‘You got anything soft for the lady, pal?’ I said.
‘Of course, sir. Barley water and honey?’
I shuddered. ‘Yeah, that’ll do fine.’
‘I’ll have one of the other boys bring it over.’
‘Great.’ I took a sip of the wine. Not Caecuban, which was fair enough. It was a reasonable Falernian, though; not as good as Lentulus’s, but getting there. I couldn’t complain that Gaius was saving a few of his precious pennies by serving his guests mass-produced Spanish plonk.
Perilla had drifted over to a sort of lectern.
‘There’s a seating plan here with names,’ she said. ‘How very well organized.’
‘Yeah, well, it was hardly likely to be a free-for-all scrimmage, was it?’ I said, joining her. ‘So where are we?’
She pointed. ‘On the right at the back. Not with anyone I know, unfortunately, but-’
‘Rufia Perilla! Now this is a pleasant surprise!’
A dapper, middle-aged guy in the group to our immediate left had turned round, smiling, and I recognized Marcus Vinicius.
Perilla smiled back. ‘Good evening, Vinicius,’ she said. ‘I was just wondering if there was anyone we knew here. Lovely to see you.’
‘Completely mutual, my dear, I assure you. You’re a life-saver. Join us, please.’ He stepped aside, opening a space in the group. ‘Oh, and, ah, Corvinus, isn’t it? Valerius Corvinus?’
‘That’s right, sir,’ I said.
‘Oh, tush, tush! No sirs, if you don’t mind, I doubt if I could give you ten years. You’re in a better state than you were the last time we met, aren’t you?’ He chuckled and turned to the other two men in the group; one of them I didn’t recognize, but the second, I realized with a shock, was Gaius’s Uncle Claudius. ‘The last time I saw Corvinus he’d just had an argument with a runaway cart and turned up at my door looking like an arena cat’s leavings. Not completely an accident, Perilla told me later. Quite the sleuth, our Valerius Corvinus. Mind you, thinking back on that evening, I might’ve gone for the cart myself in preference to … who was it doing the reading again, Perilla?’
‘Annaeus Seneca.’
‘Ah, yes, rot his guts. The would-be poet. Livilla’s protégé. Frightful tick, currently, I think, living on beets in Lusitania or wherever the hell Caesar exiled him to, and serve him right. Oh, but I’m sorry, Corvinus, I should make the introductions. Tiberius Claudius you probably know already, him being a relative of yours now.’
I nodded at the guy. Despite the fact that I’d been at his wedding, it’d been along with a couple of hundred other people, so this was the first time I’d really seen him close up. He didn’t look all that bad, certainly not the disaster I’d been half-expecting: well turned out, neatly shaved and barbered, longish, thinish face with regular features that reminded me of old Tiberius’s. Which, I suppose, was fair enough, since his father Drusus had been the Wart’s brother.
‘C–C-Corvinus,’ he said. ‘P-pleased to meet you.’
Pleasant-enough voice, too, if you ignored the stutter.
‘Likewise,’ I said.
‘And my nephew, Annius Vinicianus.’
Hey! I turned to face the other man. Not all that younger than Vinicius himself, for all he was a nephew; I’d put him at about my age. Clean-cut, impeccably dressed in a snow-white broad-striper mantle, fit looking, radiating confidence. And with cold grey eyes that were looking at me in not exactly a hostile way but the next thing to it. Speculative, certainly.
‘Corvinus.’ He put out his hand, and we shook.
A slave came up with a tray. ‘The barley water, sir,’ he said.
‘Oh, that’ll be for me,’ Perilla said. She took the cup. ‘Thank you. The emperor hasn’t arrived yet?’
‘No. He likes to make an entrance,’ Vinicius said. ‘Imperial prerogative. So, Rufia Perilla, what are you doing slumming it here with us poor devils?’
‘Hardly slumming it.’ A waiter with a tray of candied nuts came up. I noticed that Claudius took a handful. Liked his food, obviously, did Gaius’s uncle. ‘Why should you say that?’
‘My dear lady, when you’ve been to as many bashes like this as I have, you’ll use the term too. Where’ve they put you, by the way?’
‘Hmm?’
‘Which table?’
‘Oh. One of the ones at the back.’
‘Dear me, we can do better than that! We’re two short where we are, as it happens. No Shadow, either; Caesar doesn’t approve of them.’ Shadows are the odds and sods drafted in at the last minute to fill up any unoccupied places in the dinner party’s basic unit of nine. Me, I tended to agree with Gaius: you choose the people you want to eat with for themselves, not just to make up the numbers. And the professional Shadows — they do exist, for a wonder — try so hard to be the life and soul that they’re a pain in the arse. ‘Old Latiaris’s gout is playing up again, so he and his wife have had to call off. You’re more than welcome to move over to us, my dear. Unless you know the people on the other couches where you are, of course, in which case you’ll probably want to stay.’
‘No, actually, we don’t,’ Perilla said. ‘And yes, thank you, we’d be delighted.’
‘Then that’s settled. Claudius? Lucius? You’ve no objections, do you?’
‘None at all.’ Vinicianus was looking at me as he said it, the grey eyes still cold and level. ‘I’d be delighted to get to know Valerius Corvinus better.’
‘Fine. Perilla, you’re on the other side of me from Claudius, on the bottom couch. Three writers together, if I can include myself in that category. It should make for quite an interesting evening, for a change.’
‘Tiberius Claudius writes?’ I said, startled.
Perilla nudged me hard in the ribs just as Claudius said blandly: ‘He d-does indeed, C–Corvinus. S-Surprising as it may seem. He also r-reads quite well. S-Speaking, I’ll grant you, does p-pose a p-problem, although he can m-manage it quite s-successfully on his own behalf. G-Given sufficient time.’
Ouch. I felt myself redden.
Vinicius chuckled. ‘A bit of advice, Corvinus, if you’ll forgive me,’ he said. ‘Don’t judge a book by its wrappings. And Claudius, go easy on the poor man. He doesn’t know you as well as we do.’
‘Uh … yeah,’ I said. ‘Yeah, I’m sorry. My apologies.’
‘N-None n-necessary. F-forget it, p-please.’
‘Tiberius Claudius is a very distinguished linguist and histor-ian, Marcus.’ Perilla gave me a tight smile, and her tone of voice was straight off a glacier. Shit; we were in real trouble here, or would be later, I could tell. ‘His work on the Etruscans is groundbreaking.’
‘W-Well, I w-wouldn’t go so far as-’
‘Nonsense, my dear chap!’ Vinicius clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Groundbreaking is exactly right. You and Perilla can both tell me what you’re working on at present and I’ll bore you by reciprocating.’ There was a stir by the door behind us. ‘Ah. That’s Caesar and Caesonia arriving now. About time, I’m starving.’
I looked round. Gods. Yeah, well, I supposed that being emperor and the fact that he was footing the no doubt whopping bill for the evening excused the guy from conforming to the usual dress code; mind you, a get-up that would’ve been seriously OTT at the Great King’s court in Parthia was taking things a bit too far, I thought. Caesonia, dolled up to the nines as she was and hung with enough jewellery to fit out a couple of shops in the Saepta, was drab in comparison.
His make-up was a bit overstated, too. Trowels came to mind. Not exactly one of your shy, self-effacing characters, our Gaius.
‘Marcus,’ Perilla murmured. ‘You’re staring. No one else is. Stop it.’
‘Uh … right. Right.’ I shifted my eyes to where slaves were folding back the doors at the end of the room.
‘Well, I think we can go in now,’ Vinicius said. ‘Over to the left near the front, Corvinus. The ladies will be there ahead of us, I expect.’
Near the front was understating things; we turned out to be almost slap bang next to the top table itself, where Gaius and Caesonia were lying. I didn’t recognize any of the other seven at it, but the impeccably mantled ramrod-stiff guy and matching frozen-faced matron on the lowest couch must’ve been the new year’s suffect consul and spouse. Frozen-faced, because from the looks of things their table-mates for the evening were Gaius’s flavour-of-the-month pals and gals, one of whom had the muscle-bound look of a professional gladiator. She wasn’t one of the pals, either.