Virgin Territory

by Marilyn Todd

  The backdrop of the stage had been painted to represent a street scene of three housefronts and you could almost cool yourself on the marble columns or contemplate buying one of the statues in the niches, they were so lifelike. Judging by the colours of the tunics, the rainbow had been torn apart and scattered to the winds and the air vibrated with a thick mix of Sicilian brogues, Carthaginian cadences and the excited squeals of the children. Fruit sellers were rushed off their feet and Claudia found it wasn’t so much a question of finding a seat as requiring medical insertion. Then, finally—

  ‘I’ve always maintained,’ she said, squeezing herself in next to the young man at the front, ‘that if a chap has a face that long, he ought not to be allowed out of doors with it.’

  Marcus Cornelius Orbilio turned abruptly, his face suffused with colour as well as an emotion she found difficult to pinpoint.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I make a point of never looking miserable in public for longer than I make love in private—and since my seven seconds are up…

  Put it down to the jolly atmosphere in the theatre, it was impossible not to laugh with him.

  ‘I thought you’d gone back to Rome.’ He was forced to shout. With an increasing threat of rain, huge canvas awnings were being cranked over the seats.

  I thought you had, too.

  ‘What?’ she shouted back. ‘And miss out on a good time?’

  ‘With the Collatinuses?’

  ‘You know what they say, never look a gift horse in the mouth.’

  Orbilio leaned closer. ‘Then you don’t know much about horses,’ he said. ‘I think you’ve been looking at the wrong end.’

  The guy ropes were secured, the awnings tight against any shower which might interrupt, and therefore spoil, the play. Sicily had retained so much of its Greekery, Claudia feared they were about to inflict some dire tragedy upon her. It would go with the mood back in Eugenius’s household. In fact, Oedipus would really hit the spot at the moment.

  ‘Let me introduce you to my friends.’ He was able to speak normally again. ‘Julius Domiticus Decianus, city prefect and…’

  That explained the front row seats. Patricians were entitled to good seats, but the best were reserved for civil servants.

  ‘…his wife, Urgulania.’

  They were a charming couple. Genial, middle aged, the very people who would insist on a young aristocrat taking advantage of their hospitality while he was in the area. Claudia felt very comfortable about inviting herself to the feast afterwards.

  ‘Do you play Countryman?’ asked Julius.

  Do I? It’s why I came to Sicily, to play games indoors and out, attend feasts and pageants, watch the bear-baiting, the cock-fighting, the rope dancers…

  ‘Like a native.’

  Providing they’d got a good supply of balls. Claudia did have a slight tendency to whack too hard and knock the feathers out. Especially when she was in a bit of a mood.

  ‘And knucklebones?’ asked Urgulania.

  ‘And knucklebones,’ she confirmed, closing her eyes in ecstasy and wondering whether she could ask another fifty for that Parthian.

  ‘Ah, here she is!’ exclaimed Julius. ‘What kept you, my dear? Claudia, allow me to introduce my lovely daughter, Mucia.’

  He slid along to let his daughter slot in between himself and Orbilio. Eighteen years old, fair, tall and slender, Claudia hated the girl on sight.

  ‘She’s had a hard time of it lately,’ Marcus whispered. ‘Her fiancé jilted her for an heiress in Parma.’

  ‘Shame.’ Claudia tut-tutted in sympathy. ‘I can see it’s turned her hair quite blonde with worry.’

  He began to splutter so badly that Mucia gave him her fig and Claudia was incensed to see Orbilio actually sink his teeth into it. She hoped the pulp splashed down to stain his dazzling white toga right where it showed the most.

  Oh yes, this was definitely the day for Oedipus! Two horn players, their cumbersome instruments wrapped round their middles, marched on to the stage, positioned themselves at either wing and let out three long blares, which brought instant hush across the whole auditorium. Just in case someone, somewhere had missed the point, they blasted out another earsplitter. To the roll of unseen drums, the doors to each false house opened and out tumbled three actors. They skipped across the stage, performed a series of headrolls and cartwheels before jumping to an abrupt halt in perfect synchronization, arms outstretched. The audience was on its feet, clapping and cheering and whistling and, dammit, who needs Oedipus when you can have a show like this?

  It was a touring company Claudia had never seen before, and they were truly amazing. The way they walked in their thick-soled buskins deliberately exaggerated the points they were making, their cork face masks helped to project their voices so even the poorer people up in the gallery had no need to strain their ears.

  The theme of the play was the old, old story of three neighbours—a young soldier, a young girl and an old man. The girl was having a passionate affair with the handsome soldier whilst trying to hook the old man in marriage by pretending to be a virgin, desperately trying to make sure the other didn’t know what she was up to. What made this company unique, however, was their magical and innovative use of music. When the girl was pretending to be a virgin, the flute warbled a few rising, fluttering notes. When she was with the soldier, the earthy horn gave a short, sceptical honk. And whenever there was a punchline, the cymbals would crash together. Needless to say at the finale, when flute, horn and cymbal were all going at once, the audience was doubled up, ensuring everyone was in the right frame of mind for a night of feasting and dancing.

  Julius’s impressive residence was a mere two minutes’ walk from the theatre and no one seemed to notice the steady drizzle which had set in. Claudia walked beside Urgulania, who didn’t care one jot that her companion hailed from the equestrian class, rather than a patrician family like her own. She was an interesting woman, as far removed from the likes of Matidia as the moon, discussing the local political situation, the changes and developments her husband had been and was intending to introduce, and Claudia decided that if more women were like Urgulania, she might actually begin to like the species.

  Urgulania had really done Julius proud with the banquet, serving so many of Claudia’s favourite dishes that she was in danger of becoming a veritable martyr to indigestion. Figpeckers in pastry, peahens’ eggs, snails (which had been milk-fed, unless she missed her guess), and venison in a pepper and lovage sauce. Was this living, or was this living?

  Between courses, a snake of dancers and musicians dressed as woodnymphs and satyrs wound their way between the dining couches and the meal was interspersed with poetry recitals to calm things down or fire-eaters to liven things up. The evening was going well, even at the point where Urgulania said:

  ‘My husband is hoping to talk Marcus into signing a marriage contract with Mucia, and as one who knows him, I’d really value your opinion.’

  Claudia was not offended. Urgulania held no prejudice against equestrians, but so entrenched were the class divides that, without even realizing it, she’d automatically drawn a line of distinction between Claudia and Orbilio. There were some chasms that were simply never bridged.

  It explained why Urgulania genuinely felt able to seek independent advice.

  And it explained why Claudia had had to forge her own identity in the first place. Gaius Seferius would never have dreamt of offering marriage to a dancer and erstwhile prostitute from the lower orders.

  ‘My dear Urgulania, Marcus will make Mucia a wonderful husband,’ she gushed. ‘Providing she doesn’t want children, of course.’

  Urgulania frowned. ‘Oh? Doesn’t he like them?’

  ‘Marcus? He loves them, would have a houseful of the little beggars—if only he could.’

  ‘Well, that’s easily settled. A healthy young girl like Mucia will be pregnant in no time.’

  ‘Uh-uh,’ Claudia said. ‘I mean…’ She held her hand out horizont
ally, then let it fall limp. ‘He can’t.’

  Urgulania looked puzzled. ‘But surely—’

  ‘That’s why,’ Claudia cut in quickly, ‘his first wife threw herself in the Tiber.’

  ‘Are you certain of that? He told us she ran off with a common sea captain.’

  Claudia gasped and clapped a hand over her mouth. ‘Yes, yes, of course she did.’

  The older woman’s lips pursed. ‘Do you mean he invented that story to cover up his wife’s suicide?’

  ‘Urgulania, please. If that’s what Marcus says, I insist you take his word for it.’

  ‘Mmm. Excuse me a moment, my dear, I’d like a quiet word with my husband.’ Orbilio, as was due a fellow patrician and potential son-in-law, had been given pride of place beside Julius on the top table. When he glanced over at Claudia, she noticed a slight crease in his brow. She smiled and raised her glass to him. It was entertaining the way his frown didn’t go away. It merely deepened—the way a frown would, if it suspected you were up to something behind its back.

  Claudia beckoned over the slave with the wine jug.

  ‘Fill this up,’ she said, holding out her glass. ‘I feel like celebrating.’

  *

  There seemed no end to the festivities, and what started out as refreshing hedonism quickly descended into profligacy. There were only so many flamingo tongues one could eat, so many oysters one could swallow, and after twenty-four hours, the rattles and the pan pipes and the horns began to grate. At least, that’s how it was for Claudia. The others were revelling like there was no tomorrow.

  ‘It’s barbaric,’ she told Drusilla, slipping her a morsel of sucking pig. ‘They eat till they’re sick, they drink till they’re sick, and then damn me, they go back and start all over again.’

  She and Drusilla were lucky, having a bedroom to themselves with this horde milling round the house, but for some strange reason none of the other women had fancied sharing.

  ‘I just pity the poor slaves whose job it is to mop up the vomit.’

  ‘Mrrr.’

  These excesses reminded her of Diomedes’s lament about how the wealthy made themselves ill by constant over-indulgence in fatty foods and vintage wine. He’d have made a good living here in Agrigentum, she thought, with his purges and his bloodletting—why take a job at the Villa Collatinus? What did he mean when he said he’d found peace there?

  ‘And I tell you something else,’ she said to Drusilla, as one of the kittens burrowed under the flounce of her tunic, ‘there’ll be a good influx of babies nine months from now.’

  Hardly a slave girl passed unmolested, most of them taken in the shadows of the prefect’s pink marble pillars with the same delicacy his guests showed towards their other physical needs. Claudia pursed her lips. Randy old goats she could understand. Hadn’t she spent her teenage years pandering to their sexual fantasies? They wanted. They paid. Fair enough. But these girls were treated like herd animals, and suddenly Claudia was sick of Sicily.

  Sick of its decadence, its over-the-toppery, its fat cats creaming off the goodies in a way Roman citizens, no matter how rich or privileged, would never dream of. She was sick of the brooding superstition which clung to the island, she was sick of the Collatinuses and the callous way they ignored the violence of their kinswoman’s death, almost as though it was a way of life for them.

  The kitten began a death-defying climb up the north face of her tunic. Claudia would never know, now, where Sabina had spent the past thirty years. Her original theory, bunking up with a distant relative, was knocked on the head as she remembered the sun-darkened skin, the dirty nails. No relative would expect (or indeed allow!) her to work for her keep. On the other hand, Sabina did not give the appearance of a woman who’d had to graft in order to survive. What happened when she went to Rome all those years ago? Why continue the pretence of being a Vestal Virgin? It didn’t surprise Claudia that none of the family had visited, they were far too absorbed in their own lives, although Matidia mentioned a regular exchange of letters. The most curious point, however, was why Sabina chose to return at the precise time the real senior Vestal was retiring. Why not stay where she was?

  ‘Too late now,’ Claudia said aloud to no one in particular. Drusilla was chomping on a flatfish, and Slingshot here was on the horns of a dilemma. Should he continue the ascent or quit while he was ahead?

  Cypassis flung open the door and began dashing round. ‘I’m sorry I’m late, madam.’ She collected Claudia’s tunic and sandals and put them away, refilled the water bowl and lit four more lamps all more or less at the same time.

  Claudia unhooked the squealing mountaineer and placed him amongst his siblings, who were blotto on the blanket. ‘Slow down, slow down.’

  She was in no great hurry, anyway. There was, after all, a limit to the number of castanet-clacking Arabian dancers a girl could cope with over dinner and frankly, that last lot of breast-wobbling came too close to her custard for comfort.

  As Cypassis began to heat the curling irons in the brazier and ease the pins from her mistress’s hair, Claudia noticed a silver bangle round her wrist.

  ‘Where did you get that?’

  ‘One of the magistrates.’ The Thessalian girl’s cheeks darkened to the colour of half-ripe bilberries. ‘Did I do wrong?’

  Claudia let out a throaty chuckle. ‘Let’s just say you didn’t do badly. Now for gods’ sake, get those bloody tongs out before they get too hot to handle.’

  Of all the revelries which Julius Domiticus Decianus had planned, tonight’s feast was to be the pinnacle. Urgulania had ordered everything from peacocks’ brains to ostrich steaks, bear cutlets to stuffed crane, and entertainments ranged from full-blown political satires to high camp female impersonators. It promised to be quite a night.

  ‘I’ll wear the white.’

  The hairpin froze in Cypassis’s hand. ‘The white, madam?’

  ‘Does silver make you deaf? I’m talking about the outfit I bought today.’

  She knew what was going through the girl’s mind. Slaves wore white. Noblemen wore white. Noblewomen, most assuredly, did not wear white. Especially not to a banquet given by a city prefect. But since when did etiquette count? All that concerned Claudia was that, when everyone was reclining on the couches, eyes would be exactly where she intended them to be. On the widow of Gaius Seferius, now the owner of a large and prosperous wine business. When transaction time came (and it would) Claudia wanted to be absolutely certain they remembered her.

  She ate little and drank less as she scanned the hall for potential clients, but each time her eyes made the tour they were caught by the intensity of one young man in particular. He was wealthy, you could tell from the cut of his tunic, the rings on his fingers, although he was neither patrician nor equestrian or he wouldn’t have been stuck at the back. You couldn’t say he was good-looking—his brow was too low, his eyes too small—but in any case, the look he gave her was not sexual. Just unblinking. Hell, the whole idea was to get noticed, she could hardly complain…

  The heat in the banqueting room was fast becoming intolerable and she excused herself to take a walk in the peristyle. Darkness had fallen and yesterday’s drizzle had turned into a steady downpour, but there was no breeze and the colonnade offered shelter enough from the elements. The rain hammering on to the herbs sent up a heavenly waft of bay and rosemary, lavender and roses, while the fountain gurgled and chuckled in the darkness. The statuary here was exquisite, far superior to anything Gaius had commissioned, and she was admiring the compact marble buttocks of a naked warrior when a familiar voice broke the silence.

  ‘You haven’t savaged me once today. I’m beginning to think you don’t love me any more.’

  Marcus Cornelius Orbilio was holding two glasses of wine. When he passed one across, she pretended not to notice the twinkle in his eye.

  ‘And you practically betrothed to that Mucia trollop!’

  She saw his teeth shine in the darkness. ‘I’ll have you know, Claudia
Seferius, a lot of women will be sorry when I get married.’

  ‘Good god, just how many are you planning to marry?’

  He laughed softly. ‘Put it this way, I don’t know what you told Julius, but I’m very grateful.’ Wait until you find out what it was.

  There was a long silence in which Orbilio leaned one arm against the pillar and propped himself up with it. Claudia continued to scrutinize the white statue.

  ‘Why aren’t you in Rome?’ he asked eventually.

  ‘Why aren’t you? It was your damned grainship.’

  Tell me about it, he thought. My boss will have my balls on a bellpull for that, and my plans for the Senate have swirled right down the gutter. But when it came to the crunch—

  ‘It was every bit as criminal for me to walk away as it was for the man who murdered Sabina in the first place.’

  ‘Gone off Diomedes, then?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ he said quickly. ‘It’s him all right. I just needed proof.’

  ‘Which, naturally, you have by the bucketload?’

  He jerked his head back so hard it hit the pillar. ‘No,’ he snapped. ‘No, I bloody haven’t.’

  The whole purpose of coming to Agrigentum was to find out more about that Greek quack, but no one knew a damn thing about him. Not one damned thing. Still, at least it had established that the manner of Sabina’s murder was—at least on Sicily—quite unique. Evidence, albeit circumstantial, was mounting.

  Claudia walked her fingers up the leg of the warrior. ‘That’s not entirely surprising,’ she said. ‘Considering you’ve got the wrong man.’

  ‘So who’s your money on, that bumbling great oaf Utti?’

  Do me a favour. When I bet, I bet on winners. Well, most of the time. ‘No way. He’s forever playing What’s the Time, Mr Wolf with the slave children, giving them piggy-back rides and playing hide and seek.’

  Whatever plan he and Tanaquil had hatched, butchering Vestal Virgins wasn’t part of it.