Second Act

by Marilyn Todd

  ‘Erinna?’ he rasped again. He put his head round Caspar’s bedroom door. ‘Oh, there you are.’

  ‘I’m making a new costume,’ she said, and it was obvious to Claudia, and therefore to Skyles, that she had heard him calling her name. ‘If I’m to play the Soldier’s Mistress, I thought it would be fun if I wore a legionary’s kilt and a bodice with stitching that resembled armour. Now the Soldier’s Mistress comes on stage looking like another soldier, only with bosoms.’

  ‘That,’ Skyles said, ‘is inspirational.’

  From the shadows, Claudia expected him to make a bow or perform some extravagant comic gesture. Instead, she saw only a strained line round his jaw as he leaned against the door jamb watching her nimble fingers jab their needle at the fabric.

  ‘What did you want?’ she asked bluntly.

  The strain stretched up his cheekbones to his eyes and he ran a hand over his smooth, shaven head. ‘Tomorrow’s the Festival of Consus. I was wondering if you’d like to go to the races with me? We could have a meal in that tavern on Tuscan Street, the one that always has a sheep roasting on a spit out on the pavement—’

  ‘No.’

  In the doorway, Skyles frowned. ‘No, you don’t want to go out? No, you don’t like chariot racing? No, you don’t want a meal? No, you don’t like me? No, what?’

  Clutching an armful of bright red fabric, Erinna squeezed past him on to the gallery.

  ‘Sorry, Skyles, that was extremely rude of me.’ She flashed him a radiant smile. ‘What I should have said was, no thank you.’

  *

  Waste disposal was one of Rome’s most illustrious achievements. What, not so many generations back, had been nothing more than a series of open, unconnected, stinking ditches had been converted into a network of jointed underground tunnels which were flushed with water from the aqueducts, and which were tall enough and wide enough to ride a hay cart through. Not that anyone had attempted such a feat, although from time to time bored schoolboys would take a boat inside to stick a river rat or two, egging each other on to see how far they could penetrate before the stench made them turn back.

  The Great Sewer was their favoured choice, since it ran west below Tuscan Street then cut underneath the Forum, the current record holder claiming to have reached as far as the Julian Basilica, although the witnesses in this case were brothers aged no more than ten and could not be relied upon.

  The shrine to the nymph who presided over this putrid underworld was round and built of Anio, a dull brown building stone, durable but ugly, and was capped by a marble rim. Since the structure lacked a roof and was thus open to the elements, many felt the shrine represented nothing more than a giant latrine and it was perhaps for that reason that Cloacina remained the most neglected deity in the pantheon.

  Which is why the Halcyon Rapist had been able to subject his fifth victim to her ordeal in broad daylight.

  No fear of interruption here.

  He could take as much time as he liked.

  Twenty-One

  ‘Been shopping for Saturnalia presents, have we?’ a familiar, husky voice called out breathlessly, and a pair of chiselled cheekbones thrust themselves under Claudia’s nose. ‘You know, you shouldn’t be out on your own, kiddo.’ He whisked the basket out of her hands. ‘These streets aren’t safe.’

  Claudia could not tell him that shopping was a by-product of her excursion. That her real purpose had been to find out what her agent had learned about Skyles—and what did he mean, he couldn’t find out one damn thing about the actor?

  ‘I doubt Skyles is his real name,’ her agent had said. ‘But given that most strolling players are on the run from one thing or other, that doesn’t surprise me. What bothers me more is that I’ve circulated his somewhat singular description among my sources and nothing’s come back. Nothing,’ he added sinisterly, ‘at all.’

  Which was odd, considering that network of scars. ‘Keep looking,’ Claudia had replied, reminding him that this was still urgent.

  Turning now to Doris, swinging the wicker basket through the crowds with nonchalant ease, she said, ‘What’s your real name?’

  They had reached her front door, where a tantalizing smell of cooking greeted them, and Claudia could almost hear the rissoles sizzling on the open griddle and pullets turning on the spit. She’d spotted red mullet for sale in the Forum and hoped the Cook had seen them, too. Stuffed with soft cheese, prawns, parsley and chives and drizzled with garlic and olive oil, they were the sort of dish any hostess would be proud to serve to oleiculturists with a wealth of connections and an interest in her stepdaughter for a wife.

  ‘My real name?’ His hand froze as he returned her basket, and an expression she hadn’t seen before crossed his face. No longer the happy-go-lucky young fool, something feral flickered behind those cornflower-blue eyes. ‘Do you really want to know?’

  Claudia felt a chill in the air which wasn’t down to the weather. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then I’ll tell you,’ he whispered. ‘But this is our secret. Yours and mine, understood?’

  ‘Understood.’

  Doris looked over his left shoulder, then his right, then checked the landings upstairs. ‘Daphne,’ he said and then, with a cluck of his tongue, the old expression was back and he was joining the Spectaculars with a series of athletic cartwheels.

  Ask me no questions, I’ll tell you no lies…

  But before she could consider the implications of the sea change which had descended on Doris, Julia burst through the vestibule door behind her, rubbing her hands and tossing her mantle to a slave to dry off.

  ‘Sister-in-law!’ Either Julia was in the grip of chronic indigestion, or that was a smile on her face. ‘I tried calling you in the street, but you didn’t hear me. Isn’t my oleiculturist simply wonderful?’

  ‘I don’t know, I haven’t seen him.’

  ‘Tch, poor fellow! Exhausted from travelling, I suppose, but he looked absolutely wretched when he arrived and I said to myself, that dear man is in no fit state to go courting our Flavia, so I insisted he went straight up to bed. Do you know, the darling boy had only been here ten minutes when Marcellus came rushing in, gushing about all the contracts he’ll be getting in the New Year. Now tell me the oleiculturist has no connections!’

  ‘Did you just say “darling boy”…?’

  A thin claw grabbed Claudia’s arm and drew her close. ‘Forget what I said about Marcellus playing around. Nothing of the sort.’

  ‘I suppose he’s simply been working long hours?’

  ‘Exactly, and last night, you should have seen him! Worn out with the strain, he was. Still.’ Julia was quite unperturbed by her husband’s apparent exhaustion. ‘He made up for it by presenting me with this wonderful bracelet. Garnets, of all things, and my dear it’s not Saturnalia for another three days. You know, he actually admitted he hadn’t been paying me sufficient attention of late—’

  ‘Apologized that he’d been preoccupied with his work?’

  ‘Absolutely.’ Marcellus ought to apply to Caspar for a job. He’d learned his script off pat.

  ‘And he gave me this sweet little scent bottle. Look, he’s even put some perfume in for me.’

  Claudia dutifully sniffed the floozy’s overblown scent. Typical Marcellus, though. Hadn’t even bothered to have it filled up to the stopper, but what the hell. The main thing is, Julia’s happy, the allowance is going where it ought to be going and Marcellus, with luck, might actually be earning his own supper for a change. If Julia felt that was all down to some washed-out olive-oil man, who cares? Claudia made a mental note to up the schmoozing stakes over dinner. Get him to sign up Flavia for a wife and Claudia need never see her in-laws again!

  So heady was the prospect that she barely noticed Caspar bearing down on them. No mean feat, considering the little man was decked out in orange, blue and yellow and with a dark-green bejewelled turban bouncing sideways on his head.

  ‘Dear lady.’ He performed an elaborate bow at Claudia�
��s feet and remained there. ‘We have reached the point in our Spectaculars where we are ready to put on a full dress rehearsal. Would you, madam, be so gracious therefore as to honour us with your presence, both as critic and spectator this evening?’

  I would have expected nothing less. ‘I would be delighted,’ she replied.

  Caspar rose to his feet, miming a comical stiffening of the joints, and turned to Julia. ‘And you, ma’am, if I may be so brash, look younger and more fair with each hour that passes underneath this roof.’

  ‘Oh. Well. Well, I—’ Blushing to her roots, Julia blinked coyly. ‘Heavens!’

  Caspar seized her hand, pressed his rosebud lips to the skin and kissed it passionately. ‘Such fragrance,’ he sighed, inhaling the floozy’s perfume that Julia had dabbed on her wrist. ‘Oh, such splendiferous fragrance!’

  ‘Dear me.’ Julia fanned herself after he’d gone. ‘Such a gallant fellow, what? So terribly earnest that one can almost overlook his night-time philanderings.’ She lowered her voice to a girlish whisper. ‘You wouldn’t believe how many times his bedroom door creaks open and shut, and my word, at the strangest of hours.’

  ‘I’ll get the hinges greased.’

  ‘I tell you, sister-in-law, that oleiculturist has really brought me and Marcellus good luck,’ Julia trilled. ‘How delightful, if some of it were to rub off on you.’

  *

  In her bedroom, Claudia ran a tortoiseshell comb through her curls, formed her pillow into a representation of Julia’s face and punched it till its feathers flew. Take that, you ungrateful, ill-mannered, selfish, toffee-nosed bitch. Sometimes, she thought, moving her attack to the bolster, she wondered why she bothered with Gaius’s revolting family. Marcellus was too lazy to put himself out to get work. Julia was so absorbed with her upturn in fortunes, in bracelets and perfume and overblown flattery, not to mention the olive grower’s illustrious connections, that she hadn’t even noticed that Flavia was welded to Skyles like a boil. If they had feelings for anyone other than themselves, this couple, a surgical probe was required to locate them.

  Feeling better for venting her anger and frustration, Claudia slipped into a cherry-pink linen gown and, with snowflakes of swansdown still drifting on the air, set off to consider the conversion of her guest room into an intimate dining chamber. She could almost picture the finished result. Gilded stucco on the ceiling. Scenes from the vine harvest inlaid on every couch. Bacchus frescoes painted on the walls. A tad wine-laden, perhaps, but all’s fair in love and commerce, and although the merchants would be coming here ostensibly to pass a cosy social evening, never underestimate the effect of subliminal messages. The bastards would sign up one way or another.

  She eased open the door. With the shutters closed, the room came across as gloomy and depressing, but light, she decided, would be a feature of this upstairs dining chamber. Holes could be knocked in the wall to enlarge the current windows, a new one opening up on the far wall, the balcony extended by stone corbel supports to—

  ‘Room service is improving,’ the bed said.

  Typical Julia, reallocating the accommodation and dammit, she might at least have told Claudia she’d moved the oleiculturist into here. ‘Terribly sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t realize— You!’

  The tousled head which appeared over the top of the coverlet nodded. ‘Me,’ it confirmed, and there was a flash of white teeth in the shadows.

  ‘You told Julia you were an olive merchant!’

  ‘Oleiculturist,’ Orbilio corrected mildly. ‘Your sister-in-law has a penchant for long words.’

  ‘She is under the impression that you intend to put a lot of business her way.’

  ‘Really? I wonder where she got that idea from.’

  ‘The same place she got the idea that you’re courting Flavia.’

  ‘In passing, I may have mentioned how charming I’d found the child.’

  ‘You only met her once and disliked her with a fervour, as I recall.’

  ‘She was suffering from an unfortunate bout of BO.’

  ‘Then, as her ardent suitor, you’ll be delighted to know that consistency is one of Flavia’s strong points. Stand downwind and even skunks peg their noses.’

  ‘Is that a feather in your hair?’ he asked. ‘Because if so, there’s another on your shoulder and two more sticking to your skirt.’

  ‘I’ve been playing Daedalus and Icarus, learning how to fly. Why don’t you give it a whirl? It’s really simple. You just hold a feather in each hand and then jump out the window.’

  ‘Sounds too easy,’ he said. ‘I prefer something with a bit of a challenge.’

  ‘Then jump from the Tarpeian Rock, I’m not proud.’

  There were enough bristles on his chin to engage a hedgehog’s mating instinct, Claudia noticed, and his eyes matched the pink of her gown. Julia may have got most ends of the oleiculturist stick wrong, but she was right when she said he looked ghastly.

  ‘Exactly what were you drinking last night, Marcus?’

  ‘Something the Gauls on the Helvetican border brew from fire, sulphur, acid and bleach. It’s actually rather good.’

  A thought occurred to her. She drummed her fingers gently against the bedstead. ‘When did you last eat?’

  ‘Can’t remember.’

  ‘Then I’ll send for something. Porridge, perhaps?’ Despite the paucity of light in the guest room, it was still possible to watch his face turn from ashen to a rather subtle shade of green. ‘Or would you prefer a nice dish of curds?’

  ‘I know you’re mad at me,’ Marcus began, urging his rising gorge to ignore pictures of lumpy white milk curds.

  ‘Me? Cross? Perish the thought.’

  ‘Then why are you bending over the bed with your teeth bared?’

  ‘You know my motto, Orbilio. Start every day with a smile,’ she breezed. ‘And get it over with.’

  The noise from his throat was like water gurgling its way down a storm drain. It was the best laugh he could muster through the hangover.

  ‘Claudia, I’m serious. I apologize for the subterfuge, I really do, but I need to talk to you—’

  ‘I’m listening,’ she said, flinging wide the pinewood shutters.

  Like salt on a slug, Orbilio recoiled at this sudden surge of light and by the time the black and orange zigzags had ceased to blind him, Claudia was already halfway down the street and humming.

  The blind beggar on the corner could not believe his luck. Bronze? After all these years, the Widow Seferius, who normally snorted in derision when she passed, had actually dropped bronze in his begging bowl?

  So amazing was the miracle, the beggar couldn’t help untying the bandages round his eyes to make sure.

  Twenty-Two

  One hundred and forty miles to the south, in the caverns beneath the fortified coastal town of Cumae in Campania, the High Priest unwrapped a package. Inside a soft cloth protected with oiled goatskins was a bowl. It had been fashioned from solid gold, engraved with horses and warriors, inlaid with silver, and weighed a bloody ton.

  ‘Let me see, let me see!’

  Yanking off the wrinkled mask with one hand and reaching out for the bowl with the other, the Sibyl whooped with delight. Far from the old crone her clientele mistook her for, the Oracle was a handsome woman in her thirty-eighth year, who saw no reason why she and her brother shouldn’t keep this scam going for many more years before he retired to the estate he fancied in the country, she to a palace a long way from Campania, where she could retain a harem of girls well versed in the art of pleasing women.

  ‘Who’s it from?’ she asked, leaning back to maximize the light from the tall candelabra behind her throne as she studied the bowl.

  ‘Sextus Valerius Cotta, estate owner, senator, and gullible fool.’

  How they fell for it, she’d never know. You’d think someone would twig that the ghosts they met were not floating on air, but on wooden platforms manipulated by black painted ropes. It never ceased to amaze her by what mi
racle these so-called Seekers of Destiny uniformly accepted that the faces of their loved ones had been rendered unrecognizable by death, not by a thick coating of chalk. Even more incredibly, no one had questioned the necessity of the heads of their ancestors being veiled in the Underworld. They didn’t think that maybe long, flowing robes and an abundance of thick, swirling mist might be to disguise physical dissimilarities between the originals and the facsimiles?

  Of course, it wasn’t all smoke and mirrors and a cast of bad actors. To maintain her credibility, the Oracle needed to have her facts right, so she and her brother arranged for the Seekers of Destiny to be drugged, disorientated then left alone in a darkened antechamber to stew for a while. During this time they were able to compile a dossier on the Seeker’s nearest and dearest from the masses of files which were housed in these tunnels. Given that only the very, very, very, very, very, very rich could afford the exorbitant entrance fee to the theme park that was Hades, the Oracle and her brother could easily afford to have these files constantly updated by a whole team of scribes working round the clock on data gathered by a network of informants. It was from the secret libraries beneath Cumae that the scenes for the re-enactment were rehearsed and put together.

  ‘Is the Arch-Hawk planning a return trip?’ she asked hopefully. The work on this bowl was quite splendid.

  ‘He doesn’t say.’ The priest turned the note over. ‘Nope. It would appear this is simply a token of his gratitude.’

  ‘Pity others aren’t as grateful,’ the Oracle muttered.

  ‘We don’t do badly out of the deal, little sister.’

  ‘It’s an expensive business, the special effects, the informants, the huge number of staff, the elaborate costumes—’

  ‘Get away with you.’ The priest laughed. ‘We earn enough to give this bowl to the dogs to eat off.’

  Ah, but they were good howlers, those hounds. Mournful buggers, whose baying travelled for miles through those underground echo chambers.

  ‘Buying silence doesn’t come cheap,’ the Sibyl reminded him tartly.