Man Eater

by Marilyn Todd

  ‘Great!’ Like a ten-year-old, he ripped off his tunic and, pinching his nose, jumped feet first into one of the deeper basins, oblivious to the fact that two elderly matrons were drenched in the process.

  Down in the lower cascades, the mood was no less lively. Rope dancers had bridged Metaneira’s sluggish stream and were performing acrobatic feats before a crowd just itching for them to tumble into the mud. Bent-backed laundresses rinsed scores of white shifts and hung them in the willows to dry, maids struggled to unknot their mistresses’ hair without breaking the teeth of their combs. Enterprising urchins trawled the pools for lost property and came up with everything from brooches to buckles, fans to false teeth. The boatman, Claudia noticed, was doing a brisk trade conveying courting couples to the privacy of the lower reaches.

  With a blissful sigh, she slipped into one of Thoas’ small saucers (who’d call them scallop shells?) overhung by broom. With her arms outstretched against the rim and her legs buoyed by the eddy, Claudia tipped her head back and closed her eyes. Sunshine and spray stroked her face like velvet as the gurgling force strove to heal the scabs and bruises that were the legacy of the gig turning somersaults. Slowly the fresh, salty smell of the sulphur began to prevail over the smoking, dying ovens and an occasional hiss told of tong-loads of charcoal being cooled in the torrent. A red kite hovered and mewed over the hilltops beyond.

  ‘Now we’ve established you have no link with Fronto, you’d better tell me who has a grudge against you.’

  Funny thing about broom. It has no discernible scent and yet bees flock to it.

  ‘I know you’re not asleep so you might as well answer.’

  She could hear them, buzzing, backwards and forwards, closer and fainter…

  ‘Claudia, I asked you a question.’

  One eye opened and swivelled in his direction. ‘I know.’ Then the long lashes closed together once more.

  Orbilio stretched out in the shallows, crossed his legs at the ankles and folded his hands behind his head. ‘This is the ticket,’ he said breezily. ‘I could lie here for hours marvelling at the way the minerals have built up over the years. Just like marble, really. Or quartz. Dozens of differing blues, greens and greys—’

  ‘No one.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  You heard. ‘I said no one has a grudge against me, the idea is preposterous.’

  ‘You mean, everybody loves you, it’s not just me?’

  ‘Sorry? Are you still here?’

  ‘Just call me Limpet.’

  Marcus the Mollusc. I like that. It has a ring to it. ‘It seems to me, my little sucker, that I am what you policemen call a pasty. The wrong place at the wrong time.’ She sat up and massaged her neck. ‘Macer will twig on soon enough.’

  Orbilio shielded his eyes against the dazzling sun. ‘I wouldn’t put money on it. He sees only the bright lights of Rome and a glittering career serving the Emperor. You’ll be lucky to escape with exile. And I think you mean patsy.’

  Claudia slipped back into the waters. ‘You’re so full of wind, Orbilio, I suggest you try putting it up someone else. You don’t frighten me.’

  ‘Then you’re a fool,’ he said savagely, sitting up and swiping the hair out of his eyes. ‘Someone at the Villa Pictor hates you enough to set you up for murder. Think about that for a minute.’

  Thoas’ waters seemed to run damned cold all of a sudden. Claudia waited a full half-minute before flipping on to her stomach and leaning her arms casually on the rim. ‘Tripe,’ she mumbled, more to convince herself rather than him.

  Orbilio turned to lie beside her. ‘Something stinks here, Claudia, and it isn’t the sulphur. Look at them. Look carefully. They’re all down there. Are you sure—absolutely sure—you don’t recognize anyone?’

  She wanted to stand up, toss her head and stalk off back to the changing cave. Only her knees wouldn’t let her. Claudia took a deep breath and concentrated.

  On the riverbank, Timoleon displayed his scars to a gaggle of children, cutting the air with an imaginary trident, casting an illusory net. He was the only one she knew (if that was the word), and then only from the arena. Surely pitted against superior armour and weaponry, a retarius didn’t have the luxury of examining his audience in return?

  What about Pallas, buckling his belt as he emerged from the latrines? She tried to picture him thin, and failed.

  Or Sergius, playing knucklebones with his sister? Would those tight curls and saturnine good looks pass unremembered? And tall, slinky Tulola, even with a traditional Roman hairstyle, would surely have made an impact?

  What of Taranis, cheering them on? The only person present today who hadn’t ventured into the water? Or Corbulo and Barea, wrestling on the rocks? Two foreigners. One Etruscan. Three strangers.

  That left Alis. Yes, Alis. She was too flowery, too insipid, too middle-aged even at twenty-eight, to make a lasting impression…unless, of course, the whole thing was an act, in which case— Good grief, Claudia, pull yourself together. Where’s the poor girl’s motive? Godsdammit, where were any of the motives?

  Wisely or not, Claudia told Marcus about Euphemia’s threats and his breath came out in a whistle. ‘Little peach, isn’t she?’

  Watching her as Coronis fixed lapis-lazuli studs in her ear, her heavy breasts straining against the flimsy shift as she chewed the obligatory lock of hair, the fruit that came uppermost in Claudia’s mind was in fact a pear.

  ‘Dearly as I would love to lay the blame at Princess Sulky’s door, I doubt she has the intelligence to plan a complicated crime. Assuming,’ she added pointedly, ‘there was anything to plan.’

  Orbilio rolled over and rested the back of his neck on the mottled rim to allow the spray from the waterfall to tickle his face. ‘Pulling a knife implies hot passions,’ he said. ‘This is cold. Very, very cold.’

  The horror of being set up was starting to diminish. Goosepimples had flattened themselves, the hairs on her neck had also long since relaxed. ‘I hate to disappoint you, Limpet, my friend, but in my humble opinion you are as far off base as Macer—’

  ‘That’s another thing. Doesn’t it strike you as strange that Fronto happened to be working for him until recently?’

  Macer’s on the take, I’m sure of it. The merest shadow of a plumed helmet and suddenly food and drink is thrust upon you as though it’s going out of fashion. Not to mention the whores, although Salvian’s ignorance was quite touching.

  ‘It’s a tad far-fetched, Macer going to the trouble of killing Fronto in order to frame me in order to get to Rome in order to further his career.’

  ‘Maybe, maybe not.’ Orbilio stood up. ‘I’m getting out before I turn into a prune. Coming?’

  ‘For all I know, it could have been Fronto himself, committing suicide to make it look like murder to get himself noticed for once in his miserable, unprepossessing life.’

  ‘Don’t even joke about it. Until we’ve exhausted every other avenue, it’s—’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Why not?’ He threw her a towel. ‘We could work cheek by jowl on this one.’

  ‘Put your stubbly jowl within a mile of my dainty cheek and you’ll be tasting the finest footwear in the whole Roman Empire,’ she replied, but there was no sting in her voice. ‘Besides, you’ll soon see I’m right.’

  ‘The wrong place at the wrong time, eh?’

  ‘Horseplay from a few rowdies still drunk from their binge? Happens three times a night in Rome, remember?’ The flippancy in her voice was deceptive. I’ll give you harmless bloody fun. Let’s see what it’s worth when the skin’s being flailed from your backs. I’ll bet there’s a yellow streak as long as my arm down the middle!

  ‘I grant you something fishy’s going on,’ she continued, ‘but my arrival in the Vale of Adonis is pure coincidence, I’m afraid.’

  Orbilio wrapped his towel round his neck. ‘Policemen don’t believe in fairies, demons or coincidence, we— Hold on, I’ve just had a thought.’

&nbs
p; ‘No wonder you look different.’

  ‘Early this morning, roughly the same hour Fronto was murdered on Sunday, I walked the same route I’m sure he would have taken—and guess what?’

  ‘Thrill me.’

  ‘Later, darling, later. In the meantime, listen to this.’ He paused significantly. ‘I needed an oil lamp for my reconnaissance.’

  ‘So?’

  His eyes were shining. ‘When Fronto knocked at your door, you said—’

  Claudia felt a thrill of excitement prickle her skin. ‘All the torches were burning.’ Not just the couple of night lights you’d normally expect.

  ‘Tell me again what Coronis was doing?’

  ‘Carrying a tray. Right!’ For once, Orbilio, I’m with you.

  ‘Cheek by jowl, Claudia. Together we’ll nail this son-of-a-bitch, but right now let’s get hold of Blondie and ask her exactly what she was doing at a time when the rest of the household was abed yet the hall was lit like a Vestal Virgins’ vigil.’

  How did he get his teeth round that? Claudia tried and got a Vestal Virgil’s wigeon. She hauled herself up the rockface with the aid of the rope handrail. Vested Virgin’s widget. She scoured the groups of slaves and freeborns in search of a familiar blond head. Vesper Virgin’s strigil. Oh, sod it! Let him show off if he likes.

  Blast. ‘There she is.’ Claudia pointed to one of the smaller bowls down by the river, where Coronis was stretched out the way Claudia had been, resting her chin on her hands and taking a well-earned siesta. It would have saved a whole load of physical exertion if they’d just turned round and looked behind them in the first place.

  ‘Two-pronged attack?’ Orbilio suggested, running back down the steps.

  ‘I’ll take the left,’ she wheezed. It was closer.

  All the same, this boy’s-own stuff was quite enjoyable once you got used to it.

  Simultaneously they slipped into the saucer either side of the sleeping slave and sat staring upstream until they got their breath back. It’s a pity they don’t have something like this in Rome, she thought. Individual hot tubs, constantly recycled by the warm waters of a river god striving relentlessly to impregnate his water nymph. I could get used to this.

  ‘I hate to disturb you,’ Orbilio said eventually, ‘but we need you to answer a few questions.’

  Claudia drew her knees up to her chin. This should be interesting.

  ‘Coronis?’ The change in his tone alerted her. ‘Coronis?’

  Claudia sat bolt upright. Pushing aside the blond hair waving in the water, her hand froze. ‘Marcus.’

  He leaned over. ‘Shit!’

  Automatically he reached for the pulse in her neck, although both of them knew it was useless. One look at the girl’s half-opened eyes and protruding tongue was enough.

  ‘Shit!’ he said again. ‘Her neck’s broken.’ He glanced round to where bathers and invalids splashed and groaned and laughed and fidgeted. ‘It had to be damn quick for no one to notice what happened.’

  Claudia hugged herself tight and rocked back and forth in the water. Coronis looked so peaceful…

  For a long, long time they sat in the torrent, flanking the dead girl like book-ends, as divers launched themselves into the waterfall, winesellers emptied jug after jug and herbalists touted their foul-smelling unguents. Tonight these people would trek home to their mansions or tenements, or they’d gravitate to the village on the hill for board and lodging and the ministrations of whores. But whichever they chose, they would gossip and grouch, quibble and quip, and whether rich or poor, sick or healthy, it was bed they looked forward to tonight. Not a funeral bier. And the kite still circled and mewed.

  Finally it was Orbilio who broke the spell. ‘Now do you believe me?’ he asked thickly, his face twisted with emotion. ‘Now will you believe you’ve been framed?’

  XI

  In Rome, the crowds jostled the head of the Security Police as they made their rowdy way towards the exit. Not for nothing was it called the vomitorium, because quite literally it spewed spectators out of the amphitheatre and into the streets at a truly awesome speed. Since space inside was limited, the people leaving were, for the most part, those who had queued all night—although for such sacrifice they demanded the very best in entertainment. Today, on the fourth day of the Holiday of Mars, they had not been disappointed. Bulls had been provoked with whips and prods and given straw dummies to toss before the bestiarii, clad only in white loincloths, were even admitted. After the break, four lions had been roused to a fury, first by flaming arrows fired into the sand then by a pack of baying hounds, before another team of bestiarii had been set against them. But the highlight of the festivities, and the reason people had queued all night, was the leopard hunt.

  The bulls, the lions, that was just a game, the warm up if you like, in much the same way as the chorus belts out cheerful songs before a comedy begins. Ducking and diving, leaping and lunging, a great deal of skill had been involved this morning, but generally speaking both beast and bestiarii lived to see another day. The leopard hunt was entirely different, and he was glad that his rank secured him a decent seat. For a start, the stage was transformed into a miniature but quite authentic forest. Trees, rocks, shrubs were wheeled in, then half-a-dozen hungry, angry leopards were smoked out of their cages, snarling at the half-thrilled, half-terrified audience. Finally a roll of drums, and out ran the hunters, or venators as they were called. Despite fancy tunics in greens, blues and mauves and despite the fact that they were considerably better armed than their less-glamorous colleagues, the bestiarii, these men had but one thought in their minds.

  Kill or be killed.

  It was astonishing, he thought, shoving his way up the steps towards the exit, how quickly a large leopard disappears among the branches, its spots mimicking the shade of the leaves to perfection. It was equally amazing how a hush had settled over the whole amphitheatre, leaving just man pitted against beast, the way it always had been and always would be. The leopards might be outnumbered two to one, but they had been starved inside their cages—they could not afford to be reckless. Then, as leopards always do, they began to stalk their victims with an eerie calm. By the end of the hunt, three venators lay dead after giant fangs had punctured their skulls, and four of the cats had gone down for skinning. The remaining leopards were rewarded with live giraffe to bring down, while the venators, two of them badly mauled, received crowns and accolades and were cheered to the rafters.

  Overall it was agreed that honour had been satisfied on both sides, time now for a bite to eat.

  Marcus’s boss mopped his brow with his handkerchief. Spring had arrived with a vengeance today, and a heavy woollen toga combined with the heat from twelve thousand bodies made it uncomfortable in the extreme. Yet the heat he could take. That wasn’t what was making him sweat.

  ‘There you are, old boy!’ He felt his cousin’s hand on his shoulder. ‘Not coming back to dine with us?’

  ‘No,’ he growled. ‘I’ve got work to do.’ Castor and Pollux, when he got hold of Orbilio, he’d hang him on a line to dry, so help him, he would.

  ‘Fair enough.’ His cousin seemed quite happy about the reply, but then the bastard would. ‘See you at the procession tomorrow, then,’ and with that he disappeared into the crush.

  Tomorrow was the final day of the Holiday of Mars, and in many respects the most important day of the month. Once, and long before the Divine Julius had made this final revision to the calendar, the first day of March had the honour, since it heralded the start of a brand new year, but now, while many of the sacred rites were still practised, the full veneration of Mars himself was not felt until the 23rd. Tomorrow.

  For the Head of the Security Police, the day held particular significance. In the morning came the Purification of the Trumpets up on the Aventine, where holy water was sprinkled over military instruments to symbolize lustration of the whole Roman army. He, naturally, would be at the fore, and despite his equestrian, as opposed to patrician, back
ground and his lack of military training (he had bought his way to the top, a common practice among magistrates), this was one of those rare chances to be seen, by the populace, rubbing shoulders with the high and the mighty.

  Moreover, his brother was one of the two dozen carefully selected priests who would make the third and final Salian War Dance in the afternoon. Unfortunately, although they were twins, his brother was a baboon, and sure as eggs were eggs, he’d cock up. It had cost a small fortune to wangle his brother into this elite band, and almost half as much again to teach the twit his steps. Jupiter’s balls, it wasn’t choreography, for gods’ sake. All he had to do was beat his fucking shield with his fucking sword and leap about a bit at set points along the way, but could he do it? Could he hell! Twice already the Salian Priests had peformed their ritual dance, and twice the silly bugger had fucked up. If he dropped his sacred shield just one more time, he’d wring his fucking neck.

  With the sweat pouring down his neck, he called for his litter.

  ‘Where to, sir?’

  ‘Home,’ he barked.

  The whole fucking city’s out revelling, even my fucking wife, and I’m stuck indoors writing fucking letters! He threw off his toga and called for his secretary.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ his steward explained. ‘It’s a public holiday, your secretary’s out celebrating.’

  ‘I know it’s a public holiday, you arsehole. Just fetch him.’

  What is it with Orbilio? I’m dumped with a fraud case, where thousands of sesterces of public money have gone missing with none of the suspects living the life of riley, which means someone’s salting it away, and I’m at a particularly crucial stage of the investigation when what happens? My undercover man buggers off to Umbria! Well, I don’t have too much choice about that. His family has clout in this city, the name means something, and if the Emperor doesn’t mind him following some tart round the country, why should I bother?

  ‘Assign the case to someone else,’ Augustus had said mildly, when he made his weekly Security report. ‘I’ve heard interesting stories about the Seferius woman, and young Marcus has potential, don’t you think? So unless there’s an emergency, why don’t we give him his head?’ Because it’s set the fraud back several weeks, you silly arse, and when the suspect buggers off with a trunk full of public money, it’s my balls you’re going to fry, that’s why!