Ovid

No, it wasn't the rotgut stuff I'd had last time. I knew it wouldn't be before I let a drop of it past my bruised lips. The first thing I'd done that morning before calling on Perilla was to send Bathyllus round with a jar of my own Falernian; good stuff from the family's own vineyards six miles from Sinuessa, Faustian no less and five years older than I was. I'd warned Bathyllus to tell Callias from me that if he served me anything else or let on to Perilla that he'd done a swap I'd personally see to it that he found himself floating down the Tiber with his prick tied in a clove hitch. I didn't mind getting leaned on for Perilla's sake but I drew the line at drinking Hubby Rufus's apology for horse piss.

'So how well did your stepfather know Julia, then?' I said when the Falernian had begun its magic journey southwards.

'What?' Perilla's head came up like she'd sat on a wasp.

'You heard me. Julia. The old emperor's granddaughter. The one that was sent to Trimerus for adultery.'

'So you've made that connection.'

I didn't quite know what to make of her tone. She wasn't exactly angry. Maybe ‘bitter’ came nearest. As if somehow I'd disappointed her but she'd been expecting it.

'Oh, come on, Perilla! You must've thought about it yourself. The Julia thing's so obvious even I got it without busting a blood vessel.' She said nothing so I pressed my advantage. Or what I thought was an advantage. 'If Ovid was having an affair with Julia then her grandfather would have a right to boot him up the backside, wouldn't he? Especially since the lady was married at the time. And it'd be a private family matter, too, so it wouldn't be any concern of the state. All that worries me is why…'

'Corvinus.' You could've used Perilla's voice to make chilled grape sorbet in midsummer. 'Let us get one thing clear. There was no affair with Julia. My stepfather was a dozen years older than she was, he loved my mother, and furthermore he was the most moral man in Rome.'

I didn't laugh. It was a close-run thing and in my present weakened state I nearly ruptured myself, but I didn't laugh.

'Oh, yeah. Sure,' I said. 'That's why Augustus banned his poetry for giving impressionable young gentlemen and ladies an itch in their drawers.'

'You're confusing the poetry with the poet!'

'Maybe. But Ovid's seemed pretty autobiographical to me. From what I've read of it the guy must've gone round in a permanent crouch. Not that I'm being critical, you understand.'

'It seemed autobiographical because he was a great poet!'

'Look, no arguments, right? If you say — '

But she wasn't finished with me yet. Perilla was beautiful when she was angry.

'I knew him, Corvinus, and you didn't. He was the gentlest, faithfullest, most moderate…'

I held up my hand. 'Yeah, okay. Okay! Fair enough, I'm sorry. Birds fed out of his lily-white hand and he blushed to his socks if a girl so much as tickled his inclinations. Sure. I'll take your word for it. But come on! There has to be a connection with Julia. Both of them exiled in the same year's too pat.'

'Stranger things have happened.'

'Don't bet on it.' I took another swig of wine. Beautiful. 'Okay, so let's take it another way. Your stepfather said he was exiled for something he saw and didn't report, right?'

She nodded briefly. Her mouth still looked like someone had cemented it up from the inside.

'So if he wasn't directly involved with Julia what's wrong with the theory that he knew she was being humped and didn't pass the information on to Augustus?'

'Nothing, except that there would be no sense in hushing up the charge. After all if Augustus was willing to let the crime itself become public why should he worry about whatever Ovid saw? And why should he punish him so harshly?'

'Yeah, sure. I thought of that. But maybe what Ovid saw had other implications. Connected with the adultery but not part of it.'

'How do you mean?'

'I'm not sure myself. Maybe nothing. It's just an idea, but if there was something else then it might've made all the difference. Anyway we need more information, and that won't be easy to come by. In fact I'd bet you a basket of lampreys to a pitted olive that we'll find people's mouths sewn up tighter than a gnat's arsehole.'

Perilla was frowning; at the crudity, I thought (the phrase had slipped out), but I was wrong. 'Is all of this necessary?' she said.

'All of what?'

'This…digging into the past. Sifting through old bones. All my mother and I want is to get my stepfather's ashes back. We couldn't care less what he did.'

I sat back and stared at her in amazement. The lady was serious. She was actually serious! She honestly, genuinely couldn't care less about trivial things like reasons. To me, now, getting the ashes was incidental; or rather they were only part of the game. I couldn't give up whether Perilla wanted me to or not. I was hooked, I had to know what Ovid had done, for my own satisfaction if nothing else. And I knew, somehow, that the two things went together, that we'd never get imperial permission for the return of Ovid's body unless we solved the mystery of his exile.

'Yeah, it's necessary,' I said simply. 'Believe me.'

'All right.' The directness of her reply both surprised me and gave me a warm feeling inside. 'So if we do want information then who do we ask?'

I noticed the "we". It seemed we were on the same side again. The warm feeling increased.

'Smack in the bullseye,' I said. 'That's the problem, lady.'

'And the answer?'

That's what I liked about Perilla. If there was a problem then there must be an answer. Simple. QED.

Only in this case it wasn't.

'Hold on a minute,' I said. 'Let me think.'

I took a swallow of wine. This one was a real bummer. It was no use approaching any of my own age-group. Although they'd be the most amenable, like me they'd only have been kids ten years back when Julia was exiled, so none of them would be able to tell me much more than I already knew. Even if they weren't sycophantic sods like Caelius Crispus. On the other hand the older people, the thirty-plusses who'd have the information from personal experience, were mostly my father's cronies and I knew all I'd get from them was a blank stare and a raspberry. I couldn't risk going to a total stranger or one of my father's political enemies either, because I'd need to be sure that whoever I asked would keep his mouth shut whether he told me anything or not. If it got around that young Corvinus was poking about for skeletons in the imperial cupboard it could net me more than just a few cuts and bruises. Tiberius was no tyrant but that didn't mean he'd put up with some smartass bastard shoving his nose into the family secrets. That sort of thing was a shortcut to a fly-speck island of my own, or worse. So what did that leave me with? Sod all, so far as I could see. Unless…

I suddenly remembered the fat senator who'd helped me out at the palace.

'Lentulus.'

'Who?'

'Cornelius Lentulus. You don't know Cornelius Lentulus? Down the Market Square they call him the Great White Elephant. And not just because of his size either.'

'Corvinus, I really don't know what you're talking about.'

'Lentulus knows everything. And he never forgets.' I took a long pull at the Falernian and let it trickle gently past my tonsils. 'What's more he doesn't give a toss for anyone's opinion but his own. Lentulus is perfect. We talk to Lentulus.'

'You're sure?'

'Sure I'm sure.' I finished the wine and stood up. 'In fact I'm so sure that I'll go round now and catch him before he starts getting ready for his dinner party.'

'What dinner party?'

'For Lentulus there's always a dinner party. With any luck the old bugger will be half-pissed already.'

'You're going straight away?' I thought I could detect disappointment in Perilla's voice, but maybe it was just wishful thinking. 'Now?'