Jail Bait

V

Atlantis was coming back to life as Claudia slung the painter over the mooring post. The fisherman who’d been mending his net was long gone and along the shoreline wildfowl wove in and out of the reed-beds. High above the thicket where Cal would be waiting with his basket of lobsters, merchants on fat profits and artisans on thin stipends hobnobbed in the shade of the cool colonnade. High female laughter rang down from the loggia and further along, the gilded pillars of the twin-storied sun porch shone like molten copper in the glare of Apollo’s bright rays. Incredibly, far from dulling her senses, that brush with death had only heightened her lust for life and excitement, and Claudia was whistling to herself as the rough grass swished at her ankles.

Would Cal, she wondered, be able to cast a beam of light on the identity of the mysterious huntsman who’d saved her from ending up a bear’s dinner, in the same way he’d sniffed out the sliding panel, the tunnel and the secret of the Great Hall-no doubt a deep underground cellar packed with ice, whose melted output formed a cascade. Probably, but it was the thought of that ice being put in a bucket to chill the hyssop wine which was uppermost on her list of priorities at the moment. Dear Juno, she prayed, don’t let all the ice in the bucket have melted. Not all of it. Let there be some left to bury my face in.

‘Cal?’ He was not at the entrance. ‘Are you there?’

She lingered in the mouth of the underpass and frowned. He said he would wait. She’d told him not to, and that would be grist to Calvus’ mill. He’ll be here. He’s just off, fetching the ice. Voices and yawns filtered down from the colonnade above.

‘Cal?’ Louder she called up the tunnel, and when only a distorted echo answered back, Claudia felt a twinge of misgiving. In the same way she’d misheard ‘bear’ for ‘boar’, had she credited Cal with more depth than was actually present? Had he taken off after fresh quarry?

Admittedly their acquaintance was brief, but the relationship had been plunged into immediate intimacy. He would come! Perhaps he was having trouble finding the ice? Yet the longer she waited, the more Claudia realized that, far from bridging the gap between youth and maturity, Cal had merely been acting in type. Bored and seeking to pass the siesta hour, how better than by making love with a stranger? Claudia’s cheeks reddened as she recalled the mintiness of his breath on her face…

That, my girl, is what you call a narrow squeak. Which makes two this afternoon, if my arithmetic is correct.

In the puncuated gloom of the underpass, Claudia smiled grimly to herself. At least it proved one thing, Cal standing her up. It proved he wasn’t a military spy, or he’d be here, keeping an eye on his suspect.

Halfway up the tunnel, a scream cut short Claudia’s speculations. It came from directly above, piercing and shrill. Typical. Silly cow wakes up, totters out for a view of the lake, spots a dead dog floating past and it’s brought on an attack of the vapours. Claudia strode off up towards the cave. They’re all the same, these rich wives. Closeted in isolation, slaves doing this for them, slaves doing that, they’re never exposed to real life. Sure, they live in the country, but nature red in tooth and claw? Do me a favour. Yet still the silly bitch screamed.

By now, though, curiosity was guiding Claudia towards the next hole in the rock face. What, exactly, was so gruesome that others now joined in the cacophony? She poked her head over the rough sill. Talk about a fuss over nothing. She rolled her eyes in disgust. The only thing floating in Lake Plasimene was water! She was about to withdraw when she heard footsteps on the foreshore. Men. Running. Shouting. Ghoulishly curious, Claudia craned her neck further.

‘Oh, no. Sweet Jupiter, please. Say it’s not true.’

Tears filled her eyes as she stared at the shingle below. Say there’s been a mistake. That I’m wrong. Claudia shook her head again and again. But even by the time she’d shaken it dizzy, there was no mistaking the truth.

The body which sprawled, twisted and bloody, was all too familiar. The blue linen tunic. The corn-coloured hair.

She shivered and hugged her arms to her body, and then, in the pied seclusion of the very tunnel that he’d shown her, Claudia bade a silent farewell to Cal.