Sejanus

'So you want someone to dig the dirt on Aelius Sejanus and hand it over in a nice neat parcel to the Wart?' I said. Neither of them answered. 'Why me?'

'We've been over that,' Lamia grunted. 'You have a head start. And you have the temperament for it. Uniquely so.'

Well, flattery would get him nowhere. If it was flattery.

'I'm still surprised you need me, Lamia,' I said. 'You're the bastard's cousin, after all.'

I regretted the words even before his bony face turned red with anger: I'd never believed even at the time that Lamia was in Sejanus's pay, and I didn't believe it now. But it was a fair point, and it needed making.

'We didn't expect immediate agreement,' Arruntius said quickly. 'Let alone trust. Think it over first before you give us your answer. But remember that in asking for your help we don't ask lightly.'

Yeah. That I'd believe. I knew that 'we', I'd heard it all my life from Dad: the patriotic plural comes second nature to broad-stripers, despite the fact that they're the most disunited bunch of self-servers you'd never hope to meet. So. Rome's senate wanted the upstart Sejanus pegged out for the crows. No surprises there, but I was surprised that Arruntius had agreed to do their asking for them. If he had clout — and he had it in spades — it was because he wasn't one of the gang. Of the three men that Augustus once said could run the empire Arruntius was the only one the cunning old bugger had no reservations about. That sort of recommendation doesn't come cheap.

I turned away again; not towards Perilla this time but in the direction of Dad's pyre. It was mostly ash now, with a few glowing embers and a scattering of charred logs at the edges. Time, soon, for the wine and the picking over of the bones. When we burned him, I'd once said, we'd find a poker with the words ‘Property of the Senate and People of Rome’ written on it. I was sorry for that now; he hadn't deserved it, or not in the way I'd meant it at the time. No, there'd be no poker. But a good part of the old guy had been Rome's after all.

'Oh. One more thing, Corvinus.' Arruntius was reaching into the fold of his mantle. He brought out a sealed letter. 'I was instructed to give you this. I don't know the contents, but I suspect they may be relevant, and they may help you decide.'

I took the letter and turned it over in my hands to read the spidery superscription: 'For Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus. Personal, to be delivered at the proper time.' No signature, but I recognised the handwriting. Sure I did. I could even smell the camphor.

Livia never let go, did she? Not even when she was two years dead.

2

We got back late. Bathyllus, as usual, had the door open for us even before we'd stepped out of the litters. If anything the little guy's psychic powers had improved with age.

I'd kept up the house on the Palatine, partly through sentiment, mostly because to sell it would've been an admission that I was finished with Rome. That I couldn't be, ever. The city was in my bones, and if I'd trusted myself to live there quietly without scratching the dangerous itch of curiosity now and again I'd never have left. Expensive, sure, but we came for visits regularly, and Mother and Priscus had used it for a while after their own place had been gutted in the big Caelian fire.

'Hey, Bathyllus.' I handed him my stripped-off mantle and took the pre-dinner cup of wine he held out. 'Everything okay now?' A genuine question: the caretaker staff we left in Rome didn't come up to the little guy's high standards. The first few days back there was always blood on the walls.

'Yes, sir.' Bathyllus folded the mantle carefully. 'I've cancelled the arrangement with the jobbing gardener and located the missing mushroom dish.'

'Great. Good work.' I took a long swallow of the Setinian. Beautiful. You can get it in Athens but somehow it doesn't taste the same. 'That mushroom dish was worrying me.'

Perilla took off her veil while I carried the wine into the living-room and lay down on our usual couch. Bathyllus had brought her a chilled fruit juice. She lay down beside me and sipped at it.

'He'd have been pleased, Marcus,' she said at last. 'Your father. Especially at the funeral speech.'

'Yeah.' I helped myself from the jug on the table. 'Old Appianus did well. If he'd had a few more teeth he would've been almost intelligible.'

'What did Aelius Lamia have to say to you?'

'You recognised him?'

'Oddly enough, I generally do tend to recognise governors who've thrown me out of their provinces. It's one of the skills I had to develop when I married you.'

I grinned and kissed her. How Perilla can be so prickly and yet make a put-down sound like a compliment has always amazed me. She's pretty good at puncturing a black mood, too. 'Nothing much,' I said. 'He and his pal Arruntius want me to put the skids under Sejanus for them, that's all.'

Perilla sat up wide-eyed, spilling her fruit juice over the couch arm.

'Oh, Marcus! No!'

'That was my reaction.' I took another swallow of wine; the Special was mellowing nicely now it had a chance to sit in the cellar. Luckily my stepfather Priscus wasn't a drinker. He kept his enthusiasms for important things like tombs and Oscan optatives.

'They're mad!' She was still staring. 'Insane!'

'Sure they are. They're senators. It goes with the stripe.'

'No, but really!'

'Oh, I agree. You want me to give you the arguments against it myself, just to save you time?' I counted them off on my fingers. 'Sejanus is as dangerous as a crocodile in a swimming pool. He's the Wart's ears, eyes and hands in Rome. I don't know the political ropes here any more. I'd get nothing out of it if I won, not even thanks, and a short-cut to the death mask if I lost. And it's none of my business anyway. Those do you or should I start on the other hand?'

'Marcus, be serious!'

'I am being serious. Believe it.'

'But why you?'

'No one else is stupid enough.' I didn't tell her about Livia's letter, although it wouldn't've surprised her: Perilla knew as much about the old empress as I did, but I wanted to read that privately first. Or maybe just burn it unopened.

'Corvinus, that is not being serious!'

I shrugged. 'They seem to think I'm their best bet. And they're desperate.'

'You turned them down, of course.'

I'd been hoping against hope she wouldn't ask that. 'Uh, not in so many words, no.'

'Oh, Marcus!' She reached for my wine cup and emptied it at a swallow. 'What the hell do you think you're playing at?'

I blinked; the lady doesn’t swear all that often, and when she does you take notice. 'Hey,’ I said, ‘I didn't actually agree. I never even said I'd consider it.'

Flannel, flannel. Well, I didn't expect it to work, and it didn't.

'You do realise, don't you,' she said, 'that we left Rome to avoid attracting that man's attention? I would've thought one funeral in the family was enough for a while.'

I shifted uncomfortably. 'It's not that bad. I only — '

'It isn't even as if you have the excuse this time that Livia has forced you into it. And you certainly wouldn't have imperial protection. Quite the reverse.' She filled the cup again, looked at the wine with distaste and set it down. 'Marcus, why?'

I put my free arm round her shoulders. She was stiff as a steel rod.

'Because it's something I can do,' I said. 'Instead of making speeches in favour of things I don't believe in, or hammering the hell out of foreigners who'd rather not be blessed with the benefits of Roman civilisation.' I paused. 'Or maybe there's just something wrong with my brain.'

She looked at me for a long time, then smiled gently to herself and kissed me. Her shoulders lost a little of their tenseness.

'Your father understood,' she said. 'He may not have agreed, but he did understand. He never blamed you, not really. Don't forget that.'