Scilly Seasons by Chris Tookey

Author:Chris Tookey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Book Guild
Published: 2018-09-23T16:00:00+00:00

Roman Scandals

In which Honoria becomes infatuated with Attila the Hun

“So,” said Osprey after a slight intake of breath, “would you care to tell me why, precisely, you did try to kill your younger brother?”

“Well, by the time he was grown up I could see that Valentinian wasn’t any good as an emperor,” replied Honoria, matter-of-factly. “He couldn’t even tidy his own room. He just lounged about all day.”

“How old was he?” asked Wyrd nervously. He himself wasn’t much good at tidying his room.

“Thirty, perhaps. No. Thirty-one,” said Honoria. “Quite old enough to know better. He was also into rough sex. With soldiers. I used to come home and find them pumping away at each other in the courtyard. One didn’t know where to look. I told him to do it in the privacy of his rooms, but he just laughed at me. Told me I was a prude.”

“So, you decided to murder him?” asked Osprey, at his most studiously non-judgmental.

Wyrd wondered if Osprey’s faith in the Roman Empire was being shaken at all seriously by Honoria’s salacious revelations. His certainly was.

“Not exactly,” said Honoria. “I persuaded my lover to do it. His name was Eugenius. He was the steward in charge of palace finances.”

“Did your plan succeed?” asked Wyrd.

“Of course not, Uther!” snapped Osprey. “Valentinian is still Emperor!”

“No, young man. Had my plan succeeded, I would not be sitting here now,” Honoria told Wyrd regretfully. “Poor Eugenius was a marvel at creative accountancy but not really cut out to be an assassin. The guards caught him trying to sneak poison into my brother’s bedtime drink, and cut his hands off. And then his head. I believe it was the removal of his head that killed him.”

She looked anxiously across at Wyrd, who had paused in mid-scribble.

“You are noting all this down, aren’t you?”

“Absolutely,” responded Wyrd. “I was just wondering if – sorry, perhaps it isn’t my place to be asking this, but… er, do you… did you feel… at all guilty?”

“No, not at all,” said Honoria, airily. “I never thought much of my brother, and he never cared for me. As I told you last night, I know he envied my looks. I think he would have liked to have been born a woman – except that then, of course, he wouldn’t have been able to be emperor.”

“Did your brother have any children?” asked Wyrd.

“Great heavens, no!” laughed the Empress. “That was hardly likely when he’d been had by half the soldiers in Rome! I hear, incidentally, that since I left Italia his tastes have broadened somewhat, to include large, black gladiators. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least. Sex for my brother had nothing whatsoever to do with having children.”

“Ahem,” said Osprey, unsure whether such lurid revelations were wholly appropriate in front of his young scribe. “Presumably your assassination plot had, er, repercussions.”

“Not at first. I denied all knowledge of the plot, of course, though my mother guessed the truth. She tried to marry me off to a boring old senator called Flavius Bassus Herculanus.

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