Virgin Territory

by Marilyn Todd

  Sabina’s funeral this afternoon had made for a good turnout. For a small town, the wailing women weren’t bad, although Claudia would have preferred to see a bit more ash plastered about. Also the undertaker leading the cortege tended to give the impression he was more important than the dear departed, but on the whole it went well, the men with black togas drawn over their heads, the women with their hair dishevelled. Indeed, a stranger might have been fooled into thinking they cared.

  Fabius shone, quite literally, in his uniform so that whenever the sun caught it, anyone looking his way was positively blinded. Even Claudia had to admit he cut a dashing figure with his broad chest and gleaming bronze armour. The red crest on his helmet, running side to side to reflect his centurion status, ruffled in the breeze in the most stately and dignified fashion, drawing the attention of many a maiden along the route, yet even as she recalled the procession, she could think only of another man, a patrician, in the scarlet tunic and hammered breastplate of the tribune. Not that his would need to be beaten out to exaggerate the muscular development of the professional athlete…

  Dammit, that man gets on my whiskers!

  Claudia pushed thoughts of Orbilio’s torso to a dim and distant recess of her mind and concentrated on the funeral cortege as it filed slowly through the streets. As they were entering the Forum, the wailing women almost drowning out the trumpeters, she spotted Utti in the crowd, his ugly mug practically obliterated by the bodies of two small children, one perched on each shoulder for a better view. Before Claudia had had a chance to identify Tanaquil, another familiar form had sidled up.

  ‘You’ll help me find her, won’t you?’ The rings under Hecamede’s eyes were darker, the hollows in her cheeks deeper. ‘Only you promised.’

  ‘I did no such thing.’ Praise be to Juno, both breasts were tucked up safely!

  ‘You did, you give me your word.’

  Two of the Collatinus slaves pulled her roughly away and frogmarched the pitiful figure out of sight. Diomedes moved up beside Claudia.

  ‘What was that about?’

  ‘Oh, nothing, really. The woman’s touched. Thinks someone’s stolen her child and tried to point him out to me, but there was nothing there except some bloody great spider. She said he—whoever he might be—was collecting them at the time.’

  ‘Aristaeus, you mean?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Aristaeus. The man who collects spiders’ webs.’ Claudia faltered, nearly tripping over her hem. ‘Say that again. You mean there really is a man who goes around collecting spiders’ webs?’

  ‘Of course. Didn’t you know?’

  Failing to see how anybody could possibly make a profession out of something like that, Claudia shook her head.

  ‘Strange man,’ Diomedes continued. ‘Lives up in the hills. A—what’s the Latin word?—recluse.’

  Child molesters would be, wouldn’t they?

  As she began to follow the white line of the path along the peninsula, Claudia’s mind pictured this seedy individual, this raptor of little girls. Middle-aged, potbellied, probably more hairs coming out of his nostrils than left on his head. No doubt he stank like a drain, too. She thought of Hecamede, driven out of her wits because this sordid specimen had run off with her little Kyana and no one giving a damn, simply because they were dirt poor. It touched a raw nerve and she felt her breath catch in her throat.

  Claudia knew what poor was like.

  Claudia grew up poor.

  Claudia knew that poor didn’t count for shit.

  And she knew something else, too. She knew she’d never be poor again. Ever.

  More overpowering than the smell of cinnamon and myrrh as Sabina’s pyre burned was that earlier image of Hecamede—one breast lolling out of her tunic as she wept in the filthy gutter. Now, as the night noises from the mountains began to fill the air, the cry of a screech owl, the bark of a fox, she resolved that Aristaeus wasn’t going to get away with his filthy practices any longer.

  ‘Claudia Seferius is on your case, my lad,’ she said aloud. ‘Make no mistake, your time’s up.’

  It would take her mind off the Agrigentum business. A means of passing the time until Friday, when she had that boat to catch.

  Even if the voyage did entail being cooped up with that smarmy investigator for a whole week or more.

  XI

  The man Melinno threw down his pack and leaned forward, hands on his knees, until his breath came back. He’d thought that climb up Mount Tauros was tough—by Janus, this bugger made Tauros look like a pimple. He wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand and took a swig from his canteen.

  Strictly speaking, it weren’t his canteen, mind. He’d swiped it from a legionary who’d passed out cold back in Zankle. It had been full of that cheap sour wine them footsloggers seemed so fond of, but Melinno had flushed out the field flask and filled it with sweet, fresh mountain water. He shook it and replaced the bung. Getting low, but he’d passed enough streams, there’d be another one shortly. Wouldn’t there?

  Defiantly he shook some into his cupped hand and sluiced his face. Howay, man, there’s bound to be water up here. Stands to reason. Mountains? Water? Why, aye.

  Melinno hefted his pack on to his shoulders and resumed his trudge along the narrow path. It were only a goat track, slippy and slidy, and he’d only another hour of daylight at best. Frustrating for a man who needed to cover ground, but that was the price you paid for October. There was more hours of dark than day, and it were worse up here, because for much of the afternoon the sun had been blotted out by the Great Burning Mountain on his left. It were doused at the moment, this forge of the fire god, but a bloke could never tell. Word was, nineteen summers back and just before sunrise, some old shepherd actually saw with his own eyes the mighty Vulcan hobble up to his forge and start fanning the flames. The whole mountain had burst into fire, rivers of living red hell burning everything in their path. Aye. Well. Melinno didn’t want none of that. The quicker he did his business and left, the better, as far as he was concerned.

  As the light began to fade, his footsteps became more urgent, his eyes more vigilant. He wanted to make his shelter down there, in the valley, where there were trees and where there’d be water. Water and safety. Turning the corner, he heard himself gasp. Right in front of him was this huge cave. He dodged back. It could be, you know. It were big enough.

  Mouth dry, he peered round the corner, but as his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he realized that what he had mistaken for a cave was nothing more sinister than the shadow of an overhang. It was the way these rocks was up here, you’d think a bloke would’ve gotten used to them by now, wouldn’t you? Nevertheless, his heart was pounding as he passed underneath. And he didn’t feel daft, neither. Cyclops lived in caves up here, them giant one-eyed cannibals what kept sheep, and Melinno knew they were close, he could hear bleating.

  A bush of yellow broom blocked his way and he had to tread warily not to slip over the precipice. Aye, he were a fool to come this way, thinking he knew best.

  ‘Take my advice, lovey,’ the fuller’s wife had told him, running plump hands invitingly over her hips, ‘follow the coast to Katane, then cut across. It’s safer.’

  His eyes had lingered on her tits, which seemed fit to burst from her tunic. Big, ripe, floppy tits, more than a man could hold in one hand.

  ‘If I go round the Great Burning Mountain,’ he swallowed the build-up of saliva forming in his mouth, ‘it’ll save time.’

  She laughed in the back of her throat. ‘Ooh, I like a man in a hurry,’ she said, handing him the string of her girdle. ‘But you’ll make good time on the coast road.’

  ‘Talking of good times…’ he’d said thickly, with a sharp tug on the string.

  She charged eight asses, but he’d given her ten on account of the way she pouted her lips. Aye, that were a mistake, because she were older than she made out and her tits weren’t so much floppy as sagging like half-empty flour sacks—and he’d forgo
tten, till he mounted her, that the way fullers cleaned clothes was by treading them in vats of stale piss.

  The memory of the way that old whore stank was as good a reason as any to do the opposite of what she said, but Melinno thought he knew best and could save time cross-country. Then he found himself in the Lands of the Cyclops…

  With little light left to see by, he was forced to make his descent without even the goat track to guide him. Hey now, he weren’t no more superstitious than the next man, was he? Had he been scared by them fields of bubbling mud, them entrances to the underworld? Nah. And hadn’t he crossed the pastures where the Oxen of the Sun grazed without trouble? But let’s be reasonable. Them Cyclops do enjoy the succulent taste of human flesh, it made sense to steer clear of them.

  Suddenly his foot slipped and he tumbled noisily down the mountain, thirty or forty paces before he righted himself, and when he did, his left foot was paining him.

  ‘Fuck!’

  He dropped the pack and rubbed his ankle.

  ‘Fucking, fucking rocks!’

  There was no way he could walk, he’d have to spend the night up here. He daren’t risk starting a fire in case it were seen and there wasn’t much by way of cover either. Great! No cover, no fire, and unless he was very much mistaken, it would rain within the hour. Winds were piling up the clouds at an alarming rate—he’d be drenched to the skin in no time.

  ‘Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!’

  By accident his good foot sent a boulder crashing down the hillside. Janus, would nothing go right for him? He limped painfully across to a hummock and hunched down as far as he could, back to the wind, his ears alert for the sound of the Cyclops. He opened his pack and found only a few hard biscuits and a bit of bacon. Better than nowt, he supposed. Better than nowt.

  The rain began almost immediately, driving icy trickles down the back of his neck. His cloak was useless. Absolutely bleeding useless. Being wool, it soaked through in minutes, about as much use as a pen to a blind man. What he needed was a beaverskin cloak. Aye, like he’d seen in, where was it, Ostia? At the time, mind, it seemed bloody expensive. Another fucking mistake, and he was wrong about something else, too. The only water up here was bloody rainwater.

  Shit, his ankle was throbbing. He ought to put a poultice of some sort on it, only he didn’t know what. Sulpica used to slap bonemeal on to bring out a bruise, but he’d never twisted a joint before. Not since he were a bairn, anyroad. Melinno looked at the biscuit in his hand. Aye. Well. Why not? He didn’t know how sodden it ought to be, but he softened two more, enough to make them pliable, and plastered them round his ankle. She used plantain, too, but he didn’t know where plantain grew and it was too dark to look. In this rain, with his weak ankle, he might end up down a ravine. But fennel was everywhere, so he wrapped that round the soggy mess and tied it in place with his handkerchief before hunkering down as low as he could, trying not to think of the shelter down in the valley. Or the fact that, had he taken that old whore’s advice, he’d have been halfway to Sullium by now.

  ‘Fuck!’

  Oaths came easy of late. He knew why he did it, to spit in the eye of them three old crones, the Fates, because on the odd occasion when he swore at home, Sulpica would laugh and say, ‘Melinno, was that a swearie word I heard?’ and he’d remember where he was and beg a hug of forgiveness. Sometimes he’d swear just for that and oh, those hugs! He’d wrap her in his arms and she’d say, ‘You can squeeze me tight, pet. I won’t break, you know,’ and he’d squeeze and she’d squeeze until all the breath had come out of them both. Then they’d sit there by the fire, talking of all the things they wanted to do together, how many bairns they’d have, whether Melinno ought to open a bigger shop for his baskets—and then they’d catch each other’s eye. Sulpica would come over and sit on his lap and she’d whisper, ‘Why don’t you blow that candle out?’ and he’d reply, ‘I want to see what I’m getting’, so she’d inch up her tunic and ask, ‘Is that enough?’ and he’d say no, and this would go on till she had no clothes left and they’d both be rolling naked on the floor, and even when it was over, they’d be panting for more.

  To Melinno’s surprise, although the rain had stopped, his face was streaming with water. He blew his nose with his fingers and blinked the rest of the tears back inside.

  Now, because of some murdering bastard, Sulpica was cold and in her grave.

  Melinno felt himself tense. Janus, that bastard would pay dear, mind. Slow and painful, if he could, but death for a death it would be. He owed her that.

  He knew the killer’s name, knew he were an important man and that he moved around a lot, but he didn’t know where to look until an armourer told him the bloke had gone to Sullium. It had cost Melinno time, his basket-making business and every ass of his savings and even then, more often than not, he’d been reduced to stealing. Worst of all, when it got really bad, he turned to whores. Fat whores with huge hips and yellow hair. Older women who looked nothing like the girl with dark, springy curls and breasts like small, sweet figs who was his wife. Had been his wife.

  Dawn had not broken when Melinno wrung out his cloak, broke his fast with the last of his bacon and biscuits and drained his canteen. He was not surprised, as he untied his handkerchief, that his ankle was fully recovered.

  Sulpica never let him down in life. She’d certainly not let him down in death.

  XII

  The trouble with rain is that it’s so bloody depressing. You tend to take warmth and sunshine for granted, then suddenly the skies darken and before you know it, your boredom threshold is rising in direct proportion to the drip of the water clock.

  Claudia pulled faces at herself in the mirror. There was only so much time a girl could spend on the essentials—the bath, the manicure, the hair—even though Pacquia had done a marvellous job on her legs, shaving them so gently with the hot walnut shells that Claudia hadn’t suffered one single burn.

  But by mid-afternoon the minutes were starting to drag heavily. It was utterly impossible to venture into the hills in this weather, but Old Conky assured her it would be fine again tomorrow, ample time to tackle Aristaeus before catching the boat back to Rome.

  Claudia had rummaged through her jewellery box until she found the right phial. Belladonna. Lace that pervert’s wine and the world would be a better place for everyone. Oh yes, everything was working out perfectly. Junius had returned from Agrigentum with good news, in fact, the very best. Claudia’s future was absolutely watertight. Which reminded her. Supersnoop had the hump.

  ‘You lied to me about Junius,’ he said. ‘You knew damn well he wasn’t due back when you said he would be.’

  ‘You knew damn well he wasn’t under suspicion,’ she had retorted. ‘That makes us even.’

  Tut, tut. She really hadn’t taken Orbilio for a grudge-bearer.

  ‘How many times do I have to tell you, Claudia? Murder is not a game. Why do you take everything to the wire?’

  Good question. One she’d often asked herself. But a gambler is a gambler. We take everything to the wire, Marcus.

  But that was last night, when she’d had too much to drink and was feeling benevolent. Why else would she have mentioned seeing Utti at the funeral? Hell, he probably knew the whereabouts of those two deadbeats anyway.

  ‘You’re up to something,’ he’d said, totally ignoring the Utti thing. ‘I can smell it.’

  Bully for you, she thought. But you’ll never know what, because it’s finished with. Over. Gone. Forgotten. Yessir, what I found in Gaius’s papers, what I chased halfway round the world for, hasn’t a shred of evidence to its name. And on the strength of that, she’d honoured Bacchus a little too heavily. The headache this morning had been a real blinder.

  ‘I’m warning you, Claudia. If I find you’re breaking the law, I’ll clap your fanny in irons, regardless of what’s between us. Do I make myself clear?’

  There was only one response you could make to a sanctimonious statement like that and Claudia made it. She put her
tongue between her lips and gave him the loudest raspberry this side of Mount Etna.

  It had been easy to avoid him at breakfast this morning, but returning from the bath house she’d seen little Vilbia playing in the atrium. So there she was, Claudia, rolling around on the tessellated floor, singing:

  ‘Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker’s man,

  Bake me a cake as fast as you can—’

  when a man’s voice cut in.

  ‘Take the ingredients down from the shelf—’

  Claudia’s eyes were staring at a familiar pair of patrician boots. With one fluid movement she bundled up little Vilbia, still chortling and chuckling, jumped to her feet and thrust the squirming tot into Orbilio’s arms.

  ‘Sod off, said the baker, cook it yourself!’

  Whether this wasn’t the finish line he’d learned in the nursery Claudia didn’t know, but for a seasoned representative of the Security Police he seemed somewhat inexperienced when it came to handling the more junior members of society.

  ‘The mouth goes to the top,’ Claudia had offered helpfully.

  Vilbia’s response to his indignities was to turn bright red and scream, although Orbilio had stolen the honours on colour. His anguish was ended only when the child’s nursemaid snatched her charge from his arms with a glare that, in lesser men, would have turned their hair snow white. Sucking in her cheeks, Claudia marched off to her room.

  ‘Wait.’ He dodged in front of her. ‘I have a few more questions about the family.’

  ‘I thought you’d solved your case?’

  ‘I have, but a bit of background information never goes astray.’ He made a brave stab at a grin. ‘You know me. Always like to soak up the atmosphere.’

  ‘Dreadfully sorry to disappoint you, Orbilio, but the role of informant doesn’t appeal, thank you very much.’ She flashed a devastating smile at Diomedes, passing through the far arch on his way to give Eugenius his massage, and continued talking through her teeth. ‘As it is, I strongly resent you following me out here, invading my privacy—’