Once they were decently housed, I picked up my fallen purse, reattached it to my belt, and carried on up the road.
I was thinking hard. They’d been no ordinary muggers, that was obvious: muggers don’t usually bother to learn the names of their victims beforehand, and unless they’re complete head-bangers (it does happen), they’re usually quite grateful when the punter surrenders with good grace and without giving them any trouble. I mean, why piss the Watch off more than you need to? And zeroing a purple-striper unnecessarily really tends to get you noticed.
So they’d been waiting for me, presumably because they’d been paid to. The first big question, of course, was who by? And, equally of course, the answer was obvious. The only person who’d known I’d be out in the wilds of Transtiber this morning, because he’d arranged it himself, was Surdinus Junior.
When I got to the villa I’d nail his fucking hide to the door.
The other big question was who was my pal with the sling? Not a passer-by, obviously: you don’t get many passers-by on the west side of the Janiculan Hill. When you do, they don’t carry slings loaded with seriously injurious military-grade lead shot, and they don’t break unconscious men’s necks for them with no more compunction than a priest killing a pigeon. Plus there was the fact that he’d appeared out of nowhere; there hadn’t been anyone on the road behind me, that I knew, because I’d turned round a couple of times on the straighter stretches just to see if I’d got any company. So he’d been tailing me, keeping out of sight, probably off-road, which wouldn’t’ve been difficult, given the terrain. As to why, or who for, or how the hell he knew I’d be out this way, I hadn’t the faintest idea.
Not that I wasn’t grateful, mind.
I reached the villa, and this time I went straight to the main entrance.
‘The master’s in his study, sir,’ the door slave said. ‘If you’d like to wait a moment I’ll have someone take you.’
Bought-help number two led me through the labyrinth; not upstairs this time, but to a room on the ground floor at the back, overlooking a small garden. Surdinus Junior was there, sitting behind a desk, talking to Leonidas, the estate manager. They both looked up as I came in.
‘Valerius Corvinus!’ Junior said. ‘This is a surprise!’
‘Yeah, it probably is, at that.’ I nodded my thanks to the slave as he went out. ‘Because I should be lying by the roadside somewhere between here and the Janiculan with either my throat cut or my head bashed in, right?’
‘What?’ He was staring at me.
‘Come on, pal! You set me up. You sent me a message saying you wanted to talk to me this morning and then you had your tame thugs lie in wait to take me out.’
Surdinus turned back to Leonidas, who was looking on open-mouthed.
‘You can go, Leonidas,’ he snapped. ‘We’ll deal with the rest later.’ The little Sicilian got up, gathered together the pile of wax tablets on the desk in front of him and moved to the door; never taking his eyes off me, and edging past like I was some sort of dangerous wild animal. The door closed behind him. ‘Corvinus, I sent you no message.’
‘Is that so, now?’
‘Certainly it is. What would I want to talk to you about? I gave you all the information that I had last time we met.’
‘Yeah, well, that side of things wouldn’t matter, would it? Because I shouldn’t’ve got this far. And when the question of the message was raised you could tell whoever asked it just that; that it hadn’t come from you.’
He was almost purple with anger. ‘For the last time, and I give you my solemn word on this, I did not send you any message! Now what’s this about an attack?’
I frowned. Well, it could be an act, of course, but if it was it was a bloody good one. And I didn’t think Surdinus Junior — unlike his brother — had either the nous or the panache to brazen something like this out successfully. Still, if it wasn’t him, then who was it?
‘There were three of them,’ I said. ‘Professionals. They’d’ve had me, too, if I hadn’t had a bit of unexpected help.’
‘We do get the occasional footpad out here.’ He was calming down now, losing his colour. ‘But not often during the day. This is disgraceful; the Watch are lax, very lax. When I’m appointed as a city judge I shall certainly make it my business to look into the problem.’
‘They weren’t robbers,’ I said. ‘They weren’t interested in my purse. All they wanted was to kill me. And they knew my name.’
That got me another stare. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I told you. I was set up. Presumably by whoever sent the message. I don’t suppose you have any idea who that might have been?’
‘No, of course not. None whatsoever.’
‘Uh-huh. Ah … one last question, pal, before I go and let you get on with things. Four names. Cassius Longinus. Julius Graecinus. Valerius Asiaticus. Anicius Cerialis. Any bells?’
‘Of course. They’re all senators. Longinus is — was, I suppose, now the emperor has recalled him to Rome — the Asian governor. Graecinus is currently a praetor. Asiaticus is from Narbonese Gaul; he’s a consular, suffect consul five years back. Cerialis — well, nothing special. A bit of an also-ran, really.’
‘They all friends of your father’s?’
‘Longinus and Graecinus, certainly. Intimate friends, you could say. The other two, no, not at all. He’d know them, naturally, as I do, but you couldn’t call them friends by any stretch of the imagination.’
‘Enemies, then?’
‘Good gods, no! That’s not what I meant at all! Simply that he had no particular dealings with them, of any nature.’ He was frowning. ‘Corvinus, what is this about?’
I shrugged. ‘Probably nothing. But I thought I’d ask. I’m sorry for the interruption. I’ll see you around.’ I half-turned to go, then paused. ‘How’re your brother and his girlfriend doing, by the way?’
He stiffened. ‘Well, I assume. But now our business is done we have no further contact. Or are likely to have in future.’
‘Fine, fine.’ I grinned. Cheeky, sure, and completely unwarranted, but I hadn’t been able to resist it. ‘Thank you, Naevius Surdinus. Don’t disturb yourself, I’ll find my own way out.’
‘The slave will be waiting out of earshot.’
‘Great,’ I said, and left.
Back to the centre, with a brief stop-off at the Fourteenth District Watch house. To the Palatine this time, for another word with Gaius Secundus, if he wasn’t too busy, regarding the sena-torial quartet. If the set-up hadn’t been Surdinus Junior’s doing — and I’d be very surprised, now, if it had been — then one or all of these guys was in the frame: it couldn’t be coincidence that I’d been attacked practically right after I’d mentioned to them that I was investigating Surdinus’s death and knew, in essence, who to look for as the actual perp. Someone, somewhere, didn’t want things to go any further.
Why any of them would want to kill a quiet-living man like Naevius Surdinus, mind, I couldn’t think.
Still, you can’t make tiles without clay. We’d have to start by finding out as much as we could about the buggers, and see if anything gelled. With luck, Secundus would be able to help there, and I was sure he’d be amenable enough. Besides, I owed him a half-jug of Massic.
There was still the matter of the phantom slinger (by the gods, there was!) but he, like the birthmarked freedman, was currently a piece of the puzzle with no context. No doubt that’d come in time; I could only work with what I’d got.
I set off back to the Sublician Bridge and the Palatine.