‘Fine.’ It wasn’t, altogether, but there you go; at least she’d been upfront, and I could always get the other side of the story from Junior himself. ‘Why did he do it, do you know? Sell you the Old Villa for five denarii?’
‘Because he wanted to. It’s as simple as that.’
‘Is it?’
She sighed. ‘Look, it wasn’t my idea, if that’s what you’re thinking. You can believe me or not as you like, it’s up to you, but that’s what Lucius told me himself. If you want my guess — and it’s only a guess — he liked me a lot more than he liked his son, let alone his wife, and he wanted to show it. Not just with money, but with part of his life. And this estate was his life — that and his hobbies. That was one reason he and Sullana didn’t get on. You know he was consul once? Or suffect consul, at least.’ I nodded. ‘Well. That was ten years ago, and he hasn’t been near politics since. He just gave that side of things up completely. No serving on committees, no speeches in the senate, no angling for inclusion on diplomatic missions, no sucking up to the Movers and Shakers’ lobby. Nothing. All he wanted was to live quietly. Sullana’s ambitious. She didn’t understand it, and it drove her up the wall.’
‘What sort of man was he? In himself, I mean. I know about his wife, but how did he get on with his sons? He had two of them, didn’t he?’
‘That’s right. The other one’s Marcus. I’m sorry — again I can’t tell you anything about him. I know he exists, and that’s his name, but absolutely nothing else. We’ve never met, of course, and Lucius only mentioned him once in passing. I suppose, if Lucius didn’t exactly disinherit him, he’ll have some claim on the property?’ There was the hint of a question in her voice.
‘Yeah, I’d assume so, but I’m no lawyer. Perhaps it’ll be in the will.’ Casually, I added, ‘Have you seen that?’
‘No. That side of things has nothing to do with me, or I assume not. The property sale was quite separate, and that went through while Lucius was still alive.’
‘And how about the elder son? Lucius Junior? What was his father’s relationship with him?’
‘Oh.’ She smiled. ‘That’s a long, sad story in itself. Junior’s one of nature’s strivers, not too clever but desperate to get on. You know he’s running for a city judge’s post this coming year?’ I nodded again. ‘If he gets it, it won’t be because he’s fit for the job. The poor sap’s never been really fit for any job he’s gone for, and it’s a miracle that he’s got as far as he has. The trouble is that his father has always known it and made sure he knows it too. So. That tell you something about how they viewed each other?’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Yeah, it does.’ Like she’d said, it was sad. ‘So how was Surdinus with everyone else? Outside the immediate family? With you, for example.’
‘Exasperating.’ She gave me another straight look, and I was surprised to see the beginning of tears in her eyes. ‘Very, very kind, generous, and loving, but exasperating. Stubborn as a mule. Whether he was right or wrong, you couldn’t shift him, or stop him doing what he’d decided to do. He had very firm opinions and views on every subject under the sun, whether he knew anything about it or not. And he was always — in his own mind — right.’
‘He have any enemies?’
‘Absolutely none, or none that I know of, certainly. He never really had an opportunity to make any. He’d lots of friends, though. Or maybe not friends — professional acquaintances, rather. Men who shared his hobbies. You know he was interested in philosophy?’
‘Yeah. Naevia Postuma told me that.’
‘Not just abstract philosophy, although that was part of it. He was a … practical philosopher, if that’s not a contradiction. An astrologer. He cast horoscopes, and he was very good at it, too; so good it was frightening.’
‘You like to give me an example?’
She was quiet for a long time, staring at a point on the far side of the garden. Then she said, in a small voice: ‘Yes.’
I waited. Nothing. Finally, she turned to me, and this time the tears were definitely there.
‘Look,’ she said, ‘I haven’t mentioned this to anyone else, and I won’t. But I’ve decided that I like you, right, and I feel someone should know, besides me.’ I said nothing. ‘Five days ago, Lucius came to me to say he’d just finished casting his own horoscope for what was left of the year. It was quite clear, he said. Before the year was out he’d be dead.’
‘What?’
‘He was quite calm, perfectly reconciled. He said that he’d had a good life, on the whole, and I wasn’t to be upset when it happened. That he’d done his best according to his own beliefs and was glad to go. He thanked me and hoped that I’d be happy. Those were his exact words. He wouldn’t say any more on the subject, even though I pressed him very hard, begged him, in fact, and it was the last time I saw him alive.’ She stood up. ‘Now, that’s all I can tell you. You’d best be getting up to the house.’
And she walked back through the gate, leaving me staring.
Shit!
FOUR
The villa, like I say, was huge: a central block with two flanking wings reaching out to enclose symmetrical hedged walks studded with bronze and marble statues. In front of the main entrance was a big fountain: Centaurs and Lapiths fighting, with the water coming out of their mouths. Impressive as hell. I glanced over at the wing to the left: it was older and just a bit shabbier, and sure enough it wasn’t properly integrated with the main building. Also, it had an entrance of its own. No sign of Tarquitia, though, and the place looked deserted.
What the two entrances had in common was that both of them were hung with greenery, the sign of a house in mourning.
There was a bell-pull to the right of the door. I pulled it, and the door was opened immediately by a slave in a mourning tunic.
‘Marcus Valerius Corvinus,’ I said. ‘I’m here at the request of your dead master’s niece, Naevia Postuma.’
He didn’t answer, but bowed and stepped aside, opening the door wider. I went in. The vestibule was bigger and more expensively fitted out than our atrium.
‘The young master is in the library, sir.’ The door slave took my cloak and laid it on top of an inlaid chest that could’ve belonged to one of the Ptolemies. ‘If you’d like to follow me?’
The library, it transpired, was on the first floor, and getting there took us a good two minutes’ walk. The slave opened the cedar-panelled door, bowed me inside, and said to the guy standing by the window: ‘Marcus Valerius Corvinus, sir.’
‘That’s fine. You can go,’ the guy said. Then, as the slave bowed again and went out, closing the door behind him: ‘Pleased to meet you, Corvinus.’ Yeah, well, he didn’t sound it, and the look I’d got when the slave had given him my name would’ve frozen the balls off a Riphaean mountain goat. ‘Sit down, please.’
I did, on one of the reading couches. Perilla would’ve loved the place, because the walls were lined with book-cubbies, and all of them looked occupied. I hadn’t seen anything like it outside the Pollio Library.
Lucius Naevius Surdinus Junior was tall and thin, with a dissatisfied twist to his lips that reminded me of the old emperor. Tiberius. The Wart. The nickname would’ve suited Junior here, too — all in all, not one of Rome’s best lookers, particularly since, being in mourning, he hadn’t shaved. Wading birds in moult came to mind.
‘I’m …’ I began, but he held up a hand.
‘Yes, I know exactly why you’re here,’ he said. ‘Cousin Postuma sent a messenger yesterday afternoon. She’s a very forceful lady, besides, as you know, being the wife of a man to whom the emperor granted the honour of a suffect consulship for the latter half of the year, and both of these facts make her difficult to refuse.’ The dissatisfied twist became an actual scowl. ‘That doesn’t mean that you’re particularly welcome.’