I, Claudia

by Marilyn Todd

  I, Claudia is the first in a series of Roman mysteries featuring Claudia Seferius, previously published in print in 1995—now released by Untreed Reads in ebook form. The second novel, Virgin Territory is coming in ebook form soon!

  www.marilyntodd.com

  Virgin Territory

  It wasn’t fair. When you marry a man for his money, you expect him to leave you a shining pile of gold pieces. Not a crummy old wine business. So newly widowed Claudia Seferius jumps at the chance to escape Rome and chaperone a Vestal Virgin back to Sicily after her thirty years’ service is up. But it quickly becomes apparent that Sabina is an imposter.

  Back in Rome, investigator Marcus Orbilio fears Claudia is in danger and sets off to Sicily to save that delicious neck of hers.

  But before he gets there, a woman’s brutalized body is discovered…

  What follows is the first chapter of Virgin Territory, the second Claudia mystery.

  I

  It wasn’t his fault. Captain Herrenius hardly knew her. How could he possibly predict that, despite keening winds and raging seas, no amount of persuasion would winkle this beautiful young creature from her niche in the prow?

  ‘It’s for your own safety,’ he urged, and the lack of response threw him. He was sure his voice had carried above the clamour of his crew, the crash of the waves. ‘You’ll be more comfortable in your cabin.’

  He couldn’t mean that dingy mop-hole where she slept? Bilge rats had better bunks. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  When there were problems to be faced, there was only one way Claudia Seferius tackled them. Head on. Besides, storm or no storm, she had no intention of being bundled out of the way like a redundant artifact.

  But her words had been carried into the churning Ionian, and all Herrenius could make out was the shake of a mass of dark curls as she drew her cloak even tighter. Scared, was she?

  ‘Don’t worry, m’dear, I’ll look after you,’ he said—only this time he found himself on the receiving end of a glare capable of cracking walnuts at fifty paces. Checking that the water cask was secure, he wondered whether given time, he would ever understand women.

  As the ship rolled to starboard, Claudia’s cloak went skimming down her back to form a black heap on the boards. For one ghastly heart-stopping moment, she could see nothing but the liquid marble of the water then the ship righted itself. She snatched up her wayward garment. Made of goat’s hair it was favoured for its resistance to salt water and as she shook the dirt off this old workhorse, she had a feeling it was about to be put through its paces. Spume was being whipped up like egg white.

  Noting the set of her chin and never one to admit defeat, the Furrina’s captain inched closer. Young girl alone on the seas, needed looking after, what? He cleared his throat. Charming filly and no mistake. Needed a man, though. A strong, capable man to help her weather the storm. A man with—what was the word?—experience, that was it.

  Inching closer he caught the heavy scent of her perfume and felt a stirring in his loins as he remembered her at the stem rail yesterday, the breeze ruffling her hair and flattening her tunic against the outline of her body. Fully aroused at the memory of those taut, high breasts, the points of her nipples, the curve of her belly, the sweep of her thighs, Herrenius nevertheless waited until the ship gave another violent lurch before making his move.

  ‘Take your paws off me, you odious little greaseball!’

  To his credit, the captain’s expression didn’t alter as his fingers unlaced themselves from her waist. Stuck-up bitch, he thought, but it was with immense care that his hands remained firmly clasped behind his back as he made his way aft as nonchalantly as he was able.

  ‘Come by the boat!’ he snapped, and the bosun looked up sharply. The jolly had been hoisted aboard this half-hour past. But he knew that mood, and to avoid being put on a charge, tossed another anchor over the side. That still left three, didn’t it?

  Claudia snapped her fingers and the limp form of Junius, the head of her personal bodyguard, made a manful effort to straighten up from where it was hanging over the rail. Interesting colour formation, she thought. White for the main part, tinged with a spot of green here and a spot of grey there, and a tinksy bit of purple round the eyes.

  ‘Junius, if you ever let that scumbag Herrenius within one pace of me again, I’ll have you dangled from the masthead by your toes. Understood?’

  The look he gave her was that of a whipped and starving puppy who’d just learned he was about to become the ball in a game of ‘countrymen’, but it was wasted on Claudia. The storm had all her attention.

  They blamed Claudia for this easterly. Not in so many words (they wouldn’t dare), but in September these straits are blessed with westerlies, they are calm and pleasant and a veritable joy to sail. This, she had been assured time and again, was fact. So why, then, had the Tempestates been unleashed by the gods to wreak mayhem and havoc?

  Drusilla, it transpired, was the key.

  Suddenly the keel was thrown high out of the water sending Claudia crashing against the side of the ship. She clung desperately to a ratline as the freighter wavered, as though skewered on Neptune’s trident, before pitching forward with a spine-jarring shudder. Another check at the cliffs. This is not a good place for a shipwreck, she thought. Definitely not.

  She licked the ropeburns on her palms and thought of Drusilla. It was a rough ride, she hoped she was coping.

  Poor Drusilla! She didn’t deserve the crew’s hostility, but for some obscure reason, the presence on board of one small Egyptian cat with blue eyes and a wedge-shaped face had turned the entire contingent into gibbering, superstitious shadows of themselves. It had now reached the stage where two of her bodyguard—big, black Nubians, the toughest she could find—were permanently stationed outside the cabin door.

  A mischievous gleam twinkled in Claudia’s eyes as she wondered how the crew would react to the announcement that, as of this morning, there was still one small Egyptian cat with blue eyes and a wedge-shaped face…but with the addition of four tiny replicas.

  The impending storm and the prejudice of the men had not, it seemed, deterred Drusilla from the practicalities of motherhood.

  The long-threatened rain began to lash Claudia’s cheek and, gripping the rail with one hand, she tucked flyaway curls under her collar with the other. That letter she thought, was a godsend. An absolute godsend.

  It had seemed the answer to her prayers when, five weeks ago to the day, she inherited from fat old Gaius his entire fortune. Now Roman law might not insist a man divide his estate among his natural children in preference to his third wife, but it was pretty well-accepted practice. Fortunately her husband, may he rest in peace, had swallowed every baited hook—and the whole lot had come straight to his twenty-four-year-old widow rather than to his daughter Flavia. Every single copper—quadran. Except…

  How on earth was Claudia supposed to know Gaius’s fortune was tied up in property? Did he discuss his business? Did he confide in her? Did he ever so much as mention money to her? Did he, hell! Instead of inheriting a shining pile of gold pieces there for the spending, Claudia was lumbered with a bloody great house in Rome, a vineyard and villa in the middle of nowhere and a wine merchant’s business that she knew bog-all about and cared even less for. It simply wasn’t fair. You marry a man for his money and he leaves you with this to sort out!

  What Claudia Seferius knew about viniculture could be written on the back of…well, a vine leaf. I mean what is there to know? Vines have thick, twisty stems, they throw out dark green leaves and lots of twiddly bits and at some stage they produce bunches of grapes to be picked by slaves who then trample them around in some buckety thing. Frankly, what happened between that and the filling of her glass was of no interest whatsoever. Yet within days of her husband’s funeral, Claudia had been swamped. Buyers to meet, contracts to honour, shipping to arrange—there was no end to it. Pricing, irrigation, pruning, manuring, it was enough to make a girl’s head spin and t
here was only one solution, really there was. The races.

  In fact the very first thing she’d determined was that Gaius had left in his moneybox a float of 23 gold pieces, 1 silver denarius, 835 sesterces, 6 asses and 12 quadrans. Hardly a fortune, but ample funds to finance the odd flutter. Her mouth twisted down at the corners. She ought to stop. Hadn’t she been taught a lesson once already? Except the old excitement had taken hold, more and more with each wager—which in turn became heavier and heavier wilder and wilder. The addiction was back. With a vengeance.

  ‘Boredom,’ she told herself.

  And so rather than face up to the fact that the weight of her inheritance was too great and she simply couldn’t cope, Claudia immersed herself in the thrill of the chariot race, the combat of the gladiators. Here it was easy to ignore pressing commercial problems and decisions up at the farm. Here you can escape in-laws clamouring for a decent settlement. With breathtaking alacrity that liquid float turned itself into a paper deficit of over 700 sesterces, the equivalent of a labourer’s annual wage. Claudia sighed. It was true, the old saying. The best way to make a small fortune is to start with a large one…

  Therefore that letter from Sicily, coming out of the blue, had been nothing short of a godsend. One Eugenius Collatinus, an old friend of her husband, sends condolences to the grieving widow and invites her to stay with him and his family for as long as she needs. If, however, she does decide to visit, would she mind chaperoning his granddaughter Sabina, returning home after thirty years’ service as a Vestal Virgin?

  He lived just outside Sullium, he said, not far from Agrigentum. Claudia, who barely knew where Sicily was, much less Sullium, rooted out an ageing map etched on ox hide, blew the dust off and unrolled it. Triangular in shape and large enough to be a continent in itself, Sicily was plonked right in the middle of the Mediterranean and it wasn’t so much a bridge between warring nations as a breakwater. It was easy, now, to see how the province had become Rome’s first conquest. Where are we? Ah yes, there’s Agrigentum, on the south coast. So where’s, what’s it called, Sullium? Claudia’s finger trailed along the cracked surface of the hide until she found it. West of Agrigentum. Oh good. Right by the sea. After that, the hard work had begun in earnest, but a thorough—and she meant thorough—search of Gaius’s business papers for transactions involving this Collatinus chappie came up empty-handed. There was nothing in his personal correspondence, either.

  But she did find something else.

  Something very, very important…

  Something which put her whole future in jeopardy…