Ovid

He inclined his head. 'Yes, sir.'

It took me three nail-biting hours of fruitless waiting before I shelved my pride and went round to my father's. He was in his study, writing. When his chief slave Phaedrus showed me in he laid the pen down and simply stared at me without speaking.

I wasn't surprised. It'd been three years since I'd set foot in that house. Never since the divorce, in fact. When I'd walked out (I'd had a house of my own to go to for about a year by then) I'd sworn an oath by the family spirits not to come back. Ever.

'Welcome, Marcus.' My father rose and came towards me, his hands outstretched. I thought he was going to hug me, but he didn't. The hands dropped to his sides. 'It's good to see you here.'

'Perilla's disappeared,' I said. 'I think she's been kidnapped.'

'What?'

'Dad, if you know anything about this, anything at all, please tell me.'

He stiffened. 'Why should I know anything of the whereabouts of the Lady Rufia Perilla?'

'Look, don't play games, okay? I didn't ask you where she was, I asked you if you knew what could've happened to her.'

'Of course I don't.'

'You swear it?'

'Marcus, for heaven's sake, what's got into you?'

'Swear it!'

My father stared at me for several heartbeats. Then he sighed.

'Very well. If that's what you want.' He walked over to the family shrine and placed his right hand on top of it. 'I swear I had no knowledge, until you came in here just a moment ago, either of the whereabouts or of the disappearance of Rufia Perilla.'

'Or who might be responsible?'

'Marcus!'

'Swear!'

'Or of who might be responsible. I so swear.' He took his hand away. 'Now will you please sit down and tell me what's going on.'

'Can I have a cup of wine?'

'Of course.' He pushed past me, opened the study door and shouted: 'Phaedrus! A jug of wine, here. Now, please.'

I heard the acknowledgement, and the slave's feet padding off over the marble tiles.

'So tell me what happened.' My father closed the door behind him.

I sat down on the couch. My hands were still shaking. They hadn't stopped all day. I slipped them beneath my thighs to keep them still.

'She went out yesterday afternoon to the Fabius place to visit her mother,' I said. 'She left well before dark and she still hasn't come home. That's all I know.'

'Where do you mean by home? Your house or hers?'

'Father!'

'I'm sorry. That was uncalled for, and it's none of my business. Could she have spent the night anywhere else?'

'Callias is sure not — he's her head house slave. He says she would've told him. She'd certainly have told me.'

'And Callias is telling the truth?'

'I assume so. Why should he lie?'

'I don't know. You haven't quarrelled, you and the Lady Rufia?'

'Of course we haven't sodding quarrelled!'

'Softly, Marcus, I'm only trying to help. She didn't mention going to visit anyone else? No one at all?'

'No. Not that I know of.'

The door opened. Phaedrus with the wine. I took the cup from his hands, drank it off, and held it out for more.

'Leave the jug on the desk and go, Phaedrus,' my father said. Then, as the door closed again: 'Why did you think I might have known about this?'

I shook my head. 'I made a mistake.'

'You did. The emperor doesn't deal in kidnapping. Whatever the provocation. And neither do I.'

'Yeah? And what about the empress?' I couldn't stop myself. 'Don't tell me Livia's above that sort of thing, Dad. It'd be about the only crime she hasn't committed, wouldn't it?'

The silence was sudden and total. I hadn't meant to say the words. They'd slipped out and it was too late now to call them back.

'Who told you?' My father's voice was no more than a whisper. 'Marcus, who told you?'

'That doesn't matter.' I was having to hold the winecup with both hands. 'I know. I know the whole story. About Gaius and Lucius. The two Julias. But I also know you were right. It's all water under the bridge, it's not important, it doesn't matter.' I looked at him. 'Father, why couldn't you trust me?'

He shook his head and said nothing. He looked grey.

'There's only one thing I don't know, or not for sure,' I went on. 'Who was the fourth conspirator? The guy Ovid saw at Paullus's? Was it Quinctilius Varus, or Vela, or someone else? Come on, you can tell me now.'

My father's head came up, and he stared at me. His face was blank, completely blank. He couldn't've been acting. The reaction was far too natural and unrehearsed for that.

He simply didn't know what I was talking about.

'Ovid was exiled because he found out the truth behind Julia's adultery,’ he said. ‘It had nothing to do with Paullus's conspiracy. And why should Varus be involved?'

'But Julia didn't commit adultery.' I'd been living with the problem so long that the simple statement came out as self-evident, almost naive.

'Of course she did! Silanus seduced her on Livia's instructions. Then Livia reported her to the emperor.'

It was my turn to shake my head. 'No, Dad. That wasn't how it happened. There was no adultery. None at all. Paullus and Julia were conspiring to bring back Postumus and take him to the Rhine legions.'

'But…'

I had never seen my father look so confused, so lost; but I'd no time for sympathy, or for explanations. It wasn't important now anyway. 'Look,’ I said. ‘None of this matters. The important thing is that Perilla's missing and I think the imperials may be responsible. I'm asking you please, Father, to do your best to find her. I'll do anything they want, anything you want, I'll give up asking questions. Anything! Just get her back!'

He hesitated. 'Very well, son. I'll do my best. I don't accept that the emperor is responsible, mind. Or the Empress Livia. But I can at least make enquiries through the proper channels.'

I felt my face flush. 'And how the hell long is that going to take?'

'I don't know.' My father's voice was gentle. 'Several days, probably, at least.'

'Several days?'

'Marcus, I can't just go to the palace, demand an audience with Tiberius and Livia and accuse them both to their faces of kidnapping. It has to be done diplomatically.'

'Oh, sure!' I turned away. 'We wouldn't want to put anyone's nose out of joint, now, would we?'

My father sighed. 'I'll do my best, believe me. But I'm not going to go storming in there casting unfounded accusations around right left and centre for you or for anyone. Especially where the empress is concerned.'

I was facing him again. 'A bit too close to the bone, right?'

'If you choose to see it that way, yes. Far too close to the bone.'

I looked at his stiff expression and remembered my promise to Perilla. 'Hey, I'm sorry, Dad. Yeah, anything you can do, I'd be grateful. However you do it, however long it takes, and whether it works or not.'

His expression softened.

'We'll get her back,' he said. 'Don't worry. If she's still…' He stopped. 'We'll get her back for you.'

I left the house in a better frame of mind than I'd entered it. All the same I couldn't help thinking of the words my father so carefully hadn't said at our parting; and I prayed to every god I knew, and any that I didn't who might be listening, that Perilla wasn't already dead.

I didn't sleep that night.

35

My next stop was the gym, to talk to Scylax. Dad would handle the official side of things, but if the emperor was responsible short of waving the white flag for me I knew there wasn't a lot he could do. With Scylax's help I could start from the other end. Scylax had contacts that spread throughout the city's underground as deep and as far as an oak tree's roots. If anyone could track Perilla down, or put the finger on who'd taken her, then Scylax could. First, though, I had to persuade the guy I was serious. In Scylax's book women ranked somewhere between mules and chickens. Even then on a good day the chickens had them beat three times out of four.