Jail Bait

XV

Ankles puffed up in heat as merciless as it was unrelenting, bones felt like lead and hair hung in damp ropes. In Rome, the chaos was worsening as more and more roads became clogged with locked spokes or carts tipping over in the rush to exit the capital. The military were working round the clock, but as verges piled higher and higher with everything from crockpots to copper, saltfish to spoons, the smell of oxen and asses attracted bluebottles by the billion, and the dispirited legionaries likened their task to that of Hercules tackling the Augean stables. They ferried in water, beans and bread, they dug makeshift latrines and erected temporary awnings for the trapped stew of humanity, but, when a man’s livelihood rots by the roadside and his children are in danger from dirt and disease, the soldiers were on a hiding to nowhere.

Morale hit rock bottom.

And while the army battled with the congestion, a dark shape formed in the void, and the name of the dark shape was Anarchy.

For safety, pedestrian travellers either postponed their trips or journeyed in groups. Empty houses were looted, horses stolen; women feared for their lives. At nightfall, shutters were bolted, doors locked and then barred-for who was left to patrol the streets and keep them safe?

Gradually a million people became trapped in their homes, scared to go out for fear of bandits. Maggots infested the foodstuffs. Rats multiplied too fast to keep count.

The death toll was rising.

And not all the symptoms tallied with plague.

*

‘ Ouch! ’

Marcus Cornelius flinched when the wooden bear bounced off the crown of his head, although it was with no mean deftness that he caught the second carving before further damage was inflicted. Gingerly his fingers explored the tender swelling and, despite the pain, he grinned. Since his conversation with Dorcan, he’d been wandering aimlessly with just his thoughts and suspicions for company, yet of the fifty or so bedchambers in Atlantis, he was not so disorientated that he couldn’t work out whose open window ejected such a treasure trove of goodies.

‘We’re making progress, then?’ he called up. ‘When you shower me with gifts.’

‘Orbilio?’ A head thrust itself through the gap, and he couldn’t fail to notice that several elegant curls had slipped their leash. Or that they rested on perfect, naked shoulders. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing, prowling underneath my bedroom window, you filthy pervert, you?’

‘Flattery, as well as gifts. Now I know you love me.’

‘I’d love a suppurating sore more than I’d love you.’

Oh yes, he sighed. He was definitely making progress. ‘Claudia,’ he said, ‘we do need to talk.’

‘Talk?’ A finely tooled sandal came winging through the air. Green. ‘You call yourself a criminal investigator and all you want to do is talk? I don’t suppose it occurred to you to consider earning your crust for a change?’

‘My business with you is official,’ he answered mildly, lobbing back the shoe.

There was a long silence, which he savoured.

Followed by a longer silence, which he did not.

Finally, when he craned his neck upwards again, he saw that the shutters had been snapped shut and to salvage the remains of his dignity, Orbilio stuffed his thumbs in his belt and sauntered on down the path praying that his tiddly-om-pom whistle was as jaunty as he hoped. Round the promontory his footsteps took him, beneath the domed loggia and past a thicket of alders. He glanced up at the sun porch and thought he caught a movement halfway up the cliff face. Surely not…? But there it was again. A shadow on-or rather inside-the rock. Frowning, he stared at the impenetrable grey wall, at the straggly shrubs which clung to the rock, at the strange shadows they threw. Then a sapphire-blue dragonfly whizzed, breaking the spell, and Marcus continued his stroll.

At the foot of the zigzag steps which led up to the walnut grove surrounding Carya’s shrine, a man with shoulder-length hair and a sharp taste in dress was being approached by a small boy with a package under his arm. Marcus melted into the shadow of the cliff. The boy, nut-brown and naked, proceeded to hand over the parcel. The Spaniard unwrapped the sacking and Orbilio watched a thousand ribbons scatter over the path. Tarraco fired off a succession of questions, the boy pointed up to Atlantis and, in his private hiding place, Orbilio grinned to himself. The shreds were the unmistakable hue of summer harebells…

A flash of bronze caught the sun as it spun through the air before being clasped in the fist of the boy, who scampered away, testing the coin in his teeth as Tarraco glowered at the heap of blue cotton. Then, with fists clenched and a face like thunder, the Spaniard ran up the steps. Orbilio waited until he’d disappeared into the walnut grove before retracing his route round the promontory, and this time there were no strange shadows flitting in a descending line down the rock face and his whistle was slick and robust. He paused to watch an osprey cruise the shimmering waters and a trickle of sweat wriggled down his backbone to join a party of its cousins. His meeting with Dorcan this evening should eliminate one or two ‘Tuder,’ a voice said and, startled, Orbilio peered round a protruding tongue of rock to where Claudia Seferius was perched on a tree stump, her knees drawn up to her chin.

‘Chewed a what?’ he said. ‘Oh, by the way.’ He tossed across the wooden carvings. ‘You dropped these.’

‘Correction.’ Claudia weighed the figures in each hand. ‘I rather think I threw them. Like this.’ At the second plop, a screeching moorhen shot out of the reed-bed, its wings beating the surface of the water.

‘That’s not nice,’ Marcus said, settling his back against the rock face as the ripples in the lake began to settle. ‘You’ll give the tadpoles headaches. Why do you want to talk about Tuder? He’s dead.’

‘Exactly. And how did he die?’

‘I’m afraid you have me there.’

‘You, Orbilio, are not that lucky.’ Claudia stood up and shook the splinters from her skirt. ‘However, I think that, as a detective, you could start to earn the exorbitant salary they pay you-’

‘Actually, it’s a pittance-’

‘-and set the tiny bean inside your thick skull to finding out what happened to our wealthy banker.’

Swallowing a laugh, Orbilio noted with a tinge of disappointment that, whilst the curls ran free, those perfect shoulders had disappeared beneath a blaze of jade-coloured cotton, and jade, he decided, suited her better than that wishy-washy blue. ‘I’m sure you have a theory or two as to his demise, though?’

Beside him in the shade, Claudia snorted disdainfully. ‘How typical of the army to stick to single figures. Any number of things could have happened to poor old Tuder with what was going on out there. Maybe he burst in on Lais and her tacky love-slave and, mortified by her betrayal, plunged a knife deep into his broken heart, or-’

‘A progressive illness snuffed out the last, faint flame of life?’

‘Or,’ she glared, ‘he took a gallop round his island, discovering too late the strap on his saddle had been cut, or-’

‘Suffered a massive stroke?’

‘Or,’ she spat through clenched teeth, ‘he takes a deep draught of Falernian wine, only to find it was poisoned. Or-’

‘He died of the pox after a lifetime of debauchery and couldn’t give a toss whether his middle-aged wife remained chaste or slept with an entire legion every night. Claudia, he’s dead,’ Marcus pointed out, ‘and it’s unlikely the truth will ever come to light, because there are only two people who could tell us. One is Tarraco, and I don’t see him soiling his pretty nest somehow, and the second person is his dear, sweet wife.’

Orbilio paused to buff his bronze buckle.

‘And Lais,’ he said quietly, ‘surprise, surprise, has disappeared.’