Second Act

by Marilyn Todd

  Only last year, the wife of a well-known politician became lost in the catacombs and fell down a shaft. Her pitiful wailing had only added to the atmosphere, but by the time the team had located her, she was so badly injured that she’d died before they could get her up to the surface. Then, and rather more recently, there was one of the Sibyl’s lovers, who, when discarded, had threatened to expose to the Emperor the hokum they practised, and unfortunately had had to be strangled.

  ‘Not so expensive,’ the priest corrected. ‘Remember, an awful lot don’t come out anyway.’

  He’d lost track of the poor sods who were so keen to speak to their ancestors that they’d tried swimming what they thought was the Styx, only to drown as the underground river sucked them under before disappearing in swirls back into the rock. Or those who came here for the express purpose of joining their loved ones. Once they were convinced there really was life after death, they’d stab themselves, fall on their swords, slash their wrists—and in such quantities that each Seeker of Destiny was now searched for concealed weaponry.

  Death, however, accounted for only a small percentage of mishaps. Far more visitors became so traumatized by the experience, succumbing to claustrophobia and worse, that they suffered a complete mental collapse. Many more fell victim to the effects of ingesting a cocktail of henbane, belladonna, hellebore and poppy seeds which was fed them. Consulting the Oracle was a dangerous business.

  None of which, the priest reflected cheerfully, led to adverse publicity! Disappearances and breakdowns only added to Cumae’s mystique, corroborating the Sibyl’s power to summon the dead. After all, it wouldn’t do for Hades to become a place which was not to be feared.

  All that gold the Seekers laid out, just to watch a few actors wailing away on a plank suspended in mid-air by ropes! Throw in a spurt of fake blood from the loved one’s ‘fatal’ wound. Gloss over tough questions with a moan or a groan. Ward off misgivings by having the weary ghost being called back to the Elysian Fields. Money for nothing.

  But what the Sibyl and the priest could not get their heads round—and had frankly given up trying—was that every single Seeker of Destiny went away happy with their few lines of inscrutable gibberish. The Sibyl did not feel in any way responsible for her actions. Did not see how she shaped anyone’s destiny, other than her own and her brother’s. Even though she had an idea of what Cotta was planning, so what? I have no influence here, she would plead. Fate is fate, I cannot change it. We simply let the punters see what they want to see, let them hear what they want to hear.

  ‘Right,’ the Sibyl sighed, replacing her wrinkled mask. ‘Back to business.’

  Business was greed. Business was god. Their minds had been closed to morality a long time ago. Brother and sister ceased to take interest in the ambitions of their clients, even when that client was the Arch-Hawk of the Senate and his plans threatened to undermine the whole Roman Empire.

  The High Priest tossed more sticky beads of Arabian incense on the fire, turned down the lights, then beckoned the next disorientated visitor forward.

  ‘Who’s there?’ the ancient crone on her gold throne cackled. ‘Who comes to consult the Oracle?’

  Twenty-Three

  One of the less noble consequences of a quarter of a century of peace was gluttony. As the Empire stabilized, it grew increasingly fat on its victories, and since fat had become synonymous with affluence, wastage with wealth, it was a sign of true prosperity that a person could stuff themselves until they were sick, then start again.

  Whether her Saturnalia guests might be so inclined or not (and the johnny-come-lately merchant classes definitely showed a tendency to keep abreast of fashion), Claudia had no intention of allowing anyone at her tables to progress to such disgusting extremes. For a start, no one was stinking her house out with their nauseating practices, thank you very much, and secondly, if they wanted to throw up, they could bloody well bring their own slaves to hold the goddamned bowls. Outside!

  On the other hand, certain social standards had to be maintained and this was where cooks became unwitting conscripts in the ferocious social war being waged among the equestrian and patrician classes. For as the rich grew richer, the pressure was on to keep coming up with more and more innovative menus, which—roughly translated—meant more and more outlandish delicacies were served up at banquets.

  In this, cooks were aided by the influx of exotic creatures as the boundaries of the Empire continued to expand. Wild beasts were already being captured for the arena, why not ship over ostriches, gazelles and porcupines for the dinner table? Very quickly it became a benchmark of status that a man could afford to have peacocks despatched from farms on Samos in the Aegean at the same time as a delivery of lampreys arrived from Spain for the same banquet.

  Unfortunately, as Claudia was rapidly discovering, bear cutlets and antelope steaks were no longer singular enough to satisfy the jaded taste buds of the Roman glitterati. Which meant that, now the novelty value of Syrian hazel hens and specially fattened dormice was wearing increasingly thin, the burden was falling upon the holder of the banquet to come up with further culinary refinements, with the emphasis shifting away from content towards ostentatious presentation. In a nutshell, then. the more complicated the meal and the more elaborate the preparation, the more impressed the guests—and thus the more amenable they would become to engaging in trade with Gaius’s alluring widow.

  Hence her idea of a zodiac theme for Saturnalia.

  That she couldn’t actually afford to buy the food was neither here nor there.

  ‘Da zodiac vill be a real talking point,’ her cook boomed when she outlined her proposal. ‘A real talking point!’

  Behind her back, Claudia carefully uncrossed her fingers. With twenty Spectaculars sprung upon him without warning, the cook had not been in the best of tempers lately. Naturally he would carry out whatever commands the mistress ordered, but far better to have the big man on her side.

  ‘Bugger stuffed sow udders and pickled goat wombs dat the nobility are demanding,’ he expounded in his loud Teutonic roar. ‘Give people proper food on dere plates, dat’s vot I say. Give dem things dat makes da mouth vorter.’

  By the time he’d finished outlining his ideas for twelve substantial, unpretentious and wholesome dishes to correspond with the signs of the zodiac, Claudia’s mouth was already vortering and she left him rubbing his hands as he went off to plan the banquet, oblivious of any conflict in the Roman ethos that nothing divides society quite like food, even though he was enslaved himself. Going well, she thought happily. Now she’d got him hooked, it would be so much easier when he went to buy the food to find that he’d also have to negotiate credit terms.

  ‘How dare you barge in here like this,’ a female voice shrieked from upstairs, ‘then have the bare-faced cheek to—’

  Taking the steps two at a time, Claudia thought, that bloody Marcellus! The old, old story no doubt. How his guilt preyed on his conscience and now he wants to make a clean breast of it, blah, blah, blah. Men! She raced along the gallery. When will they ever learn that adultery shared is not adultery halved? But when she flung wide Julia’s door, it was Flavia on the receiving end of Julia’s tongue, not Marcellus.

  ‘You won’t believe what this little bitch has done now,’ Julia hissed, slamming the door behind Claudia, as though no one in the house had heard her voice rattling the nails in the roof tiles.

  ‘I’m not ashamed of it—’ Flavia countered, but her aunt’s strident tones drowned the girl out.

  ‘She’s only insisting on marrying that…that gigolo of an actor!’

  ‘I love Skyles, so there,’ Flavia said sulkily.

  ‘And what about the oleiculturist?’

  ‘I think you can forget that angle,’ Claudia interjected.

  ‘After all I’ve done to get you hooked up with him,’ Julia continued, ignoring her. ‘He’s handsome, rich, extremely well-connected—’

  ‘I don’t care if living with Skyles means livi
ng in poverty,’ Flavia said. ‘At least I’ll be happy.’

  ‘Happy?’ Julia, of course, had never understood the word, what chance of projecting it on to a third party? ‘For gods’ sake, the man’s old enough to be your father. He’s a sexual predator on an Olympic scale and heaven knows what unspeakable disease he spreads with his alleycat morals. Tell her, Claudia. The only reason that vile little man plays the stage is because it gives him the opportunity to screw anything with a pulse—’

  ‘I love him,’ Flavia screamed. ‘And I’m going with him when the troupe leaves.’

  ‘And what happens when he discards you? Do you really think men like Skyles like women? His type are misogynists, girl, they loathe women. That’s why they use them so freely and so cheaply. They want to defile them, exploit them—’

  ‘Skyles loves me, I know it, and in any case, you keep telling me I’m old enough to make my own decisions, well I’ve made one. I’m going to make my career in musical farce, and so what if it means taking my clothes off in public? Anything’s better than being stuck in this shit hole for the rest of—’

  The slap was so hard, it sent both Julia and Flavia reeling with its ferocity. For two stunned seconds, Flavia could not believe that her aunt had actually struck her. Then her cheek started to burn and before Julia could stop her, she was storming out of the room, calling her aunt all the names under the sun, although ‘bitch’ figured more frequently in her tirade than most.

  Julia rounded on Claudia. ‘I warned you what it would be like, inviting that vulgar tribe into your house. That beast has not only corrupted my baby, he’s manipulating the child. I tell you he’s only after her money—’

  What is it with this family? Can’t any of them see past the end of their elbow? ‘Leave it with me, Julia.’

  ‘—the scandal won’t just taint Flavia, it will sully the whole family name and everything my dear brother worked for will be washed down the drain because of his stupid, self-centred daughter—’

  ‘She’s not going to marry Skyles, now calm down. I’ll sort this out.’

  ‘Doesn’t that girl have any concept of the word responsibility? Doesn’t she stop, just for an instant, to think what impact the scandal would have on Marcellus and me? We, who brought the poor child up, when her father wanted nothing to do with her—’

  ‘Julia!’

  Claudia’s tone stopped the older woman in her tracks. Julia blinked, regrouped, then poked a bony finger into Claudia’s flesh.

  ‘This is your fault,’ she snarled. ‘You got us into this mess, Claudia Seferius, you can bloody well sort it out.’ And in a swirl of green linen she was gone, slamming the door in her wake.

  Claudia rubbed at her temples. Dear Diana. To think Caspar actually wrote a script for his farce.

  *

  All across the city, women walked the streets in fear. Official proclamations had been posted. No journey to be undertaken unless it was absolutely essential, and on those journeys, women should be accompanied wherever possible. Fine for the rich, but there remained a large sub-section of the female population who had no option, other than to risk it. And these women trembled.

  Opinion on the rapist was divided. Either the wrong man had been executed last time round, or else this was a copycat. Either way, they could not afford to take chances.

  The rapist might only snatch one victim a day. Then again, he might not.

  Women all across the city prayed. To Jupiter, to cast his thunderbolt of justice on the rapist. To Nemesis, that retribution would be harsh.

  *

  Any doubts Claudia might have harboured about the Halcyon Spectaculars not hitting the professional standards she’d been hoping for were dispelled the instant Caspar appeared in full stage regalia to lead her to her seat. For the two hours building up to this dress rehearsal, there had been no activity whatsoever in the atrium, not even from the labourers. Just a loud, empty silence, reminding Claudia what it would be like when the troupe packed up and moved on, only without the gaudy canvas backdrop for company. Hell, so what?

  (a) she enjoyed living alone,

  (b) it afforded her all manner of freedoms unavailable to most Roman women,

  (c) she was accountable to no one and nothing,

  and so on and so on went her list of counted blessings until she reached the letter m in the alphabet.

  (m) M is for Marcus Cornelius, a little voice said, so she quickly skipped m and continued the list of reasons why alone is best, with:

  (n) being that she had a wide double bed all to herself and

  (o) —

  (o) is for a man who smells of sandalwood with a faint hint of the rosemary in which his clothes had been rinsed, and whose baritone is as evocative as any actor’s and—and—oh,

  (p) off, she told the voice.

  And because Claudia comprised the entire audience for this dress rehearsal, she felt it would not do for the critic not to meet the same exacting standards required of the cast. For that reason, and not because of any Security Policemen roaming round the house, good heavens no, she took extra care in dressing. The gown of midnight blue and trimmed with gold that showed off her breasts to best advantage. The little brooch shaped like a leaping dolphin, her favourite. The gold chain round her left ankle, which led the eye towards a flash of shapely leg. Why should that be affected by tall, dark investigators on the loose?

  ‘Dear lady, you positively snatch the breath from my body,’ Caspar said, having called at her bedroom to escort her to her seat.

  ‘The feeling is mutual,’ she replied honestly.

  Colourful at the best of times, his costume as Narrator was prism combined with rainbow then mixed with a very big paddle. It took a moment or two before it registered that the spots before her eyes were, in fact, a collage of stylized fabric fruits sewn on to a plain apple-green robe. Figs, melons, apricots, mulberries, cherries, raspberries and grapes proliferated round his ample form.

  ‘You approve?’

  ‘I certainly do.’ Claudia linked her arm with his. Any man who goes to such lengths to impress the punters is all right by me, she thought cheerfully, reflecting on her own plans for the Saturnalia banquet.

  It did not cross her mind that Caspar’s, or indeed anyone else’s equally dazzling costume, might be a distraction. That it was eye-catching for that very reason. To catch the eye—and thus draw attention from the face.

  Killers like to observe. Not to be observed.

  *

  In the end, Claudia had not been able to get the quiet word in Skyles’ ear that she had hoped. During dressing for the rehearsals, the company’s quarters had been off limits to anyone not part of the production, and that, apparently, included the mistress of the house in which they were staying.

  ‘Time is so of the essence on these occasions,’ Caspar had explained, adding that he most truly hoped the dear lady would not be offended, but the schedule needed to be timed to the same accurate perfection as the water clock in the atrium, which, incidentally, he had moved, because although its drips did not interfere with the show’s timings, alas the same could not be said of the whistle and ping which marked each passing hour.

  Fine. There was no hurry to speak to Skyles. In fact, the longer Flavia stewed in her own stupidity, the longer she had to reflect. Sadly, with most girls fifteen is mature. More than old enough to know their own minds, choose their own husbands, run their own households, plan their own babies. Thanks to Julia’s coddling, Flavia couldn’t plan her own wardrobe, although immaturity in itself wasn’t a problem. Girls grow up fast. Fact of life. Flavia’s problem lay in that, caught between the rock of her father not wanting her and the hard place of being fostered on an aunt who wasn’t given the option, she’d developed selfishness to an art form. She neither noticed nor cared that image was the diet on which Julia, the daughter of a lowly road builder, had grown strong. That image was the yardstick by which Julia measured her life. Or, therefore, that image was the one thing that could destroy her—<
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  Right in the middle of Felix’s balletic miming of the Judgement of Paris, and just as Claudia was wondering how to bring Flavia to her senses and make her realize that Skyles wasn’t remotely interested in the stupid little cow, she caught a faint whiff of sandalwood.

  ‘One simply cannot get the staff these days,’ a baritone murmured, easing itself into the seat beside her. His chin no longer resembled a hedgehog, and his dark eyes were clear. ‘Would you believe I found my trunk outside on the pavement? Fully packed, too? Tch. And when I’d left strict instructions for it to be unpacked, as well.’

  ‘It’s probably homesick, trying to make its way back by itself. Why don’t you humour it?’

  ‘You know, anyone would think I’m not welcome here.’ He winced as Felix performed the splits.

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed, clapping. ‘Anyone would.’

  If, in rehearsal, Felix had been magnificent, in costume he was sublime. Considering he was playing four characters with only soft cloth masks to differentiate the roles, and considering that three of the characters were female, it was amazing. Felix was more than capable of earning his living by going solo with just a flautist to set the mood of each scene. He didn’t even need the young castrato to sing the story. But there was comfort in group companionship, she supposed. As well as emotional security.

  ‘What do you know about these people?’ Orbilio whispered, applauding loudly as Felix retired from the stage. Quite a few of the slaves had slipped in to watch, Claudia noticed. Leonides, the cook, several of the boiler-house boys, half a dozen of the kitchen girls (to swoon over Skyles, most likely), plus a small contingent of the cleaning staff, too.

  ‘What’s to know?’ she replied as Skyles, dressed as Augustus in imperial purple and with a laurel crown over a cropped wig, strode on to the stage with Doris, as the Emperor’s lushly adorned wife, on his arm. Her agent’s report echoed in her head. There is nothing on this man at all, he insisted. He is self-made in every sense of the word.