Wolf Whistle

by Marilyn Todd

  IX

  In a smoke-filled kitchen on the Caelian, a small boy clung to the broad hips of the girl from Thessaly and sobbed convulsively. Servants milled around him, and it wasn’t that they were indifferent to his plight—they slipped him pomegranates and dates, and Hylas the carpenter even carved him a small wooden horse—but right now they were in a rush to provide for the deluge of womenfolk who, having returned from the ceremony on the Palatine, were looking forward to a good hot lunch, having changed their clothes, unpacked their belongings and then swapped sleeping accommodation, because no way would Julia share with Aemelia, which meant Fortunata had to sleep with Eppia, but what about Fannia, because everyone knows she snores.

  Larentia, scrawny and shrewd, revelled in these wranglings—what better cover for a good poke round? Only her son’s bedroom appeared locked and that, the steward informed her, had been so since the day Master Gaius had died and the mistress had retained the key. Slightly unsettled but not quite sure why, the old woman moved on to inspect the gold and silver plate using an inventory she’d drawn up from memory, because she’d never actually lived under this roof. Gaius had bought the property during the early days of his prosperity, and because his eldest son, her grandson, had been too young to take over the Etruscan estate, Larentia had acted as chatelaine, a position she enjoyed even after the boy had taken a wife. But there was nothing wrong with her memory.

  ‘Buggery, sodomy and fuck.’ She banged down the lid of the chest. Not only were the pieces on her mental list present and correct, it would appear the bitch was adding to them. Three silver platters as wide as a man’s reach, and a gold fluted bowl with swing handles. ‘Damn-bloody-nation to hell.’

  ‘…so I said to the mercer, either they all have red piping or none of them do…’

  The shrill voice of Larentia’s sister penetrated the walls, and that was another reason she chose to live in Etruria. Foolish women! She had no time for idleness, all her life she’d worked for what she got—her husband had been a builder of roads, for gods’ sake—and yet these stupid cattle twitter on about jewellery, clothes and the hairdresser. Ach! Dragging her daughter, Julia, away from her unpacking, Larentia led the way to Claudia’s office. Occasionally, and today was one of those times, she fell prone to pondering how she’d produced such a dull, plain duckling and why, later, the child did not do what others had so often obligingly done and turned into a swan. Julia had grown up a goose.

  ‘Read the ledgers,’ she instructed curtly, for her illiteracy remained a constant thorn in her side, even among her own family.

  Julia was at once grateful, delighted and flattered and thumbed through the tablets and scrolls, calling out the figures for her mother to digest, her hooded eyes fair closed with excitement at the prospect of bringing down her sister-in-law. She had not forgotten the night, in this very house, when her own husband had made his advances. True, he’d come back from the encounter with a squashed and bleeding nose, but the insult had still stung. Her husband lusted after the bitch.

  Literate Julia might be, though. Numerate she was not. ‘Well, Mother, what’s the verdict?’

  ‘It would appear,’ said Larentia slowly, ‘that the accounts are not only in apple-pie order, Gaius’ business is thriving.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Precisely.’

  ‘Have you checked out her debts with the bankers and moneylenders?’

  Larentia kicked the tripod brazier which was counteracting the dampness in the room and her mouth soured. ‘What debts?’

  ‘Shit!’

  ‘Precisely!’

  They took a long, lingering look at the intricate ivories on the shelf, especially that exquisite figure with a fawn round his shoulders and a peacock by his side, before moving into the dining room, where the life-size bronze of Venus served only to depress them further. The table was piled high with swordfish and salmon, peafowl and venison and at least five types of cheese—and was surrounded by a gaggle of excitable hens.

  ‘…she gave me a beautiful little cameo for my birthday, I’ll show it to you later…’

  ‘…my dear, I have it on the highest authority, this year’s colour will definitely be coral…’

  ‘Fannia, have you just eaten that whole tray of quails eggs?’

  The servers, to-ing and fro-ing with yet more silver platters, were truthfully able to report to Verres the cook that the gourmet dishes he’d prepared were much appreciated, especially the fricassee of antelope, although his peppered flamingo tongues were going down a treat.

  And all the time, Jovi continued to hack. ‘Why don’t she come, Passi?’

  Cypassis, having no answer, stroked his wracked shoulders and cooed into his hair. Even a five-year-old knew that, by now, there wasn’t one square inch of Rome that had not been covered in an attempt to reunite him with his mother. Messages had been posted, criers were calling, and in the warrens where Jovi lived, word travels fast. Tight-lipped, Cypassis unhooked the balled fists from her tunic and led him away to the corner where the oil jars were stored. Two dark ovals stood stark on her sky-blue cotton tunic, their wetness cold through her undershift.

  ‘Passi, have I been naughty? Am I being punished?’

  She fell down and hugged his hiccupping shoulders. ‘No, Jovi, of course not.’ She could feel him gulping against the lushness of her hair and her bones dissolved with pity. ‘You’re a good boy.’

  Verres the cook, passing, rumpled the little lad’s mop and offered to show him how you bone a hare then stuff it with truffles and oysters, if he liked? The head embedded itself deeper into Cypassis’ neck.

  Steam spiralled from bubbling saucepans. The cauldron which hung over the fire gurgled contentedly, and fat from the goat on the spit hissed as it dripped on the charcoal. A kitchen maid strained carrots in a giant iron ladle, then dipped bream into white wine and parsley, wrapped them in cabbage leaves and laid them on the hearth. A shanty started up, and before long the whole kitchen was alive to the rhythm, voices joining in whether they knew the words or not. Cypassis patted his convulsions to the beat as almonds were ground in a mortar and smoked sausages were cut down and fried. And she thought what a contented, happy scene it was, were it not for Jovi.

  As another tune took over, she considered his mother’s options. Too ill to claim her child, would she not send someone in her place? Cypassis could not understand abandoning a five-year-old to strangers and confusion. Who’d do such a thing? Tears streamed down her cheeks and filled her dimples right until the moment Verres the cook caught his finger on the gridiron and swore, with great fluency, in at least seven different languages.

  Even Jovi laughed.

  *

  Up in his attic, the man who called himself Magic had his head bent low over the page. The light from his smoky tallow picked out patchwork walls blistering in the damp, cobwebs trailing from the ceiling and the remnants of a meal which had long since congealed. Six storeys below a dispute over a right of way was turning acrimonious, but for him, such things were trivia. A weight had been lifted from his heart, there was no time to lose. He smoothed out a clean sheet of parchment and flipped open the inkwell.

  ‘my beloved soon shall we be free—’

  He’d been so stupid! It was as clear as the waters from an Umbrian spring what had been happening. Other People were keeping Claudia from her beloved Magic. His fingers curled into claws. It was his fault. He should have realized sooner. All those letters he had sent without a solitary word by return—it was obvious. Her letters had been intercepted. The knuckles on his hand grew white. Now he knew Other People were between them, it was easy.

  ‘true love will always conquer,’ he wrote, and the candle guttered when he laughed. Theirs was a love which would last for all eternity. Other People could not keep them apart. He wrote that down as well.

  ‘other people can not keep us apart.’

  Magic laughed again, and had there been fresh eggs in the room they would have curdled. He could not be sure, o
f course, that Claudia now received his letters, not when Other People interfered. He’d have to send her something else. What? He chewed his bottom lip for inspiration. What would scream his feelings for her, let her know she had not been abandoned.

  ‘i have not abandoned you.’ Write that down as well. Cobs of sweat broke out on Magic’s forehead. Somewhere, hundreds of letters, written in her own sweet hand, lay mouldering in a box. ‘i will find them,’ oh, yes he would, and then he could take down all those poor, unhappy copies from his wall and nail up the genuine love-filled articles. All of them.

  Well, now he knew his letters were being read by Other People, they ought to know who they were dealing with. Yessir, they ought.

  ‘when you my darling love slave press your rosy nipples to my lips and plead with me to whip and beat you—’

  He felt a jolting in his loins, and the nib flew across the page as he envisaged all that he would do. He described the taste of blood, the pain, the pure, exquisite torture… He had nearly filled the page before he remembered his mission.

  ‘and when we fly to heaven sated and complete then other people will not need to die.’

  Would they understand, he wondered? Yes, of course they would. They were clever people, these stealers of letters. Almost as clever as Magic was himself.

  X

  The door at which Claudia rapped was about as impersonal as a door can be. Hinges iron, studs without rust, timber durable, common, and because holm-oak rots down slowly, there were no clues as to the age of the door—a criterion which applied equally to the servant who opened it. Stolid and dough-faced with a nose like an anchor stone, the woman could have been any age from fifty-five to seventy. Her hands, puffed and red from scrubbing, offered no hint, her hair was dyed black and she wore a yellow scarf which concealed the lines around her neck. Claudia felt herself on shifting sands. Doorkeepers, without exception, were male.

  ‘I’m here to see Kaeso,’ she said breezily. ‘Is he in?’

  ‘Nnnn.’

  Claudia thought irreverently of Cypassis telling Jovi about poor little Echo, spurned by Narcissus and reduced to repeating other people’s endings. However, this was no cave and this, certainly, was no nymph. Not now. Not ever. Doughface was examining the visitor like a fisherman inspects a mackerel and Claudia felt her blood start to bubble.

  ‘If it’s too difficult, I’ll rephrase the question. Is he in?’

  ‘Nnnn.’

  Just as Claudia was about to yank on the scarf round this awful creature’s neck, Echo stepped aside and wagged one swollen finger to indicate that the visitor should remain in the atrium. Had she been a dog, Claudia suspected she would have been expected to sit.

  The hall, like the entrance, was miserably neutral. A bleak geometric mosaic, black, white and brown, hardly a challenge for the designer, and the walls had been painted yellow and green, the colours of spring, but the lack of ornamentation and the dogged repetition of colour blocks denied more imaginative connotations. There was, of course, the obligatory pool in the centre but again, this was a passive rectangle of water, not a sparkling, chattering fountain.

  She could leave, of course. Walk out now. Hire another tracker, heaven knows there were plenty to choose from—men who traced runaway slaves, errant wives, missing children. But Kaeso had a reputation which went way beyond mere pursuit…

  Time passed. Claudia’s ears strained for sounds, and picked up none, and that was the worrying part. The street itself sat tucked away on the flat of the Quirinal, comprising mostly of tenements for the moderately well-off artisans, craftsmen, self-sufficient freedmen. A quiet, respectable suburb, where no dogs barked, no hawkers touted, no children kicked inflated pigs’ bladders through your windows every half hour. But indoors? In a house this size, you’d expect to hear servants scurrying about, floors being swept, pans clattering in the kitchens. Here there was only silence. And where were the smells that make a home? The camphor scent of rinsed linen? Or yellow cones of juniper burning day and night to keep the snakes at bay?

  Invisible eyes seemed to follow her every movement and gooseflesh crept up her arms. This was turning into an Assyrian horror story, one of those gruesome tales the desert nomads seemed so fond of as they sat around their camp fires, while jackals howled in the hills. Let me tell the true tale of the House of Silence, where the door was held fast by invisible demons, imprisoning for eternity all who passed through its portals…

  Never had Claudia found stumping steps more reassuring, and she had to physically refrain from grabbing those red, chapped hands and showering them with kisses. This time, Echo eschewed vocal communication in favour of a jerk of the head and set a cracking pace up the atrium. The peristyle at the end offered shelter from the drizzle, although precious little comfort in the summer. No busts, no statues, no fountains, no shrines, just the one marble seat covered with birdlime. Even the garden was depressing, devoid of any plant that could not be classified as functional. At the far end of the peristyle, the doorkeeper stopped short, flung wide a cypress door and all but pushed Claudia inside.

  From the cold detachment of its spartan surroundings, the contrast here was dramatic. A log fire crackled majestically, filling the room with a haze of applewood smoke, and had the bear still been inside its skin on the hearth, no doubt this was the place it would have chosen to lie. The walls were painted a rich dark red, like old mellow wine, embellished with gold and with green, and from a lampstand dangled four bronze lights illuminating a vast assemblage of busts and curios. So busy was Claudia, digesting this warm, inviting treasure trove, that she failed to realize she had company.

  ‘I trust my collection amuses you.’

  She spun round. He was standing in the corner, in the shadow, perched against a chest. She would not show what he’d intended her to. ‘Are you Kaeso, or simply another lackey?’

  It was hard to tell, him being shaded, but she thought she caught a change of expression, which might have been amusement. Or then again, might not.

  ‘I’m whoever you want me to be.’ Was that a yes or a no?

  ‘Then you’re not the man I’m after,’ she said. ‘The man I seek is quick and decisive, and I’ve been waiting half an hour—’

  ‘I am Kaeso.’ He shifted his weight, that was all. ‘And I very much regret the delay. You see, this is just a room I rent, Tucca had to fetch me.’

  Tucca, not Echo. And this was not Narcissus, fallen in love with himself, there was not a mirror in the room. The voice remained in shadows.

  ‘She might have explained.’ Let him make small talk. Sooner or later he’d have to come out.

  A flash of teeth showed in the corner. ‘There is a slight problem with that,’ replied Kaeso. ‘Someone cut out her tongue. She’s a mute.’

  Claudia wanted to whistle, to say, ‘No shit,’ but held back.

  ‘She lives here alone,’ he was saying. ‘Tends the whole house herself, apart from the groceries, and her daughter does that.’

  ‘I’m surprised any man bedded her once, never mind enough times to give her a child.’

  Claudia hadn’t realized she’d spoken aloud until she heard Kaeso chuckle. ‘Oh, Tucca was married. In fact it was her husband who cut out her tongue.’

  Bastard. ‘Where is he now?’ Despite herself, she was curious.

  ‘Officially? Lost in a shipwreck. In practice? Planted in the lawn, between the bay tree and the yew. You passed him.’

  Claudia tipped her head on one side. ‘Are you a keen fan of Assyrian horror stories, by any chance?’ she asked.

  ‘No. Is it relevant?’

  ‘How about Tucca?’ she persisted. ‘I suppose it’s too much to hope she comes from a long line of desert nomads?’

  This time his laughter was rich and unrestrained. ‘You don’t run with the pack, do you?’

  Prising himself off his perch, Kaeso stepped forward and Claudia was glad she had steeled her senses earlier. Imagining some terrible deformity which had made him wary, she was unprepar
ed for raw perfection.

  ‘No, sir, I do not.’

  Claudia watched him cross the room to stoke the fire. As to his age, she put him at thirty, but admitted she might be out five years either way. Not exceptionally tall, he was strong, she could see rounded biceps strain the sleeves of his tunic, saw powerful calves below the muscular knees of the athlete. On a man who trains hard in the gymnasium, it was unusual to see collar-length hair. In the darkened recess, it looked dark and yet now, under the light, it seemed almost fair. Tawny.

  ‘Please. Take a seat.’ He poured white wine into pale-green slender glasses, but instead of taking the second chair, sat on the bearskin rug at Claudia’s feet, staring into the crackling flames. His profile was pointed, rugged even, with a jaw that was sharp rather than square. His musky scent mingled with the applewood burning in the hearth, and now his hair seemed golden. Sleek.

  Oh, yes. The war machine was sleek.

  As the logs glowed red, Claudia waited.

  ‘Claudia Seferius,’ he said lazily, his grey eyes watching soot motes dance up the chimney.

  She felt a jolt down the length of her spine. She had not given Tucca her name.

  Kaeso rose to his feet and began to pace the room. ‘Let me think. Your husband died last September, no, I’m wrong…last August. He bequeathed the entire estate to his young widow and nothing whatsoever to his family.’ He turned his sharp, lean face towards her. ‘Contrary to expectations, though, the widow did not liquidate the assets, she tried to make a go of it.’

  Claudia stared into her glass and hoped her cheeks were not as red as she feared. The reflection in the glass showed no break in the fluidity of his tread.

  ‘But there are problems for a woman going solo in commerce. The men, they are against her. They will not accept her in the Wine Merchants Guild, and thus they hope to ruin her.’

  Now when Claudia’s face burned, it was from fury. Bastards! Once close friends of Gaius, the minute he died they were like vultures, circling his business and hoping to pick it clean without cost to either coin or conscience.