by Marilyn Todd
Since it was not in Claudia’s interests to enlighten him—or anyone else for that matter—she shrugged and examined a broken nail.
The Celt failed to take the hint. ‘You and me, we go see, yes? Er—’ His itch seemed to spread to his uncombed thatch. Either that or he was puzzled about something. ‘You—all right?’
The furrow in his brow was so deep his eyebrows met in the middle. Taranis was confused. Here is Roman noblewoman pinching thumb and first finger and making circles over her head. Is not normal.
‘Perfectly,’ Claudia replied, replacing her non-existent money-spider among the borage leaves and was not surprised, upon straightening up, to find herself alone once more with her thoughts. The sun had set, yet the sky retained the same fiery quality that you feel yourself when you embark on a brand-new venture. Around her, the circus animals had pretty well settled down—an occasional howl, the odd bark—it was as quiet as it ever gets down this end of the valley, and even the vultures, constantly scrounging offal and carrion, had flown back to their roosts for the night. Slaves lit the torches, and a smell of fresh apple cakes wafted from the ovens.
Claudia leaned back and thought of the tart her mother used to bake, filled with spinach and smoked cheese and pine nuts. Used to! Ha! She made it just the once, on one of the rare occasions she’d been sober, because Claudia’s father was due home from campaign. He was only an orderly and the glory never rubbed off on the likes of him, so Claudia had suggested the pie as a treat. She never knew what happened to that tart, because within minutes of his walking through the door, her parents were at it hammer and tongs, rowing like he’d never been away, and Claudia had stuffed rags in her ears and hidden behind the woodpile until her father slammed the door and her mother passed out in an alcoholic haze.
‘Taken with my chimera, are you?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
Alis was standing behind her, clutching a set of bronze scoops in one hand and a ceramic jar in another. It was difficult to imagine her in Rome, where domestic chores were assigned to lackeys. Silly cow would probably take up spinning.
‘My statue. I thought you were admiring it.’
Good grief, no. Beastly thing. Quite unintentionally, Claudia’s eyes had been fixed on a fire-breathing marble monster across the courtyard, part lion, part dragon, part goat. ‘Oh yes, I was,’ she smiled, patting the seat in polite invitation.
‘It was a present from Sergius, you know.’ To Claudia’s immense irritation, Alis settled down next to her.
‘Really?’ Unlike the other mythical creations dotted between the topiaries, this did not stand tall and still on its pedestal, it writhed and twisted so its head was at the same level as its cloven hoofs. ‘Hardly your average token of love,’ Claudia murmured.
‘Oh, not a personal gift,’ explained Alis. ‘It was for Isodorus and myself to commemorate our fourth wedding anniversary.’
‘You knew Sergius before you were widowed?’ The revelations about this diffident creature grew more and more complex.
‘Oh—’ Alis blushed and burnished the ring on her wedding finger. ‘Sergius was a friend of my stepfather’s,’ she twittered. ‘The only good thing to come out of that awful alliance, really.’
‘I see.’ And she was beginning to.
Alis darted a sideways glance. ‘Claudia, you’ll think me a strumpet, but I fell in love with Sergius long before Isodorus died. Oh, not that we did anything. Not—not, you know, sexually. But my husband, Isodorus I mean, had been in poor health all his life. Sergius,’ the blush deepened, ‘Sergius was the one who escorted me to the theatre, taught me to play softball and darts and the lyre.’ Her eyelashes fluttered as she twisted her wedding band. ‘It was Sergius who ran in the foot races with my favours pinned to his tunic.’
Was it now?. Heady stuff indeed, when a man-about-town shows a shy, country girl a good time. Somebody fell hook, line and sinker—but was that person Alis? I take it back about the spinning.
‘Alis, my dear, I think you’ll enjoy living in Rome.’
‘Rome?’ Alis laughed quizzically. ‘Why should I want to live in a dirty old city? This valley’s far too beautiful to leave.’
‘But the animals…? Alis, this is hot news. Your husband is about to take Rome by storm, he’ll be feted. A celebrity.’
‘We’ll stay a week, two maybe,’ she said dismissively, ‘but then he can hand over to an agent while he trains the next batch. Have you seen Sergius lately?’ Her pale face creased into a broad beam. ‘He’s a hundred percent again, fit as a fiddle.’
‘That was quick.’ This morning he looked on his last legs.
‘He was right, too, about not needing a doctor.’ Alis stood up and gathered her scoops and pot. ‘But that’s Sergius for you. Always knows what he’s doing.’
The keys at her belt jangled as she walked towards the east wing.
‘Alis,’ Claudia called after her, ‘just as a matter of interest, how did Isodorus die?’
Flickering torchlight reflected gold on the rippling waters of the fishpond and turned the artemesias round the statuary into tiny molten shrubs. Bats squeaked and dived for insects on the wing. A peaceful scene, which would have been all the more restful had Alis not answered in much the same voice you’d use when choosing between soft, scrambled or hard-boiled eggs.
‘Snakebite,’ she said. ‘Right where you’re sitting.’
And suddenly everything in the garden was not lovely any more.
XXIII
The pale blue gown that Claudia stepped into was one of three she’d picked up in Tarsulae. The style might be a little old-fashioned, the linen neither Syrian or Alexandrian, but the colour was perfect—reminiscent of seaspray breaking against rocks. Tulola would not look twice at such subtlety—indeed, when Claudia was returning to her room, it was the woman’s brassy robes embroidered with scarlet that caught her eye long before she noticed the rest of the family grouped around the atrium pool.
Familiar with Tulola’s plans to celebrate the equinox tonight, Claudia had paid scant attention to them. Her own plans had been galloping a somewhat different course, because by the time Tulola’s frolics began, Claudia intended to be tucked up in Narni before her final push to Rome. Damn, damn and double damn! Still, a party is a party. The boys would be in fancy dress, various entertainments were lined up—wrestling, knucklebones and board games, all worthy of a bet or two—and then the feast itself. Why not?
A hennaed talon beckoned her over to the pool. ‘We have so few diversions compared to you capital-dwellers, sweetie, it amuses me to play another little game tonight.’
I’ll bet it does. Except Claudia’s interest lay in her host, rather than his sister. Alis was right, she thought, Sergius Pictor is health personified. A muscle tugged at the side of her mouth. Marcus Cleverclogs Orbilio’s conclusions about poison were way off target. She must remind herself to tell him so.
Tulola stroked her long neck. ‘I think I’ll introduce a note of—how can I put it?’
‘Discord?’ interjected Pallas.
Playfully Tulola bared her teeth at him. ‘Forfeit. Tonight I’ll forgo my perfume…Euphemia, you can forfeit your jewellery’—there was a sharp movement in Miss Moody’s eyes which Claudia could not interpret, but the girl remained silent—‘while you, Alis, what shall we omit for you?’ The cunning bitch actually pretended to consider the problem. ‘I know! Cosmetics!’
Awkward, flustery Alis could not be considered plain exactly, but even she knew that, with a pallid complexion, carmine and antimony were her best friends. She opened her mouth to protest.
‘Excellent!’ In clapping his hands, Sergius very effectively silenced his wife. ‘Tulola, my dear, I don’t know where you get your ideas from. Claudia, what will you do?’
Claudia had smiled sweetly. ‘I, Sergius, will think about it.’
Now, girdling her gown with a single, dark blue ribbon, she watched the dolphins leaping round her bedroom walls, the prickly sea urchins, the squid, t
he lobster, the writhing sea serpent. Ah, yes. Isodorus. Claudia adjusted the folds of her tunic. The invalid who, curiously, died of snakebite, not his ailments. As though reading her mind, Junius whistled his secret signal.
‘Well?’
Prudence was not a quality one immediately associated with Claudia Seferius, but on this occasion she had deemed it of sufficient importance to find out what she could about the manner of Isodorus’ death and this is where slave gossip became invaluable. She listened, and wasn’t sure she was hearing right.
‘Excuse me?’
Far from a long dissertation on violent death, the imbecile appeared to be babbling about slipping away. Again!
‘Junius, do you have bubbles for brains? As it is, my hipbones are clashing together like cymbals.’ Sergius needed to check out the suspension on his vehicles occasionally, instead of spending every waking hour with his silly striped horses!
‘There’s no better time,’ he urged. ‘With the Prefect gone, it’s dark, we could easily—’
Dear Diana, give me strength. ‘Did you ask around about Isodorus?’
‘Well, yes, but—’
‘Then dish the dirt, or the party will be over before I arrive.’
The Gaul had done well, she’d give him that. He’d pieced together how Alis was married off to Isodorus, whose wealth could not compensate for his congenital ill-health and who, as a result, had had great difficulty in securing a wife. The general consensus, Junius said, was that although the marriage had been consummated, it was hardly a regular occurrence, and that when the boy’s faint spark finally extinguished itself, few expressed surprise.
‘Although there was some irony about his death,’ he added. ‘The snake was curled up inside the mouth of one of the marble monsters in the courtyard.’
Claudia felt herself sway. ‘Don’t tell me. The chimera?’
‘How did you know that?’ he asked. ‘Anyway, I can have another car rigged in ten minutes flat—’
‘Junius, do you seriously believe I can go swanning off to Rome’—snap!—‘just like that?’
‘You wouldn’t be enjoying yourself, would you, madam?’ he’d replied with what she could only describe as a sly smile.
Teeth began to grind. ‘I’ll forgive you for that, because I can see from your colour that you sat out in the sun, it’s obviously coddled your brains, but tread gently, young Gaul.’
‘Or is it because he’s still here?’ he jerked his head along the guest wing. ‘The copper?’
Dammit, that breached the pale. As of now, Claudia informed Junius with chilling clarity, he no longer headed her bodyguard, and if he wished to avoid standing on the blocks at the next slave auction, the best way to set about it was to get out of her sight. Now, forthwith, and immediately. Scoot!
In the looking-glass, Claudia noticed that her lips were pursed white as she snapped a faience pendant round her neck. How dare he, she thought. She drummed her fingers on the table at a speed that would have made any self-respecting woodpecker envious. In fact, she decided, with the full light of reason shining on the issue, if Tulola wanted the boy, she could bloody well have him. With an hour before the festivities started, she called for a jug of white wine. Chilled, because, by Jupiter, it was warm tonight. This year, she calculated, the equinox coincides with the first quarter of the moon, meaning the first of April, Juno’s sacred Kalends, will fall when it’s silver, shiny and full. A rare occasion and cause for much celebration—Juno’s powers will be great indeed after the sacrifices and rejoicing in her honour. Blowing out all but one lantern, Claudia looked up at the millions of stars twinkling bright above her. Your places will be different by the time I return. In fact, knowing Tulola, you mightn’t even be around. She was clipping on a gold anklet set with Sicilian agates when she heard a knock at her door. If that was Junius, he can damned well slither under it. Then she remembered the wine she had ordered.
‘You won’t find better service anywhere in the Empire.’
‘Wasn’t that the basis of Gisco’s complaint?’ She snatched the jug out of the waiter’s hands. ‘However, I do feel that even our red charioteer, limited though his deductive powers may be, could rumble that cunning disguise.’
‘Tulola said fancy dress,’ Orbilio explained, stepping into her room. ‘What’s wrong with coming as a slave?’ For some reason, his eyes were sweeping every flat surface, including under the bed. Ah!
‘Drusilla’s out.’ Such exquisite pleasure, the minute and a half before she put him out of his misery. ‘Tried to pounce on a flock of pecking doves, but they cooed and flew off, so—’
‘—on the basis that if you can’t eat ’em, join ’em—’
‘—she was last seen scavenging in the kitchens. Exactly.’ What is it about Supersnoop? Every time you open a chest, you half expect him to come popping out. I’m wondering if he’s attached to my skirt hem by string.
‘Good.’ Orbilio flung himself lengthways on Claudia’s bed, bounced a few times then folded his hands behind his head. ‘Hey, this couch is comfortable.’
‘Make yourself at home,’ she muttered, tipping half a glass of wine down her throat. Dammit, I’ll be glad when you’re posted to that distant corner of the Narbonensis or wherever it is you have your beady eye on. ‘I’ve been thinking about your shortcut.’
Hope the barracks are swampy and the bedbugs have rabies. ‘Was this while you skinned rabbits as part of your undercover work?’
‘Which reminds me. Oughtn’t you to tip the waiter?’
‘Only off my bed.’
‘I’d rather you didn’t, it’s far comfier than mine.’ He prodded the bolster, pinched the mattress. ‘Who knew you were taking the old road? That’s what’s been bothering me.’
‘Couldn’t it have bothered you in your own room?’
‘It wasn’t luck, snatching part of a conversation from your overnight stop in Tarsulae. No, this took planning and you know what I think?’
‘You’re squashing my slipper.’
‘Not a lumpy mattress, then? Mine’s riddled with them.’ He pummelled the leather back into shape. ‘I reckon that at some stage in the dim and distant past, this route was suggested to you. Think back—maybe you were at dinner, in the baths, meeting with clients?’
Sore point, Orbilio. Dinner, perhaps. Baths, perhaps.
But the meetings with clients have been pitifully few and far between.
‘It’s possible,’ she admitted slowly. A faint bell was beginning to ring.
He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. Generally encased in long patrician tunics, a girl doesn’t expect a sudden plethora of thighs all over her bedroom. Especially firm, bronzed, muscular ones. Not when there’s just one small light flickering in the darkness. And definitely not when the room you’re in seems to shrink and shrink to the size of a closet. Claudia drained her glass in one swallow.
‘You were wrong about Sergius.’ That should put Hotshot in his place. ‘He told me he gets these bouts from time to time— Are you listening to me?’
‘What do you know about Tulola’s husband?’
Obviously not. ‘Only that he walked out on her eons back and she still gets uppity.’ It would be truer to say that the merest mention of the subject and Tulola goes ape.
‘Do you know why?’
‘She was shaking her tail feathers beyond the confines of the nuptial couch, behaviour which apparently failed to coincide with her husband’s views on love, loyalty, marriage and fidelity.’
‘No, I meant do you know why she won’t have his name so much as mentioned?’
Tulola is not a girl who takes lightly to being dumped. ‘I can guess.’ She seeks revenge on all men.
‘I’d bet you a quail to a quadran you’d be wrong.’ He stood up and stretched his arms upwards towards the ceiling. ‘Suppose I tell you the husband comes home one night, discovers Tulola’s been playing around, they have an almighty row and he walks out?’
Claudia felt the tension pu
ll in her neck and in her shoulders as she wondered where this was leading.
‘Then suppose I tell you that he’s never heard of again? That she takes his clothes, his books, his lyre, dumps them in a pile and makes a bonfire? What would you say to that?’
What indeed. ‘You’re suggesting it was an excuse for a funeral pyre?’
‘Not necessarily, I was merely canvassing your opinion, but it’s interesting how we both arrived at similar scenarios.’
He wandered across to the table, rattled the dice cup and tipped out the contents. ‘Full house,’ he chuckled. ‘Would you believe it?’
Claudia quickly scooped up the dice and tucked them into the folds of her pale blue gown. Of course they’d turn up a different face. They were weighted to!
‘Then there’s Pallas,’ he continued, pouring the thin, white wine into the gaming cup. ‘Where does he fit in?’
‘Not many of his tunics, that’s for sure.’
Orbilio refilled Claudia’s glass and passed it across. ‘By his own admission he’s been here two years, almost as long as the newlyweds. I trust there aren’t three on our honeymoon.’
I shall ignore that. ‘Four, actually. You’re forgetting Tulola.’
‘Five, then. We’re both forgetting Euphemia.’
For several moments they stood together by the open window watching the moon bleach the treetops and turn the clouds to silver, and the silence grew. It took on a life force all of its own. It began to condense, heat, pulsate. There was too much of him, she decided. The short tunic, the smell of sandalwood, that one bare shoulder with a little scar just to the left of…
‘One thing struck me as odd.’ Why the hell did she blurt that out? ‘Sergius was bloody quick off the mark when it came to summoning Macer.’
‘Meaning that finding his house guest stab a stranger in the dead of night is not?’
‘Don’t be obtuse, Orbilio, it’s beneath you.’
‘After the names you’ve called me lately, I thought nothing would fit.’ It was the moonlight, of course, that looked as though his eyes were sparkling. ‘So, what’s worrying you? You think Sergius set you up?’
