I, Claudia

I

Even for July, the streets seemed hotter and busier than ever as Claudia pushed her way across the Forum, grateful that she didn’t have to walk very often. She’d got the litter to drop her at the arch of Augustus, but there was no escaping the last few hundred paces she’d have to cover on foot. One of the senators-she thought it might be that odious little Ascanius-was waving his arms and ranting on about food subsidies to a gathering crowd.

To avoid recognition, she pulled her palla low over her eyes and pointed her face to the ground. Turning into the Via Sacra, she collided with a small boy in porridge-stained rags, his filthy hands clutching a pig’s head which he’d undoubtedly stolen.

‘Out of my way, you poxy little oik!’

Claudia elbowed him aside and thought she caught the words ‘Up yours, missus’, but when she spun round he’d disappeared into the crush of lawyers, vendors, fortune-tellers and dancers. Dodging a porter’s pole, she turned left into a narrow sidestreet, then, glancing over her shoulder ducked down a deserted alleyway, from which point her sense of smell led her forward.

Jupiter Juno and Mars, how could anyone live in such squalor? Claudia covered her nose and carefully negotiated her way past broken pots, fleabitten cats and the contents of slop pails emptied from upstairs windows. What a din! Babies bawling, dogs howling, women scolding, children squabbling, and, in the midst of this racket, water-carriers touting their wares at full tilt. And the stink! Rotting food, over-subscribed toilets, unwashed bodies, all exacerbated by the stifling heat. Grimacing, she picked her way up the stone staircase. If there was any justice, Quintus would have grown tired of waiting and she wouldn’t have to hang about in this cesspit any longer than was necessary. For heaven’s sake, was it her fault she’d got delayed by the old linen merchant’s funeral procession? Since she was in her own litter at the time, with its distinctive orange canopy, she could hardly pretend to ignore it, could she? Especially since that awful Marcia woman had caught sight of her and pretended to mourn, the hypocritical cow. As if she hadn’t spent half the old sod’s fortune already!

Claudia paused at the top of the steps, where large lumps of plaster had cracked and flaked away. The landlords must positively rake in money from these tenements, cramming in, what, two, three families to a room? You’d think they’d learn, wouldn’t you, but no, every now and again fire would sweep through and roast the tenants alive, or else these flimsy structures would simply crumble and fall. And who really gave a damn about the mangled bodies inside?

Now what directions had Quintus given her? Two flights up, third on the left, wasn’t it? She turned and walked slowly up the second staircase. Good life in Illyria, suppose she’d made a mistake? Suppose it was three flights up, second on the left? The prospect of barging into the wrong apartment was too dire to consider so she shook the dust and plaster off her hem and smoothed her stola. Oh well, she could always try to convince Gaius she was here for humanitarian purposes, she supposed. She tapped on the door.

‘Quintus?’

Silence. She screwed up her eyes and prayed again that his patience had run out. Why he wanted to meet in this sordid place was beyond her. Perhaps the sleaze added a bit of spice-more excitement, greater risk, heavier gamble…qualities Claudia was only too familiar with.

‘Quintus.’ She raised her voice slightly. ‘Are you in there?’

It was unlikely she’d been heard above the din and clamour from the surrounding rooms. She could slip away, say she’d got lost, that Gaius had come home, that she’d been forced to tag along with the funeral procession-oh, she’d think of something. But then again, Quintus was prepared to pay handsomely for his fun and games in this abominable room, and when she owed that bloodsucker Lucan the best part of a legionary’s salary, she couldn’t afford to be too particular.

Juno, that door looks less than clean. Claudia felt a distinct reluctance to put her ear to the wood.

‘Quintus,’ she hissed, glancing up and down the deserted corridor.

For all its squalor it was still better to slip that little scumbag Lucan a few denarii to keep him sweet than risk him calling at the house and making insinuations. Kicking aside a cabbage stalk, Claudia eased open the rickety door offering silent prayers to whatever lowlife gods inhabited this stinking threshold that it was the right bloody one. And if I catch anything from this damned sewer Quintus Aurelius Crassus, you can bloody well stump up for the doctor’s bill, too.

The senator lay face down on the bed, stark naked, his feet bound with a leather strap, his hands held behind his back in handcuffs, the sort they use to restrain slaves. Unlike the long, low, comfy couch at home, this was nothing more than a straw-stuffed, lice-infested mattress which Quintus, quite sensibly in Claudia’s opinion, had covered with his toga. Three filthy cushions supported his stomach, pushing his podgy, white buttocks up in the air. Claudia smiled. Fat chance of him leaving-he’d trussed himself up like a chicken and there was no way he’d get out of this without help. She pulled out the rawhide whip, hidden under her palla, and cracked it.

‘Right, you despicable little man.’

The professional had taken over.

‘Let’s see what you’re made of.’

Claudia let her palla slip to the floor and slid out of her stola. She cracked the whip again, this time a finger’s width from Quintus’s balding head. He didn’t flinch, but she wasn’t surprised. They either jumped like a scalded cat or else they lay perfectly still like something on a butcher’s slab. Given a choice, she thought she preferred the latter, but a job was a job and she didn’t care to dwell too long on the matter. He’d jump soon enough, when the whip burned his buttocks.

‘What do you say, Mr Senator?’

Off came the tunic, and she tossed her breast band on to the bed where he could see it.

‘Will you plead for mercy?’

His poor manhood hung limp. Perhaps it needed the pain to jolt it into life?

‘No?’

Of course, at his age, it might not ever come to life.

‘We’ll have to see about that.’

Her thong landed on top of the breast band. If he wasn’t excited by now, there was something wrong with him no matter what his age.

‘Take that, you smug, arrogant bastard.’

The whip should have left a raw, red wheal across his white flesh. His buttocks should have clenched. In fact, his short, fat body should have jarred with the pain. Instead, his body remained as flaccid as his manhood.

‘Oh, shit.’

Claudia ran over to the bed. Don’t tell me the silly sod’s had a seizure, that’s all I need! She touched his flesh. It wasn’t entirely cold, but you didn’t need to be a doctor to know this man was going to need the same hired mourners as the old linen merchant. She looked around to see where he kept his money. There was an obsidian brooch tucked into one of his high patrician boots, a soft leather pouch inside the other, containing nothing more than a few copper quadrans.

‘Bastard.’

He hadn’t intended to pay her the scheming little cheapskate. Unless-yes, unless he hadn’t trusted her and had hid his silver under the toga? Claudia’s fingers glided over the wool, ignoring whatever livestock might be inhabiting the filthy straw below them. No coins. She slid her hand underneath his lifeless body.

‘Damn.’

This was her own fault, of course, arranging to meet an old buffer like Quintus without knowing the first bloody thing about him. She wondered who it was who put him on to the exclusive services she offered, because usually she approached punters direct. She straightened up and moved round to explore the other side of the toga.

‘Sweet Jupiter in heaven!’

Quintus Aurelius Crassus, respected senator, loving husband, father of five sons, two daughters, grandfather of a dozen lively grandchildren, had most certainly not died of natural causes.

Quintus Aurelius Crassus had had his eyes gouged out.