by Marilyn Todd
Underneath, and written in his boss’s own writing, as opposed to that of his scribe, was a postscript.
‘So you know I mean business, I’ve told Gisco where to find you.’
*
For a cheap inn down the squalid end of town, it was doing a roaring trade by the time Froggy elbowed his way through the guffaws of laughter, the maudlin tales, the off-key shanties. The rest of his gang, he noticed with a tinge of rancour as he thumped down his goblet, had already dipped deep into one pitcher of wine and were calling for a second before he’d taken so much as a swill of the first.
‘You’re late tonight,’ chimed Pansa, tipping a set of knucklebones out of a dog-eared leather bag before stacking up an assortment of coins. ‘Much longer and we’d have started without you.’
Froggy said nothing. He drained his goblet then pulled up a stool in the space the others had made for him, secure in the knowledge that they wouldn’t pee without checking with him first.
‘Put the bones away,’ he ordered.
‘No one’s watching,’ Ginger protested amiably. ‘You can’t see what goes on in this corner.’
‘I know that,’ Froggy replied irritably. It was why they always sat here on a market-day evening. Gambling, even in this dive, was still illegal. ‘I want to talk.’
A collective groan rippled round the table, but the coins disappeared back into their respective purses. Froggy had been their leader since they could remember and they knew when they were beaten—Ginger, imaginatively named after his thatch of red hair; Pansa, who walked with his hand shielding the birthmark on his cheek; the two brothers Lefty and Restio; plus Festus, the shield-maker’s son. Reluctantly Pansa scooped up the knucklebones.
Glancing about, Froggy satisfied himself the other revellers weren’t listening. Right now their attention was fixed on a couple of newcomers making passes at the serving girls, and the innkeeper, who was having none of that, was pointing out a brothel over the way if they wanted, and of course they did. This was Narni. The Via Flaminia passed through it, so did the river Nera, and so did a constant procession of soldiers, bargees, porters and stevedores. The wealthier types—the merchants and their agents—lodged in more salubrious establishments, but there remained a whole host of clerks and labourers left to fend for themselves until their masters’ business was done. The whores of Narni, like those of many a staging town, offered a bright spot of comfort in an otherwise bleak and ragged existence.
Froggy turned back to his friends. ‘You know that job we did recently?’
‘The burglary up by the—’
‘The other one,’ he said, brushing his hair as a spider—or worse—fell from the rafters. Whatever the creature, he crushed it under his fist on the table. ‘Sunday morning.’ He wiped the remains of the insect down the seam of his tunic. ‘When we ran that rig off the road.’
Easy money, that. He paused as plates piled high with boiled bacon and lentils were plumped in front of them, another part of the market-day ritual. A dish of grits completed the feast.
‘What about it?’ asked Ginger, blowing on his spoon. ‘Something go wrong?’
‘Not exactly.’ Froggy was idly twirling his knife round his plate. ‘But that’s what made me late. Apparently some widow was on board, and now she’s been charged with murder.’
Restio whistled. ‘What a psycho!’
‘Not half,’ echoed Pansa. ‘Count ourselves lucky she didn’t do for one of us, eh, lads?’
A drunk bumbled over, a bargee—Froggy could tell by the smell of oxen which clung to him no matter how clean the poor sod’s clothes. ‘Piss-house is that way, mate,’ he said, jerking his thumb towards the far corner. The drunk belched gratefully and lumbered towards the door.
‘The trial’, he continued, taking care not to raise his voice beyond the reach of the table, ‘takes place here, in Narni, on Wednesday. You know what that means, don’t you?’
‘Narni?’ asked Ginger, through a mouthful of vegetables. ‘Why not Tarsulae?’
‘Where’, Froggy scoffed, ‘could they scrape up fourscore jurists in that shithole? No, the show’s coming here, so you see the significance? Everyone, and I mean everyone at the Villa Pictor will be called as a witness.’
‘Wow!’ said Restio, because although he hadn’t a clue what Froggy was driving at, he sensed it was important enough to warrant reverence.
Froggy leaned forward. ‘It seems to me, lads, that here’s our chance to make a bit of dosh—’
‘We got paid well for that,’ Pansa put in, but Froggy ploughed on.
‘As I see it, we have two choices. According to my contact at the courts, this old bag’s supposed to have arranged to meet with the bloke who got killed—’
‘But she couldn’t have,’ Restio protested. ‘Because we run her off the road and, according to that innkeeper in Tarsulae, she was headed north.’
‘Thank you, witness for the defence, you may step down now,’ said Froggy, topping up his wooden goblet. ‘Now if you’ll let me get on, as I said, we have two choices. Either we approach the widow’s lawyer, tell him what we know—oh, we can say it was an accident, didn’t realize anyone had been hurt, how sorry we were—only there’s no mileage in that.’
In all probability the widow was old, and she certainly wasn’t well off or she’d have been travelling the main road with a retinue of slaves and baggage. Frankly Froggy couldn’t see the old girl heaping rewards upon his head for coming forward—not on the scale he fancied, anyhow.
‘Which leaves us with our second option. You see, boys, I don’t think our client will want it bandied about that we were paid to run that rig off the road, do you? In fact, I think we’re on to a nice little earner with this one.’
XIII
‘Is going to rain.’
Good, thought Claudia, taking half a step back from the Celt. You might be tempted to stand out in it.
‘And Sergius, he not look so good.’ Taranis fell into step along the colonnade, his long hair flicking up at the ends as he walked. A stranger to the strigil, it was difficult to see what Tulola saw in him. Ruff-tuff hairy types Pallas had said, and from that aspect Taranis certainly fitted the bill. Self-respecting Romans shave their body hair…they don’t have whopping great tufts of it sticking out the neck of their tunics and the hems of their sleeves like horsehair stuffing from an old couch. Idly she wondered how Tulola came by so many oddballs.
‘You visit west wing later, heh? We play fours, you go with Barea and I do Tulola?’
‘I’d sooner drink hemlock.’
‘Ah!’ Two paws latched over her breasts. ‘You want Taranis to yourself—eeeeeeeeh.’
Claudia squeezed his testicles tighter. ‘Listen to me, lizardbreath. Lay so much as one black fingernail on me again, and I shall twist these right off and stuff them up your nostrils. Do I make myself plain?’
She took the tears in his eyes as affirmative and stalked off to her bedroom for a wrap. Drusilla, her ancestry bestowing magnanimity despite the string of indignities, was balanced on the windowsill studiously washing behind her ears. So the barbarian was right? It was going to rain.
‘Brrp.’ The cat bounded down. ‘Brrip, brrip.’
‘I know, poppet, but it won’t be for much longer.’ She raked her fingers along Drusilla’s arched spine. ‘Only we have a slight problem here.’
‘Mrra.’ The cat stretched up on tippytoes, her eyes squeezed tight in ecstasy.
‘The Prefect, you see, is a moron.’ Although he had yet to appreciate that particular aspect of his character.
‘Mrrap, mrrap.’ Drusilla’s stiffened tail received the fingernail treatment right up to its tip.
‘Are you getting dandruff? Oh no, it’s only flaky plaster. Anyway, what I was saying was, to avoid the idiocy of a trial, it is up to us to show Macer the error of his ways, is it not?’
‘Prrr.’
‘Prrrcisely. And in order to do this we must unveil the killer ourselves.’ One murder is undesirable.
Two murders smacks of self-indulgence. ‘Do you have any suggestions where to begin?’
‘Brrrp.’
‘Neither do I.’
Drusilla lifted her wedge-shaped head. ‘Mrrow.’
‘Me? Framed? You’re getting as bad as Supersnoop.’ The wrong place at the wrong time, Orbilio. You’ll see. ‘But we have a nose for sniffing out murderers, don’t we, poppet? We’ll get him—or her, it could be a her, I suppose—and that’ll put paid to this ridiculous talk about exile. Ah! I have a treat for you.’
A cold partridge plopped on to the mosaic and the cat sniffed it carefully from all angles. You might call flabby poultry a treat, her manner seemed to imply, but you forget, my lady, that I’m used to dining on food I’ve hunted myself. Even as we speak, there’s a fresh mouse outside with my name on it. Catch you later.
With a smile at her lips, Claudia covered her shoulders with her palla.
‘I wouldn’t venture far, if I were you.’ The voice of the trainer in the courtyard made her jump. She’d forgotten how light he was on his feet.
‘Oh?’ Was this a warning?
The Etruscan quickly closed the distance between them. ‘There’s a storm brewing.’
Claudia’s breath came out in a hiss from where she’d been holding it. ‘I need the fresh air.’ Fresh? With that number of wild beasts? ‘What about you? Do you always work this late?’
He held the gate open for her. ‘Work? Oh, you’re thinking about that scene back there with Sergius.’
I wasn’t, but go on.
‘We do that, him and me. I throw pots, he throws insults, then it’s forgotten.’ A big cat snarled as they passed its shed. ‘Quiet, Sheba!’ He paused by the ostrich pen. ‘May I walk with you a way?’
Intense grey eyes bored into hers. For a man who works all day with animals, she thought, you always manage to smell of citron and woodsmoke.
‘Why not?’
In silence they passed along a line of clipped laurels, the imminence of the storm intensifying the scent of the leaves. A flash of lightning silhouetted a rhino against the sky and a bear growled.
‘You have a farm in my homeland, I gather?’
‘Vineyards,’ she corrected. ‘Across the Tiber then half-a-day’s hard ride. Is that close to your stomping ground?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m from the coast, but like most other Etruscans you’ll meet, I was uprooted without a great deal of ceremony.’
She picked up on the sour note. ‘The Emperor’s Land Purchase Scheme strikes again, eh?’
‘Worse than that. I lived in Carrera before Augustus turned it into a marble quarry.’
‘Well, if it’s any consolation, Corbulo, you shifted for a good cause. When you do take those show beasts to Rome, you’ll see half your motherland slapped over the temples.’ The Oil Market is positively dazzling.
‘Don’t start on about the Games, Claudia,’ he said, but this time there was a jocular tone to his words. ‘I’m getting enough of an earful from Sergius. He expects bloody miracles.’
Was it the distant rumble of thunder that made the air electric? Or the proximity of the Etruscan?
‘From what I saw of the elephant, you’ve delivered bloody miracles. Is he really as ill as Taranis says?’
‘Nothing’s ever like Taranis says. I think you’ll find Sergius has miscalculated on the amount of wine an empty stomach can cope with.’
‘They say things come in threes,’ she replied carefully. ‘Fronto, then Coronis. It makes me wonder who’s next.’ The trainer’s face creased into a grin. ‘Well, stop,’ he said. ‘Accidents happen all the time.’
‘Fronto was no accident, and Macer has me pegged for a murderess, remember?’
‘Macer has straw for brains. None of us think you killed Fronto, and Sergius intends to draft a complaint to the Emperor himself when he’s feeling a bit more chipper. Now let’s turn back, those clouds look ugly.’ Claudia couldn’t decide whether the deafening noise was thunder or the thumping of her heart. It wasn’t that she was drawn to him physically—he did not, after all, have the desperate magnetism that, say for instance, Marcus Cornelius possessed by the boatload (as of course did hundreds of others whose names would no doubt come to her later)—but the intensity of those tundra eyes was incredibly flattering, and who doesn’t respond to that? Moreover, he was strong and he really wasn’t bad looking once you got past the double bump that proclaimed his heritage. Most of all, Corbulo looks the type who takes his time—and aeons had passed since Claudia Seferius had felt the slow touch of a man’s hand…
Plus which, unlike an affair with a certain security policeman, there would be no repercussions afterwards. It was certainly something to think about.
‘I’ll venture another hundred paces,’ she said, hoping the rumbles would drown the hoarseness of her voice. What did he see in Tulola—apart from the obvious? ‘Alone, if you don’t mind.’
You don’t associate Corbulo with a role in the harem. ‘I can’t leave you out here.’
He was as far removed from the likes of Timoleon as Neptune from a wood nymph.
‘I can look after myself,’ she assured him. Always have. Always will. ‘Goodnight.’
‘Very well, then.’ He reached for her hand and kissed the back of it. ‘If you insist.’
Surprisingly he did not retrace his steps, but turned to the right instead. ‘It’s you who needs help,’ she quipped. ‘The house is straight on.’
He hesitated. ‘I don’t sleep in the house,’ he called back. ‘My quarters back on to the elephant house.’ There was a moment’s silence before he added, ‘If you should ever want to call on me.’
She walked on up the hill, her thoughts chasing each other like puppies in hay. It made sense—in retrospect. She’d never seen Corbulo with Tulola, simply made an assumption. Which changed everything.
A bolt of white lightning shattered the night, its jagged veins scarring the sky. Claudia shivered. There was a primeval quality to storms without rain. Flashes of whitehot fire. Crashes of Jupiter’s thundersticks. She pulled her wrap tight and watched the night tear itself apart. In their sheds in the valley, the wild beasts roared and bucked and faced down the elements. Up here, familiar shapes contorted into sinister strangers. Mundane branches of gnarled oak became the twisted limbs of fiends. The perky stream that gave the Pictors their water turned into a menacing river of blood.
It’s getting to me, she thought. The strain is beginning to tell.
The wind began to howl through the trees. Time to turn back. She wished now she’d brought a brand to light her way. Perhaps she should follow the brook? Dammit, she’d forgotten the hedge that fenced in the gazelles. Her palla snagged on the thorns. Damn!
The path. Where was it?
A barn owl, white and silent, swooped for the safety of the canopy.
Uneasy now, Claudia stumbled through the undergrowth, tripping on a stone, stubbing her toe on a fallen branch…
Far below, the house shone in a blaze of light. It was just a question of reaching it…
A wild-eyed doe crashed through the brambles and Claudia cried out. She could taste juniper in the air, and sickly sweet manna. Bats! There’s a bat in my hair! But it was just a briar, which drew blood when she pulled free. High above, the wind conducted a malevolent orchestra. Poplars whistled, chestnuts wailed and there was a tuneless flute in the pines. Then, suddenly, the path showed clear in a flare of white.
Dear Diana. I thought I’d never find you.
Blindly she raced down the hill, heedless of rocks that trip and roots that trap, and only when she was well clear of the woods did she begin to slow down. Claudia Seferius, pull yourself together. This is foolish. She brushed away cobs of blood where the briar had scratched. Extremely foolish.
Yet the sense of evil was all-pervasive…
Ridiculous. Fancy letting yourself be frightened by a storm! Now get a grip. It won’t do, walking through the atrium with every goddamned bone rattling.
&nbs
p; Resisting the urge to belt the rest of the way, Claudia decided to beat the demons by singing. That, and the rumpus from the menagerie, should put the wind up even the Minotaur. She was passing the monkey house and was well into the second verse of a bawdy winehouse ballad when her scalp began to prickle. Half of her, the educated half, said this is silly, slow down, you’re on edge. But the other half, the half that remembered growing up in the slums, said stand by your instincts and remember that in situations like this, only one word applies.
Runlikehell.
But she could not run fast enough.
Out of the blackness a hand lashed out and caught at her wrap. She shrugged the palla free but the hand was prepared for that. Like a striking cobra, it lunged at her flying tunic. She heard that tear, too, but the grip was solid and she was spun helplessly round. Suddenly a sack was flung over her head, blinding her, pinning her arms. Frantically she scrabbled and clawed, but with the advantage of sight, her assailant twisted and dodged, and none of the kicks found their target. The cloth muffled her screams. An arm clamped round her waist like a band round a barrel. She heard thunderclaps and bellows and terrified roars from the pens. The rhino charged its shed wall, the elephant trumpeted. Yelling and fighting, she was dragged backwards into the bushes. Another rip, as her hem caught on holly.
Rape! The bastard intended to rape her!
A second vice locked round her neck, forcing her head back. The sacking rasped against her cheek, clogged her mouth, blocked her nostrils. She could hear herself gagging on the dust. Desperately she tried to break free, but the armlock tightened and she began to choke.
Progress was faster now her resistance was gone. Frenziedly fighting for breath, Claudia tried to get her bearings. He was dragging her up the hill, hardly surprising. No! Not a hill. That’s terraced. This was more an embankment. Why didn’t he throw her to the ground here and now? No one could see, no one could hear. What was he waiting for?
Then something hard collided with the small of her back. Wood. Sharp. Pointed, surely? A fence? Without warning, he let go her neck, grabbed her ankles and tipped her backwards.