I would definitely have to talk to Domitius Ahenobarbus.
At the end of the garden, the side gate opened: Alexis back with Placida. She looked up and saw me…
Ow-ooo! Ow-ooo-ooo-ooo!
Oh, hell.
Now I knew what a Gallic boar felt like when it saw a hundred and twenty pounds of boarhound racing towards it. I just had time to get up and put both my hands out before she hit.
‘You have to forgive her really,’ Perilla said as I picked myself out of the flower bed and fended the brute off. ‘With all her faults she is very affectionate. And she’s definitely beginning to take to you.’
‘Yeah. Yeah, right.’
Problem was, she still smelled of fish
22
Arranging an interview with Domitius Ahenobarbus was easier said than done.
You don’t just drop in uninvited on someone who’s nephew to the Wart and the husband of Augustus’s granddaughter, and who knows exactly where that puts him on the social ladder. I’d never met the guy personally, which suited me just fine because in addition to being a four-star imperial he was a five-star bastard: short-tempered as a rhino with a migraine, arrogant as hell and with a streak of malicious cruelty a yard wide. The story went, he’d once driven over a kid on Appian Road just for the fun of hearing him scream. He’d’ve had the mother, too — so he told his pals later over dinner — but she moved at the last minute and he had to choose between them.
Not a nice man, Domitius Ahenobarbus.
So I did things properly. I had Bathyllus put on his best tunic and hernia support and sent the little bald-head over to the Palatine with strict instructions to impress. I’d wondered what to use as an excuse for the meeting and decided in the end not to bother: if the bastard was as aware of who I was and what I wanted to talk about as I thought he’d be then I’d be wasting my time wrapping things up in fancy language. Besides, whether he was a four-star imperial or not, in terms of family history the Valerii Messallae were as good as the Domitii Ahenobarbi any day of the month, so bugger him sideways and twice on the kalends.
All of which was why, next day, I found myself outside the main gate of the emperor’s palace. The Wart hadn’t lived there for years, mind, let alone stuck his boil-encrusted face inside the city’s sacred boundary-line, but Ahenobarbus and young Agrippina — there were no kids, yet — had taken over one of the wings and were doing a pretty good job of acting as stand-ins. Rumour was, the two were well-matched. By all accounts Germanicus’s daughter was as cold and calculating as her mother, with all the qualities of a first-class bitch in the making.
‘Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus to see Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus,’ I said to the door-slave.
The guy looked at me like I’d turned up selling brooms. ‘Do you have an appointment, sir?’
‘Of course I’ve got a fucking — ’ I caught myself. Steady, Corvinus! Gravitas, gravitas! ‘Ah…yeah. Yes, of course I have.’
He checked a wax tablet and made a tick with his stylus. ‘Ah. There you are. Very well, that seems to be in order. If you’ll come this way.’
I followed him, hitching up my formal mantle. Gods, I hate these things! Yeah, sure, they’re impressive, especially out in provinces where most of the locals make do with a loincloth or animal skins turned inside-out, depending on climate, but they impress because they’re totally impractical. Anyone who’s had to move any distance wound up in twelve feet of carefully-choreographed woollen blanket, and who isn’t a complete mental cheesecake, will agree with me. Still, you had to make sacrifices.
We went through what seemed miles of rooms and out into a central garden loud with peacocks and the sound of water from the ornamental fountain. Ahenobarbus was sitting under a trellised vine dictating to a secretary. No mantle for that guy: he was wearing a simple lounging-tunic. He looked up and frowned. He was big, red-haired — the family hadn’t got the surname Bronzebeard for nothing — and built like a bull.
Red-haired. I remembered the miniature that Rupilia had shown me. Yeah; that’s where the kid had got it from. Not from his mother at all, or not completely. And the shape of the face made sense too.
‘That’s all right, Callistus, you can go,’ Ahenobarbus said. The secretary closed the roll, tucked his pen and ink-bottle into a pouch at his belt, bowed and left. ‘Have a seat, Corvinus. Ruber, a chair.’
There was a wicker chair at the end of the loggia. The door-slave pulled it up, saw me settled and then moved off.
‘Now.’ Ahenobarbus was still frowning. ‘What can I do for you? According to your major-domo you wanted to talk about young Sextus Papinius.’
‘Yeah. That’s right.’
‘Then I’m afraid you’ve had a wasted journey. I knew the boy by sight, but — ’
‘He was your son.’
Silence; long silence. The frown deepened to a scowl. ‘You know, I find that rather insulting,’ he said carefully. ‘Sextus Papinius’s father was Papinius Allenius, the ex-consul. If you’ve been listening to any other rumours then I strongly recommend in your own interests that you discount them for what they are. Complete and utter nonsense.’
‘That so, now?’ I said. ‘Me…well, I didn’t know the kid when he was alive, but I’ve seen his portrait. He had red hair and a full jaw. Sound familiar?’
‘His mother has red hair.’
‘Sure. But not the jaw. Nor does Allenius. You’ve got both.’
He stared at me like I’d crawled out from under a stone: evidently, the guy wasn’t used to being contradicted. Tough. I stared back; like I say, a Valerius Messalla’s got his own pride, and I wasn’t here for fun.
‘What do you want, exactly?’ he said. ‘Just out of interest, you understand.’
‘To know why the kid was murdered.’
His eyes flickered. ‘Papinius committed suicide.’
‘No he didn’t. Someone decoyed him to the top floor of the tenement, probably slugged him from behind and then pitched him through the window. You know anything about that?’
He stood up quickly. ‘Now you really are being insulting. I’ll ask you to leave, please.’
‘Not yet. Not until I’m done. Two questions. First: if the kid wasn’t your son then why did you have Allenius put him forward as a junior officer on the fire compensation commission?’
For a moment I didn’t think he’d answer. Then he said, through tight lips: ‘I didn’t. The suggestion — the request — was Allenius’s, I only approved the appointment. We’re old colleagues and I was happy to help his son begin his political career.’
‘Come on, pal! Allenius hadn’t had anything to do with the boy since he was born and wanted nothing to do with him then. So why should he bother calling in a valuable favour?’
‘Are you accusing me of lying? Because if so — ’
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Second question, two parts. Young Papinius was being blackmailed by a guy called Mucius Soranus to the tune of fifty thousand sesterces. He borrowed the cash from a money-lender by the name of Vestorius. Just before he died he repaid the loan in full, plus the interest, sixty thousand in all. He had to get them from somewhere. My guess is that they came from you. Right or wrong, and if right then why should you pay? And what the hell did Soranus have on him to merit that much bread?’
‘Sextus Papinius’ — Ahenobarbus’s face had gone as red as his beard, and I could see his fists flexing and unflexing — ‘was taking bribes. According to Laelius Balbus — ’
‘Wrong, pal. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Also, a mistake. First off, Papinius was straight as a rule. He wouldn’t’ve taken a bribe from anyone. Second, according to Balbus he kept the bribery issue a secret between the kid and himself. So how the hell do you come to know about it?’
I thought he’d hit me — he was within spitting distance of it, and from the expression on his face hitting me was the least he’d’ve liked to do — but he turned away.