by Marilyn Todd
I mean, it’s all very well having your mind set free to roam, but let’s face it, legs would be much better. Shackled to the pillar in the hall, Orbilio was every bit as helpless as herself, but sooner or later someone—surely—had to visit the house. Maybe a launderess would come home with a toothache? Or a messenger arrive with a letter? Goddammit, there wasn’t even the possibility of Magic’s filthy missives interrupting.
‘Is—’ Claudia cleared her throat and started again. ‘Is this your objective?’ she enquired. ‘The aristocracy at your feet upon their knees?’
Whose bright idea was it to reward the servants with an afternoon off? And guess which silly bitch agreed! Down on the Field of Mars, the musical farce would not yet have begun. Just as Annia had contrived.
‘Revenge appears in many forms,’ the sprite trilled, pocketing the corals. ‘With each level guaranteeing satisfaction.’ She leaned forward to thrust her speedwell blue eyes close to Claudia’s. ‘You do know what I mean by satisfaction?’
With one hand she pressed Nemesis flat against Claudia’s throbbing artery.
‘You see how sweet it is, don’t you, Marcus?’
Keeping Nemesis primed for action, Annia moved behind the high-backed chair to make eye-contact with her cousin. Claudia could smell the freshness of her pleated tunic and the catmint rinse which had passed through the flaxen locks which brushed against her shoulder. Under a brightly coloured canvas awning, the audience would be roaring at the risqué jokes and bold political ad-libs. But the temperature, she thought, could not compare to this.
‘Together, you and I, we shall watch Claudia’s life blood slip away. Slowly, because I want you to savour the experience with me, Marcus.’ She pressed her warm cheek to Claudia’s. ‘There will be pain,’ she whispered, stroking the blade up and down Claudia’s throat. ‘Excruciating pain. But you see, each strike of Nemesis will be an arrow in his heart. It has to be this way. It is our mission.’
‘Mission?’ croaked Claudia.
A stair creaked, and for a fleeting moment she felt salvation was to hand. Instead, it proved only the settling of wood and as though to mock her hope, a flock of chattering sparrows chased one another through the peristyle. Idly Claudia wondered whether, like Severina, that would be her last view of life. Or whether it would be locked in the gaze of a wavy-haired policeman… Unable to control herself, tears trickled down her cheek.
Annia licked the salty flow and, repulsed, the flow dried up. ‘We are charged with a mission, Nemesis and I, and like this sapphire in your jewel box’—she flashed Claudia’s ring from her middle finger—‘it has many facets.’
‘Of which wealth is one, presumably?’
‘With the contents of your caskets, Claudia, plus’—she smiled her deceptive smile at Marcus—‘my cousin’s particularly generous stash of gold and silver, I am a very wealthy woman. Uh-uh-uh.’ She wagged a cautionary finger towards Orbilio. ‘I told you before—not a word, Marcus, or I shall slice her cheek off. I’m in charge, remember. I’ll let you know when you can speak.’
One by one, Annia began to unclip the butterfly brooches which, held Claudia’s tunic together at the shoulder.
‘So, yes, that’s one skin of the onion. Riches.’ With tantalizing slowness, she released the final pin and the delicate cotton cascaded over Claudia’s naked breast. ‘Then we have revenge on Granny Daphne, and that’s where you come in, Marcus. Oh, I know what you’re thinking. That this has nothing to do with you, you were only seven when my mother died and you worshipped her. You said.’
Nemesis passed to her other hand, and she began to work on the butterflies on Claudia’s right shoulder.
‘Unfortunately, there are casualties in every war. I watch your pain as you watch Claudia’s, and then when you are dead yourself, Daphne can be told—then let’s see how strong these patrician bitches really are.’
Well, we know how strong you are. Claudia remembered (how trivial it seemed) when Annia dropped a ring up in the bedroom. How she’d pulled the heavy chest away from the wall, shouldering it back in place without a puff. The same strength that had been used to drag five women backwards—
From the hall came the frantic scrape of metal against marble as Orbilio fought to free his hands. He looks so white, she thought. It makes his hair look as though it belongs to someone else. Or dyed. Blood was pooling on the floor from where the manacles had bitten. Her own wrists, she knew, were in little better shape.
‘There.’ Annia released the final butterfly and the remainder of Claudia’s tunic slipped to her waist. With difficulty, she suppressed a shudder. So long as Annia talked, it bought more time.
‘Why me, Annia? I don’t have a blue tattoo.’
‘Killing Severina was revenge on an entirely different level.’ She checked the binding on Claudia’s wrists and tutted. ‘Don’t fight it, Claudia. Don’t run to meet your pain.’
She planted a kiss between her squirming victim’s shoulderblades, then Claudia felt a wet tongue run down her backbone. This time, she dare not look at Marcus. The tongue moved round to lick her upper arm.
‘If you bore Marduk’s sign upon your perfect, unflawed flesh, it would be here.’ Annia’s teeth nipped and broke the skin. ‘Which would make things very different between us, Claudia, because then I would have to remind you of the way you treated me at Arbil’s place.’ She straightened up and smiled. ‘Instead we can be friends, you and I, because you didn’t treat me as a dog, fetch this, go for that, pick-up-this-I-dropped-it-under-my-chair, even though you’d be sitting in it at the time.’
‘The whistle,’ Claudia exclaimed, more to Marcus than to Annia.
‘Exactly.’ Annia put her pretty lips together. Whit-whit-whit. ‘It’s how they summoned me, can you believe that? And can you imagine how if felt, knowing you’re patrician through and through, yet still you’re whistled like a dog?’
Lots of girls get bullied, Annia. They don’t all slice up their tormentors for revenge. Then, as though the sun had broken through a fog, Claudia understood.
Wasn’t ‘touched’ the word Daphne had used to describe Penelope? Claudia glanced at Annia, and something revolved in her stomach as she wished now she’d paid more attention to Marcus’ story. Who better placed, she realized, than a mother to recognize the disturbance inside her own child? Small boys being unable to differentiate between ages, Marcus would have seen nothing odd in a girl singing and dancing and playing with dolls—that’s what girls did—but the duped husband knew straightaway. Small wonder he volunteered for active service, he wanted as much distance between himself and his batty wife as possible, and too late Claudia understood that Penelope’s promiscuity was not about grief. His death merely upped the dangerous stakes—and Daphne Lovernius understood, too. Understood, and repressed it, and Claudia felt a sharp pang of compassion for the old dame. She bit deep into her lower lip. If she’d only listened to the story objectively, and not through the grieving eyes of a seven-year-old. Then she would have seen that any mother worth her salt would have defied Daphne and retrieved the infant Annia straight away. But such was the disturbance inside her head Penelope had gone to Old Man Tiber, instead of Arbil. A tough and proud old bird, what torment must Daphne have suffered all these years, from the moment her daughter came home heavy with child? She would have known, as Claudia knew, how mental illness was often hereditary and now, sweet Jupiter, her worst nightmare had become terrifying reality.
Claudia looked at Marcus, momentarily silenced from his struggles, and saw that he was—at long last—grieving. Not for Annia, not even for Penelope. Marcus Cornelius Orbilio was grieving for himself and for eighteen wasted years. Years in which cover-ups and silence caused untold harm and damaged everyone who came within their sphere. When, she wondered, would families ever learn? You only have to see how Arbil handled the situation with Shannu to see how problems perpetuate.
Claudia was jerked out of her reverie when—incredibly—Annia laid Nemesis flat upon the desk. His cornelians
glinted proudly in the sunshine, like the fresh dark drops of blood which would soon run over them. In the atrium, Orbilio’s tunic was soaked through with sweat, his wrists raw from the unyielding iron handcuffs. Do something, Claudia. You have to do something! You can’t just let her slice you to ribbons! Marcus, too, had seen the change in Annia.
Perhaps if she could get inside her mind. Show how she truly sympathized when, aware of the circumstances of her birth and in a place where every other child had known rejection, the girls had shown no mercy in their torment, she might reach a part of Annia that was human and compassionate?
Assuming such a place existed.
Stepping back, Annia stripped off her tunic.
‘Why twenty-seven cuts?’ Nemesis was just an arm’s length out of reach…
Flushed and breathless, Annia crossed the floor. Truly, she was beautiful. Straight-backed, sinuous and graceful, her pale body shimmered as she moved, her tight, young breasts untouched by time or childbirth.
‘That was Nemesis’ decision, I’m afraid, not mine.’ Shit. She picked up the knife and kissed the deadly blade. ‘I wanted those sadistic bitches to feel my vengeance through a thousand gaping wounds. Unfortunately.’ She ran the cold, blue blade across her thigh. ‘There was no room for more than twenty-seven on the first, so we retained that number for them all. It will be the same for you, Claudia, where do you suggest we start?’
Claudia dared not take her eye off Nemesis. Her mouth was dry, her heart thumping like a thunderclap against her ribs. Behind the chair, her fingernails dug deep into her palms. From the hall, she heard a strangled cry and silently commended Orbilio’s steely self-control about not speaking unless Annia commanded it. Neither he or Claudia doubted she would carry out her threat.
It happened without warning.
She saw the sunlight on the steel and for maybe one whole second Claudia did not realize the knife had actually made contact. Like the earlier nick, she had not felt it break her skin. Wide-eyed, she watched hot scarlet droplets form splash patterns on the pale peach cotton tunic in her lap. And then she knew.
The ordeal had begun.
XXXV
‘Do you know what power is?’
Annia cocked her head on one side to admire her handiwork. The slash, being purely superficial, had been intended as a shock. A taster of what was yet to come. When muscles would be disabled, tendons cut. She watched the river she’d created find its course.
‘Power is the ability to bring an empire to its knees and I have done that, Claudia. Imagine! Little Annia brings down the might of Rome.’
Claudia knew there was no blood left in her cheeks. It was gushing down her breast into her lap.
‘Picture it as a building, a tall six-storey tenement. On the top floor, there’s Agrippa, taken by the great god Marduk to create a smokescreen under which Nemesis and I could operate in peace. Next floor down, we have the Holy Catamite no less, the great and mighty Augustus about to be toppled from his perch by uprisings and seditions.’
Annia paused to stretch out a finger and dip it in Claudia’s blood. She examined the fingertip for several seconds, before licking it clean as though it was a drip of honey or a dab of parsley sauce.
‘On the third floor, we have the whole machinery of Rome thrown into terror and confusion. Don’t you think it was clever of me to pick a market day to kill the girls, Claudia? Hundreds upon hundreds of women scared to venture out alone?’ She laughed. ‘I created that. Me.’ She hushed her voice to a whisper. ‘The Market Day Murderer…’
The sprite clapped at her own ingenuity, and Claudia asked Jupiter to make the bitch choke on her own smugness. Jupiter wasn’t listening.
‘On the second floor of my apartment block, you’ll see Arbil, squatting like a spider in his web. By the time I disappear, I’ll have left so large a cloud hanging over Arbil that his business will collapse before the autumn.’
The pumping blood was easing to a trickle as Claudia’s natural defences began to heal. The musical farce would not yet have reached the intermission.
‘Moving to the first floor, we have Daphne wetting herself once word gets out there’s a killer in the family.’ She twisted her head to address Marcus over her shoulder. ‘That would have cut your Senate career short, even if I hadn’t.’ She turned back to Claudia. ‘Finally, on the ground floor, we have the girls themselves.’ Annia sighed with satisfaction. ‘So you see, I wield power on every single storey.’
The bleeding was down to a gentle, rhythmic ooze. The puddle in her lap felt clammy on her thigh, the smell was wretched, but providing Annia could be diverted, Claudia was safe from Nemesis.
‘Except for Zygia.’
Blue eyes narrowed to slits. ‘I worshipped that bitch,’ Annia spat. ‘Because of her I put up with years of being treated like a dog, then she shacked up with empty-headed Severina. I told her, my skin’s as pale as hers, my eyes as blue—Croesus. I even grew my hair like Sever-bloody-rina, but still that spiteful dyke spurned my affections. Can you understand that, Claudia? I mean, can you really get your head around her logic?’
Easily. ‘Why wait so long before killing the first girl?’
Annia ran her hands across her hips. ‘Marcus knows the answer to that, I expect that’s how he cottoned on to me. You know, Claudia, that was my one mistake. Telling him I’d been serving the temple warden’s wife for two full years, when in fact Arbil kept me as a trainer until four months back. But then, how was I to know Marcus would send a present to the stupid warden’s wedding? I shan’t make that mistake next time—’
Next time? Croesus, would the slaughter never stop? She didn’t intend to finish here at all. Probably move on to kill in Massilia or Athens—and then what lie would she conjure up to excuse herself then? Cold terror rippled down Claudia’s spine. Annia needed no excuse. Having got away with multiple murder here in Rome, she’d believe herself above the law. Invincible. Immortal?
Annia seemed also to have taken note of Claudia’s improving state of health. She was wiping the caked blood from Nemesis on a scarlet damask cushion. It looked like rust. Oh no— Sweet Jupiter, please. No.
‘Where will you go?’ There was desperation in Claudia’s question.
And again, she did not feel the strike. A swish of the wrist, a flash of blue steel. Then a fierce burning pain along her collar bone. Somewhere mathematical calculations drifted into Claudia’s brain. Two down, they said. With twenty-five to go.
‘For pity’s sake,’ Marcus cried hoarsely. ‘I’ll give you anything you want! Anything, Annia! Just—please—let her go!’
With a theatrical cluck of the tongue, Annia laid the dripping knife upon the desk and walked towards the hall. ‘Marcus, Marcus, Marcus.’ Her shoes clicked softly on the floor.
Now’s my chance. Through the salty tears which clouded her vision and coursed down her cheeks, Claudia tugged on the cords around her wrist. Croesus, they were tight! Annia had not thought to bind her ankles to the chair, and so long as Nemesis was around, kicking out had not really been an option. Blood dripped and spurted as she struggled.
Naked and lovely, Annia’s attention was concentrated on her cousin. Sunshine streamed into the atrium through the opening in the roof, casting a shapely shadow on the fresco of the Nile and sparkling the pool and fountain with a thousand shimmering gems. A turtledove cooed from the skylight.
‘Marcus.’ Annia’s tone was soft and comforting. Almost an apology. ‘Please.’
Behind them, in the office, Claudia squirmed like a ferret in a trap. From the corner of her eye, she was aware of Annia leaning down to cup Orbilio’s face between her hands.
‘You have to understand, Marcus.’ She was still smiling as she rammed his head against the marble pillar. ‘I’m the one in charge.’
Claudia’s struggles intensified as Annia straightened up and put a finger to her lips.
‘Not another word, you hear?’ Blood was pouring down his head, obliterating his right eye. ‘Not another fuckin
g word.’
The bonds won’t break! Sweet Jupiter, I’ve blown it. And now Annia was retracing her steps across the hall. Claudia’s tearful eye caught Marcus’.
It said, I’m sorry.
His said…
Correction, his eye winked. Incredibly, it winked.
‘You know, Annia,’ he said. ‘You really are very, very stupid.’
The sprite froze in the doorway. ‘What?’ She spun round to where he knelt, bleeding, against the marble column. ‘What did you just call me?’
‘You don’t imagine I haven’t left a record of my investigation, surely?’
Claudia did not need telling twice. He was buying her more time to struggle free, because she might be many things, our Annia, but stupid wasn’t one of them. It was merely her Achilles heel. You could call her vain or dull or frumpy, but never, ever, ever call her stupid.
For Claudia, the effect was like being dunked in an icy Umbrian spring, bringing her to the very edge of her five senses. Until now, she’d allowed terror to dominate her mind, muddying judgement with self-pity. Suddenly her brain was crystal clear. There was no time left for fear. It was now or it was never. The choice was simple. Live. Or die.
Croesus, Annia saw through it! Under a flying kick, Orbilio’s head shot backwards, then she rammed her foot hard into his ribcage. He groaned, but his taunting didn’t cease. This time it revolved around her mother’s lack of morals.
Claudia shuffled upright, her arms still tight behind her back. Mighty Juno, she was running out of time! Dammit, I have this second chance, don’t let me ruin it! The gown, lumped around her waist, was fouling her escape. Using her thumbs to hitch it past her hips, she kicked the bloodied garment free. Quickly bending double, Claudia stepped over the wristband and, at long last, her hands were out in front where she could see them. The flesh was raw.
‘Aaargh!’
Claudia jumped like a startled fawn. The scream which ran through the atrium was Annia’s, where Orbilio had grabbed hold of her ankle and jerked her backwards off her feet. But Annia was young and she was supple. Lithe as a leopard she jackknifed round to hammer blows and punches on the only person in her life who’d ever cared a damn for her. She did not notice, in her frenzy, that Marcus had twisted round so her back was to the office.
