by Marilyn Todd
He chewed his lower lip in thought. There’s no way, reading it, she could have failed to comprehend its sensational impact, unless—of course! Tullus slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand. Silly arse! She’d been paid to steal the bloody thing, it was obvious. He saw it now. Someone had paid Claudia Seferius to break in and steal his nephew’s letter. Taking Tullus’ money had been no more than a diversion tactic. No wonder she couldn’t be found. Whoever was masterminding the theft was hiding her as well—ha!
His step lightened considerably, despite the steep incline.
Wasn’t that a weight off his mind! Surprising, really, his nephew hadn’t seen it all along. Well, well, well. What a pleasant prospect, putting one over on that cold little reptile, telling him that, furthermore, family or not, he’d have no further involvement in the matter, it was up to the boy from now on to find out who had known the incriminating document was in his possession. Let the little sod work backwards from there.
Wonderful. Tullus was off the hook, the problem was back where it belonged. His loins stirred. How long had it been since he’d pleasured his wife? Well, there was no reason now why he couldn’t set off for Frascati first thing in the morning.
Down a quiet backstreet lined with six-storey tenement blocks, Tullus felt a chill run down his spine. Ridiculous. This is a respectable neighbourhood. But all the same he turned around to check. It was the height of the buildings, of course, casting the narrow street into shadow and blocking out the clamour of the workmen and builders back down the hill. Everything was normal. A group of small children, one rolling a hoop, two playing piggyback, scampered down the street. An old man with badly bowed legs led a donkey towards a stable, and a foreigner, a fat Edessan from Mesopotamia judging by the turban, peered at windows and doorways as he sought a particular address. Tullus was ashamed of his imaginings. All because someone mentioned that the man who designed his strongroom had been found dead in some back alley with his throat cut! Hell, with the army stretched to breaking point as it sorted out clogged roads, choked drains and arranged mass burials out of town, crime—especially robbery—was rife at the moment. Tullus was not unduly worried. He had his dagger at the ready. No thieving scumbag would take his purse off him.
Before turning the corner, he still felt it prudent to glance back down the hill. No cut-throats lurking in doorways. No shaven-headed gangs. No sneak thieves darting from balcony to balcony with bulging sacks. Much to the delight of the mimicking children, the Edessan’s turban wobbled from side to side as he sought directions from an uncomprehending Celt in pantaloons. From the top storey of the adjacent building, a young woman’s voice rang out in pure soprano. A yellow mongrel cocked its leg against a doorway, and lunchtime cooking smells of pork and sausages and fresh-baked bread filtered through the torrid heat. Tullus smiled as the Celt shrugged off down the street leaving the exasperated Edessan to adjust his blue hat, and up on the roof, two cats howled at stand-off.
Even the plague, thought Tullus, trudging up the winding alleyway, cannot dim the spirit of humankind. When the contagion first hit the city we couldn’t eat, we couldn’t sleep, we lay in our beds at night, wondering who’d be next, would it be me? We watched our neighbours die, we lost a friend, perhaps a relative, yet we ourselves were spared. And as time passed, we learned to cope with this cloud of uncertainty until one day, before we know it, we find ourselves singing again! Humming marching tunes instead of dirges, and when we gaze upwards at the unforgiving sky we no longer pray ‘spare me, mighty Jupiter, spare me from the plague’. We find ourselves listening to songbirds—the finches, nightingales and warblers—and realize it is not death itself we fear, but an erosion of our spirit. Man is born to survive, and fear of fear is more crushing than any—
‘Excuse me?’
Instinctively Tullus’ hand flew to his dagger, but when he turned it was to look into the baffled face of the flabby Edessan.
‘I am looking for a coppersmith who goes by name of Mita. He is kinsman of me, and I am wondering whether you are knowing where he lives?’
‘Of course.’ Tullus had had many dealings with the wily Mesopotamian. ‘You’ll find his premises in the next street, just—’ he turned and pointed ‘—down there.’
The punch to his chest knocked the breath from his lungs. He wanted to yell, ‘stop, thief,’ but he couldn’t catch his breath, and in any case the Edessan was still standing in front of him, his face frowning with deep concern.
‘Help…me,’ he rasped. ‘Help…’
Mighty Mars, his heart was giving out! His arms were wood. He couldn’t lift them. Then he looked down.
And saw the knife embedded to the hilt.
‘What…’
The turban was gone. The smile was gone. The stranger pushed still harder on his dagger, grunting with the exertion. Tullus was confused. This was a joke, right? A practical joke. It had to be, because there was no pain—
Janus, Croesus, yes there was!
As the blade came out, it hit him like a thunderbolt, screaming through his bowels, shooting white-hot sparks of agony into every bone and muscle. His head caught fire, there was a drumming in his ears, as though several wagons passed across a wooden bridge at once, and for a moment he thought someone whispered ‘No witnesses,’ but that made no sense. No sense at all.
As he dropped to his knees, his bronze purse clattered to the cobbles, spilling copper, bronze and silver everywhere. No hand picked them up.
‘Why…?’ he gasped, but when he looked round, Tullus was alone in the alley with only a faint smell of cardamoms and a blue turban, which rolled like a drunk in the gutter.
Doubling up, Tullus clawed at his chest.
His breath wouldn’t come, and as he keeled over on to the cobbles, he saw the sky go dark. Rain, he thought. Rain at long last. And he knew it was true, because liquid trickled over the hands clasped to his chest.
As the sky closed in, black as night, Tullus remembered his secretary was waiting for him at home. With quill and ink at the ready, to write a letter to send to his wife.
What the hell was it he wanted to say? He had to tell her… Tell her what? Oh yes.
That he’d not be in Frascati by Tuesday after all.
XXVI
‘What’s in the sack?’
The soldier leaned across and was about to swoop the package from Claudia’s hands when Cyrus intervened.
‘That’s all right, lad,’ he jerked his head in dismissal, ‘you can leave this to me.’ He waited until the legionary had closed the door behind him, then said, ‘This is highly irregular, I’ll have you know.’
‘And don’t think I don’t appreciate the fact,’ Claudia replied, removing a large, stoppered jug from her bag. ‘Absinthe,’ she whispered. ‘Purloined from Pylades’ supply.’
The tribune chuckled. ‘I’m not sure whether that’s another crime or not,’ he laughed, removing the cork and sniffing, ‘to add to your tally, but I’m partial to a drop of absinthe.’
Oh, I know your little weakness, Claudia said silently. Pylades told me all about it when we visited the barracks earlier.
It had been shortly after Tarraco had been led away in irons, his obscenities and expletives showing a wider range to his Latin vocabulary than might have been expected, when Claudia had approached Atlantis’ architect and founder as the group was breaking up.
‘I’m sorry about that incident back there,’ she said. ‘It was good of you to bail me out.’
‘Nonsense,’ the stocky Laconian beamed, ‘I was happy to put the situation right—though just between you and me, you’re not the only girl to have fallen for his smarm.’ He glanced across to where Lais was being heaved on to a stretcher.
‘I thought I understood him,’ Claudia said, with a sad shake of her head. ‘That’s why I…you know, made a fool of myself. Now the tribune has me pinned as a madwoman.’ She gave a self-conscious laugh. ‘I hardly know which is worse. Being thought a strumpet or a lunatic.’ Pylades patted Claud
ia’s hand. ‘No one here believes that you’re either.’ He laughed. ‘Now, let’s put the horror of the day behind us with you accompanying me to my personal quarters, where we can take a little refreshment, listen to a spot of music—’
‘Pylades—’ Claudia coiled a ringlet around her little finger and smiled a cute little-girl smile ‘—Pylades, would you put in a good word about me to the tribune? Explain that bit of nonsense just now…?’
‘My dear.’ He offered her his elbow and turned towards the flight of steps, ‘nothing would please me more—’
‘Excellent’ Claudia took the proffered arm and spun him round. ‘We shouldn’t be too far behind him.’
‘What? You mean, now?’
‘I knew you’d understand,’ she said, tossing back the mop of curls. ‘The sooner we get this clarified, the better. Just bear with me while I slip some ribbons in my hair, and on the way you can tell me all about your plans for extending Atlantis.’ Plus everything you know about Lais, the tribune’s peccadilloes, how far Pul’s influence extends, plus…plus…plus…!
If Cyrus had been surprised to see them turn up at the garrison, he masked it well, and with Pylades patting Claudia’s lovely hand as he glossed over the misunderstanding, the tribune even seemed to find it rather funny. In fact, he barely minded when, in a fit of clumsiness, the lovely widow accidentally overturned his desk. The shame of being here, she mumbled. Of having to explain oneself after such public humiliation—
Finally, with all sides parting company in good humour (he even went so far as to kiss her hand himself), how could Cyrus not mind bestowing one more favour?
It concerned a harebell gown, she said, fluttering her lashes as, in a hushed whisper, she confessed at being duped by Tarraco’s slick charm. The gown had actually been Lais’, she added. Imagine that! Well, now she’d like her revenge…
And an hour later, she was back.
This time without Pylades, just absinthe from his personal supply.
‘Hooo,’ Cyrus said, making a fanning motion with his podgy hand. ‘Powerful stuff.’ Carefully he replaced the stopper. ‘Now I apologize if what follows implies a lack of trust, but you must appreciate the prisoner is facing a capital offence, I cannot afford to take chances.’
‘You’re asking if you can search the sack and the answer is I should jolly well hope you would,’ Claudia began, but the tribune held up an embarrassed hand.
‘The bag, yes, but I, um, well, it’s like this.’ He didn’t need to elaborate. An amazon with a face like a boot appeared in the doorway, and for five minutes Claudia was subjected to a punishing search before Granitepuss finally called out to Cyrus that the visitor had no keys or weapons on her person, indeed nothing that could endanger the safe custody of the prisoner. By the way, she’d searched the sack as well, but, she shouted, there was only one silver bell inside (no clapper) plus one dead rabbit.
‘Hare,’ Claudia corrected. ‘The animal is a hare, and it is revenge for a dress.’
‘I don’t care what it is, it stinks,’ Bootface said, wiping her hands down the side of her tunic. ‘The jailhouse is over there.’
The legionary assigned to escort her seemed more concerned with the probability of rain by morning than an impending murder trial, and as he chuntered on, again Claudia was struck by how quiet the garrison was for such an up-and-coming town. Typical of barracks anywhere, the buildings consisted of four blocks built around a central rectangular yard, yet they seemed eerily empty. No soldiers drilling. No barked orders. No hobnail boots clattering over the cobbles. Merely a coil of black smoke from the smithy and the thwack of meat being chopped on a block.
‘What? Oh, Cyrus keeps us out on foot patrol, mostly. Making the roads safe to travel, and all that. After all—’ the soldier pulled a face ‘—there’s sod all else to do around here, pardon my Phrygian.’
Behind the stable yard, a small stone-built structure with iron bars at the small and solitary window sat forlornly on its own, allowing every angle to be covered, because whilst cells acted as storage space, rather than as places of punishment, it wasn’t to say the occupants were content to remain incarcerated and bandits tend to have friends. Still, it was a hell of a sight better than Rome’s dank, dingy holes that adjoined the Great Sewer.
‘I’ll have to lock you in,’ the legionary mumbled apologetically. ‘But if there’s any trouble, Miss, just holler—I’ll be right outside this door.’
‘Thank you, officer, I’ll bear that in mind,’ she said, as the heavy wooden door swung open on hinges so well oiled, it showed even the maintenance men were desperate for tasks.
Tarraco was leaning against the far wall, supporting his weight on his forearm and despite the burst of light which invaded the isolated, darkened cell, he continued to stare at the low stone ceiling, his jaw tilted upwards in either arrogance or defiance, or both.
‘You have a visitor, my son,’ the soldier boomed. ‘Make the most of it, ’cos you won’t be having many more.’
Long after the key clanked hollow in the lock, long after Claudia had acclimatized to the gloom, the rough wooden pallet, the hole in the floor which served as a latrine, Tarraco moved not a single muscle and it was left to Claudia to break the silence.
‘Nice duds,’ she said, indicating the coarse peasant tunic he’d been given. ‘But I see it didn’t match my scarlet ribbon. You’ve thrown that away.’
‘Confiscated,’ he growled. ‘In case I use it to tie round iron bar and strangle myself. Me! Tarraco! They think I take coward’s way out?’ There was a pause, before he gave a gruff laugh. ‘Did I not tell you everything would be decided between us?’
‘I shouldn’t boast about second sight, if I were you,’ Claudia replied, prodding the lumpy mattress. ‘Had I been in your shoes and seen into the future, I’d have been in Ancona by now, heading for Dalmatia.’
‘Second sight is not seeing the future, it is feeling. Understanding.’ He half turned towards her, but his eyes remained on the ceiling. ‘I did not expect this.’
I’m sure.
‘You know, is strange,’ he said quietly. ‘When you think me single and rich, when I save you from being killed by a bear, you do not wish to know. Instead, when I butcher two wives to get my hands on their fortunes—’
‘There’s nothing quite like a confession of brutality to lift the heart.’
‘You expect me to plead? On my knees, swear I did not murder Lais? Whatever I say, Claudia, I will die and what’s more, that fat slug of a tribune will devise some slow and painful execution, he hates my guts.’
‘Don’t you rather think you might have underestimated us Romans, Tarraco? Silly things, we will insist on fripperies. Like a trial, for instance.’
‘Where you find judges, lawyers, jurists here, eh? This afternoon the tribune and your tall friend, Marcus, they go out to my island—they say, to look for evidence.’ He hissed in his breath. ‘I say to plant it.’
‘So what’s your defence?’ Claudia asked, tipping out the dead hare and the bell. ‘Still sticking to the theory that someone rowed out purposely to strangle Lais, are we?’
‘That is not what I said.’ Tarraco slammed his fist into the stonework. ‘Why do you always belittle me?’
Blood oozed down his knuckles to drip-drip-drip on the tamped earth floor. Outside a flycatcher trilled.
Claudia wrapped her fingers around the iron bars of the slot which called itself a window and heard the blood hammer in her ears. With his back against the stable block and his arms folded over his chest, the soldier drew pictures in the dust with his toe. Smells from an unappetizing stew filtered across from the kitchens. The clouds from the west had moved over to cover the sky. They were low and grey, and trapped the stifling heat.
Which surely explained why she could not breathe?
‘Even you, you cannot resist coming to gloat.’ She heard him swear under his breath. ‘You bring me a smelly bunny and think, ha, ha, that is so funny.’
Claudia counted s
ilently to ten. ‘I do not think murder is funny, Tarraco. In fact, I’m not amused at all.’
From the stables, a horse whinnied softly, and raucous laughter drifted down from the lookout tower as the shift changed over.
Tuder’s dead, Virginia’s dead, Lais is dead but most of all, my arrogant young stud, Cal, is dead. In the pit of her stomach, something primeval slithered.
Holy Venus, it’s not too late to stop. Pick up the hare and bell, walk away. Justice is for others to administer, not you. Call the guard. Walk away. Then she heard an echo of a young man’s laugh. Saw again his beech-leaf eyes, caught a whiff of mint and alecost. And Claudia knew then that she could not—would not—walk away.
‘So then.’ Taking one last, lingering glance at the bored legionary, she composed herself and turned to Tarraco. You really have no option—’ with her toe, she indicated the items that she’d brought ‘—other than to be a good boy for Mummy and play with your toys.’
XXVII
‘A key?’ Even Tarraco could not disguise the amazement on his face. ‘How did you get hold of a key?’
‘Sssh.’ The soldier’s head had jerked up at the change in voice tone. Claudia waited for his interest to dwindle, and while she did so, patted herself on the back. She’d fooled the tribune, she’d fooled the amazon, she almost fooled the Spaniard…for who would suspect this mad March boxer, glassy-eyed, with drips of blackened blood around the nostrils, had previously been gutted, filled and sewn back up again?
