at me. ‘“Reputable”, indeed! Now if you’ve finished with your questions I have a meeting to go to. Good day to you!’
Before I could answer, he set off down the portico steps, and this time he didn’t look back.
Shit. I grinned and shook my head: yeah, Dad to a fault. And Arruntius and Marsus, eh? Now, there were another two names from the past!
Funnily enough, from the same bit of the past as Acutia…
Hell. Coincidence, it had to be. When he’d chosen them as examples Allenius had been right: the pair of them were the Roman senate, or at least between them they led the most reputable bit of it. If Carsidius was part of their gang then he was Respectable with a capital ‘R’, and you couldn’t say that about every broad-striper by any means. Some of these bums on the Curia Julia’s benches belonged to crooks and swindlers who’d leave the worst the Subura or Ostia could produce looking like eight-year-old apple-scrumpers. Just because your family name’s Cornelius or Junius doesn’t mean you’re not as bent as a Corinthian whore’s hairpin; quite the reverse, because most of the time that’s how your ancestors made their pile in the first place and feathering your own nest at other people’s expense is practically a family duty.
At least Carsidius had his vote of confidence. Whether the bugger deserved it or not was another matter.
Well, so much for that little interview. I’d never met young Papinius, but I could see why the two hadn’t got on: the parallels with me and my own father were too close for comfort. All the same, Dad and I had made it up before he died, and although we were always chalk and cheese we’d at least reached a modus vivendi. Papinius and his father evidently hadn’t been so lucky. Sad, sure, desperately sad, but that’s how things go. It wasn’t too uncommon, either.
Still, there were a few things that didn’t quite gel there. As I followed Allenius down the steps and rejoined the crowd I was thinking hard.
15
So. What now? I’d got plenty of time in hand before there’d be any point in heading down to the Aventine, but I’d better go over to the vegetable market south of Cattlemarket Square to fulfil my part of the deal with Meton. If he was so picky about the size and quality of his sodding cardoons then leaving things too late, when all the best ones might’ve gone, was not a good idea. Mind you, I reckoned I deserved better from his side of the deal when I did finally get back home than meatballs. That was pure sadism.
Speaking of which, lunch. I’d left that pretty late as well, but there’re some good cook-shops around the Square that do all-day specials of tripe, liver and kidneys. Now that breakfast had worn off, I could combine the cardoon hunt with a mid-afternoon meal.
Duty first. Vegetable market, south-west corner, stallkeeper by the name of Flavilla Nepia. Check. I took the series of alleys that link the south side of Market Square with Tuscan Street and headed for the River.
I got the cardoons no bother. In fact, it was a positive pleasure, because Meton’s Flavilla Nepia turned out to be a big-boned stunner from Sicily, and a very switched-on lady indeed. So much for names, although what parents would call their kid Dumb Blonde to begin with I just couldn’t imagine. The stall was pretty quiet — most of Rome’s bag-ladies and kitchen slaves do their shopping early morning — and after she’d helped me load a string bag bought from one of the nearby stalls with half her remaining stock we got chatting about the empire’s biggest island. She didn’t like Etna, either, so we had a lot in common.
By the time I’d found a cook-shop and eaten a leisurely couple of skewerfuls of kidneys with a plate of bean stew and a hunk of barley bread the sun was only a hand-span above the Janiculan rise. Perfect. Rome’s tenement population would be getting ready to call it a day and head back for the evening soup-pot. I finished the last of my quarter jug of Florentian — you don’t see that one often in the City, but the cook-shop owner was from the region, and it wasn’t a bad choice — and headed in the direction of Old Ostia Road. The narrow streets were full of home-going Aventine tunics, but if a purple stripe don’t get you much extra consideration in a crowd then a large string bag of very prickly cardoons does, especially if you’re prepared to use it.
Not a patch on a Gallic boarhound, mind. I wondered how Alexis was getting on with her. Or not, as it may be. Still, he could look after himself.
I reached the tenement while there was still some light in the sky. It was a beautiful evening: cool, clear, with not a hint of rain. Cooking’s frowned on in these places, for obvious reasons — a spilled brazier can send the whole place up like a torch in minutes, and the bad ventilation can kill you before you even notice — so in good weather the locals tend to use the street as a dining-cum-sitting room until it’s time to pack in and go to bed. It’s more sociable, too, and tenement punters tend to be a sociable lot, as a rule. There were a good few families outside round folding tables, sitting chatting while Ma or Grandma stirred the bean-pot on the portable stove and laid out the bread and greens.
I stepped onto the pavement to avoid a trio of charging, shrieking kids playing catch-as-
catch-can on the road and went up to the nearest brazier.
‘Uh…excuse me, sister,’ I said.
‘Yeah?’ The woman beside it was cutting sausages from a string and laying them on the grill. She looked up, saw the purple stripe and her eyes widened: you don’t get many purple-stripers round the tenements, especially at dinner-time. ‘You lost, sir?’
‘No. I was hoping someone could help me with the answers to a few questions.’
She frowned: the combination of a purple stripe and questions isn’t too popular in places like the Aventine. Then she turned and yelled: ‘Quintus!’
A big guy who looked like he unloaded barges for a living detached himself from a gaggle of male punters shooting the breeze a few yards away and sauntered over flexing his muscles.