Virgin Territory

by Marilyn Todd

  ‘Eugenius, there’s something I wanted to ask you.’ She smiled so sweetly, he couldn’t possibly take offence at the sudden change of subject. ‘That blue dye of yours, the one that comes out the colour of wild anemones, I was thinking about using it as a livery for my slaves.’

  That should set tongues wagging in Rome. Having all your servants dressed in the same colour was by no means uncommon, but a blue as arresting and vibrant as this should send more than one patrician cross-eyed with envy. Including Eugenius? He clearly prided himself on his bleaching techniques, even the family wore white—but then it’s cheap, isn’t it, you miserly old buffer?

  Eugenius sucked his teeth. ‘There’s enough fleeces in the clipshed,’ he said at length. ‘I’ll arrange for some to be spun into cloth and dyed—providing,’ he laid his hand over hers and squeezed, ‘you accept it as a gift. From an old friend of your husband’s.’

  A bribe, you mean. And actually, Eugenius, this is the first time you’ve mentioned Gaius—and I’ve been here nearly a fortnight.

  ‘I’d be honoured.’ She leaned forward and tapped him playfully on the knee. ‘And in return I’ll send you some of our finest vintage wine.’

  One taste and you’re hooked, my old son. My livery is a one-off, whereas you… You’ll be placing orders for my wine year after year after year.

  ‘Did you say something, my dear?’

  Claudia shook her head. ‘No. Why?’

  ‘It sounded like “gotcha”, and I wondered whether it was another of those strange local oaths.’

  She trusted bending down to recover her reed pen would account for the rush of blood to her face. The ink had run out to form a black, tarry puddle right in the middle of the path.

  ‘I never got the hang of the local patois.’ Eugenius had his eyes closed. ‘When Aulus was born, I was employing translators because at that time no one on the island spoke Latin, it was a straight choice between Greek and Sicilian.’ Here we go. First it would be how he came here with his pregnant bride at the age of nineteen because he could see Sicily was losing its old identity and he wanted to get in at the beginning of the new one. Then it would be how this wasn’t an easy island to grow fat on.

  ‘Not that this was an easy island to grow fat on.’

  ‘You surprise me.’ Now how far had she got with that letter to Leonides? Had she covered that business with the banker yet?

  ‘Oh no. Augustus might have solved the language difficulty, but he created problems of an altogether different kind when he gave away prime tracts of arable land to his war veterans. That didn’t concern me, of course, I’d seen this coming, which is why I exchanged my grain fields for pasture.’

  ‘Had you?’ Yes, she’d covered the banker.

  ‘Then there was the tax situation. Five per cent on everything that comes in, five per cent on everything that comes out.’

  ‘Really?’ Ah, she was sacking the Parthian, that was it.

  ‘My biggest problems, though, came about when Augustus scrapped the tithe system in favour of stipends, because these were then assessed on landholdings.’

  ‘Terrible.’ No doubt the trouble was over a woman. That stupid Parthian couldn’t keep his dongler to himself if his life depended on it. Which in the case of the Iberian, it well might.

  ‘So we have to send cash instead of goods, and he’s levied a poll tax on top.’

  ‘Never!’ However, if Leonides kept his mouth shut about the reason behind the sale of the Parthian, it ought to raise five hundred sesterces.

  ‘Did I tell you Augustus came to Sicily eight years ago?’

  The first stop on his tour of the Empire. ‘No.’

  ‘It was his first stop on a tour of the Empire…’ Faced with the prospect of liquidating five hundred lovely sesterces, Claudia switched Eugenius off completely. With a sum like that she could repay her most pressing debts, although it would be foolish not to set aside a hundred, because if she was back in time for the Victory Games she could double her investment. There was always a mock battle or two, and she’d never put her money on the wrong side yet. So if she kept, say, two hundred to one side…

  ‘…which nets me only 3 per cent, whereas you’ll be netting nearly 10 per cent, won’t you?’

  Claudia was on the point of admitting she frankly had no idea of the profit margin, when what he was saying sank in. Seferius wine brought in an annual profit of 10 per cent.

  Ten per cent.

  Profit.

  She would need an abacus to work out exactly what that meant in terms of bronze sesterces, but she didn’t need an abacus to know it meant a lot.

  ‘Eugenius!’ She jumped up from the bench, threw her arms round him and kissed his papery cheek. ‘Have I ever told you how wonderful you are?’

  XIX

  High in the hills, rain was falling as sleet and the man Melinno shivered under his cloak. He’d got a fire of sorts going but it didn’t throw out much heat, it was all he could do to keep the rain from dousing it. He clutched his pack to his stomach, for comfort as much as for warmth, and found neither.

  He’d fucked up again. It was all he were bloody good at, fucking up. Fucking up and making baskets. Aye, he could weave a good basket, could Melinno. His father had made them for an olive grower, such good baskets that the merchant gave him his freedom. Aye, first generation freeborn and nimble with the withies was Melinno, and his da was real proud of him. They worked side by side until the wasting disease claimed him, then Melinno turned his hand to weaving mallow fibres as well. Howay, who’d have thought them fish baskets would sell so fast? Like iced wine in summer they went, just because they could drain the whey out of curdled milk and save buying a separate basket. Business was booming when he met Sulpica. They wed and everything was grand—until he killed her.

  There’s no justice, Melinno thought, coughing into his hand, no fucking justice. That bastard’s still living the high life.

  Melinno couldn’t believe the gods were not on his side—no, the problems he had right now were his own making. What with the weather and all, he’d been so busy watching out for them one-eyed giants that he’d completely missed the turn-off to the east. Trudged right round the Great Burning Mountain, he had, and it were only thanks to an old goatherd he’d missed Hadranum. Aye, that were a close call. That were the town where Vulcan’s sacred shrine stood guarded by a thousand slavering hounds from Hades. They welcomed pilgrims, the goatherd said, but sniffed out disbelievers and tore them to pieces. Melinno shuddered. What a way to go, eh? Well, he were certainly no pilgrim, and if he’d got any closer, they’d have sniffed him out and no mistake. Then who’d have avenged Sulpica?

  Sulpica. The very name drove a pain through his belly like the rip of a knife. The Fire God had foreseen the murder of the Divine Julius, hadn’t he, and he’d spewed his flames ten miles into the air as a warning. That were nineteen summers back, the same time Sulpica’s mother had brought her into the world. Melinno scrubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands.

  ‘Fuck you, Vulcan!’ he shouted, but the Fire God wouldn’t be able to hear in this wind. As he well knew.

  Once clear of the Lands of the Cyclops, he’d made better time, but it had taken him far too long just to reach Henna here—leastways, as close to it as he ever wanted to get. The navel of Sicily, they called it. Melinno thought that if Sicily ever got piles, Henna was where it would get them.

  Perched like an eagle’s eyrie right up on the island’s highest point, all its buildings were of coarse and pitted tufa, making the town as grey and unwelcoming as any grave. Why, no, he were better off down here and he hadn’t much fancied mixing with them dour Sicilians neither. You couldn’t understand a word they spoke, so how could you trust them? He lifted his head and looked across the lake to the hilltops hidden by raincloud and spat. Janus, what he’d give to leave this hell-hole!

  He spread his fingers over the fire in an effort to warm them, but the wood was green and he was in danger of choking long before. The outdoor
life wasn’t for him. Basketmakers were townsmen, he were like a fish out of water up here. Waiting for this latest bout of coughing to subside, he counted the days. Three, now, since his sputum turned brown.

  To take his mind off the ache in his chest, Melinno rummaged in his pack for that chunk of bread and sheep’s cheese. He’d been filling his canteen down in the river Chrysas, by chance hidden by one of them big, grey boulders when a shepherd strolls up. As luck would have it, the bloke got caught short, so while the poor sod squatted with his back turned, Melinno filched his lunch. He bit into the bread, but it tasted like sawdust and he shoved it back and re-sealed his pack.

  It were odd, that. He’d not eaten for two days, yet he didn’t feel the least bit hungry. He just kept shivering all the time, and that were long before this fucking sleet set in. A wolf howled from the far side of the lake.

  ‘Sod off!’

  Shouting don’t deter wolves, but it didn’t half make Melinno feel better. More in control.

  He rested his head on his knees. In control, eh? That were a joke. He couldn’t control this shivering and shaking, he couldn’t control the tears which coursed down his cheeks. Or this bloody cough. It racked his bones and left his lungs peppery, and he wished it’d go away.

  Janus, he was tired. It were all this travelling, he supposed. Mind, away from the slopes of the Cyclops, the terrain had got easier, the hills rolling and rounded rather than steep and savage, with streams and rivers and sweet, fresh pastures. You’d have thought he’d have felt less tired, wouldn’t you? That his legs would’ve not felt so wobbly and that, perhaps if he’d had more strength in them, he might have braved that hilltop town on a night like this.

  Howay, it’d look better in the morning, after a kip. As the wolf howled again, he looked out across the lake, pockmarked with silver spots of driving sleet, then his ears picked up a scraping sound close by. His hand flew to his dagger.

  ‘Mind if I join you, mate?’

  The stranger hovered at the far side of the clearing, which meant he was either unsure of his welcome—or he was checking out the camp. Either way, Melinno wasn’t bothered. His funds had run out long ago, maybe this bloke had something worth nicking.

  ‘Feel free.’ He beckoned him over to the fire, and saw he wore a stout, old-fashioned goatskin cloak. Better protection than his own useless wool thing.

  Settling himself beside the flames and chafing his hands together, the newcomer was in his teens, brash and cocky. ‘You on the run an’ all?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I am.’ The boy nodded in the direction of Henna and his face split into a grin. ‘Give the rozzers the slip, I did, and cor, you should have seen the chase I give ’em.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well I didn’t wanna get caught, now did I?’

  ‘I meant, why are you on the run?’

  ‘Oh that.’ The grin became a grimace. ‘Yeah, well. I’d stopped to ask this geezer if he’d like to give Socrates his money, see.’

  ‘Socrates?’

  ‘Yeah, Socrates.’ The reflection of the flames flickered and flashed on the steel in the boy’s hand. ‘And he kinda says no, so—well, you get the drift, eh?’

  Melinno felt his gut lurch. Far from being in a position where he could steal the boy’s cloak, he was more likely to end up jackal fodder.

  Think, man, think! He wondered what Sulpica would do, but Sulpica was no longer with him, he couldn’t feel her spirit in this hostile place.

  ‘So what you on the run for?’

  Melinno was poised to say, for the second time, that he wasn’t on the run, when he realized that the gods had sent him a message. A fellow criminal would be treated as a friend.

  ‘I’m not…why, aye, I can trust you, can’t I, seeing as how we’re both in the same boat, like?’

  ‘Betcha sweet life, mate.’

  More than likely.

  ‘I’m wanted for…’ he couldn’t think what he might be wanted for ‘…murder.’

  ‘Oh, yeah?’ The insolent sod was picking his nails with his knife. ‘Who d’you kill?’

  ‘Propertius, the brickmaker—oh, you’ll have heard about it.’ He jerked his head in the direction of Henna the same way the stranger had.

  ‘’Fraid me and Socrates haven’t had much time to listen to gossip lately.’ This boy didn’t see Melinno as a desperado.

  ‘No?’ His mind was swirling. ‘Well, it were like this. Propertius was popping my wife, see, so—’

  ‘So you what?’ No, the boy saw Melinno as another friend for Socrates!

  ‘So I skinned him alive.’

  ‘Say that again!’ The boy dropped his knife. ‘You skinned this geezer alive?’

  ‘Oh aye.’ For a simple basketmaker, you have one hell of an imagination, my lad. ‘I’ve got his hide here in me pack, d’you want to see it?’

  ‘No! No, mate, that’s fine, I’ll take your word for it.’ He backed swiftly towards the trees. ‘Well, the rain’s eased off, reckon I’ll be on my way, then.’

  ‘Right.’ Melinno felt his body shudder with relief, but he couldn’t help himself from saying, ‘Before you go, though…’

  The boy jumped like a startled hare. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘I was wondering, like…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, whether you might want to swap cloaks with me, if I throw in a bit of supper as well?’

  The young thief’s eyes darted to Melinno’s pack and back again as he made a few quick mental calculations.

  ‘Forget the supper, mate,’ he said, swinging his waterproof cloak off his back. ‘Let’s just swap gear, eh?’

  He hadn’t realized what a difference the goatskin would make, keeping the sleet out. Warmer, too. Melinno snuggled down and closed his eyes and dreamed of Sulpica. Her tiny, tight breasts, her shiny bright nipples. He dreamed of kissing her, caressing her, parting her thighs and hearing her moan. He dreamed of her arching her back beneath him as the wind blew in scents of roses and thyme.

  Then suddenly the roses shrivelled. They turned black, and the thyme was putrid. Sulpica was still arching her back, but this time it was taut as a bowstring. Her smile had become a death rictus and her convulsions were of agony not ecstasy.

  Melinno awoke, shaking and drenched with sweat, under a pink and cloudless dawn, but the gentle wooded slopes of the mountains no longer looked beautiful. They were harsh and raddled and whispered of betrayal. As well they might, because this was Lake Pergus, where Proserpine had been betrayed. Snatched into one of them dark holes round the lake and dragged to Hades to live among the ghosts of the dead, away from the sunshine and the flowers…as he, Melinno, was condemned to do without Sulpica by his side.

  Suddenly them things he’d told that young thief last night didn’t seem that despicable after all. Skinning alive was just what the fiend who killed Sulpica deserved.

  XX

  This was more like it!

  Agrigentum’s theatre was throbbing with bodies several thousand strong, pushing and shoving, laughing and joshing, as they made their collective way forward, and Claudia experienced a buzz of excitement at being back amongst the crush. Sullium, the bay and the villa all reminded her very much of frieze paintings. Beautiful—but lifeless. Here, your senses were assaulted on every front, from the smell of the wine and saffron sprayed on the floor (but which clung to your tastebuds like barnacles) through the thin, reedy tunes from the pan pipes to the cheers for the snake-charmers, the jeers for the alms-seekers. All this frolicking just for some pedestrian local deity whose name began with a P or an N or something. Good life in Illyria, what would they do for Minerva their patron?

  Despite grey skies and a wind from the north, the city lost none of its splendour. High on its precipice, honey-coloured walls, built to protect and intimidate, served only to enhance its dignity. Lofty temples stood testimony to its prosperity.

  Claudia’s driver negotiated a path through the outstretched cups and cans of the beggars hovering round Golden
Gate in the south wall. This wasn’t the fastest route to the theatre, but Claudia had a detour to make.

  Covering her head with her palla, she mounted the steps of the temple of Hercules. Vast and majestic, it soared into the clouds, a far cry from that poky little affair in Rome. Of course, in Rome he had two, one as leader of the Muses and one as patron of commerce, so perhaps that made up for it. Then again, they did everything on an ostentatious scale in Agrigentum, didn’t they? On the top step she nodded to Junius, who then began the back-breaking process of lugging two large amphorae of wine up to the vestibule.

  Bearded like Aristaeus, his head cocked slightly to the right, Hercules was a handsome devil and no mistake. To allay the suspicions of the precinct priests, Claudia, with a fluttering feminine gesture, laid a lyre at his feet as though in honour of the Muses and the priests retreated, satisfied no sacrilege had been perpetrated. Fools. Claudia lifted her palla to show Hercules the crown of laurel she was wearing, so he’d know the real reason for her visit. His commercial role required a men-only approach—rules, she assumed, made because women didn’t run businesses. Yet.

  ‘You understand, don’t you?’ Of course he did. If Claudia Seferius was to retain her wine business and make money at it, she needed proper backing.

  Two amphorae, a tithe against future revenue. And he wouldn’t mind that it was Collatinus and not Seferius wine, would he? It was top quality after all!

  Pausing in the doorway, Claudia looked back. It was the angle of his head, surely, but for a split second she thought Hercules winked. Laughing, she pulled off her laurel crown and sent it skimming across the marble floor, where it came to rest before the sacred sandals of a young priest who couldn’t have looked more horrified had he been gang-raped by five male lepers.

  As she descended the steps, shaking bay leaves from her hair, Claudia wondered if she oughtn’t to make a second sacrifice. It was all very well having Hercules behind her, but shouldn’t Bacchus be kept sweet, too? Selling the wretched stuff wasn’t enough, was it? A girl needed to be assured of a continuous market… However, she could do that any old time. Right now there was a play about to start, its audience assembling in earnest.