Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 122, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 745 & 746, September/October 2003

Cupid’s Arrow by Marilyn Todd

Marilyn Todd’s eighth Claudia Seferius novel, Dark Horse, was published by Severn House in the U.K. in October of 2002, and received a strong review in PW. Claudia also continues to solve crimes at short story length, while managing to avoid romantic entanglement with her nemesis, Marcus Cornelius Orbilio. “I enjoy writing these Claudia stories so much, it almost feels like I’m indulging in a guilty liaison,” Ms. Todd confessed to EQMM.

“Let me see if I’ve got this right.”

Claudia stopped pacing and ticked the points off on her fingers.

“In six days’ time, we, as producers and merchants of fine wines, celebrate the Vinalia, when no lesser light than the priest of Jupiter himself will pronounce the auspices for the forthcoming vintage?”

“Correct, madam.”

“Except,” she turned to face her steward, “we have no grapes to lay on his altar on the Capitol as offerings?”

“Correct.”

“Because some clod on my estate came down with a sniffle and the bailiff took it upon himself to quarantine the entire workforce?”

“To be fair, madam, the clod in question was the bailiff himself. He did not feel he could jeopardise the harvest by exposing—”

“Yes or no to the grapes?”

“Yes. No. I mean, yes, we have no—”

“So in effect, I’m asking the King of the Immortals, God of Justice, God of Honour, God of Faith, who shakes his black goatskin cloak to marshal up the storm clouds and who controls the weather, good and bad, to very kindly not drop a thunderbolt over my Etruscan vineyards, even though I haven’t bothered to propitiate him this year?”

The steward’s Adam’s apple jiggled up and down as his long, thin face crumpled like a piece of used papyrus. “That does appear to pretty much sum up the current situation, madam.”

“Oh, you think so, do you?” Claudia resumed her pacing of the atrium, wafting her fan so hard that a couple of the feathers sprang loose from their clip. Dear Diana, it was hot. Small wonder that half of Rome had taken itself off to the cool of the country or else to the seaside for the month of August. She thought of the refreshing coastal breezes. A dip in the warm, translucent ocean. The sound of cooling waves crashing against rocks... “Well, let me tell you something, Leonides. That doesn’t sum up even half the current situation.”

According to the astrologers and soothsayers in the Forum — at least those diehards who hadn’t fled this vile, stinking heat — terrible storms were in the offing unless almighty Jupiter could be appeased. For everyone else in the Empire, storms would be a relief from this torpid, enervating swelter. Sweat soaked workmen’s tunics and plastered their hair to their foreheads. Meat turned within the day, and fish was best avoided unless it was flapping. Even Old Man Tiber couldn’t escape. His waters ran yellow and sluggish, stinking to high heaven from refuse, sewage, and the carcasses of rotting sheep. But for farmers with grapes still ripening out on the vine, storms on the scale that were being predicted provoked only fear. A single hailstorm could wipe out their entire vintage.

“Prayers and libations aren’t enough,” Claudia said, as two more feathers flew out of the fan, “and I can hardly buy grapes from the market and palm them off to Jupiter as my own.”

It was enough that that bitch Fortune happened to be unwavering when it came to divine retribution at the moment. Claudia didn’t want it spreading round Mount Olympus like a plague.

“And you’re forgetting, Leonides, that I can’t despatch a slave to Etruria to cut bunches until tomorrow at the earliest, because today, dammit, is the Festival of Diana — which just happens to be a holiday for slaves!”

“Oh, I hadn’t forgotten,” Leonides replied mournfully.

Claudia blew a feather off the end of her nose and thought at this rate, the wretched fan would be bald by nightfall, and why the devil can’t people make things to last anymore, surely that isn’t too much to ask. She stopped. Turned. Stared at her steward.

“Very well, Leonides, you may go.”

He was the only one left, anyway, apart from her Gaulish bodyguard, and it would take an earthquake, followed by a tidal wave, followed by every demon charging out of Hades before Junius relinquished his post. She glanced across to where he was standing, feet apart, arms folded across his iron chest, in the doorway to the vestibule, and couldn’t for the life of her imagine why he wasn’t out there lavishing his hard-earned sesterces on garlands, girls, and gaming tables like the rest of the men in her household.

The girls, of course, had better things to do. Dating back to some archaic ritual of washing hair, presumably in the days before fresh water had been piped into the city by a network of aqueducts, the Festival of Diana was now just a wonderful excuse for slave women to gather in the precinct of the goddess’s temple on the Aventine. There, continuing the theme of this ancient tradition, they would spend the day pinning one another’s hair in elaborate curls and experimenting with pins and coloured ribbons. Any other time and Claudia would have been down there, too, watching dexterous fingers knotting, twisting, coiling, plaiting, because at least half a dozen innovative styles came out of this feast day on the ides of August, and all too fast the shadows on the sundial on the temple wall would pass.

But not today. Today she had received the news that her bailiff was covered in spots and that rather than risk the harvest by having the workforce fall sick, he had put them in quarantine to the point where no one was even available to pick a dozen clusters of grapes. There was a grinding sound coming from somewhere. After a while, she realised it was her teeth.

“Junius?”

Before she’d even finished calling his name, he’d crossed the hall in three long strides. Was any bodyguard more dedicated, she wondered? Sometimes, catching sight of his piercing blue gaze trained upon her, she found his devotion to duty somewhat puzzling. Any other chap and you’d think he carried a torch for her, but hell, he was only twenty-one, while she was twenty-five, a widow at that, and tell me, what young stallion goes lusting after mares when he can have his pick of fillies?

Widow. Yes.

With all the excitement, she’d almost forgotten poor Gaius. Yet the whole point of marrying someone older, fatter, and in the terminal stages of halitosis was for these vineyards, wasn’t it? Well, not the vineyards exactly. She had married Gaius for what they’d been worth, although the bargain wasn’t one-sided. Gaius Seferius had had what he wanted, as well — a beautiful, witty trophy wife, and one who was less than half his age at that. Both sides had been content with the arrangement, knowing that by the time he finally broke through the ribbon of life’s finishing line, Gaius would be leaving his lovely widow in a very comfortable position. In practice, it worked out better than Claudia had hoped.

Maybe not for Gaius, who had been summoned across the River Styx a tad earlier than he’d expected, and certainly before he would have wished.

And maybe not for his family, either, who were written out of his will.

But for Claudia, who’d inherited everything from the spread of Etruscan vineyards to numerous investments in commercial enterprises, from this fabulous house with its wealth of marbles and mosaics, right down to the contents of his bursting treasure chests, life could not have turned out sweeter if she’d planned it. So why, then, hadn’t she simply sold up and walked away? It was how she’d envisaged her future after Gaius. No responsibilities. Draw a line. Start again. Instead, she hadn’t just hung on to the wine business, she’d taken an active, some might say principal, role. And as for his grasping, two-faced family, goodness knows why she continued to support them! Something to do with not wanting them to root around in her past, she supposed, but that was not the point.

The point was, she must remember to lay some flowers beside her husband’s tomb sometime. And maybe she’d have his bust repainted this year, too. After all, it couldn’t exactly be improving down there in the cellar.

“Junius, I want you to run down to the Forum and hire a messenger. The ones by the basilica are usually reliable, but if there’s no one left today, and I’ll be very surprised if there is, given that it’s a holiday for slaves, try the place behind the Records Office.”

“Me?” The Gaul was shocked. “B-but I can’t possibly leave you here alone, madam.”

“I promise that if a gang of murdering marauders come barging in, I’ll ask them to wait until you’re back to protect my honour, and that way we can both get killed. How’s that?”

“With respect,” his freckled face had darkened to a worried purple, “I don’t consider danger a joking matter. These are the dog days of summer. Men are driven mad by the appalling heat, madam, and by the sickness and disease that grips the city. With rich folk decamped to the country, only criminals and undertakers flourish in Rome at the moment.”

Claudia nodded. “Very eloquently put, Junius. You are, of course, absolutely correct, and if you don’t hurry, there won’t be any messengers at the place behind the Records Office, either.”

“But, madam—”

“It’s a straight choice, Junius. Either you hire a courier to gallop like the wind to my estate, pick a dozen bunches of the ripest grapes, then ride straight back, where we might — just might — make it in the five days we have left and therefore save the day. Or I turn you into cash at the slave auction in the Forum in the morning.”

The young Gaul drew himself up to his full height, squared his impressive shoulders, and clicked his heels together. “In that case, madam.” This time he didn’t look at her, but stared straight ahead. “In that case, I see I have no alternative.”

Excellent. Using the full services of the post houses and changing stations, the messenger-

“You will have to sell me in the morning.”

What? The remaining feathers sprayed out of the fan as Claudia crushed it in her fist. “This is not a debatable issue, Junius. You will—”

“I am not leaving you alone and that’s final.”

Jupiter, Juno, and Mars, that’s all I need. The only slave left on the entire premises turns out to be as stubborn as a stable full of mules! She looked at the rigid line to his mouth, the square set to his chin, and resisted the urge to punch him on it. Remind me of the position again?

A storm threatens to wipe out this year’s harvest.

The offering to propitiate the god who threatens that storm isn’t coming.

There’s no one available to go and fetch it.

And the only person who could help is throwing tantrums.

In short, if she wanted a courier, Claudia would have to trek out in this ghastly, fly-blown, disease-ridden heat and hire one herself, a role her bodyguard would be very happy for her to undertake, because at least he could be on hand when robbers, thieves, and rapists set upon them.

Was there, she wondered, anything else which that bitch Fortune could throw in her path today?

The goddess’s reply came almost at once.

She delivered it in the form of a bloodcurdling scream.

Which came from Claudia’s very own garden.

With its stately marble statues and rearing bronze horses, Claudia’s garden was a testament to her late husband’s wealth and social status. A red-tiled portico provided shade and offered shelter from the rain, the water from its terra cotta gutters collected in oak butts to irrigate the vast array of herbs and flowers, whose scent in turn fragranced the air throughout the year. Paved paths crisscrossed through clipped lavender and rosemary, while topiaried laurels and standard bay trees gave the garden depth and height. In the centre, a pool half covered by the thick, white, waxy blooms of water lilies reflected sunshine, clouds, or stars, according to the weather. And all around, fountains splashed and chattered, making prisms as they danced, as well as an attractive proposition for birds in need of something more refreshing than a dust bath.

That such a place of beauty and tranquillity could be shattered by such a scream was nothing short of outrage.

The instant they had heard it, Claudia and her bodyguard went flying down the atrium. From then, it was as though the sequence of events had been frozen. Time slowed. She might have been watching them unfold by following their progress on a carved relief.

The screech came from a young man scrambling down the fig tree which grew against the wall. Unlike her villa in the country — indeed, unlike everybody’s villa in the country — this house didn’t have the room to follow the traditional pattern of four single-storey wings around a central courtyard. For a start, it had two upper galleries for bedchambers and linen storage, each accessed by separate staircases, and a cellar which was accessed by steps outside the kitchens. The only possible site for a garden was behind the house and adjacent to its neighbour’s. With one million people crammed into the city, space was at a premium and houses, even those of the wealthy, invariably butted up against each other. Claudia’s was no exception. To the right, she adjoined the house of a Syrian glass merchant, while her garden at the rear adjoined a general’s. Paulus Salvius Volso, to be precise. Admittedly a loud-mouthed, drunken bully of a man, but all the same it was from his premises that the youth was making his rather hurried exit.

What he’d been up to in the general’s house was clear from the array of golden goblets and silver platters which bulged out of the sack slung over his left shoulder. The contents nearly blinded her when the sunlight caught them. He was halfway down the fig when he let loose a second shriek.

It took a moment before Claudia realised that they were not screams of alarm, but squeals of wild abandon. The grin on his face as he jumped down was as wide as a barn.

“Hey!” Junius called out. “Hey, you! Stop right there!”

The boy spun round in surprise, but didn’t falter as he bolted towards the wicker gate on the far side of the garden.

“Stop!” This was a different voice. A soldier’s bark. “Stop, or I’ll shoot!”

Junius was already racing down the path to try and cut the thief off, so he didn’t bother looking round to see who was shouting from the top of her neighbour’s wall. Claudia did. It was Labeo, one of the general’s henchmen and a retired captain of archers. The thief had used a ladder to make good his escape. His mistake lay in not kicking it away. Labeo had shinned up it like a monkey.

The boy shot a quick glance at the bodyguard charging down the path towards him. Halfway to the gate, he knew he could outsprint him. Claudia knew it, too, and so did Labeo. On a public holiday, the street outside would be heaving. One more thief lost in a crowd.

“Last chance,” Labeo boomed. “Or I’ll fire.”

Claudia saw the grin drop from the boy’s face. Realised that he hadn’t actually seen Labeo until now. Thought it was a bluff being called by someone from inside Claudia’s house, not from the top of the wall.

He turned. Saw the archer. Dropped the sack.

“All right, all right,” he yelled. “Have it!”

Gold, bronze, copper, and silver spilled over the pinks and the lilies. Ivory figurines knocked the heads off the roses.

What happened next would stay with Claudia for the rest of her life.

Watching the cascade of precious artifacts, she first saw its reflection in the pool. An arc of white, flying left to right.

Heard a soft hiss.

Looked up.

The arrow hit the boy in the centre of his back. She heard the splinter of bone. The soft yelp that sprang from his lips.

For three paces he didn’t stop running. Then his arms splayed. His legs buckled. Red froth burst from his mouth. Still he kept going. It was only when he reached the gate and tried to unbar it that he realised he couldn’t make it. Junius had caught up by now. Was cradling the boy in his lap. Claudia could hear him whispering words of comfort as she flew to his side.

“Shh, lad.” Junius wiped the fringe from the boy’s face and patted his cheek. “It’s all right. There’s a physician on his way now.”

His expression was haunted as it met Claudia’s unvoiced question.

“You d-don’t understand.” The boy’s head rolled wildly and his breath bubbled red. “N-not s-supposed to b-be like this.” Terrified eyes bored into Claudia’s. She could see that they were brown. Brown as an otter. “I’m n-not going to d-die, am I?” he asked.

“Of course not,” she said, only there was something wrong with her eyes, because her vision was misty. “It’s just a wound, like Junius says.” Her voice was cracked, too. “You’ll be back on your feet in a week.”

But that wasn’t quite true.

The otter was already swimming the Styx.

For his part, Labeo had no sympathy for what he termed a dead piece of scum. Indeed, he would have pulled the arrow out of the boy’s back to see how the head had compacted upon impact, had he not been prevented by Mistress Snooty from next-door here, slapping his hand away. What a bitch, he thought. Shooting me glares which would poleaxe a lesser man. What did she expect me to do? Let the thieving toe-rag go?

“The general’s instructions was to shoot all intruders, whether they be on the premises or in the process of escaping,” he informed her. “And it don’t matter to me whether this piece of filth were carrying a dagger or not,” he added coldly when taken to task about killing an unarmed, defenceless fifteen-year-old boy. “He were guilty, and the proof, if it’s necessary, lies all over your flower beds. Ma’am.”

He weren’t accountable to her anyway. The bitch.

But dammit, the sulky cow just would not let it rest. On and on she went, about how young the boy was, and hadn’t anyone considered what had driven the poor lad to resort to stealing, because you could see he wasn’t used to it, no one in their right mind would run off up a busy street with a sack stuffed full of golden objects and not have the army after them, and anyway what seasoned professional would go round leaving ladders against walls to make life easy for his pursuers?

Labeo let it ride. If she wanted to feel sorry for that little turd, that was her business, not his. He’d done the job he was being paid to do, and he was behind the general all the way on this. Let criminals think you’re a soft touch, and every bloody thief will be climbing up the balcony! So while she ranted, he congratulated himself on being such a damn good shot. That arrow went exactly where he’d planned it.

Quite at what point Her Snootyship intended to shut up, Labeo didn’t know. But he was mighty glad when he heard the general call his name from the far side of the wall. The master hadn’t been expected back for ages, but wouldn’t he be pleased to hear his captain had bagged a sewer rat this morning!

Except there were something different about the general’s bellow. Every bit as terse. Nothing unusual about that! And no less urgent, neither. (The general weren’t a patient man!) But... Well, it just sounded different, that was all.

“I’m over here, General,” he called back. “Caught a burglar stealing your gold. Shot him as he escaped.”

“Is he dead?” Volso wanted to know, scaling the ladder two steps at a time. He was a tall man in maybe his forty-second summer, broad of shoulder and square of jaw, his skin weathered from years of campaigning and thickened from too many nights cradling the wine jar. But he cut a commanding enough figure on and off the field, and regular training in the gymnasium had clearly paid off. It was a lean and nimble figure that swung itself over the adjoining wall.

“Couldn’t be deader,” Labeo told him proudly, as his employer dropped to the ground.

“Pity,” Volso snarled, wiping the dirt from his hands down his tunic. He marched over to where Junius and Claudia were conversing quietly over the body and rammed his foot hard into the corpse. “Bastard didn’t deserve an easy death.”

“Volso!” Horrified, Claudia stepped in front before he could land a second kick. “You are on my property, General, and I’ll thank you to have some respect for it, for me, and for the dead.”

“Respect?” Labeo feared the general’s bellow would deafen the widow. “Respect, you say?” He pushed her roughly aside and slammed his boot into the boy’s side as he had originally intended. “Save your sympathy, Claudia Seferius. If Labeo hadn’t killed him, public execution certainly would.”

“Stealing is a civil matter—” she began.

“Stealing is,” the general agreed. “Murder isn’t. That boy you’re so protective of didn’t just rob me of my gold and silver. He robbed me of my wife.” Volso turned to face his archer. “Callista’s body is still sprawled across the bedroom floor,” he said quietly. “Where this bastard strangled her.”

Moonlight had turned the garden paths to silver. The feathery leaves of artemisia and the pale purple flowers of sweet rocket released musky perfume into heat that pulsated like a cricket, and mice rustled beneath the fan-trained peach trees, pears, and apricots. Bats squeaked on the wing in search of moths. An owl hooted from the cedar three doors down, and a frog plopped gently into the pool from a water-lily leaf.

The slaves were not back yet. While they milked their precious holiday for all it was worth, there was none of the customary clattering of pots and skillets from the kitchens. No bickering coming out of the married quarters. The heather brooms and garden shears were silent. Everything was silent.

Seated on a white marble bench with her back against an apple tree, Claudia watched her blue-eyed, cross-eyed, dark Egyptian cat chase a mouse round the shrine in the corner of the garden and slowly sipped her wine. The wine was dark. Dark as Claudia’s mood. And every bit as heavy. Cradling the green glass goblet in both hands, she stared up at the night sky without blinking. The stars would make life easy for navigation out at sea tonight, she thought. Directly overhead, the dragon roared and Hercules strode purposefully across the heavens, wielding his olive-wood club. How appropriate, she mused, that it was the constellation of Sagittarius which was starting to rise over the southern horizon. Sagittarius, the Archer...

The army had come, conducted its investigation in the twinkling of an eye, and departed hours ago. The young man’s body had been carted away unceremoniously on a stretcher and Labeo had been lauded for a job well done, both by the army and his bereaved employer. It had been left to Claudia and her bodyguard to stack the stolen objects back inside the sack, in which Junius later returned them to their owner.

Still staring at the stars, she sipped her wine.

“So then.” A tall, patrician body eased itself onto the bench, leaned its back against the rough bark of the apple tree, and crossed its long patrician legs at its booted ankles. “Cut and dried.”

Even above the scents of the junipers and cypress, the heliotrope and the lilies, she could smell his spicy sandalwood unguent. Caught a faint whiff of the rosemary in which his trademark long linen tunic had been rinsed.

“I wondered how long it would take before Marcus Cornelius Orbilio arrived on the scene,” she said without turning her head.

Up there on Olympus, Fortune must be wetting her knickers. Claudia topped up her goblet from the jar. Dammit, she couldn’t make a move without the Security Police popping up in the form of their only aristocratic investigator, who seemed to view her — let’s call them misdemeanours — as his fast track to the Senate. Still. What did she care? She had nothing to hide from him this time. For once, Marcus Make-Room-for-Me-in-the-Assembly Orbilio was whistling in the dark.

She couldn’t see him, but knew that he was grinning. “Why?” he asked. “Were you running a book on when I’d arrive?”

“Tch, tch, tch. You should know that gambling’s against the law, Orbilio.”

“Which happens to be one of the reasons I’ve called round.” A shower of bronze betting receipts scattered on the path. “Yours, I believe.”

“Never seen them before in my life,” she replied. Bugger. That was the best boxer in Rome she’d backed with those. Half a brickwork’s worth, if she recalled.

“What about these?” he said, showering a dozen more.

And that, unless she missed her guess, was the other half, invested at five to one on a Scythian wrestler from the north coast of the Black Sea. Bugger, bugger, bugger.

“We caught the bookie touting outside the imperial palace,” he said cheerfully. “You know, you really should be more careful who you have dealings with, Claudia.”

She skewered him with a glare. “Damn right.”

“How much of Gaius’s money do you have left?” he asked.

The old adage was true, she thought ruefully. The best way to make a small fortune is to start with a large one...

“Jupiter alone knows what will happen to the family fortune once I’m married to you,” he continued smoothly. “We’ll probably be celebrating our fifth anniversary in the gutter.”

She supposed it was the moon making twinkles in his eyes, but in its clear, three-quarters light she could see every curl in his thick mop of hair, the solid musculature of his chest, the crisp, dark hairs on the back of his forearms.

“I would go to the lions before I went to the altar with you, Marcus Cornelius, and if you’ve finished littering my garden path, perhaps you’ll be kind enough to sod off. I have a pressing engagement.” She patted the wine jar beside her. “With my friend Bacchus here.”

“Hmm.” He folded his hands behind his head and closed his eyes. “You seem to be having a lot of metal littering your garden path all of a sudden. Tell me about this morning.”

“No.”

Why the hell did he think she wanted to get drunk? To forget, that was why. To forget a young man with an ecstatic grin and eyes as brown as an otter. Eyes that she had watched glaze in death...

“Oh no. There’s more to it than that,” he said, clicking his tongue. “I know you inside out.” He recrossed his ankles, but did not open his eyes. “Tell me.”

“If I did, you wouldn’t believe me.”

“I don’t believe you’ve never seen these betting receipts. I don’t believe you’ve never defrauded your customers, or that you’ve never smuggled your wine out of Rome to avoid paying taxes, and that’s why I love you, my darling, and that’s why I know that when you marry me, life will never be dull—”

“See a physician, you have a fever.”

“—and I know, equally, that I’ll never be able to trust you with money or business, but I do trust your judgment, Claudia Seferius. What is it about this morning that bothers you?”

“You really want to know?” Claudia drew a deep breath. Stared up at the celestial Archer. Let her breath out slowly to a count of five. “What bothers me, Orbilio, is that a woman was murdered today and the wrong man took the blame. A young man who, conveniently, is not around to tell his side of the story.”

“You think Labeo—”

Claudia snorted. “That arrogant oaf?” In her mind, she heard again the sickening thud as the general’s boot thudded into the dead boy’s ribs. Heard the youth’s exuberant yell as he scrambled down the fig tree on the wall.

“No, Marcus,” she said wearily, “Labeo did not kill Callista.” She thought of her tiny, fair-haired neighbour laid out on her funeral bier in the atrium next-door, cypress at the door, torches burning at her feet. “The thing is, Volso is a domineering drunk and a bully.” She sighed. “Who liked to beat his wife and his children.”

Juno in heaven, how often had she heard them? The muffled screams. The pleading. Wracking sobs that lasted well into the night... Many times she would rush round there, only for the door to be slammed in her face, and the next day Callista’s story would be the same. The children had fallen downstairs, she’d say, or she had walked into a pillar. Sweet Janus, how often had Claudia begged her to leave the vicious brute? One day, she’d told Callista, he will end up killing one of the children.

“Think of them, if not yourself,” she’d advised.

Months passed and nothing changed, until, miracle of miracles, last week Callista called round to confide that she was leaving. Enough was enough, she’d said. Claudia was right. One of these days she feared Volso would go too far and as soon as she’d found suitable accommodation for herself and the children, she would pack her bags and leave.

“So you think Volso killed his wife?” Marcus said.

“No,” Claudia replied sadly, “I killed her.”

She could easily have taken Callista and the children in, but she had not. She’d been too busy trotting round placing bets on boxers and wrestlers, ordering new gowns for the Vinalia in six days’ time, planning parties, organising dinners, garlanding the hall with floral tributes. A battered wife with moping children would have got in the way. Put a dampener on everybody’s spirits.

As surely as Paulus Salvius Volso throttled the life out of poor Callista, so Claudia Seferius had provided him with the ammunition.

Orbilio was forced to admit that when Claudia told him he wouldn’t believe what she was going to tell him, he was wrong. He’d said he was convinced that he’d believe her. But wrong he was.

That Volso killed his wife he could accept. The minute he’d heard that Callista had been found strangled in the course of a burglary, his suspicions were aroused. Having listened to the report of the centurion sent to investigate the killing of the thief, he’d not been at all satisfied with the army’s neat conclusion. Volso’s reputation preceded him and Marcus knew him as the type who vehemently believed that his wife and children were his property, that he would say who came and who went, and that nobody, but nobody, left him unless he threw them out. That was why he’d called on Claudia this evening. To hear her view on the matter.

But that she was in any way morally responsible was bullshit.

In time, of course, she would come to see this for herself, and surely the best way of helping her to reach this point was for her to help him clap the cold-blooded bastard in irons.

“The killing required a lot of planning,” he said.

And together, as the Archer rose and the level in the wine jug sank, they gradually pieced together the sequence of events.

First, Callista, having made her decision, must have somehow given the game away. Perhaps she had started to put things together in a chest. Maybe she’d confided to one of the older children. Who knows? Hell, she might even have lodged her claim in a divorce court, where Volso was just powerful enough to have the scribe report the matter back. Either way, he knew about her plan but did not let on.

Instead, he went out and hired himself a thief. A military man, he’d know exactly where to look and, as a commander of long standing, he would know what type of character to choose. Someone gullible, for a start. Someone who would believe the story he had spun them about having fallen on hard times and how the debt collectors would be knocking at his door any day now to seize his assets. But if he could beat them at their own game...? Stage a burglary whereby the thief was paid handsomely to steal the goods, which he would hand over to the general’s henchman outside in the street to be converted into liquid assets which the debt collectors would not know about.

“How do you know he’d told the boy there would be an accomplice?” Orbilio asked.

“The yells,” she explained. “The yells were to alert the person he believed would be loitering in the street to move up to my back gate in readiness to relieve him of the sack and pay him whatever price Volso had agreed.” She shrugged. “As I said, it had to be somebody gullible.”

Older boys would not have swallowed the bait. This boy had to be new at the game. No one else would have been told to leave the ladder up against the wall and actually left it!

“Except his yells alerted Labeo instead,” Marcus said. “Who had been primed beforehand by his master that on a slaves’ holiday the house might well be a target for thieves and that he was to shoot on sight.”

Perhaps it wasn’t Labeo’s fault after all, Claudia mused. He’d been as much a pawn in the game as the boy, the one lured by greed, the other by pride. The only difference, Labeo was alive.

“So.” Orbilio steepled his fingers. “The house is empty, because all the slaves are out celebrating. It’s just Labeo in there on his own, and Callista, whom Volso had undoubtedly drugged. The boy sneaks in, probably through your garden, shins up the fig tree and over the wall. He then places the ladder so he can make his escape. Inside, he fills the sack with the items he’s been instructed to pick and then, when he’s finished, he screams like a banshee, because it’s vital the accomplice is outside for a quick handover.”

“Unfortunately, the yell alerts Labeo, who finds no trouble chasing him, thanks to the ladder Volso thought to set in place.” Claudia could see why he’d made general. In military tactics, timing is crucial. “Because while we’re all nicely diverted by the robbery and the killing of the thief, the master of the house is free to walk in through his own front door and throttle his wife at his leisure.”

“Ah.” Orbilio plucked a blade of grass and chewed it. “That’s where it starts to get tricky. You see, Volso refused point-blank to give his porter the day off today, and the porter is adamant his master left the house shortly after dawn and did not come back until after the boy had been shot. He knows this, because when Volso came home the porter told him about the robbery and he was actually with him when he found Callista’s body.”

He paused. Cracked his knuckles. Spiked his hands through his hair in frustration.

“Therefore, Volso could not have killed his wife.”

Dawn was painting the sky a dusky heather pink when Claudia finally stood up. The first blackbird had started to sing from the cherry tree, mice made last-minute searches for beetles, and frogs began to croak from the margins of the lily pond. She shook the creases from her pale blue linen gown, smoothed pleats which had wilted in the heat, and forced half a dozen wayward ringlets back into their ivory comb.

The first of the slaves had begun to trickle home three hours ago. Gradually, the rest had staggered in, singing, belching, giggling under their breath, their footsteps and their voices restoring order to the silent house. Without their presence, it was as though the bricks and mortar had been in hibernation. Now it was a home again, for them as well as Claudia, the rafters resonating with their drunken squabbles and their laughter, the clang of a kicked pan here, the spluttered expletive from a banged shin there, the bawling of too many overtired children.

For most of the night, she and Orbilio had sat in silence in the moonlight, trying to figure out how Volso could have done it. Twice Marcus got up to fill the wine jar and fetch cheese, dates, and small cakes made from candied fruit, spices, and honey to help mop it up, but now, as dawn poked her head above the covers of the eastern horizon, the security policeman admitted defeat.

“He’s got away with it, hasn’t he?” he said, yawning. There was a shadow of stubble around his chin, she noticed. And lines round his eyes which didn’t come from lack of sleep. “The cold, conniving bastard is going to walk.”

Claudia stretched. Massaged the back of her neck. And smiled.

“You fetch the army and arrest him,” she said. “I’ll give you the proof.”

She glanced across at the garden wall, then back at her own house. Gotcha, you son of a bitch.

It started in the garden, it was fitting that it should end there, she supposed. By the time half a dozen legionaries came clunking in, their greaves and breastplates shining in the sun, Claudia had changed into a gown of the palest turquoise blue and was seated in the shade of the portico beside the fountain, taking breakfast. In her hand was a letter from her bailiff and the news was good. The spots were not contagious, he had written. According to the estate’s horse doctor, they were the result of eating tunnyfish. The grapes for Jupiter were on their way.

She should bloody well hope so, too. Caught up in the tragedy of yesterday, she had quite forgotten about sending a courier to fetch them, and maybe she’d call in at Fortune’s temple in the Cattle Market later to drop off a trinket or two. Fickle bitch, but not so bad when you boiled it down.

“You’ll pay for this!” Volso thundered as the soldiers dragged him down the path. “By Hades, I’ll have you in court for slander, Claudia Seferius, and I’ll take every penny that you own in damages. This house. The vineyards. I’ll have the bloody lot. You’ll be so poor, you won’t be able to afford the sewage from my gutter.”

“Save it for the lions, Volso.” She bit into a peach, and the juice dribbled down her chin. “You planned Callista’s murder like a military campaign and thought you’d get away with it.” She mopped the juice up with a cloth. “Only there were three people you underestimated.”

“Come on,” he taunted, his square face dark with rage. “Let’s hear this crackpot theory, you bitch, because believe me, it will make for interesting evidence at your slander trial.”

Behind the group, she watched Marcus Cornelius let the bronze statue of a horse absorb his weight. He hadn’t had time to change his tunic, yet she swore that, above the smell of soldiers’ sweat, the leathery scent emanating from Volso, and the pungent perfumes of the herbs in the flower beds — basil, thyme, and marjoram — she could detect a hint of sandalwood. An expression had settled on his face as he watched her which with anyone else, she would have interpreted as pride.

“Firstly, Volso, you underestimated the boy. He was young, keen, gullible, vulnerable, in fact, all the things you’d wanted him to be, and that was the problem. He was too young, too keen, too gullible.”

He ought to have picked someone who was greedy, not needy. The screams gave it away. Yes, he’d yelled as he’d been instructed. But the shrieks he’d let out were wild and exuberant. Whoops of pure joy. I’ve done it, they’d said. I’ve got away with the stash, the accomplice is outside, I am going to be RICH! She remembered the grin as wide as a barn. The dancing light of triumph in his eyes. That was not the expression of a thief who’d just strangled a woman in a burglary that had gone horribly wrong.

“Secondly, you underestimated my steward.”

Volso might run a tight ship next door, checking up for specks of dust and fingerprints on statues, taking the whip to his wife and his slaves if he found so much as one thing out of order. What he’d overlooked is that not everyone gets off on that level of control. It might work on the battlefield, but Claudia’s slaves wouldn’t know what a whip looked like, for gods’ sake, and Leonides wasn’t the type of steward to have his crew running around doing unnecessary tasks. The cellar was cleaned thoroughly, but only twice a year, and that was twice as often as any public temple.

She turned to Orbilio. “Did you find any of the substances I listed?”

“Oh yes. We found traces of them on his boots and tunic from where he’d bumbled around your cellar in the dark while he counted out the timing. Flour from the grinding wheel, cinnamon where it had spilled out from the sack, a vinegar stain, a smear of pitch, the corporal has the full list.”

“You planted that, you bastard,” Volso snarled.

“We didn’t plant your boot prints in the dust,” Marcus retorted. “The impression from a shoe is almost nonexistent unless there’s a body inside to make tracks.”

But the general wasn’t going down without a fight. “The fact that I was in the cellar proves nothing. In fact, I remember now. Two or three days ago, I called round to borrow some charcoals, ours had run out.”

Even the legionaries couldn’t stop sniggering. Paulus Salvius Volso running next-door to borrow some coals? Jupiter would turn celibate first!

Volso turned back to Claudia. “And the third person I’m supposed to have underestimated? That’s you, I imagine?”

“Good heavens, no.” Claudia shot him a radiant smile. “My dear Volso, that was your wife.”

Apart from the fact that frogs would grow wings before Volso came back early to check on his wife who had not been feeling well, had he not left Callista’s body sprawled on the bedroom floor, he might still have talked his way out of it. But what devoted husband wouldn’t have lifted the remains of his beloved onto the bed? Only a callous bastard of the highest order could think of leaving her in an ignominious and distorted heap for people to gawp at.

In death, Callista had had the last word after all.

The legionaries were gone, their prisoner with them. The tranquillity of the garden had returned, and there was no indication among the rose arbours and herbiaries of the tragedy that had taken place here. Not just one death, either, but three. Callista’s. The boy’s. And Volso’s to come in the arena.

He had planned the two murders like a military campaign. Coldly and ruthlessly, he chose the day when slaves everywhere, not just his own, would be out. No doubt he’d expected his neighbour to be out, too, as she usually was on the Festival of Diana, but it wouldn’t matter unduly.

He would climb into Claudia’s garden using the ladder, then kick it away after him. He would hide in the cellar, biding his time until he heard screams, and then whoever might have been in the house would certainly rush outside. He would give it a count of twenty before leaving the cellar, but then comes the daring part. He actually walks across the garden while everyone is clustered round the thief’s body! If challenged, of course, he can bluff it out by claiming he’d heard a scream as he was returning home and came to help. Then he would just nip over the garden wall to “check on his wife,” only to report back that she was dead.

As it happened, no one saw him. Up and over, throttle the missus, up and back again in no time — before calmly letting himself out of Claudia’s house and sauntering up to his own, whistling without a care in the world as the porter had testified.

And now they were gone. All of them. Volso. Callista. The otter.

“Do you think we’ll ever know his name?” she asked Marcus.

In reply, he pursed his lips and shrugged. “I doubt it,” he said. Urchins like him disappeared by the dozen every day. It was the unseen tragedy of the big city and so-called civilisation.

Across the garden, a chink of gold reflected from beneath the mint. A small child’s goblet with a double handle. And so the tragedy goes on, she thought...

She looked up into his eyes. Resisted the urge to brush that stupid fringe from where it had fallen down over his face and trace her finger down the worry lines round his eyes.

“I was here,” she said, “when I saw the reflection of the arrow in the pool.”

There was a pause. “Here?” he echoed, frowning.

“Right here.” She pointed to the spot with a determined finger. Sweet Jupiter in heaven, she would never forget it. “White as snow, I actually watched it arc through the air.”

Orbilio scratched his ear. “Not from here, you didn’t,” he replied. “If Labeo was standing on the ladder and the boy was near the gate, and if he kept on running like you said after he’d been hit, then the arrow travelled like so.”

He indicated the trajectory of the missile with his hand.

“As you can see, the path doesn’t curve as you describe it. Also, the arrow wasn’t white, it’s almost black. What’s more, if it was travelling at the speed, angle, and direction that you say, it would be you who was lying dead, not your little otter. Oh, and by the way, did I ever tell you that you’re stunning when you’re angry and you’re stunning when you’re not, and that you’re even more stunning when you’re breaking generals’ balls? I think a spring wedding would be rather fun, don’t you?”

“I’d marry an arena-full of Volsos before I married you,” she said, “but what I don’t understand is this. If it wasn’t Labeo’s arrow that I saw reflected in the pool, what was it?”

Orbilio thought of the suffocating heat that played strange tricks by bending light. He thought of the emotion of the moment, the reflection of a white dove overhead; in fact, he could think of any number of rational explanations. But then... But then... There was also the matter of a certain mischievous little cherub by the name of Cupid. So he said nothing.

He just pulled Claudia Seferius into his arms and kissed her.