by Marilyn Todd
‘Well, I can’t come now, I’m—’ Even Supersleuth didn’t have the gall to say he was busy. Not when he’d been run to ground in a theatre. He glanced at the dark-eyed beauty in the front row clapping time to the lute player. Claudia bent down to check the clasp on her anklet, and refrained from sinking her teeth into his leg.
‘I think you ought to, sir. It looks like another Market Day Murder.’
‘Come, come, man, the market’s six days off.’
The legionary struggled to hang on to his helmet in the jostling throng. ‘I know, sir, but—’
‘Will you kindly stop sirring me, and relay the facts. And only the facts, please.’
‘Over in the Wolf Grotto, si— They found another body. Butchered, like the rest.’
Claudia watched the patrician age ten years in as many seconds. ‘What colour hair?’ he demanded.
The soldier looked confused. ‘Um—’
‘For gods’ sake, man, was she blonde? Yes or no?’ Orbilio shook the boy roughly by both shoulders.
‘N-no, sir. I believe she had dark hair.’
The years dropped away again. Claudia heard him exhale. ‘Then let’s go.’
From a discreet observation post beneath the royal box, a young woman in an apricot tunic watched a wavy-haired aristocrat bend over the bench and gesticulate towards the entrance. The dark-eyed beauty’s face dropped and as he twirled his toga out from underneath his seat, it half-concealed the kiss he’d leaned across to plant, and then he was gone, striding through the actors’ doorway as though he owned the place. Claudia moved across and sat beside her.
‘It’s Lucina, isn’t it?’
Miss Fancypants smiled tentatively. ‘Camilla, actually.’
‘That’s what I said. Marcus has told me so much about you. Never stops.’
Camilla’s exquisite features puckered. ‘You know Marcus?’
‘Intimately,’ she purred. ‘I’m his wife.’
Beautiful eyes widened in surprise. ‘But…I thought you were divorced. Weren’t you living in Lusitania? With a—’ Decorum stopped her.
‘Sea captain?’ Decorum never held Claudia back. ‘That’s what he likes to tell people. I think he’s ashamed of me, on account of the stink I kicked up at the time.’
‘Of the divorce?’ Camilla moved up so Claudia could get comfortable.
‘At the time of the scandal— Did you say divorce? Oh dear, I suppose the fiction makes him feel more comfortable about his, er— Well, best not to speak of it.’
Lights danced off Miss Lovely’s multitude of gold. ‘I’m sorry, I…I don’t understand.’ Her voice softened. ‘Please tell me,’ she pleaded. ‘It is…very important to me.’
Claudia laid a sympathetic hand upon her arm. ‘It’s not a pretty story,’ she sighed. ‘In fact, I’m willing to bet he didn’t arrange to meet you here, that this was some chance meeting in the street.’
‘Why, yes. As a matter of fact, it was.’
Claudia tutted. ‘And was he coming out of the gym? He was? You know, I really hoped he’d change,’ she said sadly. ‘Was he alone, Camilla? Or was there a pretty boy holding his hand?’
‘Boy?’
‘Please. Camilla. Don’t distress yourself, it’s just the way Marcus is. For years,’ she dabbed at her eye, ‘I’ve resigned myself to being—’ she considered ‘celibate’ and said ‘—childless.’
Camilla looked aghast. ‘You’re not making this up, are you?’
Claudia’s eyes widened convincingly. ‘Next time you see him, ask him where he got those bruises. Or better still, ask that chap over there.’ She pointed to the gallery, to a kohl-eyed transvestite surrounded by a dozen powdered youths. ‘It was in his whorehouse, dear. And that’s the truth.’
*
Some distance from the Field of Mars, in a house untouched by the thunderous echo of hooves or the clouds of sand kicked up from the ring, more mundane pursuits were in progress. Silver was buffed up, torn seams mended, skillets scoured, chickens plucked. Outside, shops which had closed for siesta were starting to re-open with the inevitable clangs, drowning the background oaths of builders trying to lay the foundations of yet another splendid public building.
Nemesis, tucked beneath a couch and wrapped in a cloth stained with red, was aware of none of it.
When the street herald trumpeted the hour, the door to the bedroom creaked open and the weapon’s owner padded into the room. A deep, fulfilled sigh rippled the air.
‘This is good,’ the voice whispered. ‘Very good.’
Discarded clothes, rank with freshly clotted blood, were bundled into a sack, along with the piece of cloth in which Nemesis lay wrapped, then the knife was plunged into a bowl of warm water, where, to a gentle whistle, it was agitated until the water turned red. It was shaken, examined, then, with great reverence, Nemesis was raised high and twisted slowly to the left, then slowly to the right, so that all its deadly contours could be inspected and each wicked gem admired.
‘You are mine, Nemesis.’
Twisted to the left. To the right. A tunic slid to the floor. To the left. To the right.
‘And I am yours.’
Cold steel rippled upon hot flesh. To the left. To the right. Between the legs.
‘Oh, yes!’
Panting, sweating, sated, two hands clutched the hilt and held the knife aloft.
‘Good boy,’ the voice whispered. ‘Good boy, Nemesis.’
With a final hiss, the knife sliced through the air before the maroon cotton shroud concealed it from view. Until the next time it would be needed.
*
If the Forum is the heart of Rome, then the Palatine is the brain. It was from here the arch-strategist Augustus stamped out banditry, opened new trade routes, tightened up the law and consolidated the might of the Empire, and it was from here that he would have to unravel the mess left by the premature death of his close friend and Regent, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa. All around, imposing architecture reflected the Palatine’s supremacy—the Imperial Palace, the semi-circular basilica where Augustus heard petitions, the temples honouring Victory, Apollo. In fact honouring anyone you could put a name to, really. There were marbles from Alexandria, limestones from Sicily, creamy corallina from beside the Sea of Marmora. A far cry from the days when the hill looked down upon the river and wide open spaces of its marshlands and the villagers huddled inside huts.
But the origins remained for all to see.
The shrine of the shepherd goddess who gave the hill its name might now be encased in gold and Numidian marble, but the Festival of Pales still smacked of country ritual. One single hut, with a thatch and walls of woven osiers, had been preserved as a national monument, a reminder of Rome’s humble past. And finally, facing the setting sun, was the Lupercal. Once a dank, slimy cavern famous only for being where the she-wolf suckled Romulus and Remus, Augustus had turned the site into a magnificent indoor grotto complete with bubbling spring, painted statues and a fig tree. Although the vast oak grove which once sheltered it lay beneath the Circus Maximus, gilded goat horns and acorns fashioned from gold studded the ceiling, goatskins and pan pipes hung on the walls as mementoes of its rural roots. It was behind the bronze she-wolf, between the statues of Faunus and of Pan, that the body lay in its lonely pool of blood.
‘Move along, now,’ the soldier addressed the gawping crowd. ‘There’s nothing here to look at—oh, it’s you, sir. Beg pardon, only I didn’t expect to see you at the crime scene.’
The legionary, a wily old footslogger called Ancus, hurriedly crossed the marbled floor to where the patrician Orbilio lingered at the entrance, his unfocused gaze taking in the misty hills across the river, and saluted.
‘Why’s that?’ he was asked.
‘This is quite straightforward, sir. Throat cut, no signs of sexual interference.’ Ancus stared down at folk hunched under their hoods and cloaks, hugging the walls of the great racecourse for shelter. ‘Probably find the boyfriend round the corner, his eyes cried out o
f their sockets, saying how he never meant to harm her, but when he realized she was dead, he tried to cover his tracks by making it look like the others.’
‘The young soldier—what was his name, Probus?—seemed convinced we’re dealing with another ritual murder.’
Ancus made a dismissive gesture. ‘As you say, sir, the boy’s young.’ From the escarpment, he could glimpse the murky flow of the Tiber, her ferries quiet, since the public parks on the opposite bank held very little attraction. Indeed, only a fool (or a soldier under orders) would be out of doors on a day like today. ‘You know what they’re like at that age, everything’s sensationalism. He sees a body bathed in blood and— Sir?’ The aristocrat was no longer at the cave entrance. Squinting, Ancus could see him hunched over the body.
‘Who found her?’
‘Don’t rightly know, sir.’ He had to raise his voice to carry beyond the gushing springwaters. ‘Me and Probus were on patrol when we heard people yelling, and by the time we’d got here, quite a crowd had formed.’
‘Was she like this when you arrived?’
Ancus scratched his head. ‘Dead, you mean?’
‘I mean,’ Orbilio said patiently. ‘Was she lying on her back?’
‘Oh. Er, no, she was propped against the podium of the she-wolf. Look.’ He held up the torch to reveal a puddle of blood at the base. ‘I pulled her away to look for the hair.’
‘What hair?’
‘Well, that was it.’ The old footslogger smiled pityingly. ‘There wasn’t no hair, not even lying underneath the body. As I said, Probus jumped the gun.’
Orbilio lifted the torn flaps of the girl’s sleeve. ‘The blue dragon.’
‘Yes, but as you can see, sir, the throat’s been cut, and those other wounds were made after she had died.’
Same thing happens every time, thought Ancus. No sooner do we get a batch of ritual killings, than some other warped bastard comes along and tries to imitate them.
The tall patrician straightened up, brushing his hands. ‘Possibly,’ he acknowledged. ‘But ask around, Ancus. See whether anyone heard a whistle, only don’t say why.’ So far, the whistle was something only the military knew about. ‘Find out her name, start asking questions about her background, who she was friends with—?’
Ancus scratched his armpit. ‘We know her name, sir, it’s Zygia. Don’t look surprised,’ he chuckled. ‘She’s well known for running errands for the aedile who organizes the Games. Lives up there on the Capitol.’ He smiled knowingly. ‘Take it from me, sir, this’ll be the work of a boyfriend.’
‘What makes you so certain?’ Orbilio leaned his weight against Pan’s cloven hoof.
‘Well, her clothes have been ripped off, but her hands and feet weren’t tied and there’s no hair in the lap, but most of all,’ Ancus tapped the side of his nose, ‘this place, sir. The Wolf Grotto. I’d say she gave him the old heave-ho and he turned nasty. Perhaps it was a married man she was meeting here in secret—folk do that, you know.’ He laughed outright. ‘They think this cave’s romantic.’
The young investigator smiled non-commitally back.
‘No, don’t you waste your energy worrying about this girl’s killer, sir. Me and Probus will have the boyfriend in the nick in no time. You concentrate on protecting the life of the Emperor, sir. Here, did you know they’ve already uncovered one plot…’
Few things in this life can be classed certainties, but one thing you can bank on. The older the soldier, the more gossip he’ll have to impart. Ancus didn’t stop talking for a full ten minutes.
XVI
With thoughts of the latest murder banished to a cold, dark place in her mind as she made her way to Kaeso’s house on the Quirinal, Claudia was singing the Bull Dancers’ anthem.
‘From beyond the Pindus Mo-un-tains,
To the Pa-ga-saean Gulf.
Da-di-da di something some-thing
And a da-di dum.’
Was there anything to match those Thessalian daredevils? As a side-effect of peace, of course, people need more and more excitement in their diet, hence pedigree horsemen on shiny black stallions thundering after the bulls. The silver bells on their bridles offset the snorting fury, and gold streamers in their manes shone through the clouds of sand. Over they jumped, the riders, on to the backs of the bulls, gripping their horns and twisting their necks so they ‘danced’. How no one got gored was a miracle.
‘From beyond the Pindus Mo-un-tains,
To the wide The-ssa-ly plain.
Da-di da-di— What, ho, Tu-ucca,
Nice to see your face again.’
Still singing, she pushed her way past the mute and waved an imaginary baton to the rhythm as she made her way through the echoing house. In the dismal peristyle, a brindle dog lay dozing, as Claudia danced up to the polished cypress door that separated the outside world from Kaeso and she breezed inside. Damn. This time she took care to check the shadows, but no. She really was alone. Applewood logs still crackled on the fire in this wine-dark, mellow studio, bringing the leaping curios to life.
‘It’s a fine collection, isn’t it?’
Where the hell did he spring from? Her eyes had swept the rooms as she passed through, the garden— Suddenly she looked at him with different eyes. The shoulder-length hair mane. The grey eyes. The powerful build. She thought of the brindle dog. Oh, for gods’ sake. No one believes in Shape Shifters!
She tossed back her head. ‘Have you made your decision?’
Kaeso clicked the door behind him and his musky scent engulfed the applewood. Swirling his cloak from his shoulders, he leaned his forearms on the back of a chair and bridged his fingers. ‘You’ll have to tell me why,’ he said, staring at the pictures in the flames.
Claudia studied the chiselled profile. Kaeso wouldn’t keep two women dangling. Kaeso wouldn’t ally himself to a woman whose blood was the same hue and still flirt with a rich merchant’s widow.
‘You don’t give up, do you?’
‘Never.’ He turned his craggy smile on her. ‘It’s a fault.’
It was too warm in here for a fire, she thought. ‘Then read these.’ Opening a secret pouch in her cloak, she drew out a sample of Magic’s ramblings.
Kaeso read them through several times. ‘These,’ he said at length, ‘are deeply unpleasant.’
There was an even longer wait as his fingers evaluated the parchment and its blob of golden wax. ‘He won’t be an easy man to track down.’ He squinted hard at the seal. ‘Third grade pith, the most common, and cobra rings are enormously popular.’
‘But you can find him?’
‘I can find him.’
‘And you’ll kill him?’
‘He won’t trouble you again.’
‘That’s not what I asked.’
Kaeso’s head turned sharply. ‘I’ll get rid of him. For a price.’
Naturally. Claudia’s finger trailed over the faience vases, the ivory cats, the marble stags, the figurines. These were no cheap market knick-knacks. Quality on this scale had to be paid for. ‘How much?’
‘Nothing you cannot afford.’ He was leaning against the wall, with his arms across his chest, staring at his feet.
‘Kaeso, you don’t strike me as a man of imprecision. Can you be a little more specific?’
She waited for him to answer, struck by the spooky silence of the house around her. All you could hear was the spitting of the logs. Orange flashes leaped out of the flames to land as dead, black ash. Blue smoke spiralled up the chimney. The scents of musk and applewood swamped the tiny room.
‘I am aware of your financial position,’ he said at length, fixing his gaze on an ivory kingfisher. ‘I was hoping to negotiate a fee of a rather different kind.’
Claudia’s eyebrow lifted. Oh, were you.
‘Not,’ Kaeso held up his hand, ‘what you’re thinking. A favour in return, shall we say? When the time is right?’
She lifted the vase of leaping billygoats and held it to the light. Faience. Exquisite. Go
lds and reds and greens with a silvery sheen to the glaze. ‘That smacks of blackmail,’ she said, turning the vase in her hands. ‘Oops.’ It crashed to the floor, a thousand shimmering smithereens.
She heard his jaws snap. Or was that a crackle from the logs upon the fire?
‘Magic is not some husband I want to get rid of, or a lover who’s proving tiresome.’ Her eyes flashed every bit as brightly as the flames. ‘This man poses a very real threat, with his pornographic fantasies and—’
‘I understand what he is, Claudia.’ Kaeso ran his tongue round his lips and then pursed them. ‘And there was never any question of blackmail.’ Sad eyes surveyed the broken billygoats. ‘So which is it to be? Silver, or payment in kind?’
‘I’ve always said, one good turn deserves another.’
‘Then that’s settled,’ he said. ‘You go home.’ He tossed a glistening object through the air. ‘And leave the Magic to me!’
With a swirl of his cloak, he was gone. Claudia examined the gold and emerald bracelet in her hands. He must have relieved her of it when she handed him the letters, but all the same…
Outside, the mute’s garden was deserted. Apart from a brindle dog, snoozing beneath the yew.
*
Arbil groaned. It was happening again. His vision was fuzzy. He felt sick. When he went to wipe his face, his hands were shaking, and moreover his fingertips were wrinkled, like prunes. The image of Enki, the water god, rose up before him then vanished into the mist of his vision.
‘What…?’ His tongue was too heavy to string words together and he thought the frogs round his fishpond croaked better.
Enki solidified, and Arbil realized he was sitting in his bathtub. The water felt tepid. No wonder he was shivery! He hauled himself out and blotted his face with a towel. ‘Shit.’
Thick streaks of black dye stained the linen, and pulling on his beard he could see immersion had straightened the crimping. He swore and kicked at the bathtub till water sloshed over the sides. How did he get here? How long had he blanked out this time?
Think, Arbil, think. Be logical about this. What’s the last thing you remember?
I remember lunch.
And?
