Virgin Territory

by Marilyn Todd

  ‘Personally, I wouldn’t go around making sweeping statements until I knew who was responsible,’ she said, surprised to find more astringency in her voice than she bargained for.

  ‘That’s no problem,’ he said simply, turning his gaze back on Claudia. ‘I know who killed her.’

  X

  The yellow sandstone of the old Pharos, grating slivers off Claudia’s backbone, was perversely comforting as she sat watching the sun cast a cloak of molten copper over the landscape. Using her palla as a cushion instead of a wrap, she stubbornly refused to acknowledge the nip in the air. The strong, powerful wingbeats of a pair of cormorants whirred overhead. Below, white frills laced the deserted shoreline.

  She picked up one of the fallen stones from the crumbling, abandoned edifice and lobbed it, but the peninsula was deceptive and the stone bounced off a boulder before slithering pitifully into the sea.

  Where the bay opened out, tightly packed pines whispered softly to each other in the breeze, and beyond them, in the hills, a solitary bleat reminded her this was sheep country, not cornfields. Yet Eugenius had once been a prosperous wheat farmer. Why the switch?

  Not that she cared. She was leaving in two days, she should have her answers by then, it would just cost a bit more, that’s all—paying several men to do the job swiftly, instead of one or two at their leisure. Worth it, in the long run, though…

  ‘Idiot!’

  She hurled the largest stone that would fit into her fist. It fell woefully short of the water.

  ‘You know the seas close down in October. Why didn’t you think, you silly bitch?’

  Another brick followed. Then another, then another. Gradually her temper cooled, and she could forgive the fact that four and a half years of soft living as Gaius Seferius’s wife had eclipsed memories of those early years—years a very different Claudia spent in Genua, living off her wits. Well, it was too late to start scourging herself. She’d jumped in without thinking and had to pay the price. Eugenius expected her to stay the winter, but frankly, the prospect of hanging on, where laughter and compassion were as abundant as hairs on a pickled egg, was too dire to contemplate.

  Claudia slipped off her armlet and began to twiddle it round her finger.

  It irritated her that Orbilio should have thought the problem through when she hadn’t, and had arranged for a grainship to drop anchor in the bay on Friday. It irritated her even more that the sea situation pressured her into accepting a passage back with him.

  No one likes a wiseguy.

  And Marcus Cornelius Orbilio was the very worst kind. He was rich and handsome and debonair with it.

  Worse still, she didn’t need him cluttering up her life. He was like some noxious disease, cropping up once and just when she thought herself cured, up pops a second bout. Without so much as a by-your-leave, he took her raw emotions and swirled them around in a colander so they came out in tiny droplets, a jigsaw puzzle which took forever to piece together again and left you bruised and bleeding without cause. That was on top of everything else.

  Still, her young Gaul should have all the answers by Friday. He was a good boy, Junius. Trustworthy and discreet. And if what he turned up was the worst news possible, plans would have been laid to deal with the situation once and for all.

  Which, if she’d had an ounce of common sense, she’d have done in the first place. From Rome.

  Goddammit, Sicily had been a mistake. It had turned into a right bloody mess and the more distance she put between herself and this godforsaken island the better, because just now the last thing Claudia wanted was her own name trawled through this. For gods’ sake, the whole idea was to sneak in and sneak out. Would nothing go according to plan?

  ‘Are you all right, madam?’

  Claudia and her skin parted company and the armlet bounced off the stones. ‘Kleon! For gods’ sake, what do you think you’re playing at, creeping up on people?’

  ‘I wasn’t creeping, madam, it’s the grass, it dulls the—’

  ‘It dulls your bloody senses. Pip off.’

  The Cilician looked uncomfortable. ‘I’m your bodyguard—’

  ‘Then obey orders. Get lost.’

  ‘There’s a murderer on the loose.’

  ‘I know that, Kleon, I found the body. Now run away like a good little Assyrian.’

  ‘Cilician.’

  ‘Assyrian, Cilician, Sicilian, I don’t bloody care. Just vamoose!’

  ‘But it’s getting dark and Master Orbilio told me—’

  The pitch of her voice dropped several octaves. ‘Kleon, unless you want to end up as fishbait, I strongly suggest you do as I tell you. Go away!’

  She watched the twilight swallow him up.

  ‘Kaak.’ A hooded crow alighted on a boulder nearby, and cocked its head on one side. ‘Kaak, kaak.’

  Claudia stared it straight in its yellow eye. ‘And you can sod off, too.’

  Where was that damned armlet? Claudia bent forward to retrieve it. It was gold, in the shape of a snake which coiled itself four times round your upper arm. She carefully polished the green jewelled eyes with her hem, then continued to twirl it round her finger.

  Who the bloody hell does he think he is, she thought, giving orders to my bodyguard? Let me tell you, Master Smartarse Orbilio, if I choose to sit out here and get myself butchered by marauding maniacs, I’ll bloody well do it, do you hear me? And just what are you playing at? Coming all the way out here, swaggering around and pretending to solve murders? You’ve no idea who did it. When I called your bluff this morning, you probably smelled your own goose charring. Remind me what you said so smugly. Ah, yes. I know who killed her.

  So what happens when I ask, ‘Who?’ It all changes, doesn’t it? Nothing but bluster and blubber.

  ‘I need proof,’ you said.

  ‘You’re the Security Police, I thought you beat the proof out of the poor sods?’ I said, then a blond head popped itself round the door and saved your miserable skin.

  ‘Claudia, the ceremony’s about to begin in the garden— Oh, sorry!’ Realizing it was interrupting, the head promptly withdrew.

  Orbilio’s eyebrows arched slowly. ‘Who’s the gigolo?’

  Claudia had felt her colour rising and turned away, ostensibly to pat her bun into place. ‘That young man,’ she’d said loftily, ‘is Diomedes, the family physician. Now if you’ll excuse me, the Meditrinalia is about to begin. What a shame you weren’t invited.’

  With a toss of her head, she flounced out of the room in the direction of the garden, wondering why it felt uncomfortable, Diomedes seeing her in such close proximity to this oily patrician weasel.

  For obvious reasons, the annual toast for health could hardly take place in the atrium. Not in the presence of Sabina’s stiff and mutilated body. Now in Rome they made a real event of this, with the priest of Mars heading a flamboyant and boisterous occasion. In the Collatinus household it had every appearance of turning into something solemn and dreary—even allowing for the recent death.

  Which, apart from the inconvenience of cluttering up the atrium, seemed to affect no one in the slightest.

  And again Claudia wondered where Sabina could have been these past thirty years. Thirty years! It was hell of a long time. Was there somebody (a man?) pining for her, as yet unaware what the Fates had in store…?

  The family was beginning to gather in earnest now, their black mourning clothes and gaunt faces making them look more like vultures than human beings. Two strong slaves arrived, carrying Eugenius towards his special Head of Household chair, beautifully carved and inlaid with ivory, and shaded by a bay tree. The accident, a riding accident by all accounts when he fell off his horse and broke his back, had left him paralysed from the waist down, but he’d at least retained full mobility of his arms. The blatant stare he bestowed on Claudia’s breasts belied his seventy-seven years. As did the twinkle in his eye when it met hers.

  Immediately he was settled, Acte moved into action, pulling a blanket over his knee
s and tucking it round, knotting a light woollen scarf round his neck and smoothing the wisps of hair on his head as an aged claw slid up her thigh. Claudia wondered what would happen to Acte, should anything happen to Eugenius. The family clearly resented the fact that the old man consulted with slaves on matters about which he didn’t even consult them, and twice now Claudia had seen Acte resisting Aulus’s advances. Really, she thought, the best Acte could hope for was that Eugenius lived for another twenty years.

  Eugenius was patently enjoying the fuss being made of him. Aulus shot a look of blatant disgust down his long nose.

  ‘Get on with it, man!’ he ordered, but Diomedes, with barely a glance at Eugenius, reminded him politely they were still waiting for Master Fabius. Claudia wondered whether the old man had caught the drunken slur in his son’s voice.

  As sandals were shuffled, sighs let loose and yawns stifled but with still no sign of Fabius, Claudia’s thoughts returned to Sabina. She was definitely not one of Vesta’s priestesses, yet she’d timed her return carefully, ensuring it coincided with the retirement of the real senior Vestal. Which meant—assuming she was a Collatinus—she had deliberately deceived her family, one and all, into believing she had been in service for those last thirty years. Why?

  ‘I’ll tell you this much, you’ll not catch me wearing one of those nancy-boy tunics.’ Fabius’s voice preceded him into the garden.

  ‘Isn’t it customary for patricians, the longer tunic?’ The second voice was light and high, which made it Marius, Linus’s younger son. Hero worship was written on his face. Linus’s other son, Paulus, was dragging his feet behind them.

  ‘Customary, my arse. Poofs, if you ask me, wearing skirts almost as long as a woman’s.’

  Good old Fabius. Spent twenty years in the army where they wore their tunics high above the knee and obviously he still enjoyed the air whistling up his thighs, bless him. Claudia thought she ought to be able to draw a conclusion from that, but for the life of her she couldn’t think what it might be.

  ‘Bit late,’ he said by way of apology. ‘We’ve been practising our drilling, the boys and me. Got carried away by the time.’

  Ungrateful lad, that Paulus. Didn’t look at all like one who’d been carried away by the time. More like one who’d been counting off the minutes…

  The ceremony got under way with Diomedes filling glasses from the jug on the left and passing them round.

  ‘From the old wine we drink,’ he intoned solemnly in that thick, delicious accent, ‘and from the old illnesses may we be cured.’

  If he noticed any irony in the fact that here was a qualified physician banishing disease by the simple action of drinking wine he didn’t let on, but calmly poured wine into clean glasses from the jug on the right.

  ‘From the new wine we drink,’ he said, ‘and from the new illnesses may we be protected.’

  There followed sufficient hear-hear-ing and enough your-health-ing for Claudia to feel she could slip away quietly, but Eugenius beckoned her over.

  ‘I’m going to my room,’ he said. ‘I’d appreciate some intelligent company.’

  What could you say to the man whose house guest you were?

  ‘I was hoping you’d invite me,’ she said silkily.

  Sod it.

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw Fabius clap a hand on Paulus’s shoulder as the boy was set to make his escape, and heard his voice boom out.

  ‘Can’t stand sloppy drill. Sloppy drill meant a crack from my cane and the man on barley rations for a week.’

  So he was a centurion, then. Strange! Wealthy equestrian ranks, like the Collatinus clan, usually put a son in the army as a junior tribune as a stepping stone to a decent career in administration. The treasury, civil engineering, the usual stuff. Why should Fabius sign on as a legionary, an out-and-out footslogger, serving six or seven years before he could even qualify for promotion? She wondered whether she’d ever understand this family. Or frankly whether she was interested enough to bother.

  Back amongst his own possessions and his dirty pictures, Eugenius seemed less frail, more the tyrant she knew him to be. Acte went through her paces once again, tucking and folding, pouring and serving, silently but not subserviently attending his needs, which she did without having to be told.

  ‘Here’s your alum water.’ She placed a glass on the table beside his couch. ‘This time you drink it.’

  She turned to Claudia. ‘Keep an eye on him, will you? I found out yesterday he’s been tipping it under the bed.’ The old man’s mouth turned down at the corners. ‘Horrible stuff. Why can’t I have wine?’

  ‘Diomedes says it’s good for the paralysis.’

  ‘I haven’t noticed any improvement.’

  Acte shook her head. ‘I don’t hear you moaning about the massage he ordered, and that hasn’t made a scrap of difference either.’

  Her eyes, when they met Claudia’s, said ‘Honestly!’ and Claudia smiled. She liked Acte. How old would she be? Twenty-eight? Thirty? There was a rumour circulating that she was still a virgin.

  The room seemed a lot emptier without her.

  Picking up the alum water, Eugenius began to sip. ‘I’ve been talking to that Orbilio fellow.’ He pulled a face and replaced the glass on the table. ‘Seems very young.’

  ‘I fear he’s seen the porticoes of the Senate House, Eugenius. He’s running a direct course.’

  ‘Good luck to him, then. Patrician stock, should do well.’

  ‘They usually do,’ she replied caustically.

  Eugenius made a sucking sound with his teeth. ‘You’re telling me! Look at Agrippa! The Emperor gave him half the plains of Katane after the war, and you’ve never seen more fertile soil.’

  Claudia knew he wasn’t referring to the terrible civil wars which had racked the Empire, he meant the war for independence when Sextus, youngest son of Pompey the Great and commander of Augustus’s naval forces, rebelled and took control of the island.

  As with most wars, of course, no one came out a winner. Although Sextus occupied Sicily for nigh on eight years before Augustus managed to recapture it, the cost to both sides was immense. Sextus cut off grain supplies to Rome, creating a famine and almost (but only almost) bringing the city to its knees, but as a result the wheat farmers had nobuyers for their harvests and the island lost much of its prosperity. Augustus retook Sicily around the time Claudia was born, but the province had never recovered. Augustus showed his mettle by finding additional sources for grain (his people would never go hungry again!), and by granting vast tracts of prime Sicilian land to his army veterans, thus keeping it in the family, as it were. Agrippa, his friend and general, fared particularly well.

  A thought occurred to her. ‘Sabina went to Rome around the time Sextus took Sicily, didn’t she?’

  He seemed surprised by the question, rather than ruffled by it. ‘She did,’ he replied, ‘and I can remember it like last week. That was the year after the Divine Julius was murdered. I was forty-seven years old and a prosperous wheat farmer, when along comes some snotty-nosed upstart ordering me not to ship my own grain to the motherland.’

  ‘So you sent your granddaughter instead.’

  A glint of cunning crept into his eyes. ‘Took some palm-greasing, I can tell you, since they have a preference for patricians, but yes, I sent Sabina. Sextus and his ragbag followers were after the whole Empire, see, not just Sicily, and even scum like that understood the value of the Vestal Virgins.’

  Crafty old sod! Torn between two masters, and Eugenius Collatinus managed to keep sweet with both. One thing was clear, though. He saw no reason to doubt Sabina’s authenticity.

  There was a long pause, and Claudia did not fool herself into thinking his mind was wandering. Finally he said, ‘Fabius has been something of a disappointment to me.’

  ‘Really?’ Only Fabius?

  ‘His father never showed an aptitude for business I rather hoped the son would do better. Since he was always playing soldiers as a boy, I sup
pose I thought if I let him join up, he’d quickly tire of it as a man.’

  ‘Instead he took to it like a duck to water?’

  It went a long way towards explaining why Eugenius kept such a tight control on the reins, but it was interesting what he’d said about Old Conky. Claudia had got the impression (admittedly from Aulus) that Aulus was practically running the show.

  ‘Twenty years I’ve waited for that boy to come home.’ The old man shook his head. ‘Twenty years—and most of them in this bed.’

  ‘And he’s not showing any aptitude for sheep rearing now he’s home, is that what you’re telling me?’

  Eugenius looked up sharply. ‘Not unless you call route marches an interest.’ He tugged at his lower lip. ‘On the other hand, now he’s back in the fold, ha-ha, I feel that if he had a suitable wife it might be different.’

  A faint flame of intuition began to glow. ‘Strangely enough, Eugenius, I am tempted to agree with you.’

  She picked up the glass of alum water and walked over to the wall.

  ‘Don’t drink that,’ he said, ‘it’s vile.’

  Claudia shot him a glance which said she believed it as she poured it straight out of the open window. With any luck, Orbilio would be sitting underneath eavesdropping.

  ‘It’s coming up to noon,’ she said gently. The slaves would be back any moment to convey him to the litter which would accompany Sabina’s funeral procession.

  ‘It’s funny,’ he said absently. ‘Sometimes I think the years have dragged, being crippled and bedridden, then I think to myself, hold on. Last January you were bouncing your grandson on your knee and now here we are in October and he’s got four children of his own.’

  Claudia smiled to herself. They were all the same underneath, weren’t they? Soft men inside rock hard shells.

  Now, from her perch beside the old lighthouse, she noticed the last vestiges of daylight were almost extinct. High in the hills, lamps and lanterns shone from the houses in Sullium. Closer to hand, torches flickered at the Villa Collatinus and oblongs of yellow thrown from the windows gave a honey glow to the courtyard. But with dusk the chill had intensified and could no longer be ignored. Claudia threw her palla round her shoulders, but made no move to pick her way home.