I, Claudia

XX

Callisunus was waiting for him in the underground temple of Consus, his florid cheeks redder than usual, the fury on his face etched deeper from the flickering torchlight. Orbilio wasn’t late for the appointment, far from it, yet he had a feeling that whatever was bothering Callisunus would be dumped upon his own shoulders as sure as the cock would crow in the morning and dogs would bark in the night. It was turning into that sort of a day.

His footsteps echoed in the dank, hollow chamber as the sacred attendants paused to scrutinize the intruder, resentment bouncing off them in waves. Who could blame them, he thought. Overhead a small army battled to prepare the Circus Maximus for the chariot races tomorrow, while below they were still eons away from digging out the altar. He wanted to shout at them, tell them to put their backs into the job, because they were shovelling soil as though they were a bunch of lovesick maidens mucking out pigshit, but he couldn’t, of course. Not in front of Callisunus. And especially not today. With a muted sigh Orbilio saw the little man was drumming his fingers against his thigh-always a bad sign-and wished the omens were more favourable for the extension of time he needed to ask for.

It seemed an odd choice for a meeting, underground, during the annual excavation of the altar before its ritual reburial. Furthermore, Callisunus had no connection regarding tomorrow’s festival, so why pick this place? Privacy couldn’t be a factor. A portent of new communication lines reflecting Rome’s increasing addiction to intrigue? Orbilio ran one hand through his hair. He thought not. In fact, so strongly did this smack of celestial involvement, he could almost hear the conversation. There was Jupiter, picking ambrosia out of his teeth.

‘Terrific wheeze, having that Orbilio chappie brought to book at two shrines in one day, don’t you think, Juno?’

‘Not half, darling, and if you hang on just a minute I’ll see if I can’t round up Apollo, he enjoys these gags.’

Come to think of it, Orbilio decided he wouldn’t be surprised if Venus, Diana and Neptune didn’t tag along as well. They could make a whole bloody picnic of it.

‘Made the arrest?’

Beads of sweat broke out on Orbilio’s forehead. The ignominy of drinking the Seferius libation was shame enough, but did she really have to laugh quite so enthusiastically? Mother of Tarquin, the more he squirmed the more it amused her, until in the end tears were streaming down her face. Marcus, you can be such a bloody fool at times, how can you ever hope to-

‘Pay attention, man! I’m asking you whether you’ve got a confession yet.’

‘What? Oh, sorry, sir, I was, er-I was just wondering whether they need help digging out the altar?’

Say no! Please say no! If you say yes I won’t have time to wind up the case, and you’ll never give me another day’s grace, I know it.

The little man’s manner seemed to take a swift upturn.

‘You know, Orbilio, that’s an extremely generous offer.’

Bugger.

Callisunus tapped the side of his mouth with his finger. ‘Though I think, on balance, it won’t be enough. I’ll need to bring a slave gang in.’

Orbilio’s head was buzzing. His mind, already a seething cauldron of logic and emotion, torn as it was between concentrating on his case and brooding about Claudia, was suddenly thrown into utter confusion. I haven’t heard right. My boss-and let’s be clear on this, we’re talking about the Head of the Security Police, here-is involving himself with…harvest rituals? Can’t be. No way! I’m cracking up. His mouth was dry, he needed a drink. In fact, he needed several drinks.

‘I will not allow it, Paulus.’

Orbilio turned round. What the…? There were two of them, for gods’ sakes. Two Callisunuses? No, no, pull yourself together, man.

‘I simply cannot permit a bunch of heathen slaves down here when I am trying to prepare my sacrificial rites.’

Holy shit, Callisunus was talking to himself. Or rather, he was talking to the second Callisunus, the one dressed in a thick woollen cloak and wearing a pointed cap on his head.

I am, I’m going mad. Marcus Cornelius Orbilio won’t be remembered as the chap who solved those gruesome murders, he’ll be known as the chap who couldn’t handle the pressure and ended up a headcase. Stark, staring bonkers. Spends all his time locked in his room, poor fellow. Really? Oh yes, tragic case. Had such a bright future at one stage, too. Orbilio pressed the heels of his hands into his eyeballs. Jupiter, unless he pulled himself together, and he meant right now, he could kiss the Senate goodbye, that’s for sure.

Callisunus-the Callisunus he was familiar with, the one drumming his fingers-turned to the other Callisunus, the one who was dripping with sweat and had his hands on his hips.

‘Marius, you arsehole, at the rate you and those other fairies are digging there won’t be a fucking sacrifice.’

‘There is no need to be offensive!’

Orbilio blinked, and blinked again. I’ll be damned, he thought, blowing his nose to cover his laughter. Twins. They’re bloody twins! Keeping his handkerchief over his mouth, he studied Marius, the brother. Same squat build, same piggy eyes and wonky nose, and yet there was an ocean of difference between them now he looked carefully. A sensitivity in the priest’s face which was lacking in the policeman’s, a shrewdness in the policeman’s, which was lacking in the priest’s. And suddenly the comedy opened his eyes to a world he’d not previously entered. The world of illusion. What you see isn’t necessarily what is real, he thought with a start. The dank humidity began to cloy as the most significant piece of his puzzle, leastways as far as he was concerned, slotted into place. His very blood seemed to congeal and he decided the taste in his mouth owed nothing to the acidity of the earthy air around him.

‘You’ve dug yourself into this hole and if I’m to bail you out, you brainless cretin, I’ll be as offensive as I fucking well like.’

The pointy hat drooped slightly to the left. ‘Is it my fault I get the date wrong?’ Marius threw up his hands. ‘I have not been well lately, but do you care? My own brother and he ignores me.’

He turned to Orbilio, who forced himself to follow the conversation as though nothing had turned his world upside down.

‘Do you have brothers?’

He was given no chance to either nod or shake his head.

‘Do yours leave you at death’s door? I should say not. You know, I could have died the other night.’ He lowered his voice and whispered, ‘It was the fish, I swear it-’

Callisunus grabbed his brother by the shoulders and shook him. ‘Marius, you self-absorbed prat, I suggest you take that fish and shove it right up your arse.’ He marched towards the steps to the Circus, jerking his head to indicate Orbilio should follow him. ‘My own brother can you believe it? Jupiter, he really pisses me off at times!’

Callisunus human at last? Could it be? Encouraged by the sudden (not to say unexpected) uplift in his fortunes, Orbilio raced up the steps after him, eager to capitalize on the moment. He was aware of Marius following in his wake. The glare of the late afternoon sun made him squint as a pungent smell of horseflesh slammed into his nostrils. ‘I need another day, sir.’

The Head of the Special Police stopped in mid-stride. ‘Tell me I didn’t hear that.’

‘One more day, that’s all.’

Callisunus barged aside a charioteer. ‘We’ve been through this, Orbilio. Tomorrow you start work on the Verianus fraud case.’

The cracking pace he set down the length of the racetrack presented no obstacle for Orbilio’s long legs. Behind them, however the priest was rapidly losing ground. His thick cloak flapped like heavy flightless wings, his conical hat wobbled precariously. Callisunus glanced round, tutted and stopped short.

‘My brother is a right pain in the arse,’ he said, casting his eyes over the seats banked up the side of the auditorium. ‘But tomorrow a quarter of the city’s going to pack itself into this place, including my good self, so if Consus doesn’t get his honouring of first fruits, it’ll fuck things up good and proper.’

The priest of the festival was wheezing like a pair of bellows and had to support himself on the low wall which divided the track down the centre. When he realized the dark stains he was leaning against were dried blood, he quickly jumped away again.

Orbilio felt his moment melting away. It was now or never. Callisunus would not have the patience to grant his request after another round with his brother.

‘One more day, sir, and I’ll tell you why.’

‘Forgive me, Paulus, it was not my intention to annoy you. The slave gang will be fine, honestly.’

Callisunus looked from one to the other, using the same expression of exasperation for both men. If he chose to hear his brother, Orbilio was sunk, his rosy future little more than mucky brown, and for the first time he began to realize what it must be like for a defeated gladiator to beg the crowd for pardon. For Callisunus to turn to him would be the thumbs-up, while if he turned to the priest…

The Head of the Security Police had no problem deciding which irritant to brush off first. ‘Marius-’

It really was turning into a pig of a day.

‘Marius, where the fucking hell do you think I’m going? I’m on my way to organize your fucking slave gang, so go back and fucking dig, will you? Because if by tomorrow morning every fucking flower and fruit known to man isn’t garlanding your altar, your fucking head will be. Got it?’

The priest smiled ingratiatingly, and as he did so the spiked skull cap plopped into the sand. Swooping down to retrieve it, the bronze buckle holding his cloak fell off, and the moment his fingers closed round the clasp his woollen cloak slid into a pile of steaming horse dung. Callisunus closed his eyes and shuddered.

‘Oh dear, oh dear. I do hope I am not embarrassing you, Paulus.’

Callisunus could take no more. He shook his head and began to march down the track in the direction of the Tiber, the lengthening shadows implying a deceptive coolness in the air. Orbilio kept pace in silence, and when he glanced back he noticed Marius was still encountering difficulty with his priestly garb and wondered how he coped when he had to wear the laurel wreath as well. The god of the harvest store deserved far better he thought. Of course, Marius would only have landed the job because of his brother’s influence, the same as this oily bastard only landed his own job because he’d fawned and flattered every rung of the ladder. For a man of the equestrian order however the position was nevertheless a remarkable achievement-even for a fathead like Callisunus, doggedly maintaining the killings were random in spite of the evidence laid before him. He sighed in the deepening gloom. Not that Callisunus, whose breadth of vision extended little further than the tip of his pug nose, looked upon these conclusions as evidence.

‘Bollocks!’ he’d said, when Orbilio had finished outlining his case. ‘Gossip, hunch and innuendo, the lot of it. You mark my words, this is the work of a maniac, picking his victims at random, and at the end of it you’ll find he’s been hearing voices urging him to do it. Divine retribution or some such shit, see if I’m not right.’

Orbilio supposed that having expressed this opinion so often and so vehemently to the Emperor when he made his weekly report, Callisunus was hardly likely to retract without cast-iron proof. Which could only come in the form of a confession. Well, he was buggered if he was going to be sidelined on to some damned fraud case for the sake of one lousy interview, and if this quick-tempered, foul-mouthed, narrow-minded weasel thought he could brush Marcus Cornelius Orbilio aside just like that he had another think coming. The Senate beckoned…and competition was stiff. Unless he solved this bloody case, he might as well forget it.

At the obelisk at the end of the track, Callisunus stopped abruptly. ‘I don’t need a bodyguard, Orbilio. Even this lunatic wouldn’t pick on the Head of the Security Police.’

‘He’s not a lunatic, sir. Leastways, not in the sense you mean. Another day and-’

‘Orbilio, watch my lips. You are off the case. Finished. End of story. You’ve even put in your report.’

‘Only verbally.’

‘Yes, and I warned you about that, too. I don’t want to see these scurrilous lies on paper do you understand? For your sake, as much as mine. I told Seferius what you said-’

‘You what?’

Anger boiled through Orbilio in a way he’d never imagined possible. The bloody imbecile! ‘This was supposed to be a covert operation, sir.’ How many more had he blabbed to, for heaven’s sake?

‘Oh, come on, man, what did you expect? You’ve been masquerading as his wife’s cousin, how much longer do you think before he found out? What is it with you and her, anyway? Got your leg over?’

Orbilio’s fist thudded into the palm of his hand. ‘No, sir,’ he said quietly, ‘I have not. I told you before, I had a hunch about the house and forgive me for saying so, but that hunch proved correct.’

The sun was sinking fast now.

‘The little slut Melissa, you mean?’ Callisunus gave a snort of derision. ‘So she’d been giving Crassus a bit of hanky-spanky, nothing wrong with that. Partial to a spot of it myself sometimes. You just remember, Orbilio, her involvement was only discovered because the greedy bitch tried to sell that poor bugger’s clip, not through any cleverness on your part.’

‘I understand that, sir. But-’ Should he or shouldn’t he? Hell, at this stage he had nothing to lose. ‘There’s something else.’

Callisunus chewed his thumbnail. ‘Oh?’

‘I believe there’s a series of murders going on in the Seferius household.’

‘Don’t fuck with me, Orbilio!’

Damn! It sounded so utterly inane when you said it like that.

‘Please, sir, hear me out. First it was his eldest daughter, then his two sons. Now his new granddaughter is dead.’

‘Seferius is full of this shit at the moment, you shouldn’t listen to him, it’s pitiful coming from a man like him.’

Callisunus swatted away a troublesome wasp.

‘The babe was an abomination. They put it out of its misery-’

‘Who, sir? Who put it out of its misery?’

‘Oh, get real, Orbilio, the child was malformed, they killed it. Happens all the time. Now will you clear the hell out of my face!’

‘No, sir!’

‘I’m warning you, Orbilio. One more word and I’ll have your balls for subordination.’

Have them, they’re no bloody good to me.

‘If you would listen to the full story, sir-’

‘If, if, if! The world’s full of if’s, haven’t you noticed? Well if you have reasonable grounds for opening a case, and by Jupiter I do mean reasonable, then put them in writing, to me, and I will consider them.’

Callisunus skirted the obelisk and set off towards the gate.

‘Does that mean I can work on the case, sir?’

‘What case, Orbilio? There isn’t a fucking case, I haven’t had your fucking notes yet. And even if there fucking was, you won’t be fucking working on it. Do I make myself plain?’

There was a shout from behind, different from the cries of the charioteers and the slaves working in the Circus, which made both men turn. Orbilio recognized the man running towards them as Timarchides.

‘Sorry to interrupt, sir but you ought to know. Paternus the lawyer’s been found dead in his home.’

‘Shit!’ Callisunus glanced towards the underground shrine. ‘Timarchides, organize a slave gang to dig out the altar. About ten men should do it. Oh, before you do that I want you to brief Metellus about the lawyer.’

‘Metellus?’

Timarchides was looking from Callisunus up to Orbilio and back again.

‘Deaf, are you? Yes, Metellus. He’s working this case from now on.’

Callisunus turned to Orbilio. ‘And you. Get some sleep, get laid, get whatever you want, but get the fuck out of my sight. Tomorrow’s the Consualia and I’ll be holding my idiot brother’s hand, but the very next day I want your views on the Verianus business. Tuesday morning, is that clear? And in writing.’

He stumped back up the track, muttering to himself. Timarchides twisted his face. ‘Off the job then, sir?’

‘Looks like it,’ Orbilio said, narrowing his eyes. ‘Unless I can work two cases at once.’

Timarchides smiled. He’d worked with this investigating officer for the past four days and his opinion of him had softened considerably since he’d brought the news about the slave girl to the Seferius house. He’d watched the professional at work, seen more dedication from one man in those few days than in as many years from some of the men he’d served.

‘I’d give it my best shot, if I were you, sir. Two murders in six days, looks like the killer’s getting daring.’

A warm glow began to spread through Orbilio’s veins. ‘And daring, Timarchides, means careless.’

‘Precisely, sir. And I’ll tell you something I didn’t have a chance to tell the gaffer: Paternus was still alive when his eyes were gouged out. There was blood everywhere, it must have been one hell of a struggle.’

He saluted and ran back up the track in the direction Callisunus had taken, his figure quickly swallowed by the deepening twilight. Orbilio ran his hand over his chin and headed for the nearest exit. He didn’t need sleep, he was too worked up. He couldn’t get laid, the very thought of touching any other woman was becoming more abhorrent by the minute. But, by Jupiter he could get drunk. Oh yes, mind-bending, brain-numbing, sick-making drunk. He turned out of the Circus and towards the river. There was a good tavern down on the waterfront. The men were rough, the whores were raddled, the food was rubbish. But the wine was strong. Minerva, yes, that wine was strong.

‘Marcus!’

Head down, thinking about the evening ahead, he hadn’t been looking where he was going and of all the people he’d rather not have bumped into, Gaius Seferius headed the list. Dammit, he liked Gaius. He wished he didn’t, but he just couldn’t help it.

‘What brings you to the Aventine?’

‘I’m going to get pissed,’ he said simply. ‘Rip-roaring pissed.’

Seferius smiled wanly and clapped him on the back. Even after Callisunus had blabbed that Orbilio wasn’t his wife’s cousin, it didn’t seem to bother him. In his book, a friend was a friend and Orbilio felt disgusted at his own treachery. How would Claudia explain it, he wondered, cursing himself for forcing her into such an invidious position. But then she’d think of something outrageous to pass it off, she always did. It was one of the reasons he loved her.

‘You know, Marcus, I think that’s the best suggestion I’ve heard all week. Mind if I join you?’

He looked at Seferius. Poor sod looked seventy, not fifty, and it was all very well for Callisunus to shrug off his theories, but Orbilio believed it when Gaius said his babies, as he called them, were being picked off, one by one, like ripe fruit from a tree. He didn’t believe in coincidence at the best of times. Certainly not when three of a man’s four children meet untimely deaths and his baby granddaughter-healthy, kicking and thumping to get out by all accounts-is suddenly pronounced malformed and hideous and gets put to the sword. Not when there’s a fortune at stake. Gaius was right, Orbilio was convinced of it. Someone was murdering his family.

He wished his own father had been more like Gaius. Jovial, loving, dedicated. But more than that, he wished-Juno, how he wished-that he could hate this man who had married a red-blooded vixen with skin like thistledown and eyes the colour of beechnuts. No doubt if he thought the man’s big hands kneaded Claudia’s magnificent breasts on a regular basis it would be a different matter. In fact if Orbilio thought of him between her thighs, grunting and groaning, his huge belly pressed into her soft flesh, quite likely he’d kill him.

‘Why not, Gaius?’ he said at last, wrapping his arm round the big man’s shoulder. ‘Why the hell not?’