Jail Bait

XVIII

With more riveting entertainments offered by the Agonalia, Claudia had the bath house to herself. Well, almost. The plumes of steam coiling their way up the columns to fill the arches didn’t count, neither did the squad of yawning female attendants perched on their high stools, filing their nails as they waited.

‘This beauty treatment will make you feel a million sesterces,’ the supervisor promised in a lilting Sarmatian accent.

‘Uh-uh.’ Claudia indicated her chin with the flat of her hand. ‘I’ve had it up to here with millionaires.’ Greeks, Spaniards, patricians-they think they can buy anyone!

‘Yes, yes,’ the supervisor nodded, pointing to her own chin. ‘The mud comes right up to here. Wonderful therapy, based on a marvellous Scythian preparation.’ She eased Claudia out of her clothes and secured the voluminous towel with a pin. ‘Your skin will remain glossy and fragrant for a fortnight or more.’

‘A fortnight?’

‘Minimum.’

I ask you, who could resist? Across the empty exercise yard and through a high vaulted archway Claudia entered an area divided into sections by heavy tapestry drapes and here the homely Sarmatian supervisor pulled aside a blue curtain to reveal a cubicle containing one marble slab and a dozen buckets of mud, before handing her over to a slave girl with an aureole of bright red curls and the broadest smile this side of the Caucasus. Unfortunately, even the camphor burning in a brazier couldn’t mask the ghastly pong of the sludge, but this, the redhead assured her, emptying the first bucket over the slab, was every bit as beneficial as the treatment itself.

Unconvinced, Claudia watched as a second followed by a third bucket was upended, the girl spreading the black slime into a nice even layer before helping Claudia on to the squidge.

‘You’ll feel a whole new woman after this,’ she trilled, slapping another bucket over Claudia’s thighs, her torso, her arms. ‘The mud dries on you like an Egyptian sarcophagus, but oh! once I crack it off and the impurities in your skin come away with it, your skin will feel like liquid gold all over.’ She plumped the pillow under Claudia’s head. ‘Comfy?’ she asked, not waiting for an answer before drawing the curtain and clip-clopping over the tiles like a filly in a stable yard.

Then came nothing but silence.

Maybe a distant knock in the hypocaust, a hiss of steam from the bellows. A few muffled words from the attendants as they passed the pillared arch. But mostly nothing.

Twenty feet above, the paintings on the ceiling appeared and dissolved in the swirling vapour and gradually, as the mud began to harden, the smell of camphor gained the upper hand and Claudia felt the tension in her bones begin to dissipate. At last, she thought. At last, a place to unwind and think things through.

And plan.

To her left, the tapestry curtain proclaimed grand Homeric scenes, red and vivid like the blood which had been shed so freely on those windy plains of Troy, whilst to her right, greens predominated, with Arcadian scenes so lifelike, you could almost hear Pan’s pipes whistle round the woodlands and the goats bleat on the hills.

Inside her mud coffin, Claudia let out her breath.

It was as though those two curtains summed up her dilemma. Her life, even. Red for passion, for feet-first hotheadedness. Grey-green for logic, for stepping back and listening to good, old-fashioned reason.

All right, then. Let’s see where this takes us. Focusing on the green tapestry, Claudia laid out her thoughts one by one and set Logic upon them.

Cal first. She had barely known him and perhaps it was time she questioned her motives for wanting to find his killer. Could it (dare she admit) be to divert attention from her own predicament? To neutralize her fears and troubles by transferring them on to a disinterested party? Suppose it had truly been an accident? Cal has one affair too many. The husband confronts him. Cal laughs it off as another casual conquest. The husband is incensed. He lunges. They fight. And suddenly, unintentionally, Cal falls dead. What now? The husband panics. He smashes Cal’s face against the rock and arranges the body to look like a fall.

Claudia stared beyond the green-embroidered woodlands to a voluble trial by jurists. Who would benefit? It couldn’t bring Cal back. Would cause further unhappiness to his family. Would punish a man already facing a lifetime of guilt, and what if there were children involved? Who was Claudia to tear apart a family?

Her eyes traced a flock of sheep and their shepherd, and she almost smelled the thyme which covered those same Arcadian hills which abutted Pylades’ homeland, Laconia. Ah, Pylades. He visits Plasimene and in no time Atlantis rises out of the rock, a glamorous palace of fun, and with the plague ushering those who could afford it out of Rome, what was so wrong with Pylades bitching about the smooth running of his business? Agreed such remarks at a funeral were callous and crass, but when all’s said and done, Cal was a fee-paying customer who, from Pylades’ point of view, had left a precious vacancy to fill.

Towards the top of the Arcadian tapestry, nymphs bathed naked in a crystal-clear pool, leaving Claudia to consider Carya, the spirit after whom Pylades named the sacred spring he discovered. The nymph tended so possessively by Mosul the priest that he drove away every acolyte who came here, because Leon wasn’t the first lad he’d beaten black and blue, a dozen others had left Atlantis, their heads hung in shame because they couldn’t meet his exacting requirements. So what, he’d had a run of bad experiences with his novices? Which, combined with his hot temper, had made him unnecessarily perfectionist? For all his faults (and anti-Semitism ranked pretty high), Mosul was devoted to the shrine, the altar was purified twice daily, you’d see no cobwebs in the corners, no dust on the steps, no stale offerings in the grounds and he never turned away a single sick pilgrim.

Satisfied with progress so far, Claudia allowed logic to move along her row of thoughts until it stopped at Kamar. The most you could level at him, Logic said, was incompetence and let’s face it, there are far worse quacks than Turtleface dotted round the Empire. After twenty years of peace, the population was expanding, and what’s more, expanding fast. As more and more people fell sick, the call on doctors’ time became greater, there were simply not enough to go round…and in any case, no physician worth his salt would linger in Atlantis! A special breed was required to toady day in, day out to rich hypochondriacs and here, for all his faults, Kamar came into his own.

Even charlatans prospered, she thought, recalling her surprise at seeing the giant, but then again, why shouldn’t Dorcan come here? A chap who can smell gullible souls like a shark senses blood in the water, a new town like Spesium, right next door to Atlantis, was perfect for business-and Dorcan wasn’t a man who hoarded his takings. He was a born fritterer, his whole philosophy being that life is for living and hell, Claudia could identify with that!

She moved on to Lavinia. Sure, the old girl had a secret, but considering she’d been widowed for thirty years whilst avoiding compulsory remarriage, Lavinia struck Claudia as the sort of woman who’d nurtured secrets all her life, the way some folk collected faience or inkpots. Was it any surprise her servants didn’t conform?

Finally Logic arrived, as it had to eventually, at Tarraco and she was curious. What would Logic make of this handsome chancer, who used his muscles in the bedroom instead of the fields? Well, as a matter of fact, Logic said there was no disgrace in a career which paid in gold, provided him with soft boots and jewels and servants of his own. The choice was his, and if he didn’t mind sucking up to the likes of that stony-faced old boiler who’d so admired Claudia’s harebell gown, who was anyone else to complain?

Inhaling the camphor oil, Claudia closed her eyes. The green tapestry had clarified her thoughts and calmed her fears. Sabbio Tullus? Tch! Such a skitchy-witchy loan, nothing to get steamed up about, she’d have that repaid before too long. A hiccup in the cash flow, that was all, dependent upon sales which would liquidate shortly. Now all she had to do was close her mind. Relax. Unwind with those watery gurgles coming up through the piping. Drift off with those distant, hollow voices floating under the floor from the furnace room.

Claudia’s eyelids grew heavy. In her dream, she was alone in the great banqueting hall and filtered sunlight was streaming in through the upper arches of the sun porch. Claudia was stepping out on to the balcony, plucking a rose and stroking the clipped box giraffes. Her eyes were wandering upwards, to the zodiac ceiling. Where twelve cats hung from twelve nooses Gasping, gulping, Claudia’s eyelids shot open, but when she tried to move, she could not. Except this wasn’t a dream. She was trapped-what the…?

Then she remembered. The Scythian mud preparation. Sweat poured down her face, but the nightmare was only illusion and she listened to the reassuring hiss of the steam, the eerie echoes, the resonance of clogs on red-hot tiles.

But something had changed. Now the green tapestry was no longer suggestive of hazy spring meadows, of waterside ferns and lacewings dancing in the air. The monstrous vision of twelve cats dangling from ropes brought the colour red thundering through her thoughts. Brilliant poppy red, conjuring up visions of battle, blood-drenched soil, of surgeons staunching wounds and stitching flesh.

Of one physician in particular, whose Etruscan forebears painted themselves that same poppy red for their rituals, prayers and sacrifice, and who buried their dead on an island out in the lake. He was a tall man, was Kamar, with hands strong enough to set broken limbs, realign joints-and snap a man’s neck cleanly in two!

Wasn’t scarlet the colour of the awning which sheltered Dorcan’s potions from the sun? He had lied once to her, twice, maybe a third time and affable though he was, let’s not forget every move that big bear made had financial motivation. The figure flitting in the shadows in the early hours as she returned from Tuder’s island was undeniably him, but why? Who had paid Dorcan to spy on her?

Claudia chewed her lower lip. An hour ago, in the dark seclusion of the grotto, a beady-eyed priest had sluiced his hands around in the cistern of a spring discovered on a promontory, which the augurs proclaimed as a miracle. Was it truly visionary-or simply vision? Mosul and Pylades. Both obsessive individuals, both perfectionists, both workaholics. Add a man-made tunnel and cave, what do you have?

One person who knew the answer now lay dead, and somehow the idea of a convenient husband exacting revenge just didn’t ring true, no matter how hard one tried to make the pieces fit. Was Cal a blackmailer? Trading in sex, maybe information, rather than coins?

Damn you, scarlet curtain, damn you! Thanks to a few strands of dyed thread, you’ve twisted my thoughts like those twisted, dead warriors embroidered the length and the breadth of your drapes. You’ve stirred up a blood-red imagination, distorting pictures of a young man cartwheeling down the aisle into a spy listening at keyholes, creeping round caves and skulking down tunnels.

To whom might he have confided his findings? Dorcan? Pylades? Lavinia…?

What the hell is that woman hiding? She’s an olive grower, for gods’ sake, how can her son afford this? From a homestead which boasts just the one field hand and maid, where tallows splutter and mattresses sag? What’s she lying about? Did she, after all, see what happened to Cal? And Lalo. How far would the loyal hand go to protect his mistress’s secret? How far would he go to obey orders? Why had he taken to disappearing for hours on end since he arrived in Atlantis, and where was he, the afternoon Cal was killed? Claudia had already checked with Ruth-she was alone.

‘Hey!’ Claudia called out. ‘HEY!’

After the twentieth bellow, the redhead finally put in an appearance. ‘Is there a problem, madam?’ she asked, casting a professional eye over the mud pie congealing on the slab.

‘I want to come out.’

‘No, no, no, no!’ squealed the horrified attendant. ‘It’ll undo all the good work, the mud inside won’t be set.’

‘Absolutely correct.’ A strong Sarmatian accent threw her weight behind the argument. ‘The mud needs to dry completely on your skin.’ The senior attendant tapped the sarcophagus. ‘About halfway,’ she calculated. ‘Well worth the wait, I assure you.’

‘I have no intention of waiting,’ Claudia snapped. ‘I want-’ Suddenly she recalled something Lavinia had said, and it was as though she’d been transported to the very highest Alps, so cold was the blood in her veins. ‘A woman died having a mud treatment. Was it here?’

The spatula in the redhead’s hands clattered on to the tiles and for the first time the broad smile disappeared. It was left to the supervisor to explain.

‘Ah, now that.’ She exchanged sober glances with her assistant, who began to twist her finger in her fist as she stared at her feet. ‘We um…’ The Sarmatian accent grew more pronounced. ‘We didn’t think anyone knew-’

‘It was terrible,’ cut in the redhead. ‘My best friend was in charge, and she got the sack over that, but, honestly, it wasn’t her fault-’

‘It wasn’t any of our faults,’ the overseer corrected sternly. ‘When the girl left, the client was laughing and joking-’

‘Teasing her about her freckles, my friend said-’

‘Exactly. And when the girl returned two hours later…well, it was just one of those things. However,’ the Sarmatian woman sniffed, ‘you mustn’t blame the treatment, her heart simply stopped beating.’

‘It happens,’ the redhead added with a philosophical shrug.

‘Just not here?’

‘Pylades felt the tragedy could only damage Atlantis,’ the supervisor sniffed, ‘and I for one believe he was absolutely right to hush it up-look what effect it’s had on you, for a start. Wanting to come out halfway through-imagine!’

‘I still do,’ Claudia replied through gritted teeth. ‘Would you fetch the nutcracker?’

‘Nonsense, dear,’ the Sarmatian woman tutted. ‘Another hour and you’ll laugh about this. Come along.’

Taking the redhead by the elbow, the pair of them departed deaf to Claudia’s impassioned pleas, her threats, her curses.

Finally, with only swirling steam for company and a few ghostly gurgles from the pipes, Claudia felt the first faint flutterings of panic.

Dammit, I have to get out. She elbowed, she kicked, she used her shoulders, knees, she squirmed, she heaved, but the bloody mud wouldn’t shift. Not one tiny crack had appeared. For the first time since she’d slipped from her mother’s womb, Claudia Seferius lay absolutely helpless.

Except that here, in the cubicle, there were no warm and loving arms to scoop her into, no reassuring breast to suckle, no mother’s voice to soothe.

Claudia was entirely alone.

Her heart pounded erratically, her breathing quickened. In desperation, she turned to the green curtain, but it was no longer Arcadia, where the sun always shone and goats chomped as the goatherd blew on a flute. It was a piece of cloth upon which some clever madam had stitched a scene or two, that was all. There was nothing restful about it, nothing reassuring, it was merely a sheet.

So why then, thumped her heart, wasn’t the red curtain the same? Why not a two-dimensional portrayal of the siege of Troy on a single bolt of fabric? Look, there are the battlements, with Priam and his sons. There’s the wooden horse, and down there the warships, while a dozen brave heroes slugged it out, she recognized Hector and Achilles, Ajax and Lysander. That, too, is simply a curtain.

But it wasn’t. It was a reflection of the wrath of Sabbio Tullus. Of some terrible, unnamed repercussion. Of Tarraco, whose boat was moored here the day young Cal was killed. Beads of sweat broke out on her forehead. Tarraco already had one tragedy behind him and now his second wife had disappeared. His second rich, middle-aged wife, to be precise. Lais, who had inherited all of Tuder’s wealth with or without a certain Spaniard’s connivance…

With a shudder, Claudia realized she knew absolutely nothing about this place or the people in it, yet in the space of three short days she had become aware of a huge and deadly shadow hovering over Atlantis. Cal was dead and so, according to Lavinia’s gossip, were others.

A young mother last night in childbirth. The silversmith with the tumour. An orphan boy, whose cousin, as Lavinia pointed out, so fortuitously inherited. The woman who kept cats. The nightmare vision in Claudia’s dream came back to haunt her. And then there was the woman who died, lying on one of these very slabs…

This is madness, she told herself. Wild imaginings born of helplessness. But instinct fought back. And instinct told her that, by meddling, her own life might be in jeopardy…

What was that?

The hairs on her scalp began to prickle. Footsteps. Heavy. Male. Like drumbeats in a sinister play, they grew louder with each rhythmic beat. Closer. Closer…

Claudia stopped breathing. Please pass by. Sweet Jupiter in heaven, make them pass by.

The footsteps grew louder, and Claudia thought of Pul, his bulging pectorals, his shining skull with just that stupid topknot on the poll. She pictured that tight leather vest, straining from heavy musculature. The curved blade on his hip Holy shit, Pul wouldn’t need a weapon. He’d use a pillow, to hold over her face. No screams, no struggles. Just-what was the phrase that oh-so-homely Sarmatian woman used? Her heart would stop beating.

Like a white heifer to the sacrificial block, Claudia had allowed herself to be led to this chamber and imprisoned in a rigid coffin…and now she might pay the ultimate price for stupidity. Panic beat in her chest. I don’t want to die. Mighty Mars, help me! Please don’t let me die. She remembered how Pul’s almond eyes had followed her as she conversed with Dorcan after Cal’s funeral, had pinpointed her with hostility as she talked with Kamar at the Agonalia. Always around, always watchful. From the moment she’d first clapped eyes on him, Claudia had known Pul was evil…

The footsteps stopped, and now Claudia could only hear the terrible pounding of her blood in her ears. He was outside her cubicle. Waiting. For what? In her mind, she saw his monstrous walrus moustache lifting in a blood-thinning smile as he plumped the pillow he’d pulled from under her head…

Sweet Jupiter.

A brown hand closed round the curtain at the end of the cubicle. Brown on blue. They would be the last colours she ever saw in this life Slowly the hand drew back the drape.