by Marilyn Todd
‘Will there be an answer, sir?’
He had delivered the letter, personally as instructed, to the tall patrician standing in the scorching heat of the sun porch, and the recipient had merely grunted his thanks as he maintained a tight-lipped watch on a rowboat cleaving a path across the silvery lake. Considering the contents were so urgent they’d brought the sparks flying from the hoofs of his horses and had jammed every joint of his backbone, the least he could do, the rider felt, was open the bloody thing!
Orbilio tapped the scroll against the gilded pillar. ‘Why don’t you get something to eat?’ he suggested, leaving the exhausted rider to make what he could of the answer.
Marcus stared at the shingle beach fifty feet below, then squinted towards the boat, practically swallowed by the heat haze. He exhaled slowly and with a shrug of resignation, finally broke the heron seal. Even before he started reading, he tasted bile in his mouth.
‘The choice,’ wrote his boss, ‘is simple. Either you ride back to Rome this instant, or you don’t come back at all.’
Shit. He knew his boss would go ballistic, but he didn’t expect to be sacked. Orbilio took three deep breaths as he stared across the hazy blue hills, then read on. There was only another line.
‘You aren’t the only one who doesn’t like the plague.’
Bastard! Orbilio’s knuckles were white where he gripped the golden rail. The dirty rotten little bastard! His teeth clamped together in white-hot anger as he visualized the scene in an office stuffed with lackeys hanging on to every word the master dictated—and his boss would be sure to have dictated this loving missive in his very loudest voice. Let no man miss the fact that Marcus Cornelius Orbilio is a coward. That whilst patricians have blue blood in their veins, it’s the yellow streak down their backbone folk should be wary of.
At that moment, had Orbilio dipped his finger in a bowl of ice, steam would have risen from the surface, he was so damned mad. Him. A man who only ever sought for justice, being accused of cowardice. The stinking, oily little bastard.
For another quarter hour Marcus let the anger flow, releasing every pent-up gripe he held against the worm who he reported to. The same worm who had not worked for his position, but had bought it. The very creep who had no idea what was involved in catching murderers and fraudsters, yet basked in the reflected glory like a lizard in the sun… Finally, when he’d luxuriated in his rage for long enough, Orbilio took himself off to the bath house, where the scraping and the pummelling, the oiling and the unguents drained the remaining tension in his flesh. Cracking his knuckles in cheerful anticipation, he then called for a scribe.
In the end it took five drafts, but when the rested rider set off back for Rome, Orbilio was confident that not only would his superior officer rescind any threat of dismissal, but that to get his hands on the list of taboos surrounding Jupiter’s priest, the smarmy toad would actually send an apology by return.
Orbilio had not trekked all the way up to the Capitol and back yesterday morning for nothing.
With the sun sinking fast behind the hills which cradled Plasimene, he worked his way round to the shrine of Carya, where a corpulent priest gathered hyssop in the dusky pink rays to purify the altar, growling at his lanky novice to put some effing elbow grease behind his effing broom, or the boy would be working in the effing dark. At the edge of the walnut grove, Marcus leaned his hands on the low wall which surrounded it. The stone was warm upon his palms, purple from the glow of the sunset. All around, hills tamed into providing wood for hurdles, yokes and charcoal sank into the gentle, smoky twilight. Sheep grazed contentedly on the marshy plains and cattle chewed the cud, lowing softly now and then to rein in their boisterous calves. Lowering his gaze, he watched coracles and fishing boats, homeward bound and heavy, studding the surface of a lake which rippled with nibbling fish. Finally his meandering eyes found what they had, of course, set out to find from the beginning, and Orbilio could fool himself no longer. One of the fishermen’s hooks must have got left behind by mistake, it pulled in his gut as he watched lights far across the water twinkle in the darkening sky. There was no mistaking the island that they came from and he swallowed the lump in his throat. So many lights, they danced like fireflies out on that wooded lump of rock developed by a banker and his wife into a villa of great luxury and grounds which were, he understood, a beauty to behold. Then the banker died, and not so many months ago. And earlier this afternoon, his successor had rowed a certain party over to the island.
But had not yet rowed her home.
*
Out where those torches burned like fireflies, a man and a woman walked side by side, one unaccustomedly voluble, the other unaccustomedly quiet.
This island, Tarraco told her, was once a sacred Etruscan burial site and though the tombs had been robbed long ago, probably at the time of the Battle of the Lake, the paintings inside could rival the artists of Rome. One day, maybe tomorrow, maybe next day, he would show her.
‘But they are nothing compared to what I show you. Come.’ He led her to the eastern tip of the island. ‘My colossus. Fifty feet high, it takes your breath away, no? Is Memnon, son of the Dawn, and at daybreak he calls to his mother. Oh, you scoff, but is true. Memnon sings. You wait and you see. Memnon sings.’
Let me show you the gardens, magnificent gardens, with the peabirds who spread out their fan of fine feathers and the cote of white doves. Listen with me to the murmuring fountains; we feed the fish in the ponds. You like the villa? This marble here comes from the high Pyrenees, the doors are cedar from the forests of Lebanon.
Like a gentle tide, his words went in, his words went out, and Claudia’s mind was the beach they left no trace on. For her, this offered the perfect breathing space. Coldblooded murder could not intrude on this island. Strongroom robberies did not exist. The tentacles of the Security Police could not reach this far out. As the sun turned the banker’s villa salmon pink, stress floated away like a leaf on the water. Pressure flew home with the geese.
Leaving his guest in a portico planted with basil to counteract the clouds of midges, Tarraco returned a few minutes later with a magnificent gown in his hands—harebell blue, vivid rather than flamboyant, daring, yet anything but flashy. Claudia gasped with surprise. It was exquisite, true, but more than that, the gift revealed so much about the Spaniard. Perhaps it smacked of arrogance, that Claudia would show at the jetty, but it betrayed what she had suspected yesterday. That Tarraco could read her thoughts, because this was a gown she’d have chosen herself. In the setting sun, she smiled inwardly. In her experience, the only men who have such taste and comprehension are inclined towards their own sex, but not Tarraco! His dark eyes were compelling, his movements lithe and beguiling and she did not need to hear his sharp intake of breath to appreciate the effect of his gift when she changed into it. Without a word he led her between a line of tall cypress to a white marble seat which looked out over the lake. Laid out in the centre were platters piled high with oysters and stuffed eggs, asparagus and wild mushrooms.
‘The shadows lengthen,’ he said as they pushed their plates away. ‘Come.’
With the flat of his hand on her back as a guide, he led her to the dining terrace, where spiky palms flanked the marble steps and garlands of flowers—roses, lilies, valerian—hung from the capitals of deeply fluted pillars. Two couches upholstered in Tyrian purple and cast in bronze gleamed in the light of a score of burning torches and Claudia knew, as she stretched out, that the colour of her gown set off the scene to perfection. Tarraco, she reflected happily, was not just rich, he was an artist.
Crab and lobster, venison and quail sizzled under silver-lidded platters and the silence was broken only by the rasping of cicadas and an occasional mew from the peacocks. Across the lake, the lights of Atlantis reflected like stars in the water.
‘Your—’ Claudia cleared her throat and started again. ‘Your servants. Are they invisible?’
‘You wish for a crowd?’ he asked, stroking his long,
dark mane out of his eyes.
She remembered the clearing. Him standing there, veiled by his hair, and her nearly naked, and despite the warmth of the evening, a shudder ran through her body. ‘How long have you lived here?’ she asked, gulping the heavy red wine.
He spread expressive hands and shrugged. ‘I lose track of time,’ he replied, and Claudia could believe him. Was this what happened to Odysseus, when he stopped on Circe’s island? Perhaps time stood still for him also? But then Circe, she recalled, was an enchantress…
Inside her chest, a blacksmith hammered on the anvil of her ribs. ‘Where were you before that?’ she asked.
‘Iberia, you mean?’
Whatever.
‘From the hills above the coast on the east.’ His mouth twitched downwards briefly and, she felt, involuntarily. ‘I was slave originally. Prisoner of war.’
‘What happened?’
‘You,’ he grinned and picked up a lyre, ‘talk too much.’ Softly Tarraco began to strum. ‘Just lie back. Listen to the music and the night.’
Sod it, why not? There were demons enough waiting when she returned! Thus Claudia abandoned herself to the marriage of chords which she never imagined existed. Haunting, aching melodies of sun-drenched Spanish hills filled the air, wordless songs of broken hearts and unrequited love, and they echoed across the terrace and far into the night. The level in the wine jug dropped, and the scent of the roses and the lilies intensified in the heat of the torches.
‘Now,’ he said at length, laying down his lyre, ‘let us eat honeycombs fresh from the hive.’
‘What is this?’ She laughed. ‘Like our festival of Beating the Bounds, have you laid on a moveable feast?’
Tarraco made no reply, but silently ushered her through an atrium resplendent with golden rafters and redolent of myrrh, past a fountain chattering in a diamond pool. Finally he pulled aside a heavy tapestry curtain, the entrance to a small office, from which a large door opened inwards.
‘I think,’ Claudia said slowly, ‘I’ve eaten enough for one meal.’
‘You do not like honeycomb?’ He was mortified. ‘I fetch candied fruits, yes? Maybe nuts.’
Damn right I am.
Claudia cast an appreciative eye over the bronze lamps guzzling up the finest olive oil, the painted stucco ceiling, the gaily patterned frescoes. On a tapestry which covered the far wall, Jason and his Argonauts searched for an embroidered golden fleece. So much, she thought, for breathing space…
Tarraco placed the flat of his hands together. ‘You think I take liberties, serving honey in my bed? That I move too fast?’ He strained a grin. ‘I-I thought—’
‘A bolt of blue cotton could buy me?’
‘No, no. Claudia, no. You and I…I thought…there was—’ The frown on his face was like pain. ‘Claudia, there is something between us.’
Claudia leaned close enough to catch the familiar scent of pine. ‘How right you are, Tarraco. It’s your ego.’
XIII
Around Atlantis, torches burned low and Claudia’s footsteps echoed down the wooden jetty. Three men, she thought, each with a single objective. One younger than her, full of fun, full of life, with his corn-coloured hair and his secrets, who believed he could cartwheel her into his bed. The second the same age as herself, a dark horse according to Dorcan, believing he could charm her into his bed with his gifts and his magical lyre. And a third, considerably older—and this one didn’t even imagine he’d have to work for results, the fact that he’d turned rock into gold quite sufficient.
Three men. One objective.
One dead.
The lights might be low, but they weren’t muted enough to conceal a figure flitting back into the shadows. Claudia frowned. Not Tarraco, he was already halfway back to his island and, since the gates were locked at dusk, this could be no common criminal creeping around. Orbilio, of course, would never give himself away, he’d learn to walk on water before he allowed a trace of himself to be seen, besides this shadow seemed taller, broader, of far greater bulk. So who, then? Who might wish to spy on her?
Silly bitch. Claudia swept up the steep, stone steps.
Imagine you’re the only one keeping late hours? They don’t all come here for Carya’s healing waters and to listen to the choirs. Your problem, she told herself, watching bats forage for insects on the wing, is an overactive imagination. Cal has been murdered, his killer walks free—and what’s driving you daft is that despite a list of curious characters lurking in the background, there’s no tangible suspect and not so much as a whiff of a motive.
I have a solution, squeaked a little horseshoe bat. You could enlist the help of Supersnoop. (Whatever his motives for fetching her here, he’d never turn away a chance to solve a killing.)
No way, piped a pipistrelle. His involvement would mean him tucking his feet under the table indefinitely.
Quite right, said a noctule, its mouth full of moth. She needs to get rid of Orbilio fast.
But since the bats could not come up with a strategy for disposing of this hotshot investigator, Claudia left them to their supper and slipped through the doors of the Great Hall. Hello, hello, hello. She paused on the threshold. What’s old Kamar up to, then, canoodling behind a statue? And him a married man with a disfigured wife, who everybody talks about, poor bitch. Claudia allowed the door to close silently behind her as Lavinia’s voice echoed down the corridor of her memory. ‘I’ll bet you’ve heard my daughter-in-law playing whisper-whisper-whisper with that sourpuss physician…’
That could not, of course, be Lavinia’s daughter-in-law. Despite hair curled to within an inch of its life and a face pancaked with cosmetics, this woman would be close to the olive grower’s age. And now Claudia peered closer, she could see they weren’t actually canoodling, but all the same, Lavinia had Kamar to a T. Amongst his own sex it was hail-fellow-well-met, a man among men, whereas with women he employed subtler tactics, conspiring in secret to add a frisson of excitement to their phantom ailments. Watching a small phial pass between them, Claudia couldn’t decide which was worse: society women who gorged on pandering or physicians who were little more than gigolos, servicing their needs in exchange for a coin.
They broke off when they became aware of her presence, exchanged glances, and Claudia recognized the woman as the stony-faced old boiler she’d bumped into earlier, after her countdown with Orbilio. Worse, the harridan was bearing down like a trireme in full sail.
‘Forgive my impertinence.’ Stoneyface daren’t smile for fear of cracking the mask and the voice went with the eyes. ‘But that robe is simply sublime. Might I trouble you for the name of your seamstress?’
Her hair had been dyed with the juice of walnuts, her complexion was not holding up well, yet, despite rising to every cosmetic challenge with her plucked and painted eyebrows and the plethora of moleskin patches plastered over her liver spots, she still played up her little snub nose as though it were some girlish attribute by sticking it high in the air. Sad, really. Deluded cow thought she turned heads, but in practice it was stomachs she turned.
‘Oh, you know Atlantis,’ Claudia quipped, speeding up to escape the frightful creature. ‘Everything’s done for you round here.’
‘Off the peg?’ A variety of expressions skated across the plasterwork of her face, and hard eyes narrowed to slits. ‘Then I’d be obliged if you’d point out the shop.’
Behind her, Kamar was hopping from one foot to the other. Cramp? Or agitation?
‘First on the left past the basilica,’ Claudia invented. Anything to break free of this ghastly woman’s clutches. What a horror. In the corridor, her mind skipped back to Cal’s funeral, to the freckle-faced girl rolling the hoop. Would she, one day, become a hard-eyed ravaged harpy, hankering for her old salad days? Skulking round at night to consult a physician? Perish the thought! But the point was, that child should have the choice.
Within the dark seclusion of her bedroom, Claudia kicked off her sandals. First she must establish the moti
ve for Cal’s murder. Only through that could she unmask the killer, and then maybe—just maybe—she’d have something to trade with Orbilio when it came (as it would) to discussing Sabbio Tullus…
Outside frogs croaked to one another and an owl hooted far across the lake as she collapsed on the bed. Somewhere, just before sleep and exhaustion overwhelmed her, she thought she heard a woman scream.
*
Dawn was casting silver shadows on the bath house’s limestone walls and a coil of blue woodsmoke writhed up from its vent as the agent of Sabbio Tullus pursed his lips and estimated that any time within the next half-hour his message would be arriving in Rome. Dispatch runners cared not a jot that they travelled through the night, money was money, and let me see, ten miles per runner, ten runners—yup, the last one should be arriving very soon. Very soon. Delving into his satchel, to deliver a sealed and secret letter to Rome. A letter which read: ‘The jewel that you are seeking, master, has been discovered in Atlantis.’
Now that, thought Tullus’ agent, rubbing his hands with satisfaction, should earn a fat reward.
One which would not, however, come from the treasure chests of Sabbio Tullus.
The letter was winging its way to the nephew.
*
Claudia was whistling when she waltzed into breakfast, though since the hour was late, only a few diehards remained at the trough. That loudmouthed general, for one, the chap whose paunch stuck out like a packmule, and the woman who walked like a camel, right now gulping down the general’s raisin troops the instant he’d positioned them on the flank. Lounging on a couch in the corner, a famous wrestler—a dapper dandy with the body of an ox—recounted exploits to a dull-eyed nymphet, who’d patently prefer just to go to his room and get it over with. It was a screw he was paying for, not a bore.
Which left one other individual in the banqueting hall. And Claudia had a feeling he’d been there some time.
Sweeping past, she plumped down on a couch close to the sun porch with a fine view of the lake. Almost immediately, the opposite recliner was occupied.