Jail Bait

XIII

Around Atlantis, torches burned low and Claudia’s footsteps echoed down the wooden jetty. Three men, she thought, each with a single objective. One younger than her, full of fun, full of life, with his corn-coloured hair and his secrets, who believed he could cartwheel her into his bed. The second the same age as herself, a dark horse according to Dorcan, believing he could charm her into his bed with his gifts and his magical lyre. And a third, considerably older-and this one didn’t even imagine he’d have to work for results, the fact that he’d turned rock into gold quite sufficient.

Three men. One objective.

One dead.

The lights might be low, but they weren’t muted enough to conceal a figure flitting back into the shadows. Claudia frowned. Not Tarraco, he was already halfway back to his island and, since the gates were locked at dusk, this could be no common criminal creeping around. Orbilio, of course, would never give himself away, he’d learn to walk on water before he allowed a trace of himself to be seen, besides this shadow seemed taller, broader, of far greater bulk. So who, then? Who might wish to spy on her?

Silly bitch. Claudia swept up the steep, stone steps.

Imagine you’re the only one keeping late hours? They don’t all come here for Carya’s healing waters and to listen to the choirs. Your problem, she told herself, watching bats forage for insects on the wing, is an overactive imagination. Cal has been murdered, his killer walks free-and what’s driving you daft is that despite a list of curious characters lurking in the background, there’s no tangible suspect and not so much as a whiff of a motive.

I have a solution, squeaked a little horseshoe bat. You could enlist the help of Supersnoop. (Whatever his motives for fetching her here, he’d never turn away a chance to solve a killing.)

No way, piped a pipistrelle. His involvement would mean him tucking his feet under the table indefinitely.

Quite right, said a noctule, its mouth full of moth. She needs to get rid of Orbilio fast.

But since the bats could not come up with a strategy for disposing of this hotshot investigator, Claudia left them to their supper and slipped through the doors of the Great Hall. Hello, hello, hello. She paused on the threshold. What’s old Kamar up to, then, canoodling behind a statue? And him a married man with a disfigured wife, who everybody talks about, poor bitch. Claudia allowed the door to close silently behind her as Lavinia’s voice echoed down the corridor of her memory. ‘I’ll bet you’ve heard my daughter-in-law playing whisper-whisper-whisper with that sourpuss physician… ’

That could not, of course, be Lavinia’s daughter-in-law. Despite hair curled to within an inch of its life and a face pancaked with cosmetics, this woman would be close to the olive grower’s age. And now Claudia peered closer, she could see they weren’t actually canoodling, but all the same, Lavinia had Kamar to a T. Amongst his own sex it was hail-fellow-well-met, a man among men, whereas with women he employed subtler tactics, conspiring in secret to add a frisson of excitement to their phantom ailments. Watching a small phial pass between them, Claudia couldn’t decide which was worse: society women who gorged on pandering or physicians who were little more than gigolos, servicing their needs in exchange for a coin.

They broke off when they became aware of her presence, exchanged glances, and Claudia recognized the woman as the stony-faced old boiler she’d bumped into earlier, after her countdown with Orbilio. Worse, the harridan was bearing down like a trireme in full sail.

‘Forgive my impertinence.’ Stoneyface daren’t smile for fear of cracking the mask and the voice went with the eyes. ‘But that robe is simply sublime. Might I trouble you for the name of your seamstress?’

Her hair had been dyed with the juice of walnuts, her complexion was not holding up well, yet, despite rising to every cosmetic challenge with her plucked and painted eyebrows and the plethora of moleskin patches plastered over her liver spots, she still played up her little snub nose as though it were some girlish attribute by sticking it high in the air. Sad, really. Deluded cow thought she turned heads, but in practice it was stomachs she turned.

‘Oh, you know Atlantis,’ Claudia quipped, speeding up to escape the frightful creature. ‘Everything’s done for you round here.’

‘Off the peg?’ A variety of expressions skated across the plasterwork of her face, and hard eyes narrowed to slits. ‘Then I’d be obliged if you’d point out the shop.’

Behind her, Kamar was hopping from one foot to the other. Cramp? Or agitation?

‘First on the left past the basilica,’ Claudia invented. Anything to break free of this ghastly woman’s clutches. What a horror. In the corridor, her mind skipped back to Cal’s funeral, to the freckle-faced girl rolling the hoop. Would she, one day, become a hard-eyed ravaged harpy, hankering for her old salad days? Skulking round at night to consult a physician? Perish the thought! But the point was, that child should have the choice.

Within the dark seclusion of her bedroom, Claudia kicked off her sandals. First she must establish the motive for Cal’s murder. Only through that could she unmask the killer, and then maybe-just maybe-she’d have something to trade with Orbilio when it came (as it would) to discussing Sabbio Tullus…

Outside frogs croaked to one another and an owl hooted far across the lake as she collapsed on the bed. Somewhere, just before sleep and exhaustion overwhelmed her, she thought she heard a woman scream.

*

Dawn was casting silver shadows on the bath house’s limestone walls and a coil of blue woodsmoke writhed up from its vent as the agent of Sabbio Tullus pursed his lips and estimated that any time within the next half-hour his message would be arriving in Rome. Dispatch runners cared not a jot that they travelled through the night, money was money, and let me see, ten miles per runner, ten runners-yup, the last one should be arriving very soon. Very soon. Delving into his satchel, to deliver a sealed and secret letter to Rome. A letter which read: ‘The jewel that you are seeking, master, has been discovered in Atlantis.’

Now that, thought Tullus’ agent, rubbing his hands with satisfaction, should earn a fat reward.

One which would not, however, come from the treasure chests of Sabbio Tullus.

The letter was winging its way to the nephew.

*

Claudia was whistling when she waltzed into breakfast, though since the hour was late, only a few diehards remained at the trough. That loudmouthed general, for one, the chap whose paunch stuck out like a packmule, and the woman who walked like a camel, right now gulping down the general’s raisin troops the instant he’d positioned them on the flank. Lounging on a couch in the corner, a famous wrestler-a dapper dandy with the body of an ox-recounted exploits to a dull-eyed nymphet, who’d patently prefer just to go to his room and get it over with. It was a screw he was paying for, not a bore.

Which left one other individual in the banqueting hall. And Claudia had a feeling he’d been there some time.

Sweeping past, she plumped down on a couch close to the sun porch with a fine view of the lake. Almost immediately, the opposite recliner was occupied.

‘Sleep well?’ Orbilio asked, framing stiff lips into a smile.

‘Hardly a wink.’ Claudia heaped her plate with cheese and shrimps and ignored the fact that she’d slept like a baby. ‘You?’

‘Terrific.’ He saw no reason to mention the cockroaches in the pawnbroker’s attic which he’d been forced to rent since Atlantis was full.

Behind them the general reminisced about some ancient campaign in Galatia and the fat woman picked her teeth.

‘Business first,’ Orbilio began, lacing his fingers and leaning forward, but he was interrupted by the arrival of a brunette practically bursting the seams of her tunic as she sashayed up the banqueting hall, surveying the breakfasters through kohled lashes.

Claudia could not resist a smile. In Rome-indeed anywhere within the paid eyes of the Emperor-standards these days were close to puritanical. In return for bestowing stability and peace on his people, Augustus demanded purity of mind as well as body, family values to reflect this Golden Age, an example to the conquered masses. No gambling, no spinsters, no sex outside marriage. As a law, Claudia felt it didn’t have a lot going for it. For one thing, the rules patently did not apply to him, the Emperor’s infidelities were legendary, and, for another, whilst he bestowed privileges on men fathering endless baby Romans, there were few crackdowns on those who clung to their bachelor freedom, and certainly his vision failed when it came to philandering husbands. But Augustus was a man, and men will have their little jokes, now, won’t they? Like making marriage compulsory for women. Like not letting them speak in the law courts. Like imposing bitter penalties on adulterous wives.

Like forcing widows to remarry within two years of the death of their husband…

For the brunette, filling out her sails both fore and aft, it was unlikely she’d ever heard of moral reforms, let alone put one into practice. Claudia beckoned her over.

‘Do meet Marcus,’ she said, pointing to his couch in invitation. ‘He likes women with big chests and small drawers.’

‘You’ll have to speak up,’ Phoebe trilled. ‘I missed that.’

‘Orbilio here,’ Claudia shouted, ‘said he’s been dying to meet you.’

She thought she heard the girl purr. Then again, it could have been a deep Security Police growl.

Phoebe snuggled against him and pouted when he shuffled along. ‘Is he shy?’ she asked, as though Marcus wasn’t present.

‘Merely stodgy,’ Claudia explained. ‘Poor chap thinks getting a little action means his prunes have started to work.’ She smiled sweetly at Orbilio, who had sucked in his cheeks. ‘In fact, these days his back goes out more than he does.’

Marcus turned a laugh into a cough, but Phoebe’s attention had been caught by Claudia’s gown. ‘That is beautiful,’ she gushed. ‘Harebell blue, so elegant. Goes with absolutely anything.’

‘And there speaks an expert,’ Claudia murmured, fluttering her eyelashes at a man who had all but disappeared into his handkerchief. Louder, she said, ‘As a matter of fact, this gown was a gift.’

Across the table, Marcus stiffened. ‘The Spaniard?’

‘However did you guess?’

To emphasize her point, she stroked the silver pendant at her neck, suggesting this, too, was a present from Tarraco, even though she’d won the thing last week in a game of knucklebones behind the Rostrum. As Phoebe helped herself to chestnut bread, Claudia heard Orbilio mutter underneath his breath, although she failed to catch the definition.

‘Now, now, Marcus,’ she chided cheerfully. ‘Tarraco is handsome, rich and generous, there’s nothing to dislike about him, surely?’ And thought she heard him mumble, ‘No, but give me time,’ as she slipped into her sandals.

Phoebe, straining every stitch, sidled up to her conquest, running her hand along his thigh as she tried to feed him a grape.

‘You two lovebirds must excuse me.’ As Claudia stood up she heard Phoebe entreat Marcus to come with her, she knew exactly how to please a man in bed, and Claudia thought, no you don’t. Phoebe, despite her outward appearance, was no casual conquest. What she sought was love and affection, and certainly what pleases men in bed is none of those you-still-respect-me-don’t-you recriminating conversations, it’s to roll over and drift off to sleep without hearing either the word ‘love’ or its companion, ‘commitment’.

No doubt this voluptuous creature would cotton on one day, but until then a lot of men would have a lot of fun bouncing on her well-upholstered charms.

Orbilio did not look as though he might be one of them. The only man, Claudia reflected cheerfully, who won’t take yes for an answer!

With a radiant smile, Claudia fluffed the frills and ostentatiously smoothed the pleats of this fabulous harebell gown and, just on the offchance that Hotshot hadn’t quite got the message, made her way very, very slowly up the banqueting hall.

Now, with luck, he might sod off back to Rome-and take his official bloody business with him.

*

In fact, the sun was considerably higher than Tullus’ agent had calculated by the time the courier made his way through the twisting alleys of the Aventine Hill to the house next door to the marble merchant’s warehouse. Lean, tough and muscular, he barely panted, though his throat burned dry and dusty as he handed over the letter to a thin-faced individual bizarrely devoid of character. When he ripped open the seal, only the appearance of two high spots of colour on otherwise colourless cheeks hinted that the news he’d received was the best.

‘No reply,’ a monotone voice told the messenger.

Tullus’ nephew waited for him to leave before reaching for his goblet. It was empty, and so was the jug. He clapped hands for a refill. Wine, godammit, was out of the question. In this searing heat, it made his throat drier than ever, even watered, so now he was reduced to gulping fruit juice like that bloated bladder of an uncle. Bloody hell, his bowels were on overtime, yet his windpipe grated like an ungreased hinge.

It was his uncle’s fault he was stuck in this sweatbox! Tullus had assured him that sodding strongroom was secure-‘safe as the State Treasury’ were his words-when in reality he might as well have kept that casket under his bed for all the protection it had been given!

Well. He sipped at the apple juice the dwarf set down and grimaced. There was no point in going over old ground, the damage was done, and with luck the damage was small. He glanced down at the letter from the agent up in Plasimene. The bitch was holing up in Atlantis, was she?

‘Not for long, sweetheart,’ the nephew said softly, steepling his long, skinny fingers. ‘Not for bloody much longer.’

What’s mine is mine, he vowed, and I will have it back, but there’s bugger all time to play with. Already twenty days into May, the bloody Senate sits on the first of next month. His thin lips pinched tight together. For years, I’ve worked towards this goal. Every move, every action has been designed to bring me that little step close and I am so close, Claudia Seferius, so very, very close to fulfilling my self-appointed destiny that I can almost reach out and touch it.

‘The fate of the whole fucking Empire is in my hands,’ he breathed. ‘No meddling bitch can be allowed to interfere with my plans.’

His pen scratched across a sheet of parchment and, sealing the scroll, he rang for his new servant. What a find! Solicitous for his master’s welfare, discreet at all times, willing to undertake a few unusual tasks-what a treasure, this ugly mutant!

‘This letter,’ he said, cursing the dryness in his throat. ‘Deliver it personally, will you, to the visitor who called here yesterday.’

‘Very good, sir.’ The dwarf withdrew, slipped on his outdoor shoes and with a tuneless whistle set off for the apartment house of the fat man who stank of cardamom.

*

On the principle that no matter what goes wrong, it can always be made to look right, Claudia rapped on Lavinia’s door. To think she considered her own room luxurious! The old woman’s son had really done his mother proud, and again she wondered how an impoverished smallholder could afford such a treat. Ivory and tortoiseshell, maple-wood inlaid with silver, couches, chairs and tables, silver salvers bursting with hot hams and sausages, bowls piled high with fruit and a basket of steaming, crusty rolls. Maybe his hare-brained ventures weren’t so irresponsible after all? Maybe Lavinia, being a simple country woman, didn’t really understand the wheelings and dealings of commerce? Or perhaps she’d just bred a son with the instinct of an Arab horsetrader! On a table by the window, blue and red counters were set out in a half-finished game of Twelve Lines and Lalo, despite his coarse linen tunic, looked bigger and more handsome as he flapped an ostrich fan dyed green. Ruth, on the other hand, appeared to be moulded into a niche on the wall in an unsuccessful attempt to render herself invisible and the reason, Claudia suspected, were the two harridans breathing over the couch.

‘You’ve got to drink it.’

‘Got to.’

‘How on earth will you get better otherwise?’

‘Never get better.’

When they saw Claudia one of the women straightened up, a signal for the other to copy, as surely she had done all her life. They had to be sisters. There was an age difference, six, maybe five years, but the similarities were not confined to mere dress or hairstyles. Both sported matching double chins and piggy eyes and flesh that knew better than dare wobble, but never had the incongruity of their simple, rustic lives clashed more violently with the luxury of Atlantis. Cheap cottons stood out against slinky damasks, natural fibres screamed beside rich, expensive dyes.

‘Fabella and Sabella,’ Lavinia said coldly. ‘Fabella is married to my son.’

Claudia felt a sudden rush of sympathy for the son.

‘It’s this medicine,’ Fabella said. ‘She won’t drink it.’

‘Won’t,’ echoed Sabella, with a sad shake of her head. ‘And she’s hardly touched her breakfast.’

‘Heaven knows what my hubby’ll say, when he finds out his money’s been wasted.’

Try not mentioning it.

‘And we’re due for our massage any minute.’

Claudia beckoned the sisters towards her. ‘It’s this pampering,’ she whispered. ‘Gone to Lavinia’s head.’ She clucked her tongue sympathetically. ‘Won’t touch a thing unless it’s served off gold.’

‘Never!’ they chorused, tutting their joint disapproval.

‘Look, why don’t you two trot off to your massage and I’ll arrange the necessary plates and goblet?’

Not so much trot off, she thought, more off on their trotters.

Behind her, Lavinia let out a sigh of relief. ‘I don’t know what you said to them,’ she cackled, ‘but I’m indebted. Frightful pair.’

Claudia drew up a chair and by the time she’d turned round, Lavinia’s elegant coiffure had turned into a fluffy white fleece. ‘You old phoney.’

‘We’re all frauds here, dear.’ As though it was a cat, the old woman stroked the wig in her lap. ‘Every single one of us.’ She cast a knowing glance at her visitor, who found that for once in her life she couldn’t stare someone out.

Instead, Claudia reached for a pomegranate with a studied show of nonchalance. ‘I don’t suppose you heard any strange sounds in the night? Screaming, for instance?’

Lalo and Ruth exchanged glances. ‘Nothing,’ they said.

‘Liars, the pair of you,’ Lavinia snapped back. ‘Where were you two, eh? Out with it, because neither of you was in Atlantis last night.’

‘I-’ Lalo began to fidget with the handle of the fan, and Claudia noted that his knuckles were bruised and swollen again. ‘I spent the night in Spesium.

‘More fool me, I went looking for him,’ Ruth flashed back. ‘Never found him, either.’

‘We’ll talk about this later,’ Lavinia said, dismissing them with a curt nod. ‘So, then.’ The wizened face broke into a smile. ‘What can I do for you this fine, sunny morn?’

‘Oh,’ Claudia breezed, ‘I just dropped in to ask whether you plan to attend the Agonalia in town.’ The spring festival of lambs was a highlight on most rural calendars, particularly in a month devoid of celebrations.

Lavinia put aside the wig and scratched the side of her nose. ‘I think you know the answer to that,’ she said pointedly. ‘So why don’t you dispense with the formalities and tell me the real reason why you came?’

Claudia grinned and curled her legs up in the chair. ‘I want to know how you managed to avoid compulsory remarriage when you were widowed at the tender age of thirty-two.’

Lavinia’s sigh was like water trickling through a sluice gate. ‘So that’s how the land lies.’ She nodded slowly several times as though wrestling with a decision, then finally cleared her throat. ‘My husband was an old man, but do you know, in seventeen years of marriage he never showed Lavinia a single scrap of kindness. Who’d have thought that, in dying, the old sod would do so well by her?’

A gnarled finger beckoned Claudia closer. ‘My sweat went into that land and I tell you straight, I wasn’t prepared to let the grove pass to another slave-driving bastard. So,’ she lowered her voice to a whisper, ‘Lavinia surrounds herself with busts of the dear departed, commissions several portraits of the old goat, says prayers for him several times a day…’

‘In public, of course.’

Lavinia wetted her lips with the tip of her tongue. ‘It’s a hard man who would force a grieving widow into his bed and even the Prefect-’ one sparkling blue eye closed in a wink ‘-even the Prefect of Luca agreed that, under such harrowing circumstances, the rules ought to be waived.’

She paused to let the impact of her words sink in, then added airily, ‘I hear there’s an excellent portrait painter staying in Atlantis at the moment. Now run along, there’s a good girl, Lavinia’s getting tired.’

The hell she was.

‘But be sure to tell me everything that happens in the town,’ the old woman called after her. ‘Lavinia likes to keep abreast of what goes on.’