Man Eater

XIV

‘Janus!’

For a split second the shock was so great that she couldn’t breathe, let alone move, and when she did recover, it came as a bigger shock still to find her instinct was to pull, rather than push.

Using one of the larger rocks as leverage, Claudia flung herself flat and stretched out her arm. ‘Take it!’ she yelled. ‘Take my hand!’

The face below was white with terror, panic barely a short gasp away.

You could see the dilemma. The loose earth had slipped far enough, and like a burr on a blanket, her attacker was stuck on the side of the embankment. To move would court disaster.

The words ‘Fetch help’ were mouthed to her, but it was too late. The rains had already begun.

‘No time,’ she yelled back, as the look of bewilderment on her assailant’s face deepened. ‘Take my hand!’

They started with just a few large drops, yet within seconds a cataract was falling from the sky, beating the parched earth like a drum, the overflow gushing down gulleys.

‘Quick!’

There was no time to dither. Any second now and the packed earthworks would turn to slippery mud. In the waters below, stippled with raindrops, larger shapes twisted and dived.

Claudia strained forward, her hair plastered flat to her face. ‘It’s your only chance!’

Like most opportunities, this came but the once. With a hiss, the side of the bank began to slip forward, the gap between them widening with obscene slowness. For several seconds, inhuman scrabbling kept the burr on the blanket, but the torrents had turned the earth to slime. There was only one direction left.

Claudia felt her own weight slide and she lurched at the rock with both hands, throwing herself on top of it. The angle she landed and the desperation she needed to cling on gave her no choice but to watch.

And listen. Above the howling of the wind and the battering of the rain, unearthly screeches rent the air. Then, mercifully, the sky began to go dark, yet she could still hear the frantic thrashings, the snapping of jaws, the crushing of bone even as the blackness closed in…

‘Claudia! Claudia, wake up!’

Someone was hitting her. Godsdammit, someone was slapping her face.

‘It’s all right, you’re safe. It’s over.’

Now someone was holding her wrists.

‘Dammit, Claudia, stop kicking me.’

‘Marcus?’ Where was she? Why were security policemen holding her down? ‘Marcus?’

‘I like it when you call me Marcus. Makes you sound sweet and pliable, warm-hearted and understanding.’

‘Clog off.’

‘That’s better. Thought for a minute you were losing your touch.’

Claudia sat up. ‘What happened to my head?’

‘You’ve had a knock,’ Orbilio replied, supporting her shoulders, ‘but I reckon you’ll live.’

Claudia looked round. She was lying in the lee of one of the animal sheds, camels by the sound of it, where he must have carried her. The rain was hammering down on the roof. ‘There’s a lump on my temple the size of an ostrich egg.’

‘Quail’s egg,’ he corrected, wiping her hair off her face and wrapping his cloak round her shoulders. ‘So stop trawling for sympathy. Can you stand?’ He helped her gently to her feet.

‘How did you find me?’

‘Your wrap. I found it lying on the path, ripped to shreds.’

‘Oh.’ She wanted to thank him, but didn’t know how. ‘What are all those lights?’

‘Once I got you to safety, I sent for help. They’re searching for the body. Er-I’m presuming there is a body to find?’

Claudia nodded numbly. She wanted to tell him what had happened, but for some reason her teeth wouldn’t stop chattering and her hands seemed to be shaking like an old man with palsy.

He shouted for one of the slaves to come over. ‘Help Mistress Seferius to the house, will you? Give her a sleeping draught and-’

‘No.’ If her mouth wouldn’t work properly, at least he’d understand the violent shaking of her head. ‘I’m coming with you.’

‘No, you’re not.’

She tried to say, try and stop me, but it came out like a death rattle. Instead, she pushed him aside and set off in the lashing rain towards the embankment, her torn tunic flapping and her calves caked with mud. She had to see this through to the finish. Barely a dozen paces later, her knees turned traitor.

‘Silly bitch,’ he said, grinning at her from ear to ear. ‘Come along.’

Scooping her into his arms, he carried her to the top of the bank and set her down on a wide, flat rock well clear of any landslips. ‘Stay,’ he ordered, as though addressing a dog.

Hell, she couldn’t move if she tried, but it was a good vantage point. A hundred torches had been lit, guttering in the deluge but still managing to survive. Ladders and ropes had been brought along for safety, since dusty paths had turned to quagmires, irrigation channels to flash floods. Gingerly she rubbed the lump on her forehead and huddled deep under Orbilio’s weatherproof cloak.

None of the amphibians resisted the lasso round their tails. Now I’m full, they seemed to say, I’ll let you play tag if you like. Even so, the search was not easy, and it was lucky one of the party hailed from Egypt and was able to throw light on these primordial creatures’ habits.

As the search party trod the murky waters, Claudia felt an overwhelming relief that, finally, the nightmare was over. It made no sense, but this was the person who had watched Claudia Seferius leave the villa, had lain in ambush for her return, planning long and hard that her murder should look like an accident, the same way Coronis’ murder was designed to look like an accident.

This, then, was the person who’d stabbed Fronto-but what had Claudia seen, or was imagined to have seen, that turned her into such a liability?

Probably-regrettably-she would never know.

Suddenly a cry went up as the bloody trophy was ferried back and the crowd began to concentrate itself on one small part of the shore. They were all here, she realized. Storm or no storm, master and slave alike, the whole household would have assembled for the climax.

The corpse, when it was finally hauled on to the slippery bank, was a total mess. One leg had been taken off completely, the other severed above the knee, and an arm was missing. Claudia began to retch.

‘All right?’

Orbilio held her while she was sick, wiped her mouth with his handkerchief. She could do no more than nod.

‘Just the reaction,’ she explained, although the words didn’t actually make it past her larynx.

*

Later, in the shelter of the house, with mulled wine on the inside and dry clothes on the outside and Claudia Seferius out cold from a hyoscine draught, everyone was agreed that they had never, in their lives, seen such a sickening spectacle as that mangled body.

Equally they were unanimous in that they had no clue as to who the dead man might be.