Virgin Territory

by Marilyn Todd

  ‘I was looking for a man called Aristaeus.’

  ‘Then you be looking in the wrong place.’

  His Sicilian brogue was as broad as they came. The huntsman stepped past her and set off along the track at a cracking pace, a quiver of arrows joggling on his back.

  ‘At least have the decency to tell me where I should be looking!’

  ‘I thought you said you wasn’t lost.’ He neither slowed down nor bothered to look over his shoulder.

  ‘Disorientated. Look, can you help me?’

  His sole response was a casual ‘Nope.’

  Claudia slapped her forehead with the heel of her hand. Men! She called after him. ‘You know that girl who went missing in Sullium—’

  ‘Nope.’

  She was having to shout now. ‘Aristaeus was the last person seen talking to her,’ she lied. ‘Do you know where I can find him?’

  The last word she heard as he rounded the bend was another infuriating ‘Nope.’

  Claudia was out of breath by the time she caught up with him. He was in a small clump of pines, heading towards a clearing. Two shaggy dogs ambled up out of nowhere, their tails wagging as they stuffed their wet noses into his hand. Only then did she notice the square hut built into the hillside on the far side of the clearing. She fell back against the red, fissured bark of a pine.

  ‘Holy shit, you’re Aristaeus!’

  She hadn’t realized she’d spoken aloud until he said, ‘So?’

  Without pausing he disappeared inside the hut and she could see him hanging the rabbits on a hook on the wall. Shit! If she’d known the local huntsman was also the man who collected spiders’ webs and was also the man who abducted children, she’d never have shown her hand.

  The queasiness in her stomach made her search for some kind of makeshift weapon, and it came as something of a relief to note that he’d divested himself of his bow and arrows. On the other hand, she was able to see the dagger in his belt more clearly. Oddly enough, she didn’t remember seeing it there before…

  Claudia sidled over towards a pile of logs. There was a handy looking chopper embedded in that wood.

  ‘So…’ she began, ‘tell me. Is that a statue of Diana over there?’

  He was supposed to turn his head, she was supposed to yank out the axe, he was supposed to say ‘Why?’ and she was supposed to clonk him over the head.

  Instead he said, ‘Yep.’ It made sense, Diana being patron of the hunt and all that, she was bound to protect her own. Now what?

  ‘Ooh! Is that a figpecker I can hear?’

  Figpecker? Figpecker? Up here? Claudia, are you nuts?

  ‘I shouldn’t think so, no.’

  He was giving her a damned funny look, so she smiled. Show lots and lots of teeth, Claudia. Put the man at ease. He’s frowning, so come on, more teeth. Dammit, she had no more left to show and he was still frowning. It was probably his special child-molester frown.

  ‘What on earth’s your dog doing?’

  That did the trick. The second his back was turned she was yanking on the axe, trying to work it loose.

  ‘Let me do that.’

  A broad, brown hand closed over the handle and out it came, like a hot knife through honey. Aristaeus pushed his face towards hers. His eyes narrowed as they bored into her own, and Claudia shivered involuntarily. A cold sweat broke out on her back as she realized she was powerless under his glare. Mesmerized. Paralysed. Suddenly he swung the axe in the air and let out a gigantic bellow.

  Claudia’s eyelids snapped shut. Her senses were in sharp relief now. She could smell the woods on his tunic. Sharp. Bitter. The tang of leather, the sickly smell of blood. Rabbit’s? Child’s? She heard the swish of the axe, felt the whoosh of parted air. Time stood still. The blade crashed down. Crunch! She felt a sharp pain in her cheek. Terrified, her eyes opened. A pungent smell of sawdust hit her nostrils.

  Aristaeus shot her another strange look as his thumb flicked off the splinter which had embedded itself in her cheek. Then he picked up one of the split logs and chopped that in two, before reaching for the other half. He repeated the process twice more before piling them into Claudia’s shaking arms.

  ‘You best put them on the fire.’

  Claudia opened her mouth to protest, but no words came out.

  ‘There’s a pheasant in the pot, just needs warming up.’ He shoved her not ungently towards the hut. ‘Go on.’

  She ought to refuse, she ought to confront him—but with a dagger in his belt and an axe in his hand, Claudia knew this wasn’t the time. She had the belladonna. She could afford to humour him.

  The fire sprang into life almost immediately, the pot sending out tantalizing clues to its contents. Pheasant, salt bacon, beans, onions—what the hell. So what if Aristaeus dies with a full belly?

  The fire was blazing majestically but, despite the warmth of the day, Claudia couldn’t help hunkering down right in front of it, rubbing her arms and her legs. She was cold to her marrow, as though, like the nymph Arethusa in Syracuse, she had been turned into icy cold water. The flames crackled and spat. The two dogs came up, panting and wagging their tails, and she absently tugged on their ears. They were strange creatures, long-haired, big-jowled, flop-eared, a type she’d never encountered before.

  ‘Celtish, them.’ His frame filled the doorway, blocking out much of the daylight. ‘I calls ’em Chieftain and Druid and they helps me hunt boar.’ He rolled up his sleeves before adding, ‘Ugly buggers, aren’t they?’

  The smile transformed his craggy features and suddenly Claudia couldn’t quite picture this man raping and murdering little girls for want of anything better to do. Still, who’s to say what goes through a child molester’s head? She watched him dish the stew into the bowls, pour beer into two cheap but attractive goblets. There were two of everything, she noticed, including beds, stacked one on top of the other like army cots. The woodsmoke was distracting. Cherrywood, unless she missed her guess. He beckoned her to eat. She could hardly refuse…

  ‘Are you Celtish?’ she asked, forcing her vocal chords to perform normally.

  ‘Me?’ He didn’t look up. ‘Never been off the island.’

  ‘But you do…collect spiders’ webs?’

  ‘Yep.’

  Claudia remembered Sabina’s funeral. Hecamede being dragged away, her body limp and unprotesting but her eyes imploring justice. Justice against the man who collected spiders’ webs. Justice against the man who killed her five-year-old daughter. Justice against the man Aristaeus. Who now sat across the table from Claudia, wiping his beard with his sleeve, pushing away his empty plate. Watching him top up his beer, Claudia didn’t trust herself to speak. However, she had ample time to tip the belladonna into his goblet when he turned to prod the fragrant logs.

  Had she wanted to.

  ‘Why do you collect them?’

  He shrugged as he sat down. ‘I bottles ’em in vinegar.’

  Well, you would, wouldn’t you?

  ‘Drink your beer,’ he urged. ‘I brewed it myself, so I knows it’s good.’

  Claudia wanted to say she didn’t touch beer, it was a thin, unwholesome drink brewed by Egyptians in the east and Celts in the west. (Hence her earlier question.) But there was an intensity in his eyes which was impossible to ignore and she took a tentative sip. It was bitter, as she expected. Perhaps he was trying to poison her? Codswallop. Snap out of it. But she couldn’t. Nothing seemed real. Time had no meaning. The experience was weird, dreamlike, as though she was in a different, alien world and to her surprise, she found herself drinking deeply. And at that moment Claudia knew that, as strong as she was, her destiny lay in this man’s hands. She would not, could not, fight it…and the feeling was as intoxicating as the beer.

  ‘Why do you bottle spiders’ webs?’ she asked.

  ‘They stops up small nicks.’

  ‘Like shaving, you mean?’

  ‘Yep.’ He reached for the jug. ‘I ships ’em to Syracuse. There’s a good market when the fl
eet’s in.’

  She glanced at the two beds. ‘Do you live alone?’

  The jug came down on the wood so hard she thought it would crack. ‘Why?’

  It required considerably less mental agility than Aristaeus possessed to make the leap from this question (and he’d seen her eying up the cots) to her earlier remark about missing girls.

  ‘Idle curiosity,’ she said blandly. But somehow it sounded like an objectionable vice.

  It was getting late. She had to be leaving if she was going to catch the boat. She rose, relieved he made no effort to stop her. From the corner of her eye she noted the square jaw, the set of his chin. Handsome? Not exactly. But confidence oozed out of every pore. The slow deliberation in his movements, the strength, the rugged magnetism. She realized suddenly that she was drawn towards this man, this recluse. This child molester?

  But then everything today was topsy-turvy.

  Maybe Hecamede was mad after all. Claudia visualized a love affair, its passion long spent. A woman spurned by the man she thought had loved her. Who left her pregnant. Years later, as her wits evaporated, every slight had become intensified until Aristaeus represented a walking personification of all things evil, a scapegoat for the worst crime she could imagine when her darling Kyana had gone missing.

  Outside she noticed it was later than she thought, and with the race down the mountainside a sense of balance, of normality, was restored. More than once she ricked her back. Every jolt threatened to loosen a tooth, every boulder threatened to turn her ankle. Puffing profusely and red in the face, Claudia raced across the plateau to check the grainship in the bay.

  What grainship?

  The bay was empty! The bay was bloody empty!

  She slithered down the hill to the villa, skidding across the atrium floor as she flung open Orbilio’s room. That, too, was empty. His chest was gone, the table bare. Nothing to show he’d ever been here.

  She grabbed hold of Senbi as he passed. ‘Master Orbilio?’

  ‘He left, madam.’

  ‘And the ship?’

  ‘That left, too. Were you hoping to catch it?’

  She shot him a glare. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, I love it here.’

  Behind her, Vilbia gurgled and giggled beside the pool under the careful eye of her nursemaid, pushing on the tiny wheeled trolley she used as a walking aid. Claudia brushed the hair from her eyes. Well, she thought, it’s been that sort of a day. I got nowhere with the child molester, I missed my ship, I’m stuck with a backbiting miseryguts of a family and there’s a sadistic killer on the loose. Still. She puffed out her cheeks. It isn’t all bad. I’ve got four kittens to amuse me and there’s the little one to play with.

  She walked over to Vilbia and knelt down. ‘Peekaboo!’

  The tot looked up, broke into a sunny, gappy smile and held up her finger.

  ‘Claudie, look!’ she lisped. ‘Vilbi got a bogey!’

  XV

  The letter which arrived the following morning did nothing to lift Claudia’s spirits. It was from Leonides, warning her that he thought Master Orbilio might be on his way to Sicily…

  She scrunched it into a ball and tossed it into one of the frankincense burners as she marched towards the peristyle. Call this a garden? A few poky cypresses, a handful of measly shrubs and a bit of statuary do not make for a place of rest and relaxation. You need chirruping birds, the heady scent of herbs, a knockout display of floral colour and a fountain that boils and bubbles all day long. That was a garden!

  Through the arch Claudia could see the vegetable garden and the walls of the orchard beyond. Cypassis, her big-boned maidservant, was emerging with a boy as young as herself, possibly younger, and whereas her face wore the bright-eyed bloom of sated love, the lad had a glazed expression in his eyes and a stupid grin on his face. One didn’t need to be a genius to deduce this was his first time.

  The shadow of Diomedes fell over Claudia. ‘That girl shouldn’t be on her feet so soon after the fever.’

  Claudia grinned. ‘I don’t actually think she’s been on her feet, but I’ll pass on your concern.’ In his hands he held a tray from which only Eugenius would consider eating—boiled fish, cucumber sauce and a bowl of some sort of milky gruel. Claudia grimaced and Diomedes laughed.

  ‘Light diets for the invalid,’ he said, ‘though he’s always complaining the food’s too tough or not fresh enough.’

  Aren’t we all?

  ‘I—I thought, you might have been leaving us yesterday,’ he added.

  ‘Me? Good heavens, no. Whatever gave you that idea?’

  She gave the physician another once-over. His eyes, blue and as measureless as the ocean beyond, danced with warmth and light as he watched her. His nose was finely chiselled, his mouth exactly the right size—and the way his hair fell neatly into place was unbelievably sexy. With Orbilio out of the way, she ought to give him another chance. She studied his hands. They were small, for a man, with long slim fingers. Another thought occurred to her. Doctors had to be ambidextrous—it would be interesting to see how that affected bedside techniques… Again she felt a stab of longing. Yes, indeed, it had been a very long time.

  Whatever Supersnoop had insinuated, Claudia felt perfectly safe with Diomedes. One or two of his patients might well end up under the earth, but it wouldn’t be intentional. Call it instinct, call it experience, she did not believe a man could look at a woman the way he was looking at Claudia right now and in the blink of an eye turn into a slavering, bloodthirsty ghoul.

  However, if Cleverclogs wanted to bark up unsuitable trees, who was she to stop him? Her personal opinion was that the killer was a local man, from Sullium or maybe Fintium, and assuming Orbilio was right and the murder weapon did turn out to be a scalpel, heaven knows there were enough physicians and apothecaries with access to one—not to mention the cutlers whose job it was to make the blessed things. Any old bod could get his paws on one.

  Diomedes was saying how he thought she might have caught that trireme yesterday though he was jolly glad she hadn’t, when Marius and Paulus came charging down the colonnade, yelling at the tops of their voices. Brandishing wooden swords, they lunged and thrust, dodging and darting, through the arch before attacking the vegetables beyond. No radish was safe as they rampaged across the neat, orderly beds. A trail of decimated leeks and quaking spinach leaves quivered in their wake.

  ‘Nice boys.’

  ‘Marius is all right.’ The thick Greek accent was utterly beguiling. ‘He’s fallen under Fabius’s spell, can’t wait to join the army himself.’

  ‘Eugenius must be thrilled.’

  Diomedes grinned. ‘The boy’s only nine, he’ll grow out of it.’

  ‘Fabius didn’t.’

  ‘Fabius is an exception.’

  True. Soft living and privilege are rarely given up voluntarily, and not for the first time Claudia wondered what had caused Fabius to turn rebel.

  ‘Paulus, by contrast, is a right little b.s.t.d.’

  That was what he did, Paulus, he abbreviated words to form a kind of code you had to crack to converse with him and Claudia knew it drove Eugenius up the wall, tutors coming and going like nobody’s business. Because there was no continuity, problems were exacerbated rather than reduced and Piso’s recent appointment aggravated the matter even further. His obsessive predilection for the cane had concerned more families than you could count and he had moved from pillar to post in consequence. Yet it was that very quality which Eugenius felt might, quite literally, whip the children into line. Time would tell…

  ‘He’s not alone,’ she replied. ‘Paulus thinks because he’s born rich it gives him all sorts of rights. He—’

  Eugenius’s door opened. ‘Diomedes,’ Acte hissed, beckoning frantically. ‘He’s going spare in here!’

  ‘Coming.’ The Greek pulled a face of reluctance and carried the now congealed meal in to his patient.

  Claudia’s mouth twisted in displeasure as she thought of her steward’s letter. Orbilio wa
sn’t the only subject Leonides had raised. Rollo, the bailiff up at the farm, was after his instructions. Should he start dunging the fields, cleaning the cellars and fumigating the wine press? Also, her banker had called twice, wondering what had happened to the 200 sesterces he lent Mistress Seferius for the weekend, and there was bad blood brewing between two of the slaves, an Iberian and a Parthian, which was causing friction throughout the whole household. Finally, he couldn’t be sure, but Leonides had a feeling someone was syphoning off the household funds, since fifty silver denarii were unaccounted for.

  Bugger.

  From behind the laurel Claudia was aware of a door opening a mere fraction. It was such a furtive movement in such a bustly house that it aroused the very curiosity it was undoubtedly trying to avoid. She bobbed back behind the bush. Cautiously, a woman covered head to foot in stone-coloured cotton tiptoed out and darted down to the bath house. Intrigued, Claudia counted to thirty then followed. The sight that met her eyes took her breath away.

  ‘For gods’ sake, Corinna, what happened?’

  Her face was puffed up like a pig’s bladder. Somewhere in there was an eye, she supposed. Corinna made a grab for her clothes, but not before Claudia had seen the vast expanse of purple bruising on her body.

  ‘Has Diomedes seen this?’

  Corinna shook her head.

  ‘Well, he’s in the house now, I’ll call him over—’

  A strangled cry cut her short. ‘No!’

  ‘Corinna, for pity’s sake, you need medical help!’

  ‘I’m fine. Really. I’m fine.’ She tried so hard to smile. ‘I—I went for a walk in the rain the other night. I tripped, I lost my footing and I fell down the hillside.’

  Of course she had. ‘How often do you…trip down the hillside?’

  Corinna’s shoulders sagged. ‘Please, if you want to help me, keep this our secret.’

  Claudia had been happy to dismiss her as a mouse—well, more a mole, really, since she rarely surfaced—and had she been the one with a claim to invisibility, rather than Sabina, Claudia could have understood it. Now it made sense, the stooped shoulders, the self-effacing colours, the downcast gaze.