Finished Business (14 page)

Anyway, I reckoned we’d call it a day. I headed through the Palatine complex towards Staurian Incline, the flight of steps that was the quickest way, if you were on foot, of getting from Palatine to Caelian. The easiest, too, because especially at this time of day they were pretty quiet. There was a punter a flight or so ahead of me, and another about the same behind, and that was about it.

I’d got almost to the foot, where there was one of the public litters parked with its two litter-men leaning against it shooting the breeze, when I noticed that the guy ahead of me had stopped and turned round. He reached into his belt and drew out a knife, while the two off-duty litter-men stopped lounging and did the same.

Oh, shit. I turned – or half-turned, rather – just in time to see that chummie behind me had closed the gap …

Which was when something that felt like a decent-sized marble column smacked me behind the ear, and I went out like a light.

I
woke up with my back to a wall, a thumping headache, a definite no-go area on the back left-hand side of my head where I’d been clouted, and my slinger pal from the Janiculan looking down at me. We were indoors, I could see that much, although vision wasn’t exactly my best feature at the moment and my eyes were actually telling me said slinger pal was overlapping identical twins. I could see we were somewhere with no windows, because the only light came from lamps.

I reached up and gingerly touched the no-go area on my head. There was a lump there the size of a goose egg, but my fingers came away dry. A sandbag, then, or a blackjack – chummie had been careful, which, considering the knives his three mates had been carrying, was interesting.

‘You’re awake,’ the big guy said.

Nine out of ten for observation, with one point deducted for stating the totally bloody obvious.

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘More or less.’ I felt like something the cat had dragged in, and woozy as hell, but apart from the pain in my head and the double vision, everything else seemed OK. ‘Why am I still alive? Not that I’m complaining, mind.’

He grunted and stood up. ‘Not by my choice, friend,’ he said. ‘If I’d had my way you would be fucking dead. You
prat
!’

Yeah, well, I wasn’t going to argue: I hadn’t exactly covered myself with glory here. Which reminded me …

‘So where exactly am I?’ I said. ‘If it’s not a stupid question.’

‘In a wine cellar.’

Great. Very informative. ‘You care to elaborate a little, chum?’

‘No. That’s all you need to know, Corvinus. Except that it’s under a house that’s been empty for the past six months and that there’s only the one way in or out, through a three-inch-thick reinforced oak door with a lock and a couple of iron bolts on the other side. So this is where you fucking well stay.’

Uh-huh. That would just about do it; curiosity satisfied. ‘Until when?’

‘Until it’s all over. Boss’s instructions. As I said, me, I’d’ve gone for the more permanent option and left you back there on the Stairs with your throat cut.’

Ouch. Well, at least I could be thankful that I was still breathing. ‘The boss?’

He ignored me. ‘Up you get.’ He pulled me to my feet and I felt my head explode. ‘Just don’t try no fucking funny business, right? Killing you might be out, but the boss didn’t say nothing about loosening a few teeth or breaking a couple of fingers. And believe me, after the trouble you’ve caused, I’d whistle while I did it.’

‘Pal, the way I’m feeling just now, I couldn’t get past your white-haired old grandmother.’ I wasn’t kidding, either; the room was swimming round me, and the inside of my skull felt like someone was hitting it with a mallet. Wine-cellar the place might be, but it looked more like a prison cell. Which, evidently, was what its present purpose was: no more than ten feet square, with a table and stool against one wall, a cot and blankets against another, and a chamber-pot in the corner with a bucket and sponge-stick beside it. Right; at least we had all the amenities. No windows, of course, and like the guy had said a door that looked like it’d need an army battering-ram to get through.

So much for any dramatic escape plan I might think up. Hell.

The table, mind …

It wasn’t empty, not by a long chalk. There were three loaves of bread, a whole chicken, three or four covered pottery bowls, a couple of jugs, and the full complement of tableware. Plus a mixing bowl and strainer, and – leaning against the wall beside it – two sizeable flasks in their iron foot-rests.

I certainly wouldn’t starve, and given the presence of the flasks, the mixing bowl and wine strainer, I wouldn’t go thirsty, either. The accommodation might be pretty basic, but I couldn’t complain about the catering. The boss, whoever he was, had done me proud.

What the hell was going on?

Chummie walked across to the table, filled a cup from one of the jugs and brought it over.

‘Here,’ he said.

It was wine. I tasted it …

Shit, that was Caecuban!
Good
Caecuban! The best, in fact, that money couldn’t buy, because it all went to the one place. I took a proper swig, and it kissed my tonsils on the way down like liquid velvet …

Things began to make sense.

‘You should be OK now,’ he said, turning away and moving towards the door. ‘The oil for the lamps is in the corner by the latrine. Enjoy your stay.’

And he was gone, slamming the door behind him. I heard the key turn in the lock and the bolts slide home.

Damn!

Yeah, well, I might as well see what I’d got here, because there was bugger all else to do. The loaves and the chicken were self-evident, but I took the lids off the bowls. Cold bean stew, braised mixed vegetables, assorted pickles and some dried fruit and nuts for dessert. Not bad, well beyond the bread-and-water stage. Not up to Meton’s standard, of course, but better than I’d get in most cook shops. I topped up my wine cup and investigated the other jug and the flasks. Water and – whoopee! – more of the Caecuban.

There was a leather case for book-rolls beside the bed. I opened it up and took out the first roll. Plautus’s
Captives
. Oh, hah; someone had a sense of humour, anyway. I put it back and pulled out the others: Cato’s
On Farming
, the first couple of books of Ennius’s
Annals
, and Cicero’s
Tusculan Disputations
. Good solid reads, all of them, bloody dry as dust, except for the Plautus, and I’ve never found that bastard particularly funny. Boredom, I could see, was going to be a major problem. If it’d been the lady stuck down here for the duration, then …

Oh, fuck. Perilla. I hadn’t thought about her. She’d have no idea where I was, let alone whether I was alive or dead, with the probability being the latter.

Well, there was nothing I could do about it now. Except worry, of course, about her being worried. I settled down to wait.

I’d no way of measuring time exactly, but I estimated there were three days between the door shutting and it opening again. By which point – leaving aside the fact that I was practically climbing the walls – I’d more or less worked everything out: when you’re faced with a choice between ratiocination and Marcus Porcius bloody-skinflint Cato rabbiting on about how to squeeze as much oil as you can out of an olive or work out of a slave, suitably anaesthetized beforehand with Caecuban or not, it’s no contest.

So. After three days of solitary confinement, the door finally opened. Not my slinger pal this time; instead through it came a little guy wearing a freedman’s cap and a sharp lemon-coloured tunic. The boss in person.

No surprises there. It just had to be him, didn’t it?

‘Hi, Felix,’ I said. ‘How’s it going?’ He was alone, which, I supposed, was a safe enough risk to take, given that I knew who he worked for, although even knowing that after three days of being banged up in a cellar with only an increasingly pervasive latrine smell and Cato and his jolly mates for company, I could cheerfully have beaten the little bugger to death with his own chamber pot.

Which, given who he was, would not have been a good idea. I hadn’t seen Gaius’s freedman sidekick – spymaster, intelligence chief, whatever you liked to call him – for three years, not since the last conspiracy against his master had gone down the tubes, but he hadn’t changed. Still the fastidious, dapper little bugger we had grown to know and love for his unfailing cheerfulness, ruthless efficiency, and bacon-slicer brain.

‘Things are going very well indeed, sir,’ he said. ‘May I sit down?’

‘Sure. Why not? Make yourself at home.’

Sarcasm is lost on Felix. He never even batted an eyelid.

‘Thank you.’ He sat on the bed. ‘And do let me say what a pleasure it is to see you again, Valerius Corvinus. You haven’t been too uncomfortable, I hope? Had everything you needed?’

Stupid bloody question, but I took it in the spirit it was meant.

‘I could’ve done with a razor,’ I said. ‘Apart from that – and of course apart from the fact that my wife will be worried fucking sick about where I’ve got to – no, not too many complaints. You total sadistic bastard.’

He looked pained. ‘Really, sir, give me some credit for humanity, please! That is
most
unfair! I sent a message right away telling the Lady Perilla that you were perfectly safe and well. As for the razor, that was an oversight, and you have my most abject apologies. I will speak to Trupho about it in no uncertain terms.’

‘Yeah, well.’ At least I was glad that I could stop worrying about Perilla. She’d’ve been anxious, sure, but I had to admit that under the circumstances, Felix had done his best. ‘Couldn’t you just have told me to lay off?’

‘Would you have done it?’

‘I might have, if you’d asked nicely and explained the situ-ation.’ Still, it was a fair point, and we’d been there before in our past dealings together. Plus the chances were that, no, I wouldn’t have, and we both knew it. ‘Trupho’s the big guy who brought me here, yes?’

‘Indeed. An ex-auxiliary, and one of my best men. Rather a rough diamond, but he is generally very efficient. Particularly at killing, as you no doubt saw. When did you know, by the way?’

‘That the conspiracy was already blown and you had things in hand? Almost straight off. It was the wine. Imperial Caecuban, right?’

He was beaming. ‘Oh, well done, sir!’ he said. ‘I thought that might do it, or at least provide you with a major clue, if you needed one. The flask was from the emperor’s own cellars. His idea, not mine, so when you see him, please be appropriately grateful.’

Bugger, that did
not
sound good: the last thing I wanted was a face-to-face with that psychotic bastard. Even so …

‘So what happens now?’ I said.

‘Nothing, as far as I’m concerned. You’re free to go, of course, absolutely free. The conspirators are all rounded up and in custody.’

‘Still alive?’

‘Naturally. For the moment, at least. We need a little more information from them first.’

A cold chill touched my spine. ‘Is that really necessary?’ I said. ‘After all—’

‘Completely necessary, sir,’ he said primly. ‘As you’re quite well aware.’

Shit. Execution, yeah, that went with the crime. But torture, that was something else. Oh, sure, I couldn’t really expect any different, and nor could they. Even so, the thought of it turned my stomach.

‘The two Herennii, father and son?’

‘In the bag, shortly after you left them.’

Well, I’d tried to give them an out, at least, and I felt better for that. Not a lot better, mind.

‘Lucius Papinius?’

‘He wasn’t involved, as far as we know.’

I frowned. ‘You sure?’

‘As sure as one can be, yes. He accepted Herennius Bassus’s word that his brother’s death was an accident in good faith.’

I left it at that. For the moment. ‘So Bassus killed young Sextus? To stop him talking to me. Or manoeuvred him into a position where he could be killed?’

‘Yes again. The precise details aren’t clear, but no doubt they will be before long.’

Shit. Yeah, I guessed they would be, at that; Gaius’s torturers were pretty efficient. The chill touched my spine again, not so much at the thought this time as at the matter-of-fact way Felix referred to it. He was a cold bastard at heart, Julius Felix.

‘What about the father? Adoptive father, that is. Anicius Cerialis.’

‘Cerialis has left Rome.’

‘You mean he’s escaped?’

‘Not exactly, sir.’

I frowned again. ‘So what, exactly?’

‘Anicius Cerialis was working for us.’

‘
What?
’

Felix smiled. ‘Latterly, at any rate. After a small amount of persuasion. It’s called
turning
in the trade. Oh, you couldn’t have guessed it, not in the short time you had, and of course his fellow conspirators had – and have – no idea of the truth. Although I must say, before I forget, how impressed I was that you got so far so quickly. To be frank, it was downright embarrassing. Trupho was most put out.’

‘Yeah, I noticed that,’ I said drily. ‘He was keeping an eye on me right from the start, wasn’t he? On your instructions.’

‘That and keeping an eye out
for
you, sir. Fortunately, with regard to the Janiculan incident.’ Yeah, well, I’d give him that, and I was grateful. ‘But not exactly right from the start; only when you began to show an interest in Cassius Longinus and his friends. That was
most
unexpected; worryingly so on my part. The poor dears really started to panic, and there was a genuine danger that they’d decide to cut their losses and run. Which would, naturally, at the end of the day have made things far more difficult. As it was, we had to bring our plans forward by almost half a month and get you out of the equation spit-spot. Could you tell me why, by the way?’

‘Why what?’

‘Why your interest in Longinus.’

‘Cornelia Sullana – my victim’s ex-wife – claimed she’d had an affair with him years back.’

‘Really? And did she?’

‘No. At least, I very much doubt it.’

‘So it was simply a coincidence? An unfortunate one, as I say, for both of us.’

‘Longinus was involved, then?’

Felix hesitated. ‘As to that, Valerius Corvinus,’ he said, ‘as you would say, the jury is still out. Certainly he was taken along with the rest, as was Valerius Asiaticus, who is, albeit for different reasons, in a similar situation to his. But he’s simply being detained on suspicion, no more. The emperor thinks it’s unlikely, or at least that things were only at the recruitment stage, and is willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. After all, the conspiracy has been in progress for several months, he only returned very recently to Rome, and he wouldn’t be here at all if Caesar hadn’t recalled him.’

‘Because his fortune teller warned him to beware of a guy called Cassius?’

That got me a sharp look. ‘Who told you that?’

I shrugged; I wasn’t going to finger Gaius Secundus, no way; I’d caused him enough trouble already. ‘Someone. That doesn’t matter. Is it true?’

‘As a matter of fact, it is.’ Felix hesitated. ‘Corvinus. A small warning of my own, and to you. The emperor is … not quite his normal rational self these days.’ I kept my mouth firmly shut. ‘You’d do well to remember that when you talk to him.’