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The Lydian Baker - Chapter 1
Purple laver...
I blinked and set the letter down on the table
beside my wine cup. Some things - what Perilla's philosopher pals would
call the eternal verities - never changed. They included death,
pestilence and Mother's whacky recipes. In the four months we'd been
back we'd piled up enough ways of cooking lentils to open an Egyptian
cookshop, and some of the other stuff she recommended for a full and
healthy life you couldn't put a name to even in hieroglyphs.
'Hey, Perilla,' I said. 'You any idea what purple laver is?'
The lady looked up from the book she was reading. Chrysippus's Studies in Grammar.
That's one advantage of living in Athens, if you can call it an
advantage: there're more libraries than even Perilla can shake a stick
at. Serious ones, with not an Alexandrian bodice-ripper in sight.
Listen hard and you can hear manuscripts crumbling all over town.
Readers, too.
'It's a kind of edible seaweed, Marcus,' she said. 'Imported from Gaul, I believe.'
'Is that right, now?' Jupiter! In that case this was
one recipe our chef Meton was definitely not getting his hands on. I'd
enough problems with the local cuisine without letting the weird
dietary habits of blue-rinsed Gauls into the act, and that bastard
would slip me a batch of Mother's laver cakes just for the fun of
telling me what I'd eaten and watching me go green.
'How is Vipsania?' Perilla had laid the book aside. Maybe she couldn't take the excitement.
'Thriving. She's off tomb-bashing with Priscus in
Caere.' Priscus was my stepfather. The guy was well into his seventies,
a good two decades older than Mother, but fit as a flea despite looking
like a prune buried in sand for six months. Rooting around old tombs
and collecting antiquities was his life, and although they were
different as chalk and cheese she wasn't complaining. Maybe it did have
something to do with what she fed the old bugger on, but even so I
didn't want to know. If the gods had meant us to eat seaweed they
wouldn't have invented the Baian oyster. 'Marilla's fine as well, she
says. And Marcia sends her regards.'
Perilla's face softened. Our prospective daughter
was still where we'd left her, on Marcia Fulvina's farm in the Alban
Hills. The adoption hadn't got all the way through the courts yet but
it was practically settled, and the kid's father had taken his one-way
trip down the Rock before the year was out. No tears there. I was only
sorry I hadn't been in Rome to give him the final shove myself.
'It'll be lovely to have Marilla here,' perilla said. 'To be a family at last.'
'Yeah. Yeah, it will.' I'd caught the tone, and it
still wrenched at my gut, even after years of marriage: Perilla needed
Marilla as much as she needed Perilla. It isn't easy, knowing you can't
have kids of your own, and the princess was all right. I took a swallow
of wine, braced myself, and picked up the letter again.
Incidentally, Marcus [Mother wrote], I have a favour to ask.
Rather an unusual one. Before we left, Titus learned of a certain
statue which has come up for sale and which the poor lamb is simply
desperate to add to his collection. He's written his own letter which
I've enclosed, so I won't go into details here, and he's also provided
a note for delivery to Simon. [Simon was our local banker. Priscus
dealt with his brother in Rome.] I know very little about the piece
myself, but from what Titus says it really is rather special, and he'll
be terribly disappointed if he doesn't get it; so do try your very best
for us, my dear, because I was hoping to lure the old buffer down to
the fleshpots after he's done his wretched tombs, and the last thing I
want is for him to be sulking all through the holiday. Goodness knows
fleshpots are no fun at all when Titus is in one of his moods, and
after Caere I often find I need a break. Oh, and speaking of fleshpots
I don't know if you ever met Catullina Gemella...
There followed a good half-page of prime Roman gossip. Jupiter! Eat
your heart out, Tullius Cicero! Maybe I should keep Mother's
correspondence to hand down to posterity as an epistolary antidote. As
well as a culinary curiosity. I sighed and reached for the wine.
'Meton says dinner is ready, sir.' Our major-domo
Bathyllus had oiled in on my blind side, bald scalp gleaming like
Hector's helmet.
'Namely?'
'Apple and calf's brain casserole, tripe in a honey-ginger sauce and a fennel pottage.'
'Great.' Thank the gods for good, plain seaweed-free
cooking. 'We'll be through in a minute, little guy. Once I've finished
my pre-dinner drink.'
Bathyllus looked pointedly at the level in the jug, gave a sniff and padded out. Bastard.
'Did Vipsania have any other news, Marcus?' perilla said.
'Priscus wants me to agent for him. There's a statue he's got his eye on.'
'Really?'
'Yeah.' I sank a quarter-pint of Setinian. 'You'd
think the guy would have enough junk already to last him without
sending to Athens for more.'
'Everyone needs a hobby. And at least his is harmless.'
I grinned. 'Unlike Catullina Gemella's.'
'Whose?'
'Never mind.' I reached for the second roll:
Priscus's letter. Something fell out. I picked it up and glanced at it.
'Gods!'
'What's wrong?' Perilla got up quickly and came over
to stand behind me. I was staring at the banker's draft. Harmless the
old bugger's hobby might be, but it wasn't cheap, that was for sure.
There were numbers there I didn't know existed outside a population
census.
' You think the city council's hocking Phidias's Athene?' I said.
'Don't be silly, Marcus.' Perilla bent down for a
closer look. Her breath caught. 'Oh. Oh, I see what you mean.'
I swallowed. Priscus might have a fair bit stashed
away - apart from his tomb-bashing forays he lived pretty simply, and
Mother had her own money - but he'd given Simon the authority to
release the price of a villa on the Janiculan, with maybe a racing
yacht thrown in. No ordinary statue would cost that much. No ordinary
statue even came close. So what the hell was Priscus playing at?
I opened the letter itself. Where Mother's writing
sprawled across the page like the tracks of a drunken spider, Priscus's
was tiny enough to give a literate ant migraine. The guy might be
willing to spend several millions on a bronze wrestler or a hunk of
Parian that some big-name Greek had restructured with a chisel four
hundred years back, but he could squeeze more words into a square foot
of paper than anyone else I knew.
Titus Helvius Priscus gives greetings to his stepson Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus.
Vipsania will have mentioned the Baker statue to you, Marcus.
Tremendously exciting, and certainly, assuming it's genuine, the
antiquarian find of the century. If I can acquire it I shall die a
happy man. Naturally the price, great as it is, represents only a
fraction of the piece's true worth, and as you'll readily appreciate I
pay it gladly.
I took another mouthful of wine. 'Readily appreciate', hell! Jupiter,
I'd never understand antiquarians, not if I lived to be ninety.
Personally if I ever lost what few marbles I'd got and splashed out the
price of a villa on a statue I'd be happy if my nearest and dearest
didn't poison my gruel.
'Corvinus, hold still, please,' Perilla murmured.
'How do you expect me to read if you keep jiggling about like that?'
'Sorry, lady.' I straightened the letter and read on:
I will not insult you by describing the Baker to you, since you will of course know of it already.
Yeah, sure I did; I carried a run-down of every work of art from
Achilles' shield to the Wart's latest portrait in my head. Describing
them in painstaking detail was my favourite trick at parties.
The obvious stumbling blocks are authenticity and provenance. My
historian friends are divided over when the statue actually disappeared
from the Delphian treasury, but the terminus ante quem can be no later than one hundred and thirty years ago while the terminus post quem
is the period of the Phocian depredations of the Third Sacred War,
dating back some two hundred and fifty years before that;
consequently...
Shit. Priscus wrote even worse than he
talked, and rereading didn't help much either. My head was spinning.
I'd swear that half of this stuff wasn't even Latin.
'Hey, Perilla,' I said over my shoulder, 'just skim
through this and explain it to me in words of one syllable, would you?'
But she wasn't behind me any longer. I looked round
just in time to see her disappearing through the door in the direction
of the dining-room. Yeah, well, Priscus off and running with the
antiquarian bit between his teeth versus apple and calf's brain
casserole on an empty stomach is no contest. I tossed the letter on to
the side table, poured the last of the Setinian into my cup and
followed her in the direction of the feed bag.
She wasn't in the dining-room either. Odd.
Bathyllus was doing complex things with tableware.
'Uh...you seen the mistress?' I asked him.
'I understand she's gone to her study for a book,
sir.' The little guy had on his prim put-upon look. Or maybe it was
just his hernia playing up again. 'Should I serve dinner now or would
you like another pre-dinner jug while we're waiting?'
That's what I like about Bathyllus: when he wants to
be sarcastic his touch is feather light. Still, he had a point. I was
mildly peeved with Perilla myself. My one inflexible rule is no reading
at the table; literature plays hell with good conversation, not to
mention giving me heartburn.
'No, go ahead.' I stretched out on the couch and
held out my hands for the slave to pour water over them. 'She'll be
down again in a minute.'
A sniff. 'Very well, sir.'
She wasn't; in fact, the starters were already off
and running when she came back. Sure enough, she was carrying a
book-roll.
'Marcus, I've found it,' she said.
'Oh, whoopee.' I patted the couch beside me. 'But just leave it alone until we've eaten, Archimedes. Okay?'
Perilla ignored me. She lay down and held her hands
out for the water, then patted them dry with a napkin and unrolled the
book. 'The Baker statue was gifted to the Delphic oracle by Croesus of
Lydia, six hundred years ago. Herodotus saw it at Delphi himself.'
'You don't say?' I tried to look unimpressed.
Policy; give the lady an inch and she'll take a yard. 'Herodotus
himself, eh? With his own little piggy eyes?' I passed her a fish
pickle canapé.
'But you don't understand! Priscus is right. If the Baker's turned up it's incredible!'
I sighed. 'Perilla, it's dinner-time, I'm hungry,
and frankly I couldn't care less if Priscus's hunk of marble turns out
to have the nosey old globetrotting bugger's name carved across its
backside in cuneiform. Now shut up and let's eat.'
'Very well.' Perilla nibbled the canapé. 'I thought
you'd be interested, though. The Baker wasn't marble. Nor was it
bronze. It was solid gold, four and a half feet high.'
The olive I was chewing went down the wrong way and
I choked. Perilla reached over and pounded me on the back.
'You are interested, then?' she said.
Jupiter in a bucket! 'Uh, Bathyllus?' I said when I could breathe again.
'Yes, sir?'
'There's a letter on the side table next door. Just bring it through, would you?'
He left, and I turned back to Perilla. 'Solid gold?' She nodded. 'Solid as in "solid"?' Another nod. 'And four and a half feet?'
'So Herodotus said, yes.'
I sat back. Yeah. Well, maybe it was incredible
after all. Not that Priscus would care a toss for the monetary value;
it took a philistine like me to think of that aspect. And it explained
the price. Even melted down four and a half feet of solid gold is a lot
of gravy.
'Okay,' I said. 'You have my undivided attention. You happen to know why this thing went missing?'
'No. But if it's reappeared, then as Priscus says
it's a major find. If Melanthus confirms its authenticity, naturally.'
'And who the hell is Melanthus?'
'Marcus, didn't you read what Priscus wrote?'
'Not from beginning to end, no. I gave up when my brain started to hurt.'
'What brain?'
'Now listen, lady..!'
Someone coughed: our bald-headed major-domo, mission
fulfilled, complete with Priscus's letter. I grabbed it and unrolled.
This time I skipped the lumpy stuff.
I have asked a correspondent of mine at the Academy, one Melanthus of
Abdera, if he would be kind enough to cast a professional eye over the
statue before, Marcus, you conclude the financial formalities on my
behalf.
Shit. That was all I needed. You can't move in Athens without tripping
over some parboiled egghead philosopher, and the ones at the Academy
are the pick of the clutch. I was getting bad feelings about this
business already, find of the century or not. I carried on reading.
Melanthus is an expert on Eastern art, and you may trust to his
judgment implicitly; also, naturally, Argaius understands that any sale
will depend on his approval.
He'd lost me again. I checked above for Argaius and found him three
paragraphs back. He was the seller, and according to Priscus he had an
import-export business near the Serangeion. I frowned. I knew the
Serangeion, in the run-down Piraeus docklands area between Zea and
Mounychia harbours, and it wasn't a good address for a reputable art
dealer. Certainly not one who dealt in solid gold statues with star
billing in Herodotus.
Something stank worse than the Tiber in midsummer,
and it wasn't Meton's fish pickle canapés, either. I looked up. Perilla
was helping herself to the fennel pottage.
'It all sounds absolutely fascinating, doesn't it, Marcus?' she said.
Perilla never ceases to amaze me. She was serious.
She was actually serious. I hated to burst the bubble, but it had to be
done.
'It all sounds absolutely suspect, lady,' I said.
'Either we're talking black market here or Priscus is being sold a pup.
I don't know about you, but personally I'd go for the second option.'
The spoon paused in mid-dollop. 'You think so?'
I sighed. 'Perilla, anyone with a business near the
Serangeion knows more about faking ancient statues than a dog knows how
to scratch. It's a con, believe me.'
'But that's terrible!' She looked stricken.
'It's the way the world works. The best favour I can
do Priscus is to write back telling him to forget the whole thing, buy
a hack team at the Racetrack and lose his money sensibly.'
'He'd never believe you.'
Well, she had a point there. I held out my plate for
the tripe. I knew Priscus, and from the tone of his letter the guy had
stars in his eyes. If I wrote back to say he'd be better throwing his
cash down the nearest manhole or blowing it on wild women and fancy
booze he'd ignore me and get himself another agent by return. At least
I was family. And there was just an outside chance that this was on the
level. The odds in favour were about the same as I'd put on a herd of
flying pigs being spotted over the Acropolis, mind, but still...
'Marcus?'
I blinked. 'Yeah. That's me.'
'You really think this is a swindle?'
'If it isn't, lady, then I'm a eunuch priest of Attis.'
'But Melanthus -'
'Perilla, I wouldn't trust one of these Academy
bubbleheads to authenticate his own grandmother. They're a con artist's
dream. Most of them don't have the sense to come in out of the rain,
let alone spot a competent fake.'
She was silent a moment. Then she sighed.
'Well, I suppose it does sound rather too good to be true,' she said. 'So. What can we do?'
'Go through the motions. At least until the
dickering stage. After all, it can't hurt to give it a try, can it?'
Like hell it couldn't. But then, I didn't know that yet.