by Marilyn Todd
And the only man who is in a position to flex both family and official muscles to secure the young Gaul's release is under house arrest for a crime he didn't commit!
Despair shuffled that bit closer. She could smell its foetid breath.
Orbilio rubbed his jaw and began to pace the room. 'There might be a way round this,' he said slowly. 'Were Flavia, for instance, to swear to the Dungeon Master - on Jupiter's oath, naturally - that Junius was no slave but her ex-lover, the son of a Parisian horse breeder, say, who'd jilted her and that she'd sought revenge, and providing I sent a letter backing this up, it won't matter whether the Dungeon Master believes it or not. An oath is an oath, he'll be forced to act on it.'
Claudia felt the room spin. No food and no sleep on top of this cloying heat, what else could it be? Surely not a reaction, because he - Mister Honest and Upright himself -was prepared to compromise his position by lying?
'When I get my hands on that girl,' she said, 'I'm going to skin her alive and make books of her hide, then I'm going boil her flesh in vinegar and pickle her miserable bones in brine.' Claudia bounced up off the demolition heap and kicked the plaster wall. 'After she's sworn her oath, though, so Junius can help with the pickling.' By the gaping cavity, she paused. 'There is a stumbling block to your master plan.'
Life is never a straight road, is it? More crazy paving, and worse, you have to lay it yourself!
'We have no idea where the scheming bitch is holing up.' By all that is holy, Flavia, you will pay for this.
'I presume you've questioned the parasite?'
'Flea?' Claudia snorted derisorily. 'That girl is tighter than a clam!'
'Then,' he grinned, 'perhaps you need a bigger hammer to crack that tough nut's shell. Walk this way, madam, if you please.'
In the atrium, Flea lay fast asleep on the floor, her manacled hand hanging limp from the wrought-iron bench leg, her face looking cherubic and heart-wrenchingly young. Across her lap, Doodlebug lay sprawled, his four paws facing different directions with Flea's free hand supporting his head. Something constricted in Claudia's stomach as she watched their ribcages rise and fall in unison.
'Leave this to me,' Orbilio whispered. 'I'll join you in the garden in fifteen minutes.'
Fifteen minutes? Fifteen years and you still won't reach the truth, she thought, but the garden was peaceful and the honeysuckle was sweet . . . and the legionary almost invisible.
The quarter hour had not passed before Orbilio came bouncing out to join her. 'Faced with being put to the torture by men who have never clapped eyes on a virgin not previously made of marble, Flea has miraculously turned into a linnet,' he said. 'Why don't you go and hear the birdie sing?'
Claudia looked up at the night sky, to where stars were hidden by a blanket of fug, and wondered how the Security Police would ever hope to manage without him.
Indoors, a very different scene greeted her eyes. Doodlebug had woken up, full of beans and in the sure knowledge that he was everyone's friend and that they wanted to play with him. Flea still looked hauntingly young, but hers was no longer the peaceful, pretty face of a few minutes before. Oh, sweet Janus, what's in your past? What horrors have you lived through?
'All right, this is the truth, I swear it!' and if Flea, that
moment, had claimed she was the mother of Helen of Troy, Claudia would have believed her. This girl's emotions were pared to the bone. 'I met her a week ago, right? Flavia was sitting on the steps of the Temple of Luna and sobbing her little heart out and, I dunno why, but I just felt sorry for the poor cow.'
I can tell you why. You're nowhere near as tough as you like to make out, my girl!
'Flavia, see, was going on about how unhappy she was, how she'd seen a chance to break free from her horrible family -' Flea flicked an apologetic glance at Claudia, then grinned to see that no offence was taken. 'Anyway, the gist of it was, she couldn't leave. Not without money, any road.' Absently, she tickled Doodlebug's floppy, daft ears. 'Gold was the actual word,' Flea said. 'She needed gold, she said, for the brothers of whores.'
'For what? Flea, if you're winding me up—'
'I ain't, honest I ain't. The brothers of whores,' she insisted, and her luminous green eyes shone with the truth. 'I swear I dunno what she meant by that, it weren't my business to ask and I didn't much care, but I told her, I'll give you a plan to raise the money you need and then, if it works, you give me ten of them gold pieces and she said, it's a deal.'
'So the plan - this kidnap - that was your idea?'
'Reckon it was,' Flea admitted in a tiny voice. 'Will I . . . will I still be put to the torture?'
Doodlebug began to tug at her skirt, growling and skidding on the polished mosaic.
'Flea.' Claudia felt rotten pressing on. 'A man's life is at stake, I need to find Flavia and I can't believe you don't know where to find her.'
'Well, I don't.' Tough and streetwise, Flea hated the tears which began to fill up her eyes. 'Flavia said she'd come to me, so I told her where I lived, and . . . well, she'd visit, I suppose you'd call it. See, we got on, Flavia and me.' Her long lashes turned downwards. 'Can't understand that, can yer? Us being friends.'
Oh, but I can. Two lonely misfits and, for one, a burgeoning sexual awakening. 'Did she know you were a girl?' Finding no satisfaction with a lump of old cloth, the puppy turned his attentions to Claudia's sandal.
'Course not!' Flea was horrified. 'But that didn't have nothing to do with it. We just clicked as pals, that's all.'
Maybe to you, but I'll bet my bottom denarius Flavia fancied you something rotten. 'This talk about the brothers of whores—'
'Uh-uh. She didn't talk about them at all. Clammed up tight, she did - mind, once she mentioned something about Westerners. I remember that. Westerners.'
'You mean, people living on the west of the city? The Palatine Hill?'
'I dunno.'
'Did she mean over the river? Come on, Flea, think! Did she talk about Ostia?' That's west of Rome. 'Try to think, please. This is very important.'
'I know it is,' Flea said weakly, 'but she said it was her secret, and I didn't push. Look,' she shifted to stare Claudia squarely in the eye, 'I'm sorry about Junius, I mean that. And I'm sorry I gave Flavia the plan and I'm sorry I delivered the notes and I'm sorry I didn't press her about where she was staying while all this was going on. But you ain't seriously gonna put me to the torture, are you?'
'Actually,' Claudia said, disentangling sharp puppy teeth from her shoe, 'we never were. That was simply a ruse to make you confess!'
And with that she made a fast, strategic exit, leaving the soldier in the vestibule to take the brunt of Flea's foulmouthed curses.
'So?' Orbilio asked, and she could smell his sandalwood. 'Do you have Flavia's address? I've written the letter to the Dungeon Master, all she has to do is swear an oath and -oh. Your expression tells me Flea doesn't know Flavia's whereabouts.'
'This might seem difficult to believe, Marcus Cornelius,
but for all her streetwise ways, that girl has been kippered as efficiently as we were.'
Call us a horrible family would you, Flavia, my sweet? Well, brace yourself, kiddo, you ain't seen nothing yet.
To the east, the first faint tinge of pink began to glow in the sky. Hollow-eyed, Orbilio stared up as though mesmerised. 'The army is coming this morning,' he said, and his voice was little more than a rasp. 'Trench-digger types accustomed to siege engines and catapults rather than the delicate task of removing skeletons. They'll destroy any evidence.'
As well as all trace of his innocence.
A blackbird began to let loose its warbling trill, and almost immediately a dozen other birds weighed in with tunes of their own.
Claudia plucked a sprig of lavender and held it up to her nose. 'Then perhaps,' she said, with a sly smile, 'we had better put into practice that old hunting technique of felling two deer with a single spear.'
A quizzical eyebrow rose lazily upwards. 'And how, pray, do you propose to
do that?'
'Praying doesn't come into it.' She laughed. 'You can't effect Junius's release, because you're under suspicion of murder, and you will stay under suspicion for as long as the murder remains unsolved. The only solution is to solve the murder ourselves.'
'In three days?'
'Why not?' she asked, kilting up her skirt and marching down the peristyle. 'If we don't want the Catapult Kids trampling the evidence, the only way to preserve it is by tackling the job ourselves. Here!' She tossed him a chisel. 'We've only a few hours to get this wall down.'
'You,' he grinned, chipping away at the cavity, 'are wasted in the wine trade! You're a builder through and through, I've never seen anyone so instantly at home with a hammer.'
'Then you'd better not cross me.' She grinned back. Plaster dust was flying everywhere, and she thought, so this is what he'll look like when he's grey.
'But what about Flavia?' He coughed. 'Shouldn't you at least try to trace her?'
'Later.' Claudia stepped back as the claw on her hammer pulled a large section of wall tumbling into the storeroom. 'After all,' she added cheerfully, 'it's not as though she's in any danger, now is it?'
Chapter Fourteen
Once the High Priest had held up a golden facsimile of the Sacred Feather of Truth and blessed the Boat of the Morning, the worshippers drifted back to their quarters. There they would change into their working clothes, in preparation for the day ahead: some would filter off into the fields, to harvest the beans and the barley. Others would make their way to the threshing floor, the bakery, the brewery, the kitchens. Goats and cows had to be milked, cheese turned, geese fed with grain.
For the man who called himself Seth, it was a simple enough matter to slip away. To climb to his secret cavern in the hill.
Beside the heart-shaped stone, he divested himself of his Egyptian clothing and allowed Ra to rest his warming rays upon his nakedness. Dawn had been sweet this morning, he reflected. Very, very sweet.
He pushed aside the scrambling fig, to where Berenice writhed and thrashed in her high-backed rush seat, straining against knots which tightened with every squirm and wriggle. He had made a good choice in Berenice. Plump and rewarding, oh yes. A good choice. That's why he'd come back a second time this morning. Berenice was the best so far.
Donata (he believed that was the last one's name, he couldn't quite remember), but Donata had been, frankly, disappointing in comparison. She had been a virgin and as such hadn't quite known what to expect from a man. Berenice had. She certainly had, and Seth liked that.
'Oh, Hathor. How well you have served your master.'
He picked up the replica mask from the table at which
his servants sat and replaced the cow's head over Donata's bulging, bloodshot eyes rolled up in death. I have chosen well, he thought, because all five of my disciples have chosen what was right. They have walked the True Path of their own accord, and their hearts and mine will weigh light in the Balance.
'I shall stand before Ra with no killing on my hands, no death on my conscience,' he told Berenice. 'The choice is theirs, as it will be yours, my child, now you have my holy seed implanted in your womb. Do you wish to live and face eternal desolation? Or be reborn, a servant of the Dark Destroyer?'
'Mmm, mmmm, mm-mmm!'
Berenice was trying to communicate through her gag. He wondered what she wanted to say. He ran his hands, his magic hands, over her heavy, milk-laden breasts and realised that Berenice was special.
'You have killed your child to serve the Sorcerer,' he whispered, letting his hands work their holy magic on her body. 'Such sacrifice will not be forgotten in the afterlife. You shall be Seth's favourite for all eternity.'
He took her again, harder than before, and as he washed himself afterwards, he counted the places at the Table of the Ten True Gods. The ibis and the falcon, the cat and the cow now waited patiently for eternal resurrection, as well as Isis, who had been the first to take her seat. Which mask should he place on Berenice while she deliberated on her future?
Seth walked along the table, ruffling the feathers of the vulture, drumming on the solid scales of the crocodile. Because Berenice was special, he could not sit the jackal's head on her, the jackal was a scavenger. Perhaps the striking cobra? He looked at his chosen one, his favourite, the blood seeping from where her leather bonds dug in. This was proving a difficult decision, and Seth would have liked more time to make his final choice.
'Mmmmm!'
Of course! Berenice was right, he didn't need to decide now! He could think on the matter and when he came back after nightfall to embalm Donata, he'd be able to take Berenice
again. That would be nice. And then he could tie his special knot and leave her to contemplate her future overnight. Perfect!
He anointed his holy body with the commune unguent which rendered the Master of Darkness invisible among his people and pulled on his neatly folded clothing. Tonight he would have something special to look forward to, but meanwhile, there was work to be done. Seth, in mortal guise, had a position to uphold. He must not neglect his duties, lest someone began to suspect.
Also, he remembered, there was a new arrival to greet this morning. A fifteen-year-old girl, contributing two thousand gold pieces to the Solar Fund.
Seth liked them young.
Chapter Fifteen
Installing an indoors bath room, complete with piped water and underfloor heating, had depleted Claudia's inheritance considerably but never once had she regretted it. At times like this (and lord knows, times like this came thick and fast of late!), a long, hot soak in lemon-scented waters, listening to the strumming of a harpist followed by a hired masseuse trouncing the last few knots of stress was all it needed to restore equilibrium. Except today! Claudia waved the musician away, her throat too constricted for words to squeeze past.
Today, time was running out for Junius, the slave boy. Cypassis, her broad feet encased in wooden sandals to prevent them burning on the hot mosaic, clopped around with towels, strigils, scented oils and tweezers, picking up discarded laundry, sweeping up curls which had been snipped by the hairdresser and left where they had fallen, her face puffed and blotchy from crying.
'They'll split us up, madam, I—'
'Cypassis, no one is going to split my household.' Over my dead body! 'How many times do I have to tell you, there's no question of the army carting you away to test your loyalty to the Emperor with hot irons!'
Like dye in water, the idea that they'd be viewed as accomplices to Junius passing himself off as a Roman had spread around the staff, until suddenly the entire contingent expected be dragged off to the arena on Saturday! Even level-headed individuals, such as this big-boned Thessallian maid, had worked themselves up to such a frenzy that the very least they expected was a flogging at the post before
being despatched to some new and cruel owner in the darkest corner of the Empire!
'This is the work of the gods,' Cypassis muttered. 'We mortals are being punished—'
'Spare me the superstitious claptrap and fetch my tortoiseshell comb!'
Cypassis made the sign to avert the evil eye before scuttling away, noisily blowing her nose. Divine retribution, indeed! Claudia squeezed her eyes shut and sank below the water line. All because the kitchen hands and gardeners who'd stood watch in the Camensis swore on the lives of their mothers that the ransom chest had been spirited away! Claudia blew bubbles under the water. Did these men not have one brain cell between them? Up she came, spluttering. Even Leonides, her lanky steward, could find no explanation for its disappearance.
'The shrine in the Camensis is circular,' she'd reminded him sharply.
Returning home from the Esquiline, white with Orbilio's plaster dust and covered with nicks from flying chippings, what Claudia had needed most was sleep not a discourse on divine intervention! Her head ached, her eyes pricked, someone had filleted every bone from her body.
'The shrine is open to the elements, apart from a waist-high criss-cro
ss fence, and is approached by six stone steps, which means the far side, where it drops away, stands so high.' She'd indicated her own neck. 'Of the three statues on the podium, we were instructed to leave the chest behind the right-hand figure, and I suppose it did not occur to you to check the far side of the podium?'
'Madam?'
'I'll wager there's a deep impression in the grass where a heavy chest has landed.'
It was a human being, real live flesh and bones, who had visited the wood nymphs' shrine yesterday, not some invisible deity, and who, concealed by the bronze statuary, had hoisted the box over the side. They would have returned under cover of darkness to collect it by sneaking up from the back.
'You were in the Camensis, Leonides. Tell me what you saw.'
'That's the whole point, madam. I saw nothing! No one went near the shrine, only an Egyptian noblewoman and I can personally vouch that hers was a sightseeing trip— Oh. Oh. Oh, I see. That was Flavia, wasn't it?' His face turned ashen and waxy as he saw the auction block beckon and, sensible chap that he was, scurried off to see to madam's bath!
But the soak hadn't helped. Claudia was dizzy now from exhaustion, weak from lack of sleep, but she must press on. Time was trickling away. Too precious to waste. Must keep going.
Cypassis returned with the comb, knocking over a small phial of oil, which shattered on the tessellated floor to release a concoction of seaweedy smells into the steamy atmosphere. Claudia didn't notice. Her mind was reliving the ransom drop in the Camensis. The bitch! The scheming, cold-blooded, cold-hearted little bitch. Claudia saw it clearly, as though she'd been there herself: Flavia, disguised as an Egyptian noblewoman; recognising Junius, of course, at once; so greedy to get her claws on two thousand gold pieces, she throws him to the wolves. Time passes. The commotion dies down. Secure in her disguise, Flavia saunters through the Camensis. Up the steps. One-two-three heave. Over the side and thud.