Ovid

I stared.

'Not bad.' It was an understatement, but I wasn't going to give up that easily. 'Not bad at all. Let's see you walk.'

She walked across the room. The result was sexy as hell. I groaned.

'Jupiter, Perilla! What's that supposed to be? Get your head down. Slouch. And try not to move your hips.'

'I am trying.'

'Try harder, then. Walk through the streets like that and you'll be arrested on sight. Or propositioned. Probably both at once, knowing some of those buggers in the Watch.'

'All right. How's this?'

She tried again. It was better this time, but I knew at least a dozen guys in Rome who'd pay a fortune for an introduction. They'd be in for a disappointment later, mind, but that was neither here nor there.

'Look, watch me,' I said. I walked towards the door and back. 'Bigger steps. Loosen up a bit, and keep your eyes on the ground.'

She had hidden talents, that girl. And I don't mean the obvious ones. After four or five turns around the room I couldn't've sworn with absolute certainty that she wasn't what she pretended to be. So long as she could keep it up we were home and dry. Shit.

'Do I win the bet?' she said.

'Yeah, you win. Come over here first, though.'

She did. I kissed her. She co-operated long enough for things to reach the interesting stage before turning her face aside.

'Marcus! Stop it! You're smudging my makeup!'

Reluctantly I let her go.

When you check, you check. It was Perilla all right.

We didn't walk all the way. Perilla needed the practice, but I didn't want to be too hard on her so we used one of her litters as far as Tuscan Road. Naturally I took the four Sunshine Boys with us; I'd've liked to have taken more muscle, but it would've made us too conspicuous and I reckoned the Boys could take on anything short of a minor riot. All the same I had a quiet word with them before we left to make sure they knew where their priorities lay, and what exactly would happen if they got them wrong. I'd never actually seen a matching set of six-foot Gallic eunuchs on the market but there was a first time for everything.

I also made the situation very clear to Perilla.

'Listen,' I said. 'There're certain ground rules which are non-negotiable. Agree to them now or stay at home. Right?'

I must've looked unusually impressive because she just nodded.

'Okay. First of all, I can look after myself. If there's any trouble you run.'

'Yes, Corvinus.'

'Second. You do what you're told, exactly what you're told, straight away, with no arguments and no fancy heroics. Got it?'

'Yes, Corvinus.'

I glanced at her suspiciously.

'Are you laughing at me?' I said.

'No, Corvinus.' Her lips twitched, but she kept her eyes modestly cast down.

'Yes you are.' This was no time for messing around. 'Look, I'm serious. That doesn't happen very often but this is one of them. There's no way I'm taking you down to the docks unless we get this clear before we start. I know what I'm doing here, you don't. You may be a very gutsy lady but if we get into trouble the high-handed patrician act isn't going to get us anywhere. This isn't a game and if you think it is you'll land both of us in deep shit. Okay?'

Silence. Finally, she nodded. 'All right. I'm sorry, Marcus. You're quite right. What else?'

'Third and last, no talking. Not when we're on foot in a built-up area, anyway. We've got enough problems with what you look like without worrying about what you sound like as well, and the less interest we draw the better. Agree to all three conditions now or you can stay at home bottling pickles.'

'I love you. You know that?'

There's no answer to that one. Not in words, anyway. Once she'd wiped the walnut juice off my face with the edge of her cloak we set off for our appointment with Davus.

21

We left the litter at the western edge of the Palatine, crossed Tuscan Road and plunged into the maze of markets and slum property that was the eastern Velabrum. To my relief no one paid Perilla much attention — at least, no more than they paid me. The Sunshine Boys stuck close and made no attempt to fade into the woodwork, which was probably a good idea: I saw more than one suspicious-looking character zero in on my patrician tunic and veer off at the last moment before a granite shoulder mashed him to pulp against the nearest wall.

At least the Boys were enjoying themselves. Maybe, I thought, I should take them walkies more often.

I didn't know the Velabrum all that well, certainly not as well as the Subura, apart from the bit around Cattlemarket Square. Like I said, it's the area where most of the wholesale trading goes on, and because it's the city's main link with Ostia most of the traffic between the Market Square and the river passes through it. Senatorials are barred by law from trade, so you don't see many broad-stripers down that way. Not that the ban would be all that difficult to get round. All it'd need, for example, would be to set up dummy companies through one or two of your freedmen and cream off the profits. However for a senator to dirty his hands with trade is another of these things that's just not proper. We broad-stripers make our money respectably in other ways. Like from letting out rooms at sky-high rents in gimcrack tenements, for example. There're always plenty of punters looking for four walls and a floor to sleep on. And when the tenements collapse or burn down about their ears you can always shark up a few more and replace the dead tenants with new ones.

Property's a seller's market that never loses its edge. Why get your hands dirty when you don't have to?

Thanks to the Boys we got through the built-up eastern and central sections of the Velabrum with no serious problems and moved out into the main docklands area near the river itself; streets of granaries and warehouses where the wholesalers keep the consignments of grain, olive oil and fish sauce that come upriver on barges from Ostia. Most other days the district would've been swarming like a lump of maggoty meat, but because it was the Spring Festival everything was shut up and the streets and alleyways were deserted. They still smelt, though; a pleasant, storeroomy smell that was a mixture of wine and cheese and oil, with the faint musty overlay of drying corn.

'How much further?' Perilla asked.

'Not far now.' I'd found out where Paquius's warehouse was from Bathyllus (who else?). 'It's just downstream from Sublician Bridge.'

'Oh, good. So long as it's the Sublician we're talking about, of course, and not one I don't know about five miles upriver.'

The crabbiness was understandable, and I made the necessary allowances. We'd come a fair way that morning.

'Getting tired, eh?'

'Just a little.'

I pointed. 'That's the river ahead of us.'

'I'd never have guessed, Marcus. Does it always smell of roses?'

Jupiter, she was crotchety! Still, I had to admit that the tendrils that were reaching out to us were pretty ripe. Pound for pound Tiber mud must be one of the evillest substances known to man.

'Yeah, well. Just be grateful we're still upstream from the Drain. The water's so thick there you can practically walk to the other side without a bridge. So long as you don't look down to see what you're standing in.'

She shuddered. 'Stop it, Corvinus.’

'You think I'm exaggerating?'

'I don't care. I just don't want to know, that's all.'

We walked on until we reached a junction, then turned right along a street of warehouses backing onto the riverbank.

'That's it up ahead,' I said. There was no name painted that I could see, but Bathyllus had told me what to look for — a building set out slightly from the rest with a dilapidated waggon mouldering against the side wall. 'See anyone?'

'No.'

'Me neither.' The place, like its neighbours, looked deserted. 'You wait here with the Boys and I'll have a look round.'