Black Salamander

XVII

July. When the sun is in Cancer and Jupiter watches over us, when fevered agricultural activity kicks in, scything hay and ricking it for winter, harvesting the barley, beans and wheat, pollinating figs. Everywhere around the Empire, Orbilio thought, hoes would be flashing between the vegetables, forks clicking under vines, there’d come the pungent hiss of burning fur as calves were branded with hot irons. Today’s the day when half-yearly rents fall due, giving rise to countless convoluted excuses, none of them original. Schoolmasters, the poorer ones, would look for work to tide them through holidays which start today, many coaching pupils they’d allowed to become lazy in the knowledge that their families could afford private tuition. With a quiet sigh, he watched the dawn rise over the glade. Some days, morning rushes to greet you like a child at play, wide eyed with open arms, but today’s dawn was a reserved and secretive creature, unwilling to reveal too much at once.

Rather, he smiled, like a certain firebrand he could mention.

Goddammit, why didn’t she admit she was a courier? That way he could relieve her of both map and culpability, and no matter what she was promised by way of payment, he could reimburse her, either through the state or his own pocket, heaven knows he was affluent enough. But would Claudia Seferius stoop to accept assistance? The sun would turn green before that happened.

He shook his head. Her and her bloody independence! For a second, he abandoned himself to the birdsong, the coils of mist rising from the grass, the geometric patterns on the water. Good grief, he was the first to admire self-reliant individualists, but someone ought to point out to her the difference between initiative and bone headedness.

The hour was still early, and the party slumbered on in restless, dreamless sleep. Claudia had left to snatch a couple of hours’ rest, leaving Marcus alone with the wooden nymph, both of them buried knee-deep in the mist. At one point, he thought he’d seen a shadow in the trees, but this was shortly after Claudia’s departure, and it was doubtless her shape he saw, or a deer perhaps, or simply a trick of the dawn light.

She knew much more about the deaths than she was letting on. But for all the problems weighing on his shoulders, it was funny that all he could think about was how sexy she looked in lilac pantaloons, the way they shimmered when she moved, clung to the curves of her thighs when she sat down, and stretched tight across the roundness of her hips. Every ripple in this pool, every rising bubble, reminded him of the silky way the cotton billowed and, despite the sweet lush smell of grass and clover, her spicy balsam perfume lingered in the glade. Faint, tantalizing, and now the ripples became her curls, loose and springy as they burst free of their bondage. Janus, Croesus, how he ached to scrunch them in his hands, pull out the hairpins one by one, that bone pin carved in the shape of a flamingo, the ivory fawn, and let the curls tumble round her breasts as he buried his face in their spicy warmth…

He laughed aloud in the clearing. Twice he’d used ‘spicy’, but was any word more appropriate than one which conjured up the exotic, the hot, the scandalous, the tempting Claudia Seferius?

The desire which had stirred his loins abated, filling the vacuum with a different warmth and longing. An ache to share the long, hot days of summer, strolling in the parks and gardens, rowing on the Tiber, with picnics in the hills. To discuss his cases, take her to banquets on his arm and, when the sun began to set, counteract the emptiness of his customary wine-buffered nights.

Whenever his work required him to travel, she would travel with him, alongside him all the way, and when they returned to Rome, it would not be to a rattling, great house on the Esquiline-they would come home. Together.

That he would have to share her with a blue-eyed, cross-eyed cat with the filthiest of tempers he tried not to think about.

No way, though, would he tolerate that bodyguard of hers. Junius. Uh-uh. Orbilio had not forgotten the malevolent glare he had shot at him when he had arrived, breathless and ragged, down the hillside to the valley where the group had been camped. Sometimes, he thought… Sometimes, the two of them… Bugger it, he was never certain what went on between Claudia and that drop-dead handsome Gaul. The way his eyes latched on to her. Possessive. Like a lover. Glances passed between them, coded messages for sure, but whether these were intimate exchanges or for business purpose, Orbilio couldn’t tell. (And didn’t want to, either.) But no, that last part wasn’t true. He did want to know, even if the knowledge drove a knife into his gut. In what way, exactly, was Claudia Junius’s mistress?

He stripped off his clothes and slid into the bubbling spring. With each minute of encroaching daylight, the water grew more and more pellucid, taking on a rich blue hue, the colour of a peacock’s breast. He let himself float, eyes closed, drinking in the happy warbles of the blackcaps, the fragrant woodland scents.

The Silver Fox would be banned from here. He must collect his water downstream for fear of offending the gods. Did he miss the spring, and everything it stood for? A man didn’t need to believe in Gallic deities to find in this place a holiness, a bonding. Man with nature, man with god. The woodsman’s name was Arcas, Orbilio had been told. A Roman name, one which he must have adopted himself, since it meant ‘son of the bear’, and he wondered what significance could be attached to that.

In legend, Arcas was the result of one of Jupiter’s many cavortings, this time of a beautiful nymph, who Juno, out of spite, turned into a lumbering grizzly instead. One day, when the boy was on the brink of manhood, he came across his mother in the woods and would have speared her with his javelin, had Jupiter not spirited them both away and set them as neighbouring constellations in the sky.

What should Orbilio read into that?

That the Silver Fox was the king of heaven’s son? All Gauls believed they were descended from Dis, so maybe it was not so much a god, as a chieftain he meant. Was Arcas therefore claiming to be a bastard son of the Sequani king? He wore the fox-fur armband, denoting nobility, that was one of the first things Orbilio had noticed in the firelight last night, and certainly it was no dog-Latin that he spoke. There was no air of peasantry about the Silver Fox. Was this an act? The product of deluded fantasies, which, when disproven by the Druid court, he could not accept? Or was the name taken from the bear aspect, him being the huntsman that he was? Did he feel in some way close to the constellations, guided by them? Or did he know nothing about the conquerors’ legends, simply picking a name he could get his Celtic tongue round?

The very fact that he had chosen a Roman name, however, was significant. It suggested he had turned his back on the Sequani, and maybe a man who was truly innocent of his alleged crime but still received sentence to be shunned would feel bitter. It would then be logical for him to live out his term in secrecy close to his village, reappearing in Vesontio as Arcas the Gaul (as opposed to Whoever the Sequani) when the sentence was up. New identity, new beginning. Arcas would not be the first.

That he trusted no one, Marcus read in his gimlet blue eyes. The challenge between them last night went beyond a squabble over money (although Arcas would be set for life after this.). Orbilio imagined every human encounter would be turned into confrontation as the Silver Fox took on the world.

People might not like me, he was saying, but by the gods, they respect me.

Orbilio left the fizzing waters of the pool and dried himself with his tunic. By allowing his mind to wander over subjects as diverse as Claudia and their enigmatic guide it had acted as a mental massage, leaving his brain refreshed and invigorated. Which was just as well because the next step was to work out who among the party was the traitor.

*

Outside the roundhouse, the travellers began to stretch and yawn, rubbing life into stiffened muscles and shaking the ants from their clothing. Among them, the murderer watched the patrician enter the camp, his hair dripping, his skin aglow. It was difficult to know what to make of him.

Designer of mosaic floors, he said, and when Galba’s agent had riffled through his belongings, up popped a well-used portfolio with no shortage of professional sketches and high-quality samples. Absently, the agent watched a squirrel grooming its tail in an oak. Virtually every patrician’s son, on account of their expensive education, ended up a lawyer or a civil servant, or else set himself up as a merchant, but even aristocrats recognized art when they saw it in the family and few stood in the way. True, they tried to channel it into a career with kudos-say, an architect-but Orbilio would not be the first patrician to follow his muse. Galba’s agent could think of numerous poets, painters, even one who became a musician. In fact, the combination of clout and contacts would ensure his commissions were of the highest order, so that in itself was not a problem.

But Libo had also carried excellent credentials. It was only when he was seen in whispered conversation with a centurion (not any old soldier, a centurion!) that the agent’s curiosity had been aroused, and when Libo handed over a sealed report, that was the clincher. He had to go.

In an ideal world, thought Libo’s killer, that would have been a necessary elimination, no more deaths. Other than the obvious complications of finding an opportunity to sneak away unseen, robbing the perfumer had taken very little planning and had had the desired effect that without the prospect of payment at the other end, the lad had no reason to continue. Most satisfactory. Then there was the lyre-maker. Oh, the music that man could conjure up! Truly, the agent would not have deprived the world of talent such as his, had not the man turned and seen the hand inside his trunk. The explanation had not been believed, and it had been relatively easy to toss him unseen into the river.

But if that sounds lucky, think again. Senator-Soon-To-Be-Dictator-Galba had not chosen his instrument without care. Aware of the consequences of being caught red-handed by the lyre-maker, the agent had picked the spot carefully beside the boiling waters of Alpine snow-melts, thundering over rocks, foaming, white and furious. Bodies are rarely recovered from torrents like that, which was really just as well.

Few victims of an accidental slip land on a knife whose blade is pointing upwards!

Nestor, of course, had been a doddle. Galba had arranged the rock fall right on schedule (that man was nothing if not thorough.), Nestor hadn’t see the blow coming. Quick, painless, no witnesses. The agent was well satisfied with events to date.

Apart from the patrician.

Who could be what he claimed to be. There was nothing to read into his air of smooth authority, breeding always throws up leaders, irritating though it be.

Then again, he could be another undercover man, like Libo. But surely, if the Security Police were suspicious, they wouldn’t rely on just one man? Unless, perhaps, it was only the circumstances of Libo’s death they were concerned with?

Or (a sour taste filled the agent’s mouth) Orbilio could be Galba’s creature. A double agent, as it were. To check up on the first…

Neither of those last two scenarios was acceptable, thought the killer, which left no option but for Marcus to follow Libo through the dark paths of the underworld.

Without emotion, the agent watched him select a clean tunic from his pack and slip it over his shoulders. Muscular and tanned, he walked with an easy grace, strong in mind and body, and to eliminate that particular threat would need some careful thought. Especially since he was familiar with one of the couriers! The agent’s eyes swivelled automatically towards Claudia and their hardness softened. Reluctant to kill her, several options had been mulled over and discounted, mostly, the agent was forced to admit, because she was constantly surrounded by that moonstruck bodyguard and her wretched cross-eyed cat. Orbilio’s arrival on the scene complicated matters even further but, during the course of the next two days, the agent had to separate the woman from her section of the map. It was imperative that the pieces the mercenaries ended up with were too obscure to pinpoint the treasure, hers was a pivotal portion. As, indeed, was one other’s.

‘Why don’t you send a fabricated map?’ the agent had enquired of Galba, and the fat man had stared back as though his brain could not translate the message from his ears.

‘What, and scupper the whole bloody scheme?’ The senator had snorted like a wild boar. ‘What do you suppose would happen once our tribal friends got wind this map wasn’t genuine? Keep the information to themselves, would they? Smouldering quietly at the unfairness of a double-cross? Or would they sell us out, d’you think?’

‘If all goes according to plan, they’d never know,’ the agent had protested.

‘Wouldn’t they?’ Galba’s laugh had echoed across the empty warehouse where they’d arranged to meet. ‘You think the Helvetii don’t have spies among us? You leave the planning to me,’ he’d said. ‘Concentrate on doing your job well and in a few weeks’ from now, you’ll be-’ He’d clicked his fat fingers with impatience. ‘Remind me again what you want out of the Republic?’

Furious and humiliated that Galba didn’t care enough about those prepared to carry out his dirty work to even remember their ambitions, the agent had simply mumbled something trite. But it had sown a little seed of doubt which had just this moment germinated. So much was at stake here, that maybe Galba, cold-blooded bastard that he was, had sent his own man to do away with the agent. The fewer who know, the better, or simply one less debt to be settled…

The agent smiled. Well, wouldn’t he be in for a surprise? For several happy moments, the agent savoured visions of this arrogant patrician being toppled from his perch. Orbilio’s pleas for mercy perhaps. Or that exquisite moment when the smug smirk was replaced with an expression of utter surprise But that, whichever way the agent decided to play it, was a treat for the future. Right now, it was back to the Don’t-Let-The-Mask-Slip theatrical performance.

‘Is there,’ the agent called out, ‘any chance of an egg with my breakfast?’

*

The party was in excellent high spirits. Their problems were over at last, they could relax, for the first time in days, their thoughts were forward-looking. Someone mentioned the bath house in Vesontio, and talk turned instantly to the enticing prospect of hot steam baths and massage, scented oils and beauty treatments for the ladies, while others considered the accommodation which awaited, swansdown mattresses, wine and proper food, or rich contracts ripe for the making. Laughter danced in the air like fireflies and since bickering had been rendered superfluous now there were so few anxieties left to niggle them, the travellers were content to drink in the birdsong of the morning and wash their rested bodies in the peacock-blue pool.

In short, Claudia thought, their guards are down.

The hide across the porch had been drawn back, the oak door flung open to reveal the reason for the incredible height of the roundhouse. A central circular hearth, piled high with fragrant fir ash, smouldered gently to smoke a multitude of hams, tongues and sausages strung from a crossbeam. Under the eaves of this single-roomed, windowless building, a ewe with long arching horns and two lambs dozed happily, as though gatherings on this scale happened every day, while two doves strutted and cooed on the thatch.

‘I don’t believe it!’ The bubbly blonde giggled, head to head with the slipper-maker’s wife. ‘She said that?’

Gossip. A sure sign everything’s on track.

Whistling under his breath, the tubby priest set up an altar to the Lares, pouring them a libation of spring water and beer in thanks for their protection of the travellers, and just to make sure they got the message, Clemens scattered meadow rue and scabious, honesty and orchids across the altar stone.

Iliona was belting out a bright little number, her ankle bracelets and bangles a jaunty backing group, as she followed the path through the birches, watched by Titus whose smile, for once, didn’t seem ambiguous, just proud.

‘Talk about opposites.’ Somewhere along the line Orbilio had sidled up.

‘Titus and Iliona? Nonsense.’ They complement one another wonderfully, each finding in the other a matchless counterpart. ‘It works,’ Claudia told him (men! Fancy needing to have this explained to them!), ‘because she is of the sea and he the land. She is light and bright and sunny, a product of broad skies and barren hills, of rolling endless seas, whereas Titus hails from dark, wooded landscapes, which are reflected in his repressed and cautious attitudes.’

‘In fact, a perfect merchant in the making.’

‘A perfect partnership.’ Claudia corrected him, waving a cautionary finger. ‘I’ll bet you a quernstone to a quadran that if purchasers are not swayed by Titus’s logic, Iliona’s charms tip the balance.’

‘But Titus is so moral.’ Orbilio laughed. ‘Is any man more prudent, more provident that he?’

Claudia found herself laughing, too. ‘Exactly my point, Hotshot. He may be provident, but our Cretan lovely will look to Provid ence for taking care of the future. I defy you to tell me there’s a more potent combination?’

‘I shall,’ he said, tapping the tip of his forefinger on the tip of her nose, ‘hold you to that on our wedding day. But in the meantime, I have an Empire to save. Do excuse me.’

Claudia laughed, watching him lope off along the track in the direction of the village. Sometimes, Marcus Cornelius, sometimes I can almost believe that I like you.

Volso was huddled over his charts, muttering about suns in this, moons in that, cusps all over the place, trying to determine whether the calculations were on target for when the Dog Star starts to rise. Apparently this made a difference, if only Claudia suspected, to his income.

‘Drusilla? Where are you, poppet?’ Overcome with the joys of freedom, neither of them had come ‘home’ to the roundhouse, and the last time she had seen the cat, it had been with a thin, hairless tail hanging out the side of her mouth. Well, catching them is one thing. Leaving mangled mice on a girl’s bedding is another. ‘Drusilla?’

‘Hrrrrow.’

Good grief, what was she doing on the roof? Then Claudia noticed the cat, cross-eyed to start with, was experiencing considerable problems in deciding which of the two doves to chase. Both eyes seemed fixed on both birds.

Laughing, as she craned her neck to watch the antics on the thatch, her heel caught and suddenly Claudia was tumbling backwards over someone else’s belongings. Whoops! The heap of armour went sprawling, but no one seemed to notice, and certainly Theo wasn’t around to apologize to. In fact, she thought she’d seen him take his towel towards the spring just a few minutes previously.

What a mess! With downturned mouth, she leaned down to re-stack the heap-and then it happened.

Memories leapt in.

Her father, his features after so many years reduced to a haze, she suddenly caught the smell of him, warm and nutmeggy, and felt the bristles of his beard against her cheek. She swallowed at the unexpectedness, tried to fight this fierce tidal wave of emotion. He, too, had been attached to the army, a lowly orderly admittedly, but she’d learned so much about military campaigns from him and now absurd, inconsequential items skipped along the tunnel of her memory. His mimicking of the trumpeter who’d sound the call ‘Strike Camp!’ The way he showed her how to route march, the pair of them left-righting down the stinking slumland alleys, one little soldier in the shadow of the real one, dwarfed by crumbling tenements which stank of raw sewage and boiled turnips and which relied for their water on one erratic standpipe or a surly water carrier. A lump rose in her throat. So many times she’d seen Theo in full uniform, why now? Why did it all flood back at this moment? Eyes misted, hot and salty, as she ran a loving hand over the gleaming helmet, the iron-shod boots, the heavy cloak Theo used for a pillow, the yellow deerskin pouch he kept under it…

Her father, his mannerisms, even the stinking slums vanished like a pricked bubble. Gone. Fast. Without trace. And try as she might, by screwing up her fists and eyes, Claudia could not re-capture those golden, precious, carefree moments. The uniform, the weaponry, the armour had become inanimate again. Objects. Detached. Without soul, without life, without meaning. Just objects. Mother of Mars, she hated them for that, but more, she hated the little yellow eye which peeked out from the red woollen cloak, because it had taken her father away from her.

Claudia kicked back the corner she’d disturbed and spun away.