Virgin Territory

by Marilyn Todd

  Orbilio applied slight pressure with each hand and shook her gently. ‘Tanaquil, you’re not making sense. What does Eugenius mean to do?’

  The redhead began to cry. ‘Utti,’ she wailed. ‘Eugenius means to kill him.’

  XXIV

  Orbilio led the distraught Tanaquil to a marble bench, sat her down and patted her heaving shoulder. Claudia picked up a chicken leg from his plate on the sundial and absently began to gnaw.

  ‘Your brother’s a free man,’ he was saying. ‘Eugenius can’t act outside the law, you know that.’

  Oh, she knows that, Orbilio. And any minute her head will find itself on your shoulder, and if I were you, I’d check for hair dye on your tunic.

  ‘He will, Marcus,’ she sobbed. ‘Eugenius means to do it, even though Utti’s innocent.’

  ‘Now, Tanaquil,’ Orbilio said sternly, ‘pull yourself together. Collatinus can do what he likes with his own slaves, he can execute the whole damned lot of them if he feels it’s justified, but trust me, there’s nothing he can do to a freeborn citizen.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Has your brother got his cap of freedom with him?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Then neither of you have anything to worry about.’

  ‘You honestly think so?’ The tears were conveniently under control. ‘He loves people, Utti does.’

  For breakfast maybe, Claudia thought, crunching into a stick of celery.

  The redhead sought affirmation. ‘Claudia, you saw him with Sabina, they were both the same, weren’t they? Childlike in their different ways. Besides,’ she blew her nose on Orbilio’s proffered handkerchief, ‘if he’d killed Sabina, we’d have left the island long ago.’

  ‘Why didn’t you?’ Claudia asked innocently, and received a hurt look in reply.

  ‘Tell me about Acte,’ Orbilio said. ‘Who found the body, and when?’

  ‘Me.’ Tanaquil spun round on the bench to face him. ‘Marcus, it was horrible, just the same as Sabina. There’s a birch grove about a half-mile up the hill from the villa, only nobody goes there because it’s supposed to be haunted—’

  ‘So what were you doing there?’ There was a certain sharpness in Claudia’s voice, and she was not surprised to see the girl blink several times before answering.

  ‘I—I, well, I was just out for a walk, that’s all. We’d been staying in Sullium and I fancied a bit of fresh air and—’

  ‘Never mind that.’ Orbilio admonished Claudia with a glare. ‘What time did you discover the body?’

  ‘Around noon. It’s been a hot day, hasn’t it, which might have something to do with it, but…’ A violent shudder shook her whole body. ‘…but her flesh was still warm.’

  Which meant the murderer might still have been in the vicinity. Claudia wondered whether Tanaquil realized how lucky an escape she’d had.

  The way she described finding the body, so meticulously yet so impersonally as though she was recounting someone else’s story, brought the reality of Acte’s death into sharp focus. The poor little bitch had been laid out on a limestone slab, her tunic covering her nakedness and anchored in place with her hands. As she said, just like Sabina. At first, because she seemed so peaceful, Tanaquil thought she was merely unconscious, but when she lifted Acte’s head and saw the spreading stain on the white rock below, it was obvious she was way too late. But the action of moving the body had dislodged Acte’s tunic, and Tanaquil saw that the insides of her thighs were bright red and sticky, and that’s when she’d panicked and screamed.

  Orbilio scratched his chin. ‘She hadn’t been…mutilated?’

  Tanaquil shook her head. ‘She’d been raped, but there weren’t any of the bites and bruises like on Sabina.’

  The celery stick fell from Claudia’s fingers. Had Tanaquil interrupted the killer before he’d finished his work?

  ‘Why should Collatinus think it was your brother who killed Acte?’

  Tanaquil spread her hands. ‘He said that since we arrived, two women had been murdered in the same foul way and he didn’t believe in coincidence. What’s more, he seemed to attach some significance to our leaving straight after that horrid business with Sabina.’

  Don’t we all, thought Claudia.

  Orbilio rose to his feet. ‘Look, you clean up, have a rest…’

  His eyebrows rose enquiringly and Claudia found an imaginary knot in her girdle needed adjusting. No way! That light-fingered con artist could doss in someone else’s bedroom.

  ‘Use my quarters,’ he said, with excruciating politeness. ‘First past the shrine, on the right.’

  Bugger. It was too late to intervene.

  The redhead began to sob into Orbilio’s handkerchief. ‘They’re going to kill him, I can see it.’

  Claudia snorted. If further proof was needed that Utti’s future was secure, that was surely conclusive. In fact, on that basis alone, he’d probably make eighty.

  ‘I can,’ Tanaquil gulped between sobs. ‘I can see things. Only I don’t always see the right things.’

  You’re telling me!

  ‘You remember I saw your ship and I saw danger, except I thought it was for you,’ she said to Claudia. ‘I didn’t realize it meant Sabina. Not until it was too late.’ She began to convulse again. ‘Nobody took her seriously.’

  ‘Can you blame them? She was completely off her onion,’ Claudia said reasonably, but, to her surprise, the fortune teller jumped to her feet.

  ‘Don’t say that about my friend.’ she said hotly. ‘Sabina just saw things from an unusual angle, found it hard to express herself.’

  ‘She called me a cat.’ Claudia’s eyes defied Orbilio to say one single word. ‘Told me I could see in the dark.’

  ‘Cats are graceful,’ Tanaquil explained. ‘Seeing in the dark meant intuitive—well, you are, aren’t you?’

  Claudia remembered Sabina discussing these cat-like ways—the chase, the play, the pounce—and decided this wasn’t a subject she’d particularly care to pursue. ‘In Syracuse, she was babbling about fresh water in the sea.’

  ‘The Spring of Ciane, you mean? The one that’s hard by the Spring of Arethusa?’

  Yes. Well. I knew that. She heard a sound from Orbilio, which might or might not have been a stifled laugh. You couldn’t tell, the back of his hand was covering his mouth and he was looking over his shoulder to check the hang of his tunic.

  ‘Sabina said drinking the water turned you white,’ Claudia said accusingly.

  Tanaquil produced a cross between a sob and a giggle. ‘That silly religious cult, where the priestesses daub themselves in white clay and call themselves the Silver Nymphs of Ciane?’

  Good grief! Assuming Sabina wasn’t such a fruitcake after all, had she dropped some clue to her whereabouts these past thirty years? Incredible, but it wasn’t as though it could have saved her life. Or Acte’s.

  Orbilio, who had begun pacing up and down the peristyle, his face tense with thought, asked, ‘How did you get here so quickly?’

  ‘I borrowed a horse from Eugenius’s stables,’ she said. ‘Once I realized Utti was in danger, I rode like the wind.’

  ‘Then you’d better get some rest.’ Orbilio nodded towards his bedroom. ‘We’ll leave at first light, I promise you. Only for gods’ sake stop worrying about your brother.’

  He’s big enough and ugly enough to look after himself, Claudia added silently.

  Midnight was stalking up. Julius’s revelries showed no signs of diminishing, the racket from the banqueting hall was as raucous as ever, but this end of the peristyle remained a haven of peace and relative tranquillity. The fountains and ponds absorbed much of the heat from the oppressive night air, and the various tinkling and bubbling and gurgling sounds made it as relaxing as was possible under the circumstances. A well-built but totally naked maenad came squealing down the path, zigzagging between the laurels and the sweet-smelling myrtles, pursued by a lecherous satyr. In the parts not lit by torchlight, he tended to lose sight of h
is quarry until another girlish giggle gave him his bearings. He eventually brought her down on the marble bench where Tanaquil had been sitting, leapt straight on top of her and began to knead her breasts. As foreplay went, Claudia thought it was on a par with a military charge.

  ‘Do you mind!’ Orbilio said. ‘This is a private conversation.’

  The satyr was either too drunk or too engrossed to grasp the message. ‘You can have a go next. She won’t mind.’

  Probably grateful, Claudia thought. She was old enough to be their mother.

  In response, Orbilio grabbed hold of the satyr’s goatskin leggings and hauled him off the seat. ‘I said this is private, now clear off.’

  A kick up the goat’s tail helped the young man along the path, and the woman sobered quickly, oh-my-godding under her breath as she scuttled into the shadows, undoubtedly computing the odds of either of these people knowing her husband.

  Orbilio crashed his fist into a sandstone column. ‘It’s my fault,’ he said bitterly. ‘Acte would still be alive if it wasn’t for me.’

  There was no point telling him otherwise. Not yet.

  ‘I shouldn’t have left that bastard alone up there, I should have known he’d kill again.’ Red blood dribbled down the grooves of the column. ‘Mother of Tarquin, I’m a fool!’

  ‘No one could have predicted a second murder so quickly, Marcus. It’s only eight days since Sabina was killed.’ Officially the family still had one day left of mourning. Unofficially they never started.

  ‘I should have arrested him on the spot instead of prancing round Agrigentum in search of proof. I could have done that while he was under lock and key.’

  ‘You’re not still on about Diomedes?’

  ‘I know you rate him, Claudia, but I’ve tried tracing the references he gave Collatinus, and they’re false. Every last one of them.’

  Her eyes challenged him. ‘You condemn everyone who’s forged their own past?’

  ‘Dammit, Claudia, why can’t you admit you’re wrong about this bloody quack?’

  She smiled and dipped her handkerchief in the bubbling fountain. ‘I may have my faults, Orbilio, but believe me, being wrong isn’t one of them. Wrap this round your knuckles.’

  ‘Who else could it be?’ He absently bandaged his bleeding hand. ‘Who else has that precise medical knowledge?’

  Claudia shrugged. ‘How do I know? Someone who’s spoken to him in the past? Another physician? An apothecary, pedlar or cutler? Could even be a lucky strike and now the killer’s found a method, he’s sticking to it.’

  ‘This isn’t about luck and the sooner this pervert’s executed, the better. Are you coming with us to the villa tomorrow?’

  That was one very intimate ‘us’. And let’s not forget she calls you by your personal name. ‘Someone has to stop you putting the wrong man in chains,’ Claudia said.

  ‘Come on, who else is there?’ he asked. Orbilio picked up the battered loaf and pulled a chunk off.

  ‘You don’t go along with Eugenius that it might be Utti?’

  ‘Uh-uh,’ he mumbled, his mouth full of bread. ‘The proverbial gentle giant, him. I don’t know what game Tanaquil’s playing, but I don’t think her brother’s a party to it, which is why I’m in such a hurry to get back and knock some sense into the old man.’

  There was a silence as the musicians took a well-earned break and the revellers paused for the last course of the banquet, probably fresh, sticky honeycombs. Little else would keep them so quiet.

  ‘Two virgins, two murders,’ he said eventually, brushing crumbs off the front of his tunic. ‘What sort of maniac is this?’

  ‘I hate to disabuse you, Orbilio, but there’s a problem with your arithmetic. Sabina wasn’t a virgin.’

  ‘Not a Vestal, I know—’

  ‘No, I mean she wasn’t a Vestal or a virgin. I saw her body before it had been cleaned up, remember? Bruised, battered, semen on her thighs—but no blood. Wherever Sabina had been for thirty years, she hadn’t been sticking to a vow of chastity.’

  ‘Croesus!’ Orbilio combed his hair with his hands and began to pace up and down again. ‘You know, one of the lines I followed up was to see whether a Sabina Collatinus had ever been called to initiation and guess what? She turned up all right, six or seven years old, but before she could be ordained, she ran away. Naturally a full-scale search was organized, but before the holy sisters could contact the family, word came back that Sabina had been killed in a traffic accident. As far as the Vestals were concerned, the matter was closed.’

  ‘How does that tie in with Matidia writing to her daughter, care of the Vestals in Rome?’

  ‘It means the letters were intercepted.’ Orbilio cupped his hands in the fountain and briskly sluiced his face with the cold water. ‘The pieces are beginning to come together at last.’

  They are? ‘It still doesn’t answer whether the woman I met was the real Sabina Collatinus or an imposter.’

  ‘No it doesn’t, but it’s proved one thing. You weren’t in on it.’ Orbilio let out a loud and throaty chuckle. ‘Juno’s skirts, you were after Varius all the time. You bloody came after Varius!’ This time he drank the water cupped in his hands.

  ‘I came for a holiday,’ Claudia replied coolly. ‘Chaperoning Sabina was all part and parcel. Who’s your money on now for her accomplice?’

  ‘Take your pick, anyone’s as likely—or as unlikely—as another. But one thing is without doubt. The bastard who killed Sabina and Acte is no novice. Someone, somewhere, has been butchered in the same way, I’ll lay money on it.’

  XXV

  The sun beat hot on his back as Melinno stumbled along the road, pushed and jostled by the throng of pedestrians and donkeys and handcarts making their way to market. Children jeered and mimicked his apelike shuffle, catcalls rang in his ears and more than once he’d been on the receiving end of a lash.

  He knew what he looked like—clothes torn and ragged, hair long, beard matted. He probably stank like a hoopoe’s hole, only he’d lived with himself too long to notice. Tears streaked the grime on his face. Sulpica would be ashamed of him, it were pitiful. No longer able to walk upright, he clutched his aching chest, shuffling like a stroke victim, barely strong enough to cough up the dark phlegm in his lungs.

  He were dying.

  He knew it—aye, as sure as the sun rises in the east and the Trojan horse were made of maple—and it didn’t bother him none. Soon he’d be with Sulpica. Together for ever. It drove a sword in his heart that he could no longer picture the precise colour of her eyes or recall the way she spoke, but soon—very soon—he’d be able to see for himself.

  But before he could go to her, he must avenge her. How could he face her otherwise? He had made his vow on her deathbed and by Janus, he would keep it. It were this oath what drove his body, lending him the strength and cunning to leap aboard the wagon of an itinerant pitch seller, a Corsican, bound for Agrigentum from Henna. The strong resinous smell of his cargo disguised the presence of the stowaway and after just three days the wagon was rumbling through the high arches of the Gela Gate.

  Within minutes, almost, the Corsican were descended upon by hordes of farmers, desperate to melt his pitch into tar to preserve their timber and put in their sheep-wash, mark their corn sacks and smear on their wine corks. Unseen, Melinno slipped into the crush. Agrigentum. Half a day from the Villa Collatinus. Cough or no cough, he were within an ace of his quest. Retribution would be his.

  He reached down to pat his knife. It were gone. He spun round, losing his balance. His knife, his cloak, his pack, his canteen! He’d left them on the wagon! Oblivious to the blood coursing from his knee, he hauled himself up from the gutter and pushed through the crowds, first this way, then that, until all hope of finding the Corsican was lost. He fell against the stone wall of a spice dealer, too tired, too spent to swear. Not that he’d sworn much of late. Sulpica didn’t like it, and he wanted to be more the man she loved and remembered when they met up.

 
; ‘Oi, you! Clear off!’ The spice merchant prodded him with a cattle goad. ‘You’re bad for trade.’

  Melinno reeled round the corner. In his confusion, he realized now, he’d been blundering in the wrong direction, He was back at the Gela Gate, which was closing for the night. Now what? He tried begging, and received only clouts. Being neither blind nor lame nor deformed, people mistook him for a common drunk, shivering and delirious with the DTs. Turning right, where the wall fell away so many hundreds of cubits it made him dizzy, Melinno chanced upon a flight of steps cut deep into the rock. He slipped and slithered, hoping to find a roost for the night, and found instead they led to a narrow chamber, which in turn led to two great caverns lit by torches. This were a shrine, most likely Ceres judging from the offerings, but if he kept to the shadows he could pass the night here and maybe get healed a bit. There were springs in the caves, springs of sweet, fresh water which fed the basins in the little courtyard, and some of the pilgrims had left bread for the corn goddess.

  At first light, before he could drink the water or eat the bread, the priests had found him and thrown him out by the scruff of his neck, splitting open the cut on his knee. Now, well clear of the city and shambling along the Sullium road, he found the local traffic had thinned and his ears picked up the sound he’d been waiting for. The sound of hooves clip-clopping along the paving blocks. Turning, his weak eyes nearly blinded by the sun, he saw he were right. Two mules, a covered wagon for long distance travel. Stepping into the middle of the road, he flagged it down.

  ‘I need a ride,’ he pleaded. ‘To Sullium.’

  It were gentry on the wagon. A young noblewoman, tall and beautiful, surrounded by slaves and a girl with red hair.

  ‘It’s a matter of life and death.’ He were stuttering, only he couldn’t help it, it were the fever.

  The noblewoman stood up. ‘It would be for us, you walking pestilence factory. Out of the way.’

  Melinno held out the only treasure he had left. Sulpica’s betrothal ring. ‘I can pay.’