Virgin Territory

by Marilyn Todd

  Claudia crossed to the garden, alive with the crunch of sand against stone as paths were swept, laurels were clipped and plants were watered. Eugenius’s room was at the far end, but before she could reach it, a blond figure intercepted.

  ‘Claudia!’ He was slightly out of breath, his hands hidden in an unsightly lump beneath his pallium. ‘You look as ravishing as ever.’

  It was true. Between them, Claudia’s make-up box and her natural instinct to hide her emotions had veiled every trace of the turmoil within.

  ‘I…’ The beguiling accent hesitated. ‘I have something for you. A gift.’

  From his pallium he revealed his secret. Claudia blinked several times.

  ‘Why, um, thank you.’ A pigeon? ‘Diomedes, that is… Well, what I mean to say is…’ She gave what she hoped was a light, silvery laugh as he pressed the fluttering bird into her hands. ‘You’ve no idea how much this means to me.’

  ‘Really?’ His cheeks flushed.

  ‘Oh yes. Really. I shall…treasure it. Always.’ Dammit, the bloody thing was already pecking her finger, but Diomedes looked so happy it seemed churlish to throw it back at him.

  To her infinite relief he said, ‘I must go now,’ and his eyes, surprisingly, were moist.

  Claudia’s smile was both practised and perfect, and the instant his back was turned, she stuffed the pigeon into the hands of the slave collecting the clippings. If it was going to poop, let it poop on someone else. She shook her stola, mint green and flattering, leaving a sprinkle of white feathers in her wake. She did not wait for Eugenius to reply to her knock.

  ‘Welcome back, my dear.’ The old man sat in his chair behind a desk, papers spread in front of him. Dexippus sat to his right, Fabius and Linus stood before him. ‘Enjoy the celebrations?’

  For one absurd moment she thought he was referring to Utti, then remembered the festivities in Agrigentum in honour of some local deity whose name began with a K or an F or something, and which seemed years away, rather than hours.

  ‘Splendid.’ He hadn’t waited for an answer, the response was automatic.

  A small shiver ran through Claudia as her senses sharpened and her brain clicked up a gear. She was about to witness the real Eugenius in action. Not the sanitized version he had allowed her to see up till now, the old-man-reminiscing version, the old-man-with-his-family version, which, whilst not actually exuding warmth and affection, was not cold or wooden either. No, the gloves were off and the self-same instincts that fired the inveterate gambler in Claudia were aroused. Her heart beat just that little bit faster, her eyes were just that little bit sharper, her mouth just that little bit drier.

  Eugenius started laying into Linus, leaving Claudia with a sackful of mixed feelings. It was unquestionably satisfying, watching him wither and wilt under the onslaught, shrinking with each verbal missile, but Linus was not the type to let it rest. He would vent his anger and frustration later. On his wife.

  ‘How many times have I told you, you fathead, I don’t want cattle on my farm. I’m a sheep farmer, not a bloody cow man.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Those brutes are neither use nor ornament. How much did you pay for them?’

  ‘About—’

  ‘You were ripped off. The buggers are too old to breed, and if I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a million times, good cattle have thick necks. Janus, I could wring one of those in my own puny fist!’

  ‘I wanted—’

  ‘Get out.’

  Linus opened his mouth.

  ‘I said, get out!’

  Linus’s face was dark with indignation, but Claudia noticed the door closed quietly on its hinges. Dexippus’s thick lips smirked openly as Eugenius turned his attentions to his favourite.

  ‘And you, boy, I expected better things from you.’ Fabius had drawn himself up to his full height, shoulders back, staring straight ahead, two decades of army training standing him in good stead.

  ‘Yessir.’

  ‘White rams, I said, and what do you bring me? White rams with—what, boy?’

  ‘Black tongues, sir.’

  ‘What did I tell you about black-tongued rams?’

  ‘They breed black-spotted lambs.’

  ‘And do I want black-spotted lambs?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Then get rid of them.’

  ‘Yessir.’

  That was Fabius for you. Nerves of steel and a brain to match. It was interesting, she thought, as he reached the door in three long strides, to see the sprig of bay clipped to his tunic. She had learned much from her father, the army orderly. Admittedly he wasn’t home very often, but you picked up a lot in the short time he was there. Like, for instance, how soldiers wore bay to sanctify them from the blood they had spilled…

  Her mind was busy digesting this when Eugenius rounded on his secretary. ‘And you, you idle oaf, get off your fat arse and chase up that bitumen shipment. You know damned well I can’t dip my sheep until it arrives.’

  ‘I checked yesterday, Master.’

  ‘It should have been here yesterday, you dithering fool, now get out there and see what’s holding it up.’

  The smirk on Dexippus’s face had given way to an expression dripping with obsequiousness. ‘I’ll see to it straight away, Master. You can rely on me, Master.’

  He backed out of the door, and Eugenius swept the papers on his desk onto the floor with a backward flip of the hand.

  ‘Where’s Acte?’

  The question startled her. ‘She’s er—’

  ‘Dammit, I don’t know what she’s up to lately, didn’t even bother to bring me my breakfast this morning. Have you signed that contract yet?’

  Claudia felt she was walking on quicksand. ‘Contract?’ She was stalling and he knew it.

  ‘You know damn fine what I’m talking about, young lady, and I want to know when—’

  He stopped, realizing that he was in danger of overstepping the mark. This was the very reason he hadn’t shown his true colours before, and he wouldn’t risk spoiling his chances now.

  ‘Pour us both a drink,’ he said, ‘and tell me whether you think that position there is humanly possible, or whether the woman would need to be double-jointed.’

  Claudia did not look at the pornographic frieze he was pointing to, neither did she pour the wine.

  Eugenius Collatinus knew a challenge when it was dangled in front of him, and his eyes twinkled appreciatively. ‘I like you,’ he said.

  ‘It’s not mutual,’ she replied, but there was no sting in her voice.

  ‘You’ll make a good team, you and—Aieee!’ His face contorted and his hands flew to his stomach.

  ‘I’ll fetch Diom—’ she began, and got no further.

  ‘Stay.’ There was no mistaking the authority, even through the pain. ‘It’s just the colic.’

  Claudia waited until the pains abated before pointing out, purely as a matter of interest, that she had seen colic.

  He winced as he gave a short laugh. His face was grey and beaded with sweat. He drank the wine she poured, and they both pretended it was alum water.

  ‘I like sheep,’ he said eventually. ‘I dip them, I brand them, I clip them, I lamb them.’ He looked very small and shrivelled in his ivory chair. ‘I don’t have to bother about plagues of thistles or how bad the blight will be this year.’

  ‘Why did you kill Utti?’

  ‘It’s my poor neighbours who have to worry about weevils in their corn sacks, I just let my sheep graze in their stubble fields.’

  ‘Let me rephrase the question. Why did you kill Utti?’

  ‘Where’s Acte?’

  ‘Who are you covering up for?’

  The accusation rattled him. ‘Eugenius Collatinus doesn’t cover up for anybody, my girl, and you’d do well to remember that.’

  He drained his glass so fast, wine dribbled down his chin, staining his tunic crimson. Claudia waited. As so often happened with this old man, she met with the unexpected. He bange
d a wax tablet several times on the table, and a slave came running.

  ‘Did I hear that red-haired trollop has returned?’

  ‘You did, Master.’

  ‘Clap her in irons then.’ When the slave had gone, Eugenius turned to Claudia. ‘You want to know why I executed that ugly, fat bastard? Because he killed my granddaughter.’

  A paper-thin hand drummed gnarled fingers on the woodwork. Claudia’s eyes followed them up and down, up and down.

  ‘Those filthy hands of his had been all over her, he got what he deserved, which is more than my Sabina did.’ The drumming stopped and he leaned forward. ‘She rode in carriages, you know. Fine, fancy carriages whenever there was a special festival.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Eh?’ He looked at Claudia as though she was stupid. ‘We got letters, of course.’

  ‘Of course. You were saying?’

  ‘Sabina devoted thirty years of her life to Vesta, that’s a hell of a long time to spend doing nothing except offer sacrifices and make sure the Eternal Flame never whitens to ash. She deserved better.’

  ‘I agree. You haven’t answered my question.’

  Again the change in direction. ‘You were right, it’s not colic. I’ve got ulcers in the intestines, and sometimes it feels like red-hot claws tearing out my liver.’

  ‘Why won’t you tell the doctor?’

  He looked up sharply. ‘None of your damned business! Where’s Acte, have you seen her? Didn’t bring me my breakfast, y’know.’

  This was odd. Extremely odd. Surely someone had told the old man about Acte…?

  ‘Eugenius, look, I’m not sure how to say this—’

  ‘Probably excited. I’ll let you into a secret, Claudia, just between you and me. I’ve asked her to marry me.’

  What? ‘Have you told the family?’

  ‘She knows how to look after me, I don’t need a bloody charlatan poking about in my innards.’

  Claudia was having to absorb so many different shocks, she was in danger of having mental indigestion. To play for time, she bent down and gathered up the rolls and scrolls from the floor.

  ‘That’s very kind of you, my dear.’ So many shifts of mood, no wonder he was a devil to do business with. He began to arrange them neatly on his desk. ‘I like to keep my accounts in good order,’ he said, ‘and naturally I’ve made provision for Acte.’ He leaned forward and whispered. ‘Another year’s the best I can hope for, but she makes me happy. Don’t tell Dex.’

  Still this present tense…

  ‘Why not?’ The old man cackled. ‘He’s jealous of her, so I wrote the will myself. Find it for me, will you?’

  Claudia shot him an old-fashioned look, but was glad of the opportunity to rifle through his papers. Unfortunately there was nothing startling or contentious among them, and she handed him the paper making provision for Acte.

  Did he, or did he not, know she had been killed? Had his grief-stricken mind blocked out what it couldn’t bear to face? It happened all the time, but the question was, did it happen to a man like Eugenius Collatinus?

  ‘I’ll get it witnessed later,’ he said, glancing through the document. ‘You can sign your own contract at the same time.’

  ‘Oh, can I?’ she asked smoothly, settling herself in the seat Dexippus had vacated.

  Eugenius laughed appreciatively. ‘You’re a clever woman, Claudia Seferius.’

  She widened her eyes ingenuously.

  ‘Didn’t take my hint of dismissal,’ he explained unnecessarily. He pretended to fiddle with the scrolls in front of him. ‘You want to know about Utti?’

  ‘Right.’ At last. We are getting there at last.

  He ran his hand sensuously over the lionhead carving on his chair. ‘Let’s start with that little trollop claiming to be his sister.’

  ‘Claiming?’

  Eugenius shrugged. ‘Who knows? Who cares? She stole a horse of mine.’

  ‘She went to fetch help.’

  ‘Pah! This has happened before, mark my words. Trace their footsteps and you’ll find a score of butchered women, just like my Sabina, and every time that little whore’s covered up for him.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Tell me what she was doing there yesterday.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Said she was out for a stroll, but why weren’t they together? How come Utti’s already there?’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘The birch grove, where my little Sabina was killed.’ Claudia waited a moment, marshalling her thoughts and resisting the temptation to state the obvious. Finally she said, ‘How do you know he was there?’

  ‘Utti? Someone saw him.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Can’t remember.’ He saw the expression on her face. ‘Does it matter?’

  Claudia’s eyes continued to bore into his.

  ‘All right, Marius saw him there. But you can’t convince me it wasn’t that big bastard, because I know it was. Two women have been murdered, both in exactly the same…’

  His voice trailed off and the look he gave her was of inconsolable bereavement. He had remembered. What he had spent the day trying to block out had come back to him. Tears scoured his thin, papery cheeks.

  ‘Acte,’ he wailed. ‘Acte!’

  He was still rocking himself when Claudia closed the door behind her, wondering why she felt no pity for the old man, only contempt. In spite of the fact that he’d held the will upside down and pretended to read it.

  XXVII

  It was Junius who discovered the man, delirious and barely alive, on the road above the villa.

  ‘You’re kidding!’ Claudia said, when he told her. ‘The same chap?’

  The young Gaul nodded.

  ‘Well, I’ll be damned. I presume you haven’t left him there?’

  ‘No, madam. I carried him down to the clipshed.’

  The more I hear about you, Junius, the less I know you. The clipshed. Deserted this time of year. In other words: ‘So no one else is aware of his existence.’

  The Gaul gave a sheepish grin. ‘He’s in a bad way, though.’

  ‘Hmmm.’ Claudia placed her palms together and pressed her fingers to her lips. ‘Look, you go and disinfect yourself, you’re probably crawling with lice, and I’ll send Diomedes to look him over. No, hang on. What was it you wanted to tell me about Dexippus?’

  She listened, and it was clear to Junius that she didn’t like what he had to relate. It did, she confided, tie in with a rumour she’d heard earlier, explaining why she’d taken such pains to transport Drusilla and co. to Agrigentum which, at the time, was planned as only a day’s visit. She dismissed him, wondering what strange motivation drove the boy to be so utterly conscientious. He was, after all, only a slave and did not, as far as she was aware, have a lover. His job was his life, it seemed, and if that was the case, good luck to him. One day he’d find out there was more to life than work, but in the meantime, this was all to Claudia’s good.

  The physician’s mouth turned down at the corners as he straightened up. ‘It’s difficult,’ he said. ‘I’ll know a lot more, of course, once I’ve got him cleaned up, but right now? A fifty-fifty chance. Do you know who he is?’

  Claudia shook her head. ‘When Junius found him he was mumbling some girl’s name, Sulpica I believe, and whilst our friend may be dirty, I don’t think underneath those scabs and incrustations we’re likely to find a woman’s body, do you?’

  Diomedes grinned. ‘Probably not. As I say, I’ll clean him up and see what he looks like, but basically those are superficial wounds he’s carrying. The main problem area is the chest. I’m afraid his lungs will need the cautery.’

  Claudia winced. What drugs cannot cure, the knife can. What the knife cannot cure, the cautery can. And what the cautery cannot cure, cannot be cured…

  Leaving him at it, she made her way round the walls of the villa. A window had been broken, it looked like the glass of the newly decorated banqueting hall. From inside, har
sh words were being addressed to a very quiet individual. She listened.

  ‘Your impertinence, I assure you, will be reported to your father.’

  ‘It wasn’t me!’

  Claudia heard the swish of the cane, grimaced as it connected with tender young flesh.

  ‘Children who tell lies have to be punished. What is this?’

  ‘A stone, sir.’

  ‘A very small stone, and see that trajectory? This is the work of a catapult.’

  ‘I don’t—’

  Swish, thwack. ‘Less of your backchat, young man!’ Young man? Claudia’s eyebrows arched involuntarily and when she turned round, Popillia was standing beside her, mischievously swinging the device in question. Claudia threw back her head and laughed aloud.

  ‘You are one quick learner, young lady.’

  ‘Marius is a pig,’ Popillia said haughtily. ‘I’m just getting my own back. What were you doing in the clipshed with Diomedes?’

  ‘Not what you think, madam.’ Precocious brat.

  ‘He’s taught me my Greek.’ She swung into step alongside Claudia. ‘That apple had a maggot in it and Boys are sillies, because they’ve got willies’

  I’ll go along with that, thought Claudia.

  Popillia broke into a skip. ‘You like him, don’t you?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Diomedes.’

  ‘Of course. Doesn’t everyone?’

  The child screwed up her nose. ‘I don’t.’ She jumped round 180° and began to skip back up the path. ‘He tells lies.’

  *

  Marius was out of breath by the time he reached his favourite perch. He liked climbing trees. Oaks and cedars were best, and the stone pines down by the beach. They had broad boughs close to the ground, you could swing like a monkey, balance like a rope walker, sit astride and pretend you were on a horse. He liked this tree best, though. It was a walnut with really thick branches and plenty of cover to hide. His favourite branch overhung Great-Grandpapa’s room and sometimes Marius could watch him put his horrid old hand down Acte’s tunic. Once he saw a nipple.

  Normally he could clamber around for ages without puffing, but then normally he didn’t get punished for things he hadn’t done. Small hands reached up and grasped the rough bark. Who was firing from a catapult, that’s what he wanted to know? He’d find the boy and thrash him like Piso had thrashed him. Marius tenderly probed his sore stripes. He’d knock that boy’s teeth down his throat, he would too. He’d rub his face in a cowpat and then he’d hold his head under the sheepdip and then…