by Marilyn Todd
‘Then share your secret with me.’
‘And put your life on the line, too?’ Zygia held Severina’s face between her hands. ‘No way.’ She kissed her lightly on the lips. ‘Anyway, I may be jumping to conclusions.’
Severina snorted. ‘Twelve of you billeted in that wing and three sliced to bits? You must take me for a right bloody fool.’ She jumped off the couch and began folding clothes furiously.
The other girl buried her head in her hands. ‘I didn’t mean to insult you,’ she said thickly. ‘It’s just that…’ Her voice trembled. ‘Sevvi, I am so damned scared.’
Severina ran across and cradled her. ‘So am I, Zigs, so am I. But we can’t go on hiding away. If the army won’t help, can’t we do something?’
‘For instance?’ For the first time in days, hope surged in Zygia’s breast.
‘Suppose,’ Severina said thoughtfully, ‘we band together with the other eight girls and kill him before he gets another one of you?’
Zygia pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. ‘I don’t know where the others live,’ she said wearily. ‘It was hardly in Arbil’s interests for us to keep in touch, in fact the only girls I’ve seen since I left have been Didia and Annia—and Didia they found in the Argiletum yesterday!’
Severina stroked her thick, dark curls. ‘Lord, you’re tense. Roll over and I’ll massage your shoulders.’ She paused in her kneading. ‘What about Arbil?’ she asked. ‘He raised you, why can’t he sort this mess out?’
‘Arbil would only step in, if it was proving detrimental to his business.’
‘I felt you tense up.’ Severina poked Zygia’s shoulder blade. ‘You always tense up when you lie.’
‘All right, so I’m worried about a cover-up,’ Zygia confessed. ‘And who gets her mouth shut permanently for blabbing? You know how ruthless these Babylonians are.’ She flipped over on to her back and stared at the lavender-painted ceiling. ‘On the other hand, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to pay Annia.a brief call’ Her mouth turned down at the corners. ‘Providing I can drum up the courage.’
‘Oh?’ Severina rubbed almond oil over her lover’s breasts in a gentle, circular motion. ‘I thought you lot got on well in the dorm?’
‘Most of us, but there’s no love lost between Annia and me.’ Zygia wrinkled her nose. ‘The trouble was, she thought herself a cut above the rest. All that crap about blue blood in her veins. I—we—rather put her in her place.’
‘Gave her all the dirty jobs, you mean? I’ll bet you jibed her rotten, too.’
‘She deserved it, sanctimonious little cow. Talk about airs and graces. I’m not proud of my behaviour, Sevvi, but we were young and that’s how it was in that place. You either mixed or…paid the price. Oh, but she was a pretty one, that Annia. You two could pass as twins from the back, and the same colour eyes.’
Severina shivered. ‘Suppose the killer mistakes me for her?’
A lump formed in Zygia’s throat. ‘Don’t be daft,’ she said, forcing a smile. ‘Nothing, Severina, will happen to you and that’s a promise.’ She pulled her into her arms and hugged her till the choking had subsided. ‘And I shall never, ever leave you, do you understand?’ How could she survive without Sevvi? She kissed the cascade of blonde hair and slid off the couch. ‘So maybe I’ll nip off to Annia’s. Get it over with.’
‘Now?’
‘Yes, now.’ Outside, in the yard, the aedile was screaming for his secretaries. ‘When I won’t be missed.’
‘Please be careful.’
‘Severina, my love, you worry too much.’ Zygia pulled on a fresh tunic scented with bayberries. ‘Today’s the Festival of Fortune, not market day.’ She tied a single blue ribbon round her short, dark hair and splashed a dab of scent behind her ears. ‘So one thing we can be sure of. In broad daylight, with all those crowds buzzing around, I couldn’t be safer had I an armed escort alongside.’
XIV
Despite Porsenna’s limp and limpet charm, Claudia was in a buoyant mood. The Blemish Rites had proved a rip-roaring success, the idea being that in exchange for a gift of frankincense and myrtle, Fortune renders invisible a woman’s sags and wrinkles. Believe that and you’ll believe anything, but the number of women who “just happened” to be passing with a fragrant white wreath in their hair beggared belief. The aunts had thrown themselves into the ceremonies with relish, and providing the old sourpusses were happy, Claudia was happy. One more night, just one more night, and her life would be her own again.
As morning moved to afternoon, the litters loaded up and yet again Claudia allowed herself to be engineered into sharing the mouse man’s carriage, with its comfy cushions and turquoise screens which screamed of intimacy and privacy. And yet again, Porsenna failed to deliver. Claudia smiled to herself. Poor old Larentia. Finds the perfect foil for her takeover of Gaius’ business, only he’s too weak even to understand what it’s about. When Larentia told him to be charming, he must have dashed out to buy a book of platitudes and, bless him, he’d used them all. However, so long as Claudia smiled in all the right places and nodded appreciatively, Larentia would remain unaware of her puppet’s shortcomings—and that was sweeter still.
From time to time, as the litter wallowed its way towards the Field of Mars, Porsenna’s voice drifted in and out of her awareness. ‘…roll the mice first in honey, then in poppyseeds…keep them caged and keep them fat…the skins alone can fetch a price…’
And from time to time, she interjected a ‘really’ or a ‘no!’ and sometimes a ‘tell me more’, but her mind was elsewhere. Part of it was with the astrologers who’d been hanging round the baths, because on the morning when the sun slid out of Pisces and sneaked into Aries, the time was ripe for mapping out futures, and if this involved vain women parting with silver, who’s to complain? Another part of her mind was with the water organ (star of the concert), and another part was with the Thessalian horse riders who’d be taking on the bulls this afternoon. It had filed Kaeso to one side, blocked out the Market Day Murder and thus it was purely nuisance value when the litter was halted, its path blocked because a cart had caught its offside wheel on the curb and overturned. All around, citizens were cursing.
‘This bleeding building programme! Fine for Augustus to say tear this down, put this up, restore that other one, what of us what lives here?’
‘Scaffolds over half the city, brick dust in yer hair! Do they have to lug great wagonloads of tufa through in the middle of the day? Everyone else makes do with night deliveries, why can’t they?’
Yet one voice stood clear from the sea of shouts, the thrashing of the oxen on their sides, the hundred different dialects. A distinctive canine howl. Claudia felt her blood run chill. It was that shaggy black dog which chased her off the map two days ago. So close, she could even hear him sniffing.
‘I know a diversion,’ she hissed to Porsenna.
‘Then I’d better tell Larentia,’ he replied. ‘Won’t be a tick.’
Too late. Claudia thought. You already are one. Close by, the dog yelped. She fingered her filigree dolphin and wished now she’d left it for Fortune.
‘Listen to me, slimeball.’
Brilliant. That was the moneylender’s voice, and a trickle of sweat snaked its way down her backbone as shaking fingers parted the turquoise cotton drapes. Dammit, his stall was barely fifteen paces away, she could see his balances and his moneybox. Heedless of the weather, the hounds were straining on their leashes. The loanshark grabbed his whey-faced client by the cloth around his neck and pulled the man’s face close to his. Claudia recognized the man he was snarling at. A baker from the Caelian.
‘If you don’t settle up in full, in six days from today, I shall personally tear your ovens down, smash your millstone and hang your kneecaps round your neck.’
‘B-b-but—’
‘Six.’ The moneylender released the baker’s collar. ‘Days.’
Claudia felt her blood congeal. The same fate would befall her, unless she coughed up.
Did his thugs receive job lots for kneecaps?
When Porsenna returned, she was buried deep behind a treatise on mouse food.
‘Just a splintered wheel and a few scattered building blocks. We’ll be on our way shortly,’ he said, climbing back in and wiping a splatter of mud from his shoe. ‘I say. You…you can keep that book, if you like.’ He leaned forward earnestly. ‘The most important thing to remember is, last thing at night, leave them fresh water…’
Claudia bared her teeth and hoped he read it as a smile.
Once, the Field of Mars had been a patch of marshy ground in the elbow of the Tiber fit only for frogs, snakes and mosquitoes. Later it had found a use in horseracing, a place for inspecting the troops, but now. Talk about a facelift. Tombs and temples, halls and colonnades glistening with travertine and marble. Grass, watered to keep it green the whole year round, upon which every outdoor activity under the sun took place. Wrestling, fighting with staves, fencing, you name it, they did it. Agrippa built his baths here as well as his Pantheon and he added a variety of porticoes. There were parks and gardens, groves and sacred fountains, lakes and pools, libraries and obelisks. Whatever the weather, it was packed.
The civil servant who had sponsored the Bull Dance couldn’t run to too much splendour, he’d hired the little wooden amphitheatre just behind the Pantheon and jollied it up with awnings of gold and green and indigo which, on a normal first of April, would be shimmering with filtered sunlight.
Within seconds, the old cats had started.
‘No, no, dear, if you sit there, I can sit beside Eppia, and Fortunata can sit with her mother. Julia, could you move up three spaces…?’
Shuffle, shuffle, wriggle, wriggle. Then it was Fortunata’s turn. ‘Could we have another cushion, here? Mummy can’t see. Might I borrow yours? Yours too, Eppia, please. Still too low? Fannia, pass your pad over.’
By the time she’d stopped fussing, Fortunata’s mother was propped precariously, half the aunts were cushionless, but, by some strange quirk of fate, Cousin Fortunata remained square upon her original padded pillow.
‘Ooh, mulled wine,’ cried Fortunata, as Porsenna dug deep into his purse, but by this time Fannia felt in need of some limelight.
‘This is too bitter, can you add honey? Now they’ve made it too sweet. Porsenna, would you mind? Get them to top it up with spiced wine? Not too peppery. Ugh, now it’s cold. Could…’
‘I’ll go.’ Claudia snatched Fannia’s goblet from her hand, determined to fill the bloody thing with cabbage water and see what she said about that.
Air. Give me air.
The street outside was thronged with queues at every entrance. Claudia pushed her way to the corner, bought an almond bun off the street vendor and took it away to a quiet grove of olives. The seat was set upon an artificial mound. It was a good vantage point from which to watch virile young men, oiled and naked, at work in the exercise yard. She began to nibble the bun. Stuffed with almonds and red, candied cherries, it was still slightly warm from the oven. She had munched less than a quarter when, from the back of the yard, a familiar figure strode into view.
Later she told herself that her eyes had been drawn by the fact that he alone was clothed among the gymnasts, but that was not strictly true. All men going in and out of the baths passed that way. A large majority of whom also wore the long, patrician tunic.
His brow puckered, his face brooding, Marcus Cornelius Orbilio passed the vaulters and weightlifters, his hand stroking an imaginary beard as he turned out of the exercise yard in the direction of the theatre. As Claudia rose, shook the crumbs from her skirts and composed some witty remark to spring upon him, she was aware of a woman walking towards him in the street. Tall, nearly as tall as Supersnoop himself, younger than him, though. And devastatingly beautiful.
To this day, Claudia could not explain what made her draw back into the purple shadows of the olives.
Draped in linens the price of a gelding and dripping with gold and with sapphires, the dark-eyed beauty called out his name. Orbilio looked up, then the expression on his face changed completely. Indeed, Bacchus couldn’t have looked happier the day Jupiter announced he was to be god of wine.
Miss Syrian Linens called his name again as she held out her arms and Claudia watched him run into them. Literally run. Then hug her tighter than a drumskin. They examined each other at arm’s length, and they laughed. Her bangled arm pointed to the theatre. He shrugged an objection. She pouted. He gave in.
Surprise, surprise.
Claudia’s narrowed eyes followed them up the road, arms about each other’s waists, laughing. Happy. With her wrap tight about her shoulders, she watched them out of sight.
Her instinct about Loverboy had been spot on, she thought bitterly. Whether it’s cold commercial negotiations or hot limbs writhing in a bed, sure they’ll dally with the merchant classes, fool with the freeborn, lavish trinkets on girls from the slums. But when push comes to shove, patricians don’t sign a contract outside their own caste.
She threw the almond bun on the floor and ground it under her heel. Blue blood runs thicker than a merchant woman’s scent…
XV
Since there is nothing like a Bull Dance to fire the blood, the atmosphere was electric. Surrounded by the rainbow awnings, trumpet fanfares, cymbals, horns and rattles, a troupe of bare-breasted dancers with painted nipples snaked up and down the aisles, tapping tambourines and clacking castanets. Dwarves in masks and clowns in silly hats scampered over the sand, mimicking the audience and telling bawdy jokes while buffoons in motley dress ran loose among the crowds, lifting skirts and tunics, blowing down the backs of necks. Ten thousand feet stamped on wooden boards, vibrating the benches and echoing round the elliptical timber structure. Voices roared and, captured by the cambric roof, the temperature catapulted upwards.
‘My word, this is not what we’re used to,’ observed Cousin Fortunata, casting sly wistful glances towards the buffoons. ‘Most uninhibited.’
Claudia ignored her. Theirs were good seats, but they were not the best seats. The best seats were reserved for the aristocracy, and there they were, in the very front row, applauding the antics of the clowns. Supersnoop appeared to have his arm fused to Miss Lovely’s shapely shoulders and they threw their heads back together when they laughed. Claudia’s nail snapped where she chewed through it.
Shuffling closer to Porsenna, she rested her arm against his. If Loverboy looked over, he’d see her practically sitting in his lap.
If.
Not that she gave a damn, anyway.
As the dancers, clowns and motley melted away, a hush fell over the auditorium. The temperature climbed further, heating the marjoram and mint strewn on the steep wooden terraces. Wraps slipped off shoulders, sleeves were rolled up, and the exposure of flesh added to the earthiness inside the amphitheatre. It was perhaps solely down to the silence that Claudia noticed the meeting of two longhaired dandies, red-faced from recent exertion, each apologizing for their own lateness, but this was not what drew her attention. That was the wolf with a streak of silver down its back. A rumble of drums interrupted both the hush and Claudia’s astonishment. With a blast on the trumpets, the curtain at each tip of the oval drew back and horsemen in bright scarlet loincloths galloped into the ring. Gasps rose up. The skill of these Thessalian plainsmen had not been witnessed in Rome before now. They rode bareback, they did handstands, they rode balanced between two foam-flecked horses, cutting across one another with breathtaking precision. As far as Claudia was concerned, the wolf was history as horsemen turned somersaults or rode clinging to their black stallions’ bellies. And this was merely a taster. The Bull Dance was yet to come.
Still Marcus Cornelius did not turn his head.
Claudia coiled herself round a smug looking Porsenna and regretted not doubling the dose of her Runaway Success. Larentia smiled. But then, so do crocodiles.
To tumultuous applause and earsplitting whistles, the panting horsemen collected their wreaths
and their accolades and retired. Musicians and tumblers came on in the interlude, and it was only when Orbilio moved to stretch his long, patrician legs that he noticed the stunning creature in the apricot gown six rows behind him. One curl, as usual, had come adrift from its mooring.
‘That blond rider was particularly handsome,’ Fortunata was saying. ‘Don’t you agree, Cousin Claudia?’
‘Not a patch on Porsenna,’ she simpered, linking her hand into his and pretending not to notice the tall aristocrat turning in the seat below as she whispered ‘It’s so hot in here’ to Porsenna. Let Hotshot make of that what he will. From the corner of her eye, she saw him ease his way up the steps.
‘That’ll be the crowd,’ replied the mouse man.
Give me strength. Nevertheless, Claudia set free a silvery laugh. ‘Oh, but Porsenna, I feel we’ve been alone from the moment we first met.’ She glanced up at the man hovering in the aisle. ‘Orbilio. What a surprise.’
He seemed amused. His eyes were twinkling. Did he think she hadn’t noticed his hands all over Miss Syrian Linens down below? But of course he did. This slick, handsome bastard was playing on the fact.
He indicated the food and drink vendors. ‘Can I get you anything?’
‘No thanks.’ Her eyes swivelled to the handsome mouse farmer, who was dispensing his charm to Larentia. ‘I have everything I need right here.’
Emotion flashed across his eyes, she thought it might have been hostility. Or something worse.
He was on the point of speaking when a legionary appeared at his elbow. ‘There you are, sir.’ When he tried to salute, his arm was compressed in the crush. ‘There’s been an incident on the Palatine—’
‘Holy Jupiter! The Emperor?’
‘No, sir. Sorry, sir. Didn’t mean to alarm you. It’s another murder, sir.’
Claudia stood up and smoothed the folds of her gown as though the conversation meant nothing to her. Her eyes followed the convoluted movements of the acrobat. But her ears…