by Marilyn Todd
It was, Claudia thought, a very lovely place to die…
With a hammer pounding in her breast, she climbed the wooden staircase to the upper storey. ‘How can you be certain he fell?’ she’d asked Kamar, as Cal was being laid on the stretcher. There was something about the body which niggled her.
‘Because I’m a doctor,’ he snarled. ‘The boy’s neck is broken.’
‘Yes, I know.’ The angle was hideous. ‘Only—’
‘Only nothing,’ he sniffed, twitching his fingers and making it obvious what he thought of women interfering with his professional judgement. ‘The injuries are fully consistent with a fall,’ letting his eyes pinpoint the spot from which he calculated Cal had fallen.
As the stretcher party had shuffled away across the shingle, Kamar strode off in the opposite direction and Claudia had had to run to keep up. ‘You’re not accompanying the corpse?’
‘The role of a physician is to tend to the living,’ he growled, weaving up the zigzag path towards the bath house. ‘Mosul the priest can take over from here.’
‘What do you suppose he was doing up on the sun porch that led to his toppling over the rail?’
‘Cal was an ungovernable show-off with a third of the sense he was born with,’ he snapped. ‘How the hell should I know?’ And before she could ask anything else, Kamar had collared a fat timber merchant and was enquiring after his bunions.
Cold-blooded son-of-a-bitch, Claudia reflected, lingering on the veranda’s darkened staircase. You’ll pander to the rich, they pay handsomely to have you oversee their phantom ailments, but when push comes to shove, we see you for what you really are, Kamar. A reptile without an ounce of compassion.
Upstairs were the same gilded columns, the same dazzling white walls, the ceiling studded with the remaining Zodiacal signs, Capricorn to Gemini, but instead of the back wall comprising sliding pine doors, it carried broad arches to light the banqueting hall below, and these arches were filled in with fine alabaster. A lone torch illuminated the balcony and, lifting it free of its sconce, Claudia held the flame over the rail. No one had seen Cal fall to his death, and why should they? They were too busy snoring their heads off. Claudia sighed. Kamar had called the boy reckless and whilst she herself would have preferred the term ‘spirited’, she had to admit it wasn’t impossible to picture him, leaping on to this rail to imitate the skills of the rope walkers. Had he overbalanced while waving to her, as she rowed out to the island?
Since no scuff marks marred the bright rail, Claudia wondered why she’d automatically surmised that he’d slipped from the upper balcony. The drop from the lower storey was still pretty steep! Descending the staircase, she wished she could identify what it was that troubled her about Cal’s body. Assuming he was wearing soft shoes, as everyone wore here, not only would they not leave a mark, they’d be all the easier to slip in…so what, exactly, made her suspect his death was no accident?
‘Janus!’ Claudia’s torch picked out the most amazing blue eyes, which twinkled and shone from a tiny wizened face.
‘Did I startle you?’ The sparrow of a woman smiled mischievously.
Claudia was on the point of saying you damned well know you did, you venomous bat, when she noticed that the couch upon which the old crone reclined had two wheels nailed to the front. The sparrow followed the direction of her glance.
‘I’ll bet you’ve heard my daughter-in-law playing whisper-whisper-whisper with that sourpuss physician—well, indulge them, that’s what I say.’ From beneath her thin coverlet, she drew out a wineskin. ‘Lavinia can dance across this floor any time she fancies.’ She chuckled, proffering the liquor.
Close up, Claudia saw that Lavinia was younger than she appeared, by ten, maybe even fifteen years, that the wrinkles came from years of exposure to the sun, rather than age. Unexpectedly for Atlantis, the linen she wore was coarse and untailored, simply two widths sewn together and belted with a home-made girdle, and even as she accepted the wineskin, Claudia was wondering how a simple farmer’s wife could afford a place like this.
A smoky pink light was spreading over the eastern horizon, and on the sheet of mercury that was Lake Plasimene, a single yellow flame sprang into life. With a thrill of surprise, Claudia saw it came from the Villa Tuder.
‘You don’t,’ Lavinia said, eyeing up Claudia’s jewels, ‘look like a girl who believes that crap about pine trees filtering the germs. What brings you here, if not to escape the contagion?’
Claudia passed back the wine. ‘The same as you, I suspect.’
‘I doubt that very much.’ Lavinia snorted, patting her one indulgence, a pile of immaculate curls. ‘This is the first time in his wastrel life my son has pampered his old mother, but—’ she took a long swig from the skin ‘—it’s a beautiful spot, this lake, and you won’t hear Lavinia complain.’ She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. ‘What a treat, to be free of the olives.’
‘You own a grove, then?’
‘Near Luca. It’s just a smallholding—me, my son and my son’s wife, though since neither of them moves without a fire being lit under their tails, Lavinia relies on her field hand, but it’s not a bad old life, all things considered. Do you have children?’
‘No.’
‘Good for you, they’re nothing but trouble, especially sons,’ Lavinia said, replacing the stopper in the wineskin. ‘Take my boy—thinks sesterces grow next to the olives, and in those years we’re lucky enough to make a profit, what happens? He blows it on some harebrained venture! I tell you, Lalo my field hand is more like a son—still—’ she pulled a face ‘—my lad’s done me proud, treating his old mother to some fancy pandering, though the gossip’s as much fun as the treatments. My, my, you should see what goes on! It’s like an upper-class bawdy house and talk about scandal!’
‘Such as?’ Claudia’s tone was mild and enticing, and with a smack of her lips, Lavinia rose to the bait.
‘There was that woman who died in the mud room, for a start. Lordy, you should have seen Pylades’ face when he found out. White as a sheet, poor bugger, scared stiff the scandal would ruin Atlantis. In the end, he got Kamar to hush it up, to say she died in her sleep. Well—’ Lavinia cackled like a sea-witch ‘—that part was true. They just didn’t let on where.’
‘Anything…else?’ Claudia kept her eyes on the single yellow light burning like a beacon on the island across the lake.
‘Ffff. You wouldn’t believe what Lavinia’s picked up. That busty redhead from the fishmonger’s, palming herself off as nobility to hook herself a rich husband. The blond Adonis-type, having it off with his father’s new bride, thinks I don’t know. Ha! Because I’m crippled, folk think I’m blind, deaf and dumb—but never underestimate Lavinia, that’s my motto. Folk have tried, and worse they are for it, I can tell you. Not that they all come a cropper like that whippersnapper I was talking to yesterday—’
‘What?’ Claudia said, and a thousand worms crawled beneath her skin. ‘You were talking to Cal? When?’
‘Cheeky bugger perched against that rail there just the other night and you know what he said?’ The old woman pursed her lips. ‘Said he reckoned I was nothing but a fraud. Poetic justice, if you ask me, him falling from that selfsame spot. Told him at the time, I did, mark my words, young fellow, the gods will punish mischief-makers—’
‘Did you—’ Claudia asked slowly, her nails biting into the palms of her hand ‘—see him fall?’
‘Me?’ There was an almost imperceptible pause. ‘Too damned hot for Lavinia, this weather.’ A gnarled brown hand slipped the wineskin out from beneath the coverlet. ‘Like a lazy lioness, she’s taken to sleeping through the daytime, only my son mustn’t get wind that I let my field hand sleep in my bed at night, he’d go apeshit.’ A faraway look came into the startling blue eyes. ‘Well, maybe not these days, because I do believe my lad has finally changed his ways. Mind.’ She gave a small, self-conscious laugh. ‘When I say lad, he’s forty-seven, but then some take that long before they
grow up, and usually death is the catalyst.’
Claudia watched her take a deep draught of red wine, and thought, Cal was right about you, my girl, you’re not what you appear. And you didn’t actually answer my question, did you, about whether or not you saw what happened to Cal?
‘Whose death?’ she coaxed. ‘Your husband’s?’
‘Him? That old miser slipped his anchor when I was thirty-two, no, no, no.’ Lavinia handed the wineskin to Claudia. ‘I’m talking about a shipwreck, that’s what sobered my son. Every single hand went down, see.’
As the sky began to brighten, Lake Plasimene yawned and stretched and prepared itself for another sticky day. Round the margins waterfowl honked to one another, frogs began to croak and, from the myriad of trees which grew along this promontory, birds called out the daily news—bluetits, blackcaps and siskins, swapping tales of how many eggs they had raised, weren’t oak apples prolific this year, and who’d have thought millipedes grew so fat. And Claudia asked herself what it was Lavinia was hiding…
‘It was the same old story. Every time we made a little profit, he’d invest it in some stupid get-rich scheme and every time we’d end up broke. That’s why I refused to remarry, even though it’s against the law, but I wasn’t going to hand my grove over just—’ she snapped her bony fingers ‘—like that, and my boy wasn’t competent! Take this last venture. Two years’ profit he invested in grain and what happens? Bloody ship sinks in a storm off Alexandria, fully laden. Mind, it shook him to the core, did that. Set him rethinking all his values, because next thing he’s whisking me off for a month of solid pampering and I tell you straight, I’m relishing every single second.’
So how come, thought Claudia, plugging the stopper back in the neck of the wineskin, the son could afford to send his old gossip of a mother here…?
‘Sadly I’m stuck with my daughter-in-law and her frightful sister—’ Lavinia began, then pulled up short, as though catching sight of something over Claudia’s shoulder. However, before Claudia could turn to face the sliding doors, Lavinia broke into a cough.
‘My…medicine,’ she croaked. ‘In my room. Would you mind?’
Claudia could hardly refuse a sick woman’s request, yet she had the strangest feeling Lavinia had contrived to get her out of the way. That cough was pretty unconvincing. But why? Why should an impecunious, weather-beaten olive grower want her out of the way?
So busy was she conjuring up a list of possibilities that Claudia was completely unprepared for the sight which greeted her when she flung wide Lavinia’s door. On the couch, their limbs naked and entwined, a dark-haired girl and a negro were worshipping Eros with uninhibited abandon.
‘Who the blazes are you?’ the man demanded, hauling up the sheet as they sprang apart.
‘The medicine,’ Claudia barked. ‘Where’s Lavinia’s medicine?’
‘Merciful Jehovah, is she all right?’ It was the girl who sprang off the bed and grabbed a small phial from the table.
‘How the hell do I know?’ Claudia snapped, whipping the draught from her hand and racing back to the sun porch where, surprise, surprise, Lavinia had stopped coughing.
Shall I fetch Kamar?’ she asked sweetly.
‘That useless fool!’ the old woman retorted. ‘Couldn’t tell a fracture from a freckle. No, no,’ she waved away the phial, ‘I’m all right.’
And Claudia thought, I bet you are.
‘Ah, Ruth! Lalo!’ Lavinia addressed the amorous couple. The negro, his skin still glistening from his aerobic endeavours, had pulled on a tunic of such rough quality it would have curled Pylades’ lip, while the girl was wearing a fringed skirt below a tight high bodice which revealed her ancestry as much as her midriff. ‘You three have met, then?’ Lavinia asked, her blue eyes shining with mischief.
The Judaean girl ignored her mistress to put her hand on Lavinia’s forehead, then studied the whites of her eyes. ‘You’ve been drinking again,’ she said. ‘You know what happens when you mix your drugs with the wine.’
‘Never touched a drop,’ Lavinia said, pulling the coverlet over the wineskin, then turned to Lalo and said, ‘For heaven’s sake, stop fussing.’
‘I’m not fussing,’ the field hand said, scooping her into his arms, and Claudia noticed that his knuckles were bleeding and raw, as though he’d been in a fight. ‘Merely taking precautions, and it’s bed for you, my lady.’
Leaving Ruth to wheel out her day couch, Lavinia clasped her wizened hands round the outworker’s neck and shot Claudia a vulgar wink before the trio disappeared.
Claudia rested her elbows on the gold-painted rail and gazed out over the water as she wondered again what the old woman was concealing. Had someone appeared in the doorway? Overheard the discussion about Cal? Or was Claudia’s overworked imagination running away with itself? Other islands were popping up now, smaller, rockier outcrops close to the north shore of the lake. The flame on Tuder’s island, she noticed, had been extinguished. A heron stalked the shallows for tadpoles and eels, and an osprey scooped a fish in its talons.
About twenty strokes out, a lone rowboat cleaved a path through the opalescent water, leaving ripples which reflected the misty mauve of the dawn. Claudia frowned. That boat. Where had she seen it before? As though her head was befuddled by a heavy cold, she couldn’t seem to think straight.
Then it came to her.
Yesterday. It was the boat she had taken out to the island.
His hair still hung like drapes from that same central parting, and in the clarity of Aurora’s rosy rays, his muscles showed stark and rounded as he hauled on the oars.
Then the movement stopped abruptly, and Claudia knew then that he’d been aware of her presence all along. For maybe thirty seconds he sat motionless before pushing the oars once more through the water, and in the pellucid light she saw a flash of white which could have been a smile, or then again might have been nothing more than a grimace of exertion.
I’m tired, she thought. Weary. I need to lie down. But she made no move to leave, and the V of the grey rowboat’s wake grew fainter and fainter.
Fifty feet below this spot, Cal’s twisted body had lain for how long before somebody noticed? An hour? Three? A stone dropped in Claudia’s stomach. Suppose he’d been trying to attract her attention? To warn her, say, about the bear? Might the accident have been avoided, had she stayed with him, or would he still have been tempted to leap on to the rail to show off?
A frown puckered her brow. Surely if Cal had been treating this as a tightrope, he’d have wanted an audience…? Wait!
The tiredness evaporated as Claudia grabbed the torch and, running now, retraced yesterday’s route. The secret doorway… Through the cave… Down the tunnel… Her bare feet crunched on the shingle as she sprinted to the spot where Cal’s body had lain. Now she knew what was so odd about it.
Cal had not died here.
With daylight supplementing the light from her torch, her suspicions were confirmed. There was no trace of blood on the stones. Of course not. The body had been brought here and arranged as though it had fallen, although the limbs had been rather too artistically placed for her liking. Someone had killed him by snapping his neck, and as an afterthought tried to make it look like an accident by smashing the bones of his face.
Someone who knew the only person they had to fool was a doctor used to corns, rather than tumours. Someone familiar enough with Kamar to know he was too bone-idle to examine a corpse once life was extinct…
Slowly this time, scouring the ground with her eyes, Claudia returned to the mouth of the tunnel and tears stung in her eyes. Cal had waited here, just as he promised, and she didn’t need to bend down to see that the rusty brown patch which discoloured the rock was his blood.
‘Damn you!’ She hurled the burning brand into the lake and heard the flame sizzle as it died. ‘Damn you, you murdering son-of-a-bitch!’
She didn’t know who had killed Cal, she didn’t know why, and what’s more, she didn’t give a toss fo
r the reason.
All Claudia knew, so help her, was that she’d unearth the bastard who murdered this boy and, by the gods, she’d make him pay for his crime.
VIII
As dawn broke across the seven hills of Rome, its residents braced themselves for revelations of an altogether different kind. Are those spots, or just a bruise where she fell over? Are you off your food from fever, or was it curdled milk which made you queer? In every household, from the richest to the squalid, families lined up to inspect one another for the symptoms of the plague, because with seventy more souls ferried over the Styx every day, they needed reassurance they weren’t going to be on the next boat.
For Marcus Cornelius Orbilio, trudging down from the Capitol, he was simply too bone weary to care. His eyelids, he was sure, could double as scouring pads, every muscle he owned cried out for rest. Forty-two hours had passed since his last proper sleep, his stubble itched and the soles of his feet felt like they’d been beaten with paddles. He needed a drink. He knew that he shouldn’t, that his brain and digestion were shot all to hell, but Mother of Tarquin, what he wouldn’t give for a drink!
In the shadow of the Temple of Concord, he glanced across to the Imperial Palace and cursed his boss under his breath. Bastard. Simply because Orbilio had dined with a select group of senators, two of them personal friends of the Emperor, and his superior officer hadn’t been invited! Never mind these were Orbilio’s relatives, that he had no say in who was or wasn’t asked. In his boss’s eyes this was a snub, a sharp reminder that, in class terms, the Head of the Security Police ranked lower than his patrician employee and thus, to keep the upstart in his place, he’d hauled Marcus Cornelius away from the murder he was investigating and assigned him instead to round-the-clock guard duty outside the Imperial Palace.
