by Marilyn Todd
That Orbilio had sensed the start of the riot and steered her so quickly to safety was a credit to him. But it would only make him big-headed to mention the fact…
Behind the high walls, shouts and screams mingled with the smashing of wood and the clashing of swords upon stone, which, like young bucks locking horns, was more for effect than anything else. However, the fact that there were soldiers outside said much for the flashpoint at which the Empire stood at the moment. The din of the rioting attracted crowds, Claudia and Marcus had to push their way down to the river, where marketplaces and wharves stood deserted apart from a handful of porters left guarding the goods. Sacks and crates, amphorae and bales sprawled in eerie confusion. An oar slipped out of its rowlock and disappeared quietly under the water, and a bemused mule brayed to its harnessed companion.
‘You have to leave Rome,’ he said, leading the way across the Fabrician Bridge. ‘It’s not safe.’
‘Rubbish. There’s a fray every month in this city, people need to let off steam now and then—’
‘I’m talking about the danger from Magic,’ he said firmly. ‘You can see what state the Empire’s in. How precariously it’s balanced.’
Standing beside the Healing Temple in the middle of the Tiber, watching its turbulent currents slam against the honey-coloured piers of the bridge and hearing its yellow, muddy waters slap against the strong retaining wall around the island, Claudia understood perfectly. Augustus would have no trouble calming down the riot, he was probably already showering the crowds with lottery tickets, and some will win a sticky bun, some a jug of wine and one jammy devil will walk home the owner of a brand new house and villa. Then the augur will backtrack, the races will continue—but the unrest? The unrest will still be there, and the veil of anarchy was growing thinner by the day. Until the crisis was past, and for however long that took, Marcus Cornelius Orbilio would be on call and on duty twenty-four hours a day. By necessity, his interests in stalkers, serial killers and indeed anything else, must come second.
‘Rome needs heroes,’ she said, plucking a blossom from the tree. ‘Go and do your duty, Marcus. I can look after myself.’
Always have, always will.
‘My solution,’ he said, idly examining the donations left by grateful patients, the wooden cups, the garlands, the cakes, ‘is for you and Annia to visit Arbil’s ranch—’
‘Who’s Arbil? And why on earth should I visit a farm? I despise the countryside—’
She didn’t think he’d heard her protests. ‘It’s a very short ride,’ he was saying, resting his elbows on the wall. ‘If you set off at first light—’
‘Orbilio, are you completely off your chump?’ Claudia flung up her arms in exasperation. ‘Leave the trout farm just like that?’ The man’s barmy. A solid gold fruitcake.
He lifted his head and there seemed to be a sparkle in his eyes. Unless it was reflection off the water. ‘Yes,’ he said simply. ‘Just like that, and your old trouts won’t suspect a thing, and you know why?’
She didn’t dare ask.
‘I, too, have a foolproof plan,’ he continued, and the maddening twinkle did not abate. ‘Which, funnily enough, also takes a little while to work.’
XXIII
Not always does the obvious attract the seasoned gambler. True, he will not turn up his nose at a healthy game of knucklebones, nor thumb the same appendage should a pair of gladiators be slogging it out on the sand. But he’ll remain on the lookout for more exciting methods to satisfy his craving. Thus, for Claudia Seferius, the chance to cock a snook at her greedy, snobby in-laws, knowing that if just one of the old dragons found her out, there’d be sufficient grounds for Larentia to drag her into court—well, the temptation was simply too great to resist. As the water swirled round Tiber Island and more and more soldiers rushed from their practice grounds on the Field of Mars towards the great Circus Maximus, Claudia felt the fire burning in her belly.
‘I’m listening.’
A thin, young woman holding a limp baby in her arms, her face blotched and swollen with tears, negotiated the piles of clay body parts which littered the steps of the Healing Temple to advertise its potency. Because while it was round the interior columns that pilgrims left terracotta organs, limbs, or what have you, then prayed to the god Aesculapius to heal the afflicted part, it was outside, when they’d been cured, that they removed their models to decorate the steps as encouragement for others. In the cool shade of the porch, the priest eased the child from its careworn mother’s arms and led them gently inside.
‘Then watch this,’ Marcus said, and cast around amongst the vast array of donations for cosmetic jars, watched by a suspicious temple warden whose job it was to prevent thieving.
A flotilla of ducks trod the furious waters of the Tiber. Claudia picked up a small yellow cake and crumbled it for the hungry birds, and when the warden came running over, silenced his protests with a look that would have raised blisters on steel.
‘Ready?’ Orbilio asked.
She nodded.
Chalk and ash are a must on any woman’s make-up shelf, and whilst Claudia used cosmetics only rarely (perhaps a little antimony round the eye, a touch of ochre for the lips) she always kept a decent stock to hand. Watching Marcus Cornelius take a dab of ash and a flurry of chalk mixed with water from the river and rub it into his eye socket was quite a revelation. He looked as sick as any of the poor unfortunates clustered round the shrine…
‘Another Runaway Success for your scrap book,’ he grinned. ‘With you faking illness on this scale, the old trouts won’t even ask questions.’ He rinsed away the paste and was walking down the path towards the Temple of Vediovis before he added, ‘He’s the lowest form of pondlife.’
‘Is that the title of your autobiography?’
A muscle twitched in his cheek. ‘Arbil,’ he said.
‘This is the man you want me to visit? Consider me flattered.’
Unlike Aesculapius, hooded and cloaked, Vediovis had no qualms about nudity. Apart from a cloak slung over one shoulder, he stood tall and proud in his nakedness, his head thrown back, his pelvis thrust forward as he invited admiration. Claudia duly obliged.
‘The trouble is,’ Orbilio said, leaning against the dark, fissured bark of an alder and sombrely folding his arms, ‘there’s no law against what he does.’
Claudia pulled faces at a group of children waving from the river bank. ‘And what does he do on his farm, this Babylonian?’
‘He’s a flesh peddlar,’ he snarled. ‘On a huge scale, taking babies from middens and rearing them for re-sale.’
Claudia’s hand froze in mid-waggle, to the great delight of the children who thought it was part of the game. But already she’d forgotten them, seeing instead four sinister figures picking over the middens by torchlight. ‘You mean he grows those poor kids like cabbages?’
Orbilio made a kind of snorting sound. ‘And Penelope’s baby was one of them,’ he rasped. Several emotions cantered over his face before he lashed them under his control. ‘So will you do it?’ he asked quietly. ‘Will you help me on this, Claudia?’
She reached up and ran her fingers through the unfurling leaves of a chestnut tree. ‘I might,’ she answered back, her eyes fixed firmly on the puffs of clouds scudding high above the branches. ‘But remember, Marcus Cornelius. The earth’s axis turns on trade.’
*
Just as Orbilio had predicted, the old boilers fell for the fake illness hook, line and sinker. Which is not to say there wasn’t a hitch.
‘Arbil?’ Annia gasped, when Claudia confided the scheme. ‘I’m not going back there!’
Claudia had been prepared for this, because Orbilio had explained the link between the murder victims and the slave trader—although that was all he’d been able to establish, he admitted wearily. Granted his cousin knew the victims and was able to put names (if not addresses) to the girls who’d shared the dormitory, but Annia, too, was baffled why they—and indeed she—had been targeted. Now, wat
ching Annia smooth her fine, white pleats into place, Claudia suspected that, although Orbilio had not said as much, he was banking on their visit establishing some form of connection. Without it, he was merely winking in the dark and Claudia knew that, like a Molossan hunting hound, the Boy Wonder was not one to give up on a scent. If the motive lay with Arbil and his vile baby farm, the sudden appearance of Annia could not fail to unsettle the killer—and you didn’t need a Greek philosopher’s brains to know he’d be hamstrung in so public a place, and dared not strike in the open.
‘I know you’re scared,’ Claudia said—the danger lay not at Arbil’s, but once Annia returned to the city, by which time Supersleuth would be around to protect her—but before she could begin to explain, the girl’s antecedents burst free.
‘Excuse me, Claudia! We Orbilios are not intimidated by anyone!’ They were standing in Claudia’s bedroom, and Annia had her nose in the jewel casket. ‘Especially greasy foreigners. Do you mind if I try this on?’ She held a filigree torque to her neck.
Claudia phrased her next question carefully. ‘Don’t you want to help your room-mates, then?’
‘Why should I?’ Speedwell blue eyes goggled in genuine amazement. ‘I never liked them, they never liked me, there’s no point in pretending otherwise—whoops.’ The ring she’d been examining rolled under the stubby legs of the maplewood chest. Dropping to her knees, she fumbled around in the dust. ‘They were beastly to me, but that,’ a spider scuttled out, but no ring, ‘I suppose, comes from lack of breeding.’ She stood up and brushed her hands. ‘Naturally, I rose above it.’
Naturally.
Annia leaned over and began to tug on the heavy wooden chest. ‘No, no, I can manage,’ she puffed, slipping the retrieved band on to her finger. ‘And before you ask, Claudia.’ With a hefty shove, the chest scraped back into its place against the wall. ‘As far as I’m concerned, it’s their own fault those girls died. They knew full well there’s a maniac after us, they should have taken more care.’
Little Miss Popular.
‘Isn’t that taking responsibility a tad far?’
‘Not at all.’ On went a bracelet. ‘I am in danger, ergo I take precautions. Between Marcus and your Gaulish bodyguard, I’m as safe as the state treasury and it’s up to them to do the same, don’t you agree?’
‘If you feel so secure, why don’t you help flush out the killer?’
‘For one thing’—Annia slipped a tiara over her long, golden hair, and they both shone in the lamplight—‘I’d just as soon stay here with Marcus, and for another’—she fished out a gold hare inlaid with enamel and clipped the brooch to her spotless white tunic—‘when I do see Arbil again, it’ll be wearing sapphires and pearls and to buy slaves of my own. I think sapphires will suit me, don’t you?’ she asked, preening herself in the mirror.
Claudia wondered whether to post a placard outside, ‘Murderers Please Note: Blue Dragons Found Here’. Tempting. Very, very tempting.
‘There’ll be another market day in two days’ time,’ she reminded her acidly.
‘I know that,’ Annia chirruped. ‘But don’t worry yourself, Claudia. Marcus will look after me. Yes, yes, he’s up at the Imperial Palace, you told me—but you see,’ blue eyes widened as though addressing a small child, ‘Marcus is my cousin.’ The voice matched the condescending expression. ‘He’d never let anything happen to me.’
And dammit, she was right. As long as Annia was in Rome, Hotshot would be there, emperor or no emperor, coup or no coup, behind her all the way. And the little cow wouldn’t give a damn that he was jeopardizing a golden career for an obligation born from eighteen years of bitterly repressed grief. She’d believe it was her birthright.
‘You know, my mother’s side all have Greek names,’ she continued, clipping on a silver ear stud, then swapping it for gold. ‘So I’m thinking of changing mine. How do you like Iris? Or does Helen sound more regal?’
*
Around that time of the night when drunkards awake, lick dry lips and muddle their way home, a candle burned in a corner and Nemesis’ cornelians twinkled like stars on a frosty night each time the flame swayed in the darkness.
‘Agrippa’s death was a sign from the gods,’ a voice whispered, buffing the maroon cloth over the hilt. ‘A sign that our mission is blessed.’
A finger tested the blue steel edge of the blade.
‘The gods took Agrippa in sacrifice to keep the army busy, because while they run around pampering the Great Catamite, we are free to fulfil our destiny.’
A puff on the candle extinguished the light.
‘By the time Augustus wrests back control, we shall have finished our work and no one shall be the wiser, and think of the power it bestows. Power over life, power over fools, power over all of fucking Rome!’
A contented sigh rang round the room. In just two days, it would be market day again. Farmers setting out their stalls, spreading out their cheeses and their cabbages, their fleeces and their eggs.
‘So many people think they’re clever, when they’re not.’ One hand made a clutching motion, the other slashed the knife through imaginary golden tresses. ‘But I know where she lives. And, Nemesis, my faithful friend, I know just how to lure that fair-haired bitch away.’
XXIV
On the morning of the sixth day of April, and exactly one week since she was chased round the slums by the moneylender’s dogs, Claudia prepared to board her litter in the pre-dawn chill with a completely clear conscience about leaving Annia behind.
‘Madam?’
Claudia looked up to see Cypassis, her nightshift flapping as she ran, her enormous bosoms bouncing like ripe pumpkins in a sack.
‘Madam, please! You can’t go alone!’
‘Junius,’ she said, pushing aside the fine linen drapes, ‘is meeting me at the post house beyond the Collina Gate. Go indoors, it’s cold.’
‘Who’ll pin your hair?’ The single plait bounced in agitation. ‘Who’ll fix your ribbons and fastenings? Who’ll brush your clothes?’
‘Who’ll cuddle Jovi, mop his tears and clear up after his pet if you’re tagging along?’ Bloody monkey. It spits, raids the kitchens, poops on the beds, yet will it surrender? The Sahara would flood first.
‘I suppose so,’ Cypassis said doubtfully, but inside she knew her mistress was right. Jovi was clingier than ever, rarely letting her out of his sight. She sighed as she helped Claudia into the litter. ‘I think I must look like his mother.’
Claudia settled herself among the soft linen cushions. ‘There could be any number of reasons, Cypassis, why he sticks to you. Your scent, your voice, your mannerisms, maybe they do remind him of his mum.’ She drew the curtains of the litter together and smiled. ‘Then again,’ she said, ‘it could just be because the wee lad loves you.’
A backward glance between the litter’s drapes revealed a dark-haired, broad-hipped girl dabbing at her eyes, and Claudia knew it would be every bit a wrench for Cypassis as it would be for Jovi when it came to parting company. She hoped and prayed that hard-hearted bitch of a mother would call before another sunset fell.
Because if Claudia got hold of the woman, she’d thrash her to a pulp and make a necklace of her teeth—
With a surge of delivery carts clogging up the roads, progress was painful. ‘Are we in a slug race?’ she asked the head bearer. ‘I know sloths that move faster than this.’
‘Sorry, marm,’ he yelled back in his lilting Cappadocian accent. ‘There’s always a jam near the gates. Too many roads converging, y’see.’
She popped her head out. Wagons were gridlocked, drivers were cursing and ragamuffins scampered in and out of the spokes for a game. ‘Set me down.’
‘Bless my sidewhiskers, marm, I can’t just dump you here,’ the bearer protested, disengaging himself from the pole and leaving the others to redistribute the weight. ‘Junius said the post station, and that’s the far side of the Collina—’
‘I know where it is, you oaf. I just don’t have
a week to get there. Now will you set me down, or do I have to jump?’
The bearer wrung his hands. ‘It’s still dark, marm—’
‘Suppose I say “please”?’
‘The traffic won’t take long to clear—Aw!’
Claudia tightened her grip on his nose and pulled him closer. ‘Suppose I say “pretty please”?’
This was not an area of Rome she knew well, but you didn’t need a lifetime of navigational experience to realize that all the wagons were facing the same way. Buying a light from a torch bearer, Claudia pushed her way through the braying and the cussing, squeezing through gaps and edging past mules and asses and oxen made skittish by her flame. Three streets from the Gate, her way was finally blocked by a wagon whose wheel had come off. Shit.
Backtracking down the narrow, serpentine alleys to circumnavigate the accident, niggling doubts began to creep in. Traffic had not only thinned, it had downright disappeared, then the reason became clear. She had wandered into the grainstore district, no wonder it looked like a ghost town. Their winter stocks depleted, the towering warehouses stood empty, echoing and lonely, for at this time of year Rome relied solely on daily deliveries. Soon, of course, favourable winds would send the massive grainships whipping back and forth to Africa on an almost weekly basis. These granaries would quickly fill up. But for now there was no need for armed guards to patrol, there was nothing to steal. The whole area was derelict. No bakers’ carts, no creaky pulleys, no split sacks causing chaos. No rats, no cats and even the mills were silent. Maybe, she thought, it had not been such a good idea to dismiss the litter. Maybe she should have arranged for Junius to accompany her, rather than meet up at dawn…?
Get a grip. It’s that damned riot, made you jumpy. And Supersnoop, saying Rome isn’t safe. Hell, it’s the countryside’s that not safe. All those bears in the forests, the wild boar, the wolves. Not to mention the cowpats.