by Marilyn Todd
The cloak was what he’d have expected the man to wear on a day when the clouds were so low you were part of them, a colour to render its wearer invisible.
‘Long enough to prove a point.’
‘Which is?’ Even as he asked the question, Arbil knew the answer.
‘To remind you that your investment in my training wasn’t wasted.’ He plucked the knife from Arbil’s manicured fingers and, with an exaggerated wink, dropped it down the top of his boot.
Arbil sighed resignedly. ‘I suppose you heard?’
‘The acoustics in this room are really quite remarkable,’ the visitor replied, running his fingertips over the relief of Adad’s sacred bulls. ‘You know, Arbil, you and your son have much in common.’
‘I am very proud of Sargon,’ the Babylonian said stiffly. Not once had his eyes left his visitor’s face.
With an extravagant flourish, the man in grey shook Arbil’s paper knife down the sleeve of his cloak and sent it twanging into the maplewood desk. ‘Oh, but I was referring to your other son,’ he said slowly. ‘Shannu.’
‘Shan—?’ The colour drained from Arbil’s face to leave two bright spots of rouge above the beard line. ‘Shannu?’ Before he could recover his powers of speech, the visitor had unhooked the shutter and had his long leg halfway over the sill. ‘Magic,’ he laughed, twirling his cloak.
Within seconds, his camouflage was complete and, as Arbil poured a glass of strong, fermented date liquor with a hand which trembled badly, he was left wondering whether he had imagined the entire episode. The same way he couldn’t get it up and hours blanked out, his mind, also, played tricks.
Then Arbil saw the knife, quivering upright in the wood.
When he shivered, he was not sure whether it was from the cold coming in through the open window or from the spectre of his youngest son. Shannu.
Wringing his hands, Arbil fell on his knees and thanked Marduk for his daily round of schedules.
Only his schedules kept him sane.
VIII
By the time Claudia had brought up her breakfast, her supper and possibly even yesterday’s lunch, the crowd of ghouls on the Argiletum had all but dispersed. Not out of shame, or because every fibre of their clothing was waterlogged, or even because they had better things to do. It was simply that now the undertakers had left, there was nothing more to gawp at. One or two among them sneered, the way people do when they think they’ve been short-changed, but the majority trickled quietly away as Orbilio began to question the neighbours. Each time he drew a blank. Even from Zosi, the speech seller who discovered the body. Zosi was a disenchanted, middle-aged bachelor with a penchant for the grape and he was adamant. Yes, his room was directly overhead. No, he didn’t hear a thing. Well, possibly a scuffle, but he keeps himself to himself, and all right, maybe he did hear a small boy calling for his ma, but it wasn’t any of his business what goes on, same as that chap whistling his dog.
‘What dog?’ Orbilio’s ears pricked up. ‘When was that?’
But Zosi couldn’t say, and in the end all Orbilio had for certain was that Zosi had heard a whistle, three short notes in succession, and that it was some time after midnight. As he said, just some chap calling for his dog. Whit-whit-whit.
Wiping her mouth with her handkerchief, Claudia straightened from her groggy knees. What kind of mind can slash a girl unrecognizable? Could stand there, perhaps laughing at the pain he was inflicting, but far more likely aroused by his own sadism? She looked round for Junius, couldn’t see him, and stumbled into a bookshop to wait. The instant he returned, she’d be off, and that wasn’t a reaction to the crime down in the alley, more to the man who was investigating it. This was the first time she’d seen him on home turf, his face grey and pinched with anger at the atrocities committed, mastering his fury and masking his revulsion in his ordered questioning, his note taking, his painstaking attention to detail as he searched the scene of the crime, demonstrating both his professionalism and, at the same time, his vulnerability. It struck a chord Claudia did not wish to hear. Picking up a wax tablet from deep inside the bookseller’s, she flipped open the hinge.
‘Claudia?’
This was not a voice tinged with a Gaulish accent and so she lifted the book to cover her face.
‘I do believe,’ the baritone continued, taking the tablet from her hands, ‘that to truly appreciate the poetry of Virgil, it helps to hold it the right way up.’
‘Clog off.’
‘Clogs,’ replied Marcus, sucking in his cheeks, ‘are two shops down, on the left. Come. I’ll walk you home.’
‘You will not.’ Claudia flounced out of the shop. ‘I kept my side of the bargain, now we’re even.’
‘There’s something I want to talk over.’ Orbilio let her scan the dripping shopfronts for a whole minute before informing her that he had taken the liberty of dismissing her bodyguard.
‘And he went?’ She’d have that young Gaul’s giblets! ‘Just like that?’
‘Junius and I have an understanding.’
‘Then I hope you’ll both be very happy,’ Claudia replied, sweeping down the street, her skirts swishing with the speed of her stride.
Orbilio’s laughter made the vellum-maker scratch his calfskin. ‘You can come to the wedding,’ he said, catching her by the elbow and spinning her round. ‘Providing you live long enough.’
He pushed her into the shelter of a shopfront. Dammit, it was the slipper-maker whose sales pitch she’d pretended to listen to earlier.
‘For gods’ sake, you need protection,’ Orbilio was saying.
‘From what? Fleas? Mice? Measles? And you!’ Claudia turned to the slipper-maker. ‘If you don’t shut up about your goddammed guild, I’ll make you eat your bloody leatherwork, and no, for the umpteenth time, the lady does not want to feel the softness.’
‘Which roughly translated,’ Marcus told the shopkeeper evenly, ‘means the lady has no feelings. Ouch!’ He half-limped, half-hopped up the street after her. ‘Claudia, this is serious.’
‘I only stepped on your toes.’
He forced himself to be solemn. ‘I’m talking about this.’
From his soggy linen tunic, he pulled out an equally bedraggled document. Once it had been a crisp, clean oblong of paper. Then someone had written on it. Then it had been rolled and sealed. Finally, it had been crumpled and pushed into a charcoal oven. Claudia felt a chill descend in the air. She did not need to see the seal to know it was a cobra. Legend had it, the Orbilio clan traced itself back to Apollo. Claudia wouldn’t mind betting that somewhere along the line, bloodhounds had been bred into it.
‘Where did you get hold of that?’ It’s not easy to talk when your teeth are gnashing together like quern-stones, but she managed.
This time it was a bookshop he’d shoved her into, and the owner was happy for the customers to browse.
‘You realize the man who writes these letters is clinically insane, don’t you? He’s obsessed to the point of delusion, talking about, what was it—’ Orbilio’s finger traced the lines ‘—our destiny together. And, look, this bit here, united for all eternity. These are death threats, Claudia.’
‘He thinks they’re love letters.’
‘Love letters?’ Orbilio almost choked. ‘Threats and pornography?’ The things this joker wanted to do were not only disgusting, degrading and debauched, they were downright illegal.
Claudia found she was shaking. She usually did when she read one of these letters. ‘He’s sick,’ she admitted, ‘but I don’t think he’s dangerous. Had he meant harm, he’d have tried it by now.’
Orbilio’s eyes narrowed. ‘How long has this sicko been writing to you?’
She tried to make light of it. ‘I’m young, I’m rich and I’m single. Cranks write all the time. Mostly I send a polite, but firm reply, it does the trick.’
‘So you’ve written to him?’
‘Possibly.’ She heard him swear under his breath. Across the room, the shopkeeper was growing curi
ous. ‘He’ll take this,’ she said, picking up the nearest book and indicating Marcus.
Outside, Orbilio shook his head in disbelief. ‘Weapons Drill Vol. IV?’
‘It was a snip, I thought, at three sesterces.’
‘You missed the nought at the end.’ He forced himself back to the matter in hand. ‘This tide of filth.’ He paused, looking at the charred edge where the bottom had burned away. ‘I presume it’s anonymous.’
After what had transpired in the alleyway, Claudia was too weary to lie. ‘Sort of,’ she said. ‘He signs them “Magic”.’
‘I’ll arrange for a legionary to stand shifts,’ Orbilio said swiftly—but not swiftly enough.
‘Oh no, you won’t.’
They were entering the Forum now, where advocates argued over law, customers argued over prices and philosophers argued over a load of abstract rubbish. Barbers set chairs upon the pavement in the hope the weather might improve, tavern keepers brought theirs indoors, because it wasn’t going to. Furriers were busy, goldsmiths were not, florists had packed up and gone home. Under an awning attached to the gem cutter’s, infant voices parrot-called the twenty-four letters that comprised the Latin alphabet, and further up the Via Sacra, a snake charmer played his flute to an audience of nil.
‘Claudia, your life is in danger! An armed guard outside the door will scare this maniac away.’
Or turn his attentions elsewhere. In front rose the Rostra, the public speaking platform which stood twice as high as herself and was overlooked by bronze knights on snow-white marble columns. ‘I don’t want protection.’ Her voice was as cold as the metal prows from the captured warships which studded the front of the Rostra.
‘Why not?’ Orbilio stepped forward to block her path. ‘For gods’ sake, woman. Tell me why not.’
Claudia considered him. He meant well, this patrician turning from red to purple as the bruises took their course. He was ambitious, and he took his job seriously. But… Pulling out her drawstring purse and keeping her eye fixed on a topknotted Sygambian in flowing scarlet robes, she fumbled around until her finger found the phial it was seeking. Then Claudia Seferius smiled a smile displaying her entire stock of ingenuity.
‘Very well, Marcus Cornelius. All shall be revealed, but first you buy me lunch.’
Caught offguard, naked suspicion danced across his face, but being first and foremost a gentleman, he led the way past the prison where Nerva’s thugs bemoaned their fate in chains and up the hill towards a tavern favoured by the gentry. Ordinarily it would be thronging to the rafters, but since the senate was in recess, it was quiet.
‘If you must know, it’s the aunts,’ she explained, when they had settled at the table and given their orders. ‘The old crabs plan to disinherit me.’
‘Your husband’s will was perfectly legal.’ Orbilio knew, because he’d once had to try and disprove it. ‘What’s the problem?’
Claudia pulled a face. ‘They believe they can prove me unfit, as a woman, to manage the inheritance. They want me to marry Porsenna.’
Orbilio buried a laugh in his handkerchief. They had more chance of building a snowman in summertime. ‘Who,’ he asked, keeping his kerchief close to hand, ‘is Porsenna?’ Outside, two small boys chased a piglet up the street.
‘Their puppet,’ she explained, sinking her teeth into a piping hot scallop dripping with garlic. ‘The mouse man.’
A squid ring fell off Orbilio’s knife. ‘The what?’
‘Porsenna breeds dormice for the banquets of the rich and famous.’ Young, dull, pliable—what more could Larentia ask? Rumour had it, he spent most of his waking hours writing recipes for cooking his precious fattened profitmakers. ‘So what I don’t need,’ she said, crunching on a stick of celery, ‘is a soldier clumping about in armour to draw attention to myself.’
Orbilio laid down his chicken bone. ‘Come on. Even your mother-in-law couldn’t blame you for wanting protection against a madman.’
Claudia sipped at her wine. It was good. Better than Seferius wine, in fact. ‘The problem with Magic is that somewhere along the line, he’s started to believe it’s reciprocal.’ She speared a mushroom and waved it at Marcus. ‘That’s right. This creep actually thinks we’re in a two-way relationship.’
‘Larentia wouldn’t believe that.’
Claudia leaned over and broke off a chunk of hot, steaming chestnut bread. ‘Of course she wouldn’t. But will that stop her convincing a judge I encouraged him?’ The slightest excuse, no matter how tenuous. Think of the money at stake. ‘So we’re agreed, then. No legionaries?’
He tilted his chair back against the wall and folded his hands behind his head. ‘No legionaries,’ he agreed. ‘Until after the old trouts have left.’
Claudia waited.
‘But until then,’ he continued eventually, ‘I shall have to take other precautions to safeguard your life.’
Claudia set her drawstring bag upon the table and patted it. ‘Such as?’
He even made out he was considering other options. ‘You leave me no choice,’ he said gravely. ‘I shall have to protect you myself.’
Now why is it I had a feeling you’d say that? ‘And just how do you plan to do that?’
‘By moving in, you can pass me off as a relative, a servant, even your agent. We’ll think of something.’
We certainly will. ‘Oops.’
Bending down to retrieve Claudia’s bracelet which had fallen on to the tiles. Orbilio thought he detected a flash of movement from the corner of his eye, but when he straightened up, she was helping them both to a rich gamey stew of venison and hare.
‘I have a plan,’ she said. There was no sign of the little blue bag on the table. ‘It’s one I’ve used before and I call it my Runaway Success.’
‘Foolproof?’ He was so suspicious, he almost checked under his plate.
‘Foolproof.’ But it takes half an hour. ‘I’ll explain, but in the meantime, tell me this. Do you think Jovi is in any danger?’
‘Because he saw the “sleeping” lady, and possibly the killer, who thinks he might identify him?’ Orbilio mopped his stew with his bread. ‘No,’ he said decisively. ‘My guess is that yes, Jovi saw the victim in the alley. It was dark, he was lost and frightened and alone, and he wanted help, but that’s when the killer got lucky. I think the victim had already been knocked out—the other two had bruises on their skulls, that’s how he ties them up and strips them without a struggle. So when Jovi came bumbling along, the killer simply melted into the shadows until the boy gave up.’
Around the tavern, smells of meat juices dripping from the spit mingled with guffaws of raucous male laughter from the corner. Logs from the fire crackled as the flames licked round their splintered edges.
‘Then that’s one cold-blooded bastard you are looking for.’
‘Isn’t he, now.’ Marcus combed his hair with his hands. The torn flesh on his knuckles was healing over, she noticed. ‘We know the girl was unharmed at that stage, and Jovi would certainly have said if she’d been naked, so having secured himself both victim and secluded killing ground, our man simply toughed it out.’
Roaring fire or not, it seemed cold all of a sudden. ‘He? You think the killer’s a man?’
‘Do women do things like that to each other?’ Claudia shivered. ‘Was he…slicing her up while Jovi and I were there?’
Orbilio pushed back his plate in distaste. ‘That girl died in the early hours of the morning,’ he said in reply, ‘and she took one hell of a long time to do it. But to answer the question you are too damned proud to ask, no, Mistress Seferius, you could not have saved her life.’ His face had gone white and his lips were pursed to nothingness. ‘Instead, I’d have had three bodies lying in the mortuary, instead of one.’
She waited for the lump in her throat to subside. ‘And the only clue is a man whistling his dog?’
‘That’s one more than the previous two murders,’ he said ruefully. ‘Jupiter alone knows how many men whistle their d
ogs along the Argiletum at night, but I’ve got a man going back after dark to find out—and hopefully one of the witnesses can fill in some gaps.’
Claudia swallowed a mouthful of wine, as much to get rid of the taste of that alley. ‘What do you make of the market day connection?’
Orbilio ran his hands over his face. ‘It suggests the killer, rather than his victims, comes from out of town, but what I don’t understand are the knife wounds. Why twenty-seven?’
An elm log rolled off the fire and sat glowing against the brightly bronzed dog. The landlord returned it to the fire and, by way of thanks, it spat red-hot darts in his face.
‘In addition,’ Marcus continued, ‘each victim had a distinctive tattoo on her shoulder. A blue dragon. Unfortunately, tracking down its significance takes time and resources.’ He rubbed at his eyes. ‘Both of which are denied me at present.’
For several long moments they stared into space, their thoughts converging on a young girl bleeding to her death in a stinking, dirty runnel and pondering the significance of chopping off her hair. Whatever the gesture symbolized for the killer and his victim, laying it in her lap after death meant the bastard had stayed around long enough to watch her die.
‘Anything for afters?’ The serving girl who came to clear away the tray was refreshingly cheerful. ‘Cook does lovely buns, full of candied fruit and nuts they are.’
‘Maybe later,’ Orbilio said, and then, turning to Claudia, asked jauntily, ‘So tell me, madam, what constitutes a Runaway Success?’
She smiled. ‘Mostly a large dose of carob beans mixed with figs, dates and a dash of castor oil—’
He looked puzzled.
‘—which for obvious reasons is best disguised by a very strong taste. A rich gamey sauce, for instance—’
He looked worried.
‘—and it takes a half hour to work.’
He looked at the water clock.
‘Runaway success?’ he asked, feeling the first faint gripes in his stomach.
‘Foolproof.’ She smiled. ‘And the latrines, I believe, are that way.’