by Marilyn Todd
‘I’m sure it would,’ Lavinia said dryly, and a wizened claw lashed out to move an onyx soldier from the sidelines on the chequerboard. Instantly the draw was transformed to an out-and-out rout. ‘But I repeat. I don’t see what this has to do with me.’
‘Don’t you.’ It was not a question—the old woman knew full well. One glance at the chequerboard showed that. Claudia thought of the medicine Lavinia had just swallowed, and knew time was running out. Especially for playing convoluted mind games. Nevertheless— ‘So there was no ulterior motive behind your repeating all that gossip?’ And in such technicolour detail, too.
‘Motive?’
All right. Let’s play this little charade, if that’s what makes you happy. ‘So much scandal.’ Claudia shifted position on the couch and crossed one leg over the other. ‘Adultery, crooked business deals, character assassinations—Atlantis is dripping from the gutterspouts with social sabotage and political intrigue, yet you choose to tell me stories about people who have died in seemingly natural circumstances.’
Wrinkled eyelids closed, and for one heart-stopping second, Claudia thought the draught had kicked in, but no. Lavinia let out a loud sigh and laced her fingers together. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘I did set you off on a paperchase, and I’m jolly glad I did. What else could an old cripple do?’
Of course, Claudia told herself, she hadn’t really doubted the paralysis. Or suspected the old bird of fabricating an attempt on her life in order to gain a bit of attention. Had she?
‘Until you showed up,’ Lavinia was saying, ‘there was no one in whom I dared confide my suspicions—especially not that sourpuss physician. Half of them were his patients.’ Tears welled up in her eyes. ‘It was the boy, you see,’ she said quietly, ‘the orphan who died in the hunting accident, and whose cousin so fortuitously inherited. Things like that must not happen again.’ Then she cleared her throat, and when she spoke, there was a distinct edge to her tone. ‘But I didn’t expect you to drag my son into this. Anyone would think you’re suggesting he was part of the conspiracy, trying to bump off his old mother to get his hands ort her olive grove.’
For Claudia, patience was more a sideline than a strong point, but she was prepared to invest it in this and since Lavinia’s wits hadn’t dimmed with the medicine, Claudia knew that to rush it would not be the answer. She would need to be reeled in carefully, especially when the foundations of her whole life were about to wobble. Were Ruth or Lalo in on it, too? The ugly sisters? Claudia sniffed at the phial and was about to launch into a complicated dissertation on herbal poisons, when she realized the contents were far from medicinal. No wonder Lavinia hadn’t fallen asleep.
Dammit, the harpy was cackling. ‘Don’t tell Fab and Sab,’ she said. ‘It’s the only way I can sneak wine past them these days.’
So much for hard evidence. Shit!
‘You’re wrong, you know,’ Lavinia said, pulling on her wig, ‘about my son. He means his old mother no harm.’
‘You’re biased—’
‘Lavinia can prove it.’ Carefully she tucked her white frizz under the pile of immaculate curls. ‘Open that box, the one with the elephant carved on the top. That’s the one. Now take out the blue phial and sniff it. You can even,’ she let out an evil chuckle, ‘drink it, if you like.’ Medicinal smells exploded into Claudia’s airways, but one stood out clear above the rest. She sniffed again to make sure—but yes. Loud and clear came out balsam, gentian, peppermint and—goddammit…
‘Hemlock?’ In the distant recess of her mind she heard two fat women chanting.
‘She wouldn’t take her medicine, you know.’ ‘Wouldn’t. Not a drop.’ Holy Mother of Mars, had Lavinia drunk it, she’d be dead already.
‘I’m fully aware of what it is,’ Lavinia said slowly. ‘Kamar brings me a gallon of the frightful mixture every single morning, but,’ she pierced Claudia with her scimitar blue eyes, ‘even if I downed the lot, it wouldn’t kill me. Just make me very woozy.’ The wizened claw now wrapped itself round Claudia’s wrist and gave it a motherly shake. ‘You’re young,’ she said, ‘and Lavinia’s not just old, she’s a country woman, who happens to know more than a thing or two about hemlock. Have you, for instance, ever seen me retching? Vomiting? Complaining of stomach cramps?’
‘No-o,’ Claudia said, trying to hide the gloat in her voice. ‘But I’ve witnessed first hand some of the other side effects. Take those occasions when you’ve been rendered unable to speak, for instance. How do you account for those, eh?’
That first night on the sun porch, when Lavinia had gone all stiff, eyes bulging, throat too tight to speak…if that wasn’t classic hemlock poisoning, what was? Looking back, Claudia realized Lavinia hadn’t been concerned with someone moving in the shadows. She’d been in the early throes of an attack. Dammit, the same thing happened on the grandstand during the run-up to the foot race. No more, though! Lavinia was safe from now on. No more hemlock, no more poison, goodbye Fab and Sab. They had to be in on it, Claudia thought. But then again, those two were so bound up with themselves, maybe not. Lavinia’s son probably used them as cover.
‘And,’ she pressed relentlessly, ‘have you ever asked yourself why Kamar should prescribe hemlock in the first place?’
‘Mercy, child, I can see you’re not going to let me go without a fight.’ The old woman laughed. ‘Lavinia’s going to have to own up.’
‘Own up?’ Claudia’s speculations reeled themselves back with a jolt.
‘Claudia, the reason Kamar brings me hemlock every day is because I’m dying.’
A burning pain shot through Claudia’s gut.
‘Tch, stop that.’ The old woman sliced the air with her hand to brook any sympathy and clucked her tongue again. ‘In very small doses, hemlock can relieve pain, you know. Acts as a kind of anaesthetic. But time is precious to me, you can understand that, I know you can. The same as you can appreciate that Lavinia doesn’t want to spend her last days—yes, child, we’re talking days—I don’t want to lose these precious moments in a woozy haze. I want to see and taste and touch everything around me to the very end. That’s why my son mortgaged the grove to the hilt. To send me here for a holiday. That ship sinking off Alexandria fetched him to his senses and for the first time in her life, Lavinia’s confident he’ll settle with our little patch of olives and find contentment there.’
Claudia could not speak. There was a trapdoor across her throat and a mountain in her lungs. No, not a mountain. A volcano. Desperate to erupt.
‘Lavinia—’
‘That,’ the old woman said purposefully, ‘is why I won’t drink that wretched medicine. Since they found that tumour inside me, large as a fist and hard as lead, well…since then, I put myself into a trance whenever I feel the pain coming on. It’s a trick I picked up nearly fifty years ago, and it’s served me well ever since. Now, stop that grizzling, girl, I’m not dead yet. There’ll be time enough for sorrow, then, if that’s what takes your fancy.’
Claudia gulped back her sobs. Lavinia was right. If her estimation of the timescale was correct, better she lapped up every moment.
‘H-how long have you known?’ she asked. A quernstone seemed to have settled in her stomach.
‘Long enough for the pain to have aged me ten years,’ Lavinia replied. ‘But if I don’t make my sixty-fifth birthday, so what? Can you think of a more idyllic way to end my days, and if I have no regrets,’ she reached for another wine-filled phial, ‘neither should you.’ She gulped the contents down in one go. ‘But like I said, Lavinia’s not dead yet. In fact, she’s relishing her role in rooting out these murders. So then.’ She smacked her wrinkled lips. ‘Without any hard evidence from me, where does that leave the investigation?’
‘Grounded,’ Claudia snapped. Completely and utterly grounded.
Tarraco, goddammit, was going to get away with it.
XXXI
The electric storm trapped by the Etruscan hills which surrounded Lake Plasimene had little impact down in Ro
me other than to compress the clouds low on to the rooftops and tickle the tiles of the Imperial Palace. As more lamps were lit to counteract the blackening sky, the wife of the Emperor picked up a silver hand mirror and patted her hair in place. Greying only at the temples, she was still a handsome woman and she knew it. Straight of back, sharp of eye…and sharper still of mind. For a quarter of a century she had been married to Augustus and for a quarter of a century she had striven to bear him a child. She ran her tongue over her teeth. Neither of them was at fault—both had been parents in previous marriages, he with Julia, she with two sons, Tiberius and Drusus—therefore, by definition, this barren marriage must be the will of the gods. Livia breathed on the mirror, then cleared the mist with the heel of her hand. Surely, then, it followed that the gods were pushing Julia and Tiberius together?
Downstairs, the clop-clop-clop of legionaries’ boots on stairs and mosaic and marble was finally beginning to fade and in the flickering half-light, Livia allowed herself a hint of a smile. With the two most influential houses in the Empire joined in matrimony, Rome would soar to even greater heights, rise to grander challenges, take on the Dacian kings for control of the goldmines, annexe Arabia, Germany, why, then even the Orient would be ripe for the taking…
True, Julia was heavy with the dead Regent’s fourth child, but their firstborn, Gaius, was only eight, for gods’ sake, and the instant she’d received news of Agrippa’s death, Livia swung her considerable intellect into action, selling her son’s virtues to the pregnant widow in such a way that the silly cow was virtually begging Tiberius to divorce that bookish wife of his and marry her instead. Knowing her son would do anything to secure the future of the Empire, Livia had brusquely dismissed his protestations of love for his wife. Tiberius would come around eventually.
So then. That was settled. All it needed now was a quick stamp of approval from the Senate and the question of Regent (and heir) was assured.
Smoothing the rug which covered the trapdoor over the secret staircase in her spinning room, her imperial majesty’s wrath turned to the fool who imagined that, with that one scrap of paper, he could wield power over a man as mighty as Augustus. Did Tullus’ weasel-faced nephew seriously imagine that she, wife of said Emperor, would stand by and watch twenty years of peace and stability washed into the Tiber simply for that little shit’s personal profit?
Imbecile. Livia spat in disgust at his memory.
His mistake, of course, came in his claim to a blood link. Snobby little turd thought it gave him protection. As if. Still, all things considered, it was as well the nephew’s approach had come through her. The Emperor was a clever, often devious opponent, but his wife was downright ruthless. And unlike her husband, she had not softened with time. Like a cat at a mousehole, she watched and she waited and she waited and she watched, and it hadn’t taken long before she’d discovered where the nephew had stashed his precious piece of paper. From then on, it was simple. Twist the architect’s arm into co-operating with the plan. Steal the incriminating letter. Find a patsy to raid the depository at the same time Sabbio Tullus collected his silver. Then sit back and let Spaco the dwarf work his charms…
Neat, or what?
Livia opened a casket and delved beneath the ropes of pearls and necklaces dripping with emeralds and agates. She had hoped, naturally, the day would never dawn when this paper surfaced, or that by the time it did, it would be powerless to cause damage.
Which is not to say she hadn’t been prepared.
From the early days of her marriage, she had been aware of its existence—there were no secrets between herself and Augustus in those days—but as long as Marcus Vispanius Agrippa remained married to the emperor’s daughter, there was no problem. Until Agrippa died both unexpectedly and prematurely, throwing the Empire into confusion. With Augustus away in Greece at the time, there was no official inquest and a whole range of question marks flew up. Most of those the Emperor had calmed down, but the biggest question remained—who was eligible to take over?
To Livia, the answer was simple, and having ensured the circumstances were ripe for a union of the Emperor’s child with his well-respected stepson, and with the immortals smiling upon them, what could stand in their way?
Apart from one small piece of paper, yellowed and softened with age?
An order, issued over thirty years before, penned by Augustus himself?
How it had come into that weasel’s possession, Livia would never know and moreover she did not remotely care. Suffice that it was back where it belonged (not that Augustus was aware of it, of course) and with the mouth of every witness sealed, that little scrap of handwriting could inflict no further damage.
Livia’s hand faltered over the flame. For one brief second, she felt the weight of the parchment’s responsibility and her mind drifted back through the years.
Julius Caesar lay dead, slain by men he called his friends. In his will he appointed his adopted nephew, Augustus, as his heir, who quickly won the people over with his charm and generosity, paying out of his own funds the legacies the Divine Julius had bequeathed the city but which Mark Anthony, hard-nosed as ever, refused to release from the treasury. Most of all, however, the young Augustus won them over with the sheer power of his personality and his dynamic leadership, bringing them unimagined peace after three generations of civil war.
Deep inside, Livia felt a warm glow envelop her. Twenty years on and thirty-two years after the death of Julius Caesar, the people still adored him, the Senate backed him to the hilt, Augustus was a hero to one and all.
But Augustus was a man. And one day the man would die.
Born of patrician rather than imperial blood, Livia was the first to admit that her own son, however magnificently he had proved himself in the field, would not be the Senate’s first choice. And supposing a small piece of paper was handed in at the next session?
The original order, penned by the nineteen-year-old Augustus, issuing the death warrant of Caesar’s natural-born son.
It was murder, pure and simple, but civil war had been raging, tearing the country apart, and whilst no one at the time doubted the event occurred, fewer still had cared. Most simply accepted that Augustus had acted in the Empire’s interests, as much as his own.
However, times had changed. And at such a critical juncture in Rome’s future, that damning piece of evidence would be sufficient to discredit Augustus and for questions to be asked.
Questions such as…who is Caesar’s closest living relative?
Suddenly, instead of facing an academic debate in the Senate House, the field would be wide open, contenders trampled underfoot as they jockeyed for position, and this was the purpose towards which Tullus’ nephew had been working. He had his own candidate to propose. A weak man, a puppet to be manipulated, but a threat nonetheless.
Augustus would be safe—but only during the length of his lifetime. How long before the assassins’ knives flashed in the dark?
The nephew’s downfall, she reflected, came from his need to brag about the power that he held. The need to taunt her with the evidence, to make her fearful for the future. Imbecile.
With a slow spreading smile, Livia lowered the yellow paper to the flame and watched an ancient secret turn to smoke.
XXXII
The sky had turned to obsidian as Claudia sat with her knees drawn up to her chin, staring out across the lake to Tuder’s island.
Defeat stared defiantly back.
She was sitting with her back to the wall at the mouth of the tunnel, and high above, the babble of post-dinner conversation filtered down from the little domed loggia, broken by the occasional lewd chuckle or high-pitched fluting laughter. She could picture them. Halfway to rolling drunk and with slaves on hand to top up their goblets, senators making the most of this unofficial recess with casual affairs which would be frowned upon (nay, condemned) in normal times.
But these were far from normal times. In Rome, Plague marched in triumph through a city hammered to
its knees with the death of the Regent, and with its Emperor driven ragged over these twin crises. Who exercised restraint over absent senators and magistrates, legates and commissioners? Goosepimples raised themselves up on Claudia’s skin at this foretaste of what the Empire would be like without Augustus at the helm. Decadent, debased. Devalued. A thousand Tarracos would spring up across the provinces, flourishing in the void created by general locking horns with general, of senators vying for ascendancy. In their struggle for personal glory, the common man would be forgotten—except by pimps, racketeers and loansharks.
With the spectre of anarchy chilling her veins, Claudia glanced up the tunnel, towards the cistern which Mosul filled from the lake then doctored with chalk to palm off as holy water. It was from one of the apertures in this rock that Claudia had seen Cal’s body, red and twisted, lying on the shingle and it was here, at this very spot, that his blood still stained the stone. Even in the darkness, she could see it. Feel it. Hear it calling out to her…
Shit.
Knowing Atlantis held a sackful of secrets to its bosom, and buckling under the weight of her determination to unveil Cal’s killer, Claudia had sought refuge with the one man she imagined outside this wretched tangle—only to find he had been at its very core. And even then, the situation might not have been exacerbated, had Claudia not been hooked by Lavinia’s tales of mysterious deaths, recounted in such a clever and roundabout way as to first deny there was anything odd about the stories, yet stringing enough of them together to suggest the very opposite was true. Claudia buried her head in her hands. What was that old proverb about cats and curiosity?
If only she could find a way to snare the Spaniard. Bring him to justice…
‘Ruth,’ a husky voice commanded. ‘Ruth, we have to leave.’
Claudia’s head jerked up. Down by the jetty, two outlines shot into stark relief by a vivid streak of lightning, showing bright the yellow bodice and fringed skirt of Lavinia’s young Jewish servant. Her midriff glistened in the cloying humidity of the electric storm, as the tears ran down her cheeks. Claudia rose to her feet and, fully aware of the irony about cats and curiosity, moved closer to the couple, her presence concealed by an alder trunk.
