Virgin Territory

by Marilyn Todd

  Claudia jerked her head towards the hall. ‘How are they taking Sabina’s death this morning?’

  Pacquia twiddled the flounces round Claudia’s ankles. ‘It’s all very sad, madam,’ she said without looking up.

  ‘That’s not what I asked you,’ Claudia replied. ‘I want to know how it’s affecting them.’

  Pacquia’s hands trembled slightly, and Claudia relented.

  ‘Look, you don’t have to go through the motions with me. I’m well aware they’re not playing Happy Families out there, grieving and crying over a much-loved sister. Pass that silver pendant.’

  Grief she had not expected. Even assuming the blood line was pure, Sabina had been as much a stranger to them as they were to her, and in four days precious little ground had been gained. Confusing her dream world with reality, Sabina had categorically refused to mix with her relatives and had stuck to Tanaquil like a snail on slime.

  ‘What happened to her prospective bridegroom, Gavius whatshisface?’

  ‘Master Labienus? He left on Monday, madam.’

  That let him off the hook, then. Sabina was killed yesterday, Tuesday. Not that he could really be considered a suspect. The killer would be a local man.

  ‘Have they caught the culprit?’

  ‘There’s a search party out now.’

  ‘I see. And what does the effervescent Tanaquil have to say about the matter?’ Some fortune teller she turned out to be.

  ‘Tanaquil, madam?’

  ‘That flame-haired jack-in-a-box who’s been dossing in the clipshed.’

  Sabina might have attached herself to the girl, but Eugenius wouldn’t have what he called the Sicilian trollop in the house. She and the Minotaur had been sleeping rough since they docked.

  ‘Oh, her.’ Even slaves looked down on these hangers-on, it seemed. ‘She’s gone.’

  There was enough good-riddance in Pacquia’s voice for Claudia to save her breath. An admirable decision, she thought, to jump before you’re pushed.

  The young slave girl’s fear seemed to have all but evaporated, and her eyes began to glow.

  ‘You know what they’re saying,’ she whispered, with all the enthusiasm of a gossip five times her age, ‘they’re saying she weren’t their daughter.’

  This was more like it. ‘Get away! Who says?’

  ‘Senbi. I heard him talking to Antefa—and guess what Antefa said?’

  ‘Tell me.’

  Pacquia glanced at the door. ‘He’d heard Aulus, Linus and Portius having a right old barney over how much the master was gonna settle on Miss Sabina.’

  ‘Was that before or after her run-in with Labienus?’

  ‘Mmm…’ Pacquia closed her eyes in concentration. ‘Before.’

  Claudia leaned forward conspiratorially. ‘And just how much was Eugenius going to settle on Sabina?’

  ‘Eight thousand sesterces.’

  Her breath came out in a whistle. No wonder they were aggrieved. Claudia could imagine that, after thirty years, they felt entitled to that money themselves. They wouldn’t be happy to see their birthright frittered away on a middle-aged fruitcake whose childbearing days were almost over.

  Which was all very interesting, of course, and had Sabina been pushed over a cliff on a dark night, might well explain a few things. But she wasn’t. She’d been murdered in a particularly callous and calculating manner.

  The timing had to be precise, the wound had to be precise. The man responsible for this bizarre crime knew exactly how much time he had between severing her spinal cord and then, as she lay helpless, stripping her and raping her while she was fully conscious. Claudia felt a column of insects march up her backbone. Judging by the bites and bruises, this was a vicious and concerted attack, the work of a maniac, sick and depraved. Not the work of a man trying to hang on to eight thousand sesterces.

  Pity.

  Pacquia selected two lapis lazuli studs from Claudia’s hinged jewellery box and began to fasten them on her mistress’s earlobes. ‘There’s a policeman sniffing around, too. Bin here all night.’

  Now that was a surprise. Claudia’s impression was that the family were keen to gloss over the tackier aspects of Sabina’s demise. Still, credit where it’s due, the woman was brutally murdered and someone somewhere had thought it wise to start an investigation rolling. Perhaps they’d held a council of war? Or was this Eugenius’s brainchild?

  ‘He’s with Master F. right now.’

  More than likely pinned down with a blow-by-blow account of every skirmish Fabius had ever been involved in over the past twenty years. Best of luck to him, Claudia had better things to do. It was another warm day, she’d take herself off to the garden. She could do her thinking and her planning out there.

  In the atrium, with the morning sunshine streaming in from the open roof and the water sparkling on the surface of the central pool, the bestiality of the attack seemed far removed and if, in life, the Collatinuses had been proud to have a Vestal in the family, in death they were more so. You couldn’t move for cypress. With a torch at each corner, Sabina lay on her bier in full bridal dress, correct right down to her circlet of marjoram and verbena. Even her girdle was tied in that special double loop known as the Knot of Hercules (in itself no mean feat), but not for Sabina ribald jokes about this being the one labour Hercules couldn’t manage and wishing the bridegroom better luck. But ceremony she’d had, poor cow.

  Claudia adjusted the woollen ribbons running through Sabina’s elaborate, conical hairdo which someone had taken great pains to get right.

  Since Eugenius was physically incapable of performing the ritual, Aulus had been deputed to clash the two bronze kettles together and spit the black beans from his mouth to speed his daughter’s spirit. Afterwards, Eugenius resumed his role as head of the family and led prayers at the family shrine, except he sounded bitter rather than distraught.

  You’d have thought that with Sabina’s body still cooling in the atrium, some respect would have been shown last night, wouldn’t you? Far from it. Aulus and Fabius all but came to blows, Portius drank too much and threw up, Linus openly groped the slave girls. Matidia and Corinna turned their customary blind eye on the pretext of discussing textiles while Eugenius absented himself, as usual. In fact, from what Claudia could gather, this was a run-of-the-mill evening for the Collatinus clan… Perhaps they were used to dead bodies littering the establishment?

  She was smoothing the bright orange veil round Sabina’s face when she heard voices.

  ‘I’ve composed a lament, Father. I’ll read it in full at the funeral, but this is how it starts:

  ‘’Twas here that once the tainted air brought forth

  A plague that raged with all an autumn’s heat.

  It slew the herds and every kind of beast,

  Infected pools and poisoned pastures sweet.’

  Dear me, if they handed out laurels for pretentiousness, you’d mistake Portius for a bay tree.

  ‘Well done, son!’ Aulus clapped so loudly the sound echoed round the marbled hall. ‘Claudia, my boy here is destined to become one of the great Sicilian poets.’ He beamed proudly. ‘Wasn’t that marvellous?’

  ‘Wasn’t that Virgil?’ she replied artlessly, without stopping to watch the exchange of expressions.

  Passing the dining room she could hear Fabius’s strident tones launched into his favourite moan about how the Praetorian Guard are paid three times the salary yet put in only three-quarters of the service. Pity the poor policeman from Sullium, probably fat as a bullfrog and red as a cockerel’s wattle, trying to make headway in this house. Serves him right, she thought, about time he earned his keep in that dreary, one-horse town where the only crime was an occasional spot of pilfering.

  ‘Quite so, but if we could just return to the moment you first saw your sister’s body…’

  Claudia stopped in her tracks as though she’d been poleaxed. It couldn’t be! Jupiter, Juno and Mars, it bloody couldn’t be! She waited until her colour had subsided and her
breathing was less ragged before sweeping into the room.

  ‘Well kick me for a cardamom, look what the cat’s dragged in!’

  IX

  ‘Cat?’

  Both men jumped to their feet, anxiously raking the ground with their eyes. Dear, sweet Drusilla. Always made an impression, no matter where she went.

  Fabius recovered first. ‘Ah, Claudia, let me introduce—’

  ‘Save your breath. I’m fully acquainted with this little tick, thank you very much.’

  Fabius looked confused, but the visitor, tall and dark with a mop of curly hair, grinned covertly. ‘I think it’s her way of saying she’s missed me.’

  ‘Yes. Well.’ Fabius shot a hopeful glance at the door and the words ‘Permission to be dismissed’ all but slipped out. He managed to excuse himself on a more sociable note, but the speed with which he reached the doorway spoke volumes.

  ‘Reminiscing about the old days, were we?’ She had almost forgotten Orbilio’s military background.

  ‘Not exactly.’ He motioned Claudia to sit.

  Claudia stood. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I was going to ask you the same thing.’

  ‘I asked first.’

  ‘Very well.’ Marcus Cornelius Orbilio settled himself on one of the red upholstered dining couches, throwing one leg casually over the other. ‘Naturally, as a member of the Security Police, I’m extremely disturbed—’

  ‘That’s what happens when cousins marry.’

  A muscle twitched in his cheek. ‘I meant in the worried sense,’ he said. ‘Since the Vestal Virgins fall under my protection—’

  ‘Sabina will find great consolation in that.’

  ‘She wasn’t a Vestal. Claudia, why are you giving me such a hard time?’ He swivelled round and caught hold of her wrist. ‘You know what’s between us.’

  ‘My knee in your groin if you don’t let go.’

  He gave a cockeyed smile as he released her. ‘Sooner or later you’ll have to admit it. I get under your skin.’

  ‘You get up my nose.’

  In three quick strides she was across the room. In the atrium, one slave polished the family shrine, a second, on his knees and singing, mopped at a spillage, while a third topped up the oil lamps. The smell of cypress and incense was cloying.

  He blocked her way between pillars. ‘Wait. I want to question you.’

  Typical. Want, want, want!

  ‘Orbilio, watch my hips.’

  The last thing she needed was him sniffing round, rooting up all manner of things that didn’t concern him. She ducked under his outstretched arms. He blocked her way between the next pillars.

  ‘Then let me remind you why I’m here.’ Yes? ‘This is a murder investigation—’

  ‘You knew she was going to be murdered?’

  ‘Claudia, I’m tired. I’ve had a long journey and I’ve been up all night.’ Firmly taking her arm, he swung her round 180° and marched her back into the dining room, pressing his weight against the door. He’d forgotten how her eyes flashed like the sun on water when she was angry. ‘I want this pervert caught and you could do me a big, big favour by filling in some background information.’

  She sliced off a chunk of sheep’s cheese. ‘You could do yourself a bigger favour by getting a bath.’ She wrinkled her nose and flapped her hand. ‘Downwind…well, I mean to say.’

  Alarm flushed his face as he snatched at a handful of tunic and sniffed. It smelled of nothing more offensive than cloves and sandalwood and bay, and he was annoyed with himself for falling for it.

  ‘I’m in no mood to play games.’ Orbilio walked across to the table, laid his hands flat and leaned over to face her. ‘A woman lies dead and mutilated right outside that door. Tell me about the family.’

  She hadn’t heard from this man in heaven-knows-how-long and he expected her to do his work for him? Unfortunately, telling a policeman to go knot himself wasn’t a particularly clever move. There were laws against that sort of thing. Which was rather a shame, really.

  ‘Eugenius: dirty old man, face like a walnut.’ Claudia ticked them off on her fingers. ‘Matidia: over fifty, overdressed, over made-up. Aulus: drunk as a skunk with a nose like a trunk. Fabius:—’

  Orbilio wanted to pull her into his arms. He wanted to tell her she looked ravishing in pale blue. He wanted to confess his overwhelming relief that the mutilated corpse wasn’t hers. He wanted to bury his face in her thick, wayward curls. He wanted to ask, ‘Do you mean an elephant’s trunk or a traveller’s trunk?’ Instead he heard a pompous voice saying:

  ‘Point taken, Claudia. You’re not obliged to make an investigating officer’s life easy. But you found the body, you are obliged to co-operate on that.’

  ‘Very well.’ She folded her arms in a defiant gesture.

  ‘I was proceeding along the footpath in a westerly direction at approximately noon yesterday, when I espied, lying on the grass—’

  Orbilio held both hands up, palm outwards, in a gesture of surrender. ‘All right, forget it.’ He was unable to keep the irritation out of his voice. ‘Just remember the key to all successful outcomes, regardless of whether it’s solving murders or…anything else…is communication.’

  That’s rich, coming from a man with your liberal attitude towards it.

  ‘I appreciate the advice and now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a tan to work on.’

  ‘Wait.’ Pushing aside a bowl of grapes, he perched himself on the edge of the serving table, leaving one leg dangling. ‘Where’s Junius?’

  Uh-oh. She made a great show of studying the hunting scene on the floor. ‘Junius?’ Gracious, that was one ugly stag.

  ‘You know the fellow. Gaul. Aged about twenty-two. Big chap. Muscular.’ He paused. ‘Heads your bodyguard.’

  ‘Oh, that Junius. Isn’t he around?’

  ‘Mother of Tarquin!’ She could hear the grate of nails on stubble. ‘Must I spell it out? Sabina’s been butchered, your bodyguard goes missing. Don’t you think that’s stretching coincidence?’

  Claudia began to count the colours in the mosaic. Excluding black and white, there were five shades of brown, three red—

  ‘Croesus, woman!’ His fist came down so hard on the table that the plates, bowls and goblets rattled. ‘Don’t you care a damn?’

  She bit deep into her lower lip. One shade of orange, two greens—

  ‘Sabina was beaten, bitten, stripped and raped while she lay paralysed and dying. Doesn’t it prick your conscience just a little, hiding a suspect?’

  The look she eventually gave him was as impenetrable as she could make it. His were the only red-rimmed eyes in the house, she thought idly, and those from lack of sleep rather than grief.

  ‘Junius isn’t the killer and you know it.’

  ‘I’ll ask again. Where is he?’

  Ten seconds ticked past. ‘He’s running an errand for me, if you must know. He’s due back any minute.’

  ‘Now, that wasn’t too painful, was it?’ He helped himself to dates. ‘What about this Tanaquil and her brother?’

  ‘She’s a two-bit hustler. One whiff of trouble and those two are off faster than chalk on a chariot wheel. Can I go now?’

  ‘One more question.’

  He sank his teeth into an apple, and she was forced to listen to the sounds of crunching for a full half-minute before he followed up.

  ‘What brings you all the way from Rome to Sullium?’

  ‘Business.’

  It was irritating, the way that single eyebrow lifted like that, as though it didn’t believe her.

  ‘Would you mind telling me what sort of business?’

  ‘That’s two questions.’

  ‘Humour me.’

  ‘Well, in. case it slipped your sharp investigative mind,’ she replied through a mouthful of almonds, ‘let me remind you that seven weeks ago I inherited a sizeable business from my late husband, and that Eugenius Collatinus is also a wealthy businessman.’ She waved her hands in an expan
sive gesture. ‘There are certain…certain links and…things.’

  ‘You’re in wine, he’s in sheep—and you talk of links?’ It was getting bloody warm in this room, someone ought to open a window.

  ‘Naturally.’

  Take the bones out of that.

  ‘Nothing to do with the fact that you might be living beyond your means in Rome?’

  ‘Good heavens, where did you hear that ridiculous rumour?’

  I never live beyond my means, Orbilio. Not when I can borrow.

  ‘And nothing to do with the fact that Sabina was passing herself off as a Vestal Virgin? For which purpose, incidentally, she would need an accessory. Ideally a woman.’

  ‘You have heard some funny stories.’

  ‘But you knew she wasn’t a real Vestal?’

  ‘I did?’

  ‘Come on, you spent over two weeks in her company and that bridal dress is brand new. Don’t tell me the retiring priestess ordered a new dress to show off at home.’

  ‘You’re slipping, Orbilio. Losing your touch.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Sabina was due to be married. To Gavius Labienus. At the end of November.’

  ‘Oh.’

  He looked about seven years old at that moment, despite the hollow eyes and roughened chin, and Claudia wondered why she should find Marcus Cornelius Orbilio so damned attractive. Well he wasn’t, of course. She was just desperate.

  ‘It still doesn’t add up,’ he said, prizing himself off the table and sauntering over to the window. ‘I mean, if you know she’s an imposter and I know she’s an imposter, how come we’re the only ones?’

  ‘You’re the policeman, you work it out.’

  ‘The family obviously believe she was the retiring Vestal.’

  ‘And you haven’t put them straight? How noble.’

  Orbilio shrugged. ‘I don’t see what good can come of disillusioning them’. ‘After all, it’s not as though it was a motive for murder.’