by Marilyn Todd
Then again, it could just be down to that indescribable, delectable, mouth-watering wait.
To a girl like Claudia, for whom anticipation was a drug, the dry throat, the increased heartbeat, the constant swallowing, was unadulterated bliss, exquisitely enhanced by the knowledge that the very earliest Junius could put his proposals into action would be tomorrow, Friday.
Which left her, she calculated, skipping up the atrium, the rest of the afternoon and all of the evening to gather as much ammunition as she could possibly muster against the residents of the Vale of Adonis. Snakes, each and every one, but among them, oh yes—among them was a viper. Would she have time to find out who?
It would not be easy defending herself far removed from the scene of the accusations, but at least in Rome there was a reservoir of lowlife willing to swear on their mothers’ graves that Claudia Seferius was with them at the time of the murders.
My word, the old spondulicks comes in jolly handy at times. Of course that was valid more for equestrians, she mused, ducking behind a marble bust to avoid certain marauding security policemen, than for patricians. There would be no need for the likes of Fancypants, for instance, to dip into his coffers. Toadies cluster round the aristocracy for free. She watched him knock at a door along the east wing and waited until it swallowed him up.
Strange. That was Sergius’ bedroom. Why should Orbilio decide to visit the sick? Claudia ran her finger up and down the cool, smooth upstand, absently noting the quality of the Numidian marble. It was difficult to know what to make of that man Pictor. On the face of it he was urbane and charming, and he’d extended every hospitality since her arrival, it was difficult to read anything sinister into his actions. Except, maybe…
‘That’s my father.’ Alis’ voice made Claudia jump.
‘Handsome,’ she remarked, glancing at the serene, white face set in its eternal watch over the colonnade.
‘I fear the sculptor somewhat flattered him.’ The enigma that was Sergius’ wife let out a slight, self-deprecating laugh. ‘He had the same ill-defined jaw as the rest of us.’
Providence might have pushed Alis into Claudia’s path, but there was no way Providence was going to have her back again. Not until Claudia had extracted her ore. She was on the point of commenting that Euphemia’s jaw was exceptionally well defined when she remembered that the man in the statue was in no way related to her.
‘How come you didn’t stay with your father after he divorced your mother?’
The law was rigid. Adulteresses, by definition, lose all their rights and access to their offspring—in fact, most consider themselves lucky if they’re granted an annual visit.
Tears filled Alis’ eyes. ‘Papa was such an honourable man, Claudia, I wish you could have met him. As a merchant who spent much of the year travelling, he believed that, at nine, I was too young to be subjected to constant upheaval.’
‘You’d have preferred that?’
‘Claudia, I’d have followed him through the Pillars of Hercules and searched for Atlantis if he’d so much as whistled. Instead I was stuck at home with the woman who’d cuckolded my father then laughed in his face when she was heavy with another man’s child.’
Quite. ‘Didn’t you get on with Euphemia’s father at all?’
‘That man!’ The keys at her girdle agitated as she shuddered. ‘He was coarse, he was common and oh, the way he and my mother flaunted their bodies! If I told you what they got up to, you’d throw up.’
I doubt it. ‘How did Euphemia cope?’ It was probably just honest, earthy sex.
Alis’ lower lip twisted and untwisted. ‘To be truthful, I’d have to say she was too young to understand and, in any case, they spoiled her rotten with pets and toys—will you think me terribly wicked when I say I was glad the plague took them?’
It makes you refreshingly human, Alis. Welcome to the human race.
‘They ruined my life, marrying me off to Isodorus like that, it was a nightmare, I can’t begin to describe it. Look, I have to go. It’s been such a relief talking to you, would you mind awfully if I…if I—’
‘Oh no,’ Claudia replied truthfully. ‘Come and have a chat any time you like, Alis.’ Enlightenment is always a welcome visitor.
‘Thank you! Thank you so much, but I’m late.’ Alis had reverted to type, fluttering her hands and tut-tutting. ‘I still haven’t prepared the dining hall for dinner.’
She set off up the atrium on the run, then stopped suddenly. ‘Where are my manners? I forgot to ask whether you’d like to organize the silver. Claudia? Claudia?
The side room into which Claudia had dived was small and cosy and very, very comfortable. Its friezes commemorated Agamemnon, the warrior king, from his initial involvement in the Trojan War through his quarrel with Achilles to his ill-fated return to Mycenae, and, on the floor, an exquisitely tessellated Paris was dithering about who to dish that golden apple to, which, to judge from his expression, was getting a tad too hot to hang on to.
Had it not been for the fact that the room was full of Euphemias, Claudia would have liked it very much. She was slouching against the window, watching the rain hammering down on the bath-house roof as she chewed a lock of hair.
‘I hate the country, don’t you?’
With every fibre of my body! I’ve had it up to here with birds tweeting, buds opening, bees buzzing and frog spawn clogging up the ponds. You can keep your blue swathes of Venus’ Mirrors, your marsh marigolds and your aconites in the orchard. I want to watch the concentrated frown of the leather-worker as I munch on hot sausages, wince at the burned arms of the glassblower as I drink tansy wine—and forget migrating cranes honking all over the place, give me the cheeky backchat of the fruiterer’s boy any day.
‘How can you say that, when the fields and waysides are chequered with anemones, the bellies of hinds are heavy with fawn and baby bear cubs are gambolling their paws off after winter hibernation?’
‘If Sergius makes the money he thinks he will with his shows, we’re going to live in Rome, did you know that? The Esquiline’s the place. Since they pulled the old stuff down, it’s gone really upmarket. Is that where you live?’
The Esquiline Hill is a pocket of aristocracy, Euphemia. Old money only need apply. ‘My house—’
‘Is Rome fun? Is it exciting? What’s it like this time of year?’
How could you explain, to someone who’s never been there, that in Rome the spring equinox signals more than the end of the winter rains? Trade routes reopen, bringing gold from Asturia, cotton from the Indus, cedar from Phoenicia. Ivory from Africa will flood in to the Forum, along with porphyries and pomegranates and pitch. Seas will be open, too, and wives, glad to see the back of their drunken lazy menfolk, will be dancing in the streets as their sailor spouses swap henpeck and trivia for life on a knife-edge and jokes with the boys. How could you begin to describe that?
‘Average.’
‘We’ll get to see all the races, the games, the gladiator fights. I’ll wear Syrian linens and watch every play going, even the Greek ones. Sergius says there’s entertainment laid on for every single day—’
‘Not quite.’
‘—and on top of that, there’s jousting on the Field of Mars and rowing on the Tiber. I can watch—’
‘My dear child, steady on—’
Euphemia flashed her a glance of undiluted insolence. ‘I am not a child.’
‘Indeed you are not,’ Claudia smiled back. ‘You’re eighteen years old, and well versed with delivering messages with menaces.’
‘Nineteen, actually, and the threat still stands.’ Euphemia spat out the lock of hair. ‘Fuck with me and I’ll kill you.’
‘I thought you’d already tried,’ Claudia replied calmly, positioning herself the other side of the window.
Euphemia pulled a sarcastic face. ‘Now why should I want to do that? As long as you don’t interfere with me, I won’t trouble myself over you.’
Consider me indebted!
Claudi
a was staring at the opposite wall, where a wounded Agamemnon was facing the prospect of the Trojans breaching his Greek defences, and wondering why Euphemia remained unmarried, because if she’d been Sergius, she’d have got rid of the moody little trollop ages ago, when she heard voices in the next room. As though eavesdropping was a social grace to be trumpeted from the rafters, Euphemia moved across to the dividing curtain and put her sulky little ear to it.
‘I don’t see the problem.’ Tulola’s voice drifted across. ‘We’ll get one of the carpenters to run you up a pretty pyx to take home to wherever you live and—’
‘N-N-Narni.’
‘Whatever you say, sweetie, just leave me to square it with Auntie Macer.’
Claudia peeped round the edge of the curtain. Draped on a couch in the next room, her tunic slit to the hip to reveal a shapely oiled thigh, Tulola dangled a bunch of black grapes in the air. Slightly wrinkled after a winter in barley, they didn’t seem to deter her couch-mate in his efforts to snatch one in his teeth. The cheetah, chained to one of the couch’s solid bronze feet, settled down as Salvian, plum red in the face and his hair ruffled, shifted his weight from foot to foot and looked everywhere except at Barea’s hand moving around inside Tulola’s tunic.
‘I d-don’t think I—’
‘Salvian, Salvian, leave the thinking to me. Every great man marks the occasion, even Augustus, so what do you say?’
‘B-B-But the Emperor was twenty-three, he had a p-proper beard to shave off.’
Claudia’s face creased into a smile. To round off the Festival of Mars, which, to say the least, had been overshadowed by events, Tulola intended to give the Tribune that well-looked-forward-to rite of passage every young man hungers for, the First Shave. Poor old Salvian. Railroaded again.
‘Bollocks.’ Barea spat pips into the corner. ‘You’re scared shitless.’
If possible, Salvian turned even pinker. ‘That’s n-not true! Look,’ he shot a tortured glance at Tulola, ‘I only f-followed you, because my uncle said to t-tell you he can’t find a record of your divorce.’
‘Tell him to look harder,’ she snapped. Then, raising one seductive eyebrow at Salvian, she murmured, ‘What it boils down to, sweetie, is whether you want to join the ranks of Real Men or whether you’d prefer to wait until your beard grows like a billy goat.’
Grudgingly Salvian nodded. ‘I suppose so.’
Tulola and the horse-breaker exchanged looks. ‘Come on, then!’ As one, they leapt up, each grabbing an arm and dragging a totally bewildered young Tribune to his doom, laughing at the tops of their voices.
‘Must see this,’ cried Euphemia, racing off to join them.
Claudia pulled back the curtain, saw the cheetah’s face contort into a snarl and quickly jerked it closed again. Jupiter, Juno and Mars, that animal makes Drusilla look like one of those little pink-cheeked cherubs that decorate my bedroom ceiling. Pallas assured me it only eats gazelle, but hell, I’m not going to be the one to find out Pallas makes mistakes.
She retraced her steps across the Judgement of Paris and pulled open the door to find a man leaning against the jamb, his patrician boots crossed comfortably at the ankles. ‘You’re sick, Orbilio, you know that?’
The policeman grinned, uncrossed his legs and advanced into the room, clicking the door quietly behind him. ‘Wrong,’ he said. ‘Sergius is sick. What do you make of that?’
‘Nothing. Would you stop blocking my exit?’
‘First a marigold,’ he remarked, his eyes sweeping over Claudia’s tunic, ‘now a pimpernel.’
‘I’ll have you know, Marcus Cornelius Orbilio, the Prefect says I look enchanting in cinnabar.’
‘Well, he would, wouldn’t he? It’s the same colour as his military tunic—which, incidentally, appears to have been ruined by a mucky mark on the back. You don’t happen to know anything about that, I suppose?’
Claudia’s smile was as innocent as a babe’s.
‘I didn’t think you would,’ he said, scrutinizing Agamemnon’s fight with Achilles. ‘Tell me, doesn’t it strike you as strange that Alis, sweet, doting, follows-him-around-like-a-puppy Alis, is not bothered by her husband’s illness?’
‘She’s merely doing what she always does. Carrying out Sergius’ wishes.’
‘Tulola’s pressurizing her to send for medical help.’
‘She won’t get anywhere. Sergius hates doctors.’ And I’m with him on that. Mistakes they can bury.
‘Does he really?’ Orbilio’s gaze wandered towards the window. ‘The rain’s easing. The smell of the soil after a downpour is exquisite, don’t you think?’
Claudia saw no reason to reply to that. She traced her toe round Paris’ golden prize.
‘I just spoke with Euphemia, too,’ he continued in the same dreamy voice. ‘She said Sergius Pictor was perfectly able to look after himself, he always had.’
‘The trouble with many of the more serious playwrights, they will include soliloquies. So deadly boring, don’t you agree?’
‘I wouldn’t know, I’m an Aristophanes man, myself, but one thing I’m absolutely certain of is that, whatever you might pretend, bored you are not.’
‘Damned well am so, too.’
A corner of his mouth twitched and that irritating sparkle was back in his eyes. ‘You can lie to yourself, but never to me, Claudia. You’re enjoying this.’
She threw up her hands and pretended to look out of the window. ‘I’m amazed asylum owners aren’t queuing back to Narni for your patronage.’
‘Come on. Action-packed adventure? It’s just what you’re made for! Look what it’s done for you.’
She pointed to her neck, wrists and ankles. ‘Seriously?’
‘Beaten, battered, bullied or bruised, you bloom under them all. Danger becomes you, Claudia Seferius, and you damned well know it.’
‘Have you been drinking?’
The merest mention of the milk he’d been swilling lately made Orbilio’s stomach churn. ‘You still haven’t told me what you make of Sergius Pictor.’
He was right, the rain was easing. The sky was lifting, despite the onset of twilight. ‘In my opinion, he’s a clever, strong-minded, ambitious man who undoubtedly knows what he’s doing. Now will you shift your fat carcass?’
‘Certainly, milady, seeing you put it so politely.’ Orbilio prised himself away from the door, but his hand remained poised on the latch. ‘But I’ve just looked in on him, and do you know what I think?’
‘No idea, but I have a feeling you’re going to tell me anyway.’
‘I think Sergius Pictor is being poisoned.’
XVIII
Sensationalism for its own sake had never appealed to Claudia and she was in the process of saying so when the commotion in the hallway cut her short.
‘Where is he? I’ll chop his balls off!’
The door to the adjoining room bounced off the wall with the force and she heard the cheetah snarl. It was followed by a sharp intake of breath and a surprisingly respectful oath.
The change of mood didn’t last.
‘Come out, you coward. Face me like a man!’ The door to the little room swung open. ‘Where are you, you bastard?’
Claudia smiled at the wiry individual glowering in the doorway. ‘Looking for someone?’
The eyes narrowed. ‘Where is he?’
‘Who?’
‘That randy bastard, Orbilio. Where’s he hiding?’ Claudia’s hand swept backwards. ‘He’s here. No, I’m wrong. It would seem he isn’t here, after all.’
The red curtain shimmered slightly, and this had nothing to do with the breeze from the open window. ‘I’ll cut his bloody balls off.’
‘Yes, I rather gathered you were souvenir hunting. I don’t suppose you’d care to introduce yourself, would you?’
‘Oh. Gisco,’ he said gruffly. ‘The name’s Gisco.’
‘The charioteer?’
The fists unclenched slightly. ‘You’ve heard of me?’
My dear Gisco, y
ou cannot imagine the fortunes I’ve gone through, believing this is the one time you’ll bloody well lose, but of course you never do.
‘Red faction, am I right? Well, I’m sorry, Master Gizmo, but your bird, it would appear, has flown.’ Would it, she wondered, be frightfully rude to enquire why, exactly, he wanted Orbilio’s groceries?
Gisco put his head round the doorway. ‘He hasn’t come out, then?’ he yelled.
‘Nope,’ a voice hollered back, from which Claudia deduced he’d posted a guard at the door. Wonderful. Now she could really start enjoying herself!
‘I know that chickenshit’s in here somewhere,’ the charioteer said menacingly, lifting the lid of a large chest and prodding with the point of his dagger. ‘And when I find him, I’ll teach him to go rutting my wife.’
‘Master Cosmo, if Orbilio can fit into that box you’re so busy emptying, he’s physically incapable of even reaching your wife. Unless, of course, she’s a midget.’
‘Are you trying to be funny?’ he growled.
Claudia held up her hands. ‘Whatever gave you that idea?’
Thorough was the word that applied to Gisco. Thorough, but alas not very bright.
‘Aha!’ It took him a while, but eventually his eyes hit upon the curtain. ‘So that’s where the craven sod’s hiding.’
The triumph in his voice was short-lived as he turned on Claudia. ‘You’d do well to steer clear of the likes of him, hiding behind a woman’s skirts. ‘Bastard!’ he shouted. ‘Come out, you lily-livered, yellow-bellied coward!’
He strode across the room and in his fury the curtain not only ripped from top to bottom, the whole mechanism came off in his hand. Intent on disentangling himself from fabric and pole, he failed to notice Cuddles’s lithe body turn on its axis. Her furled lips revealed giant white fangs. The black teardrops were compressed to obscurity.
‘Holy shit!’
Ears flat, whiskers forward, pupils down to slits, this was an animal poised and wanting to strike. Gazelles, my foot!
Swallowing a giggle, Claudia stepped into the room and spun round in a circle, the scarlet cotton flaring prettily at her ankles.