Man Eater

XVII

Like other people’s lives after personal bereavement, the Villa Pictor set about its business none the wiser and certainly none the worse. As Claudia dripped across the atrium floor, two men staggered towards the kitchens, laughingly balancing an amphora of oil between them. A gap-toothed maid buffed up the bronzes. An applecheeked redhead tickled the corners of this splendid marble hall with her heather broom. Alis was making devotions at the family shrine, a young Syrian topped up the water-clock, the porters changed shifts in the vestibule.

Proof positive that victims don’t suddenly glow in the dark to distinguish themselves from the rest of humanity.

And proof that the expression on one’s face doesn’t necessarily reflect the fact that one’s brains are bubbling so loud you’re surprised other people can’t hear them.

Once inside her bedroom, however, cosy and warm thanks to the gentle heat of the charcoal brazier, a sense of balance prevailed and Claudia finally thought to peel the cold, soggy tunic away from her skin. Yeuk! She hung the gown over the back of a chair and as clouds of steam rose up from her clothing and dribbles of condensation ran down the walls, she vigorously towelled herself dry. The very action-instinctive, elementary, primordial-was sufficient to restore perspective, and she cursed herself for allowing that snide little Prefect get to her. Now had the crocodiles eaten him, they’d have had a belly-ache to remember. Probably turn them vegetarian.

Flipping the towel into a roll to dry her back, Claudia wondered what Sergius intended to do with those plug-ugly reptiles. They won’t dance very gracefully, and somehow I can’t see them jumping through hoops. Ah, now, wasn’t there some talk of him employing Egyptian natives to swim amongst them?

She leaned down and rubbed between her toes. Good grief, people will hand over small fortunes to watch a gang of youths splashing around with the crocodiles. Indeed, these spectacles are going to turn established shows right on their boring old heads. What innovations, what vision this man Pictor has!

And talking of animals… Cat fur and rainwater is an explosive combination and by the time poor old Drusilla can leg it to shelter, she’ll have a hump the size of a camel’s. I really don’t know where she learned swear words like that.

Today’s storm, though, had an entirely different quality about it, throwing out an invigorating energy as opposed to the ill-mannered depletions of last night’s tantrums. It was, Claudia thought, listening to the raindrops pitter-pat on to the broad, flat leaves of the elecampane, the difference between a play by Plautus and a torrid melodrama. One blows life-the other just sucks.

It was only when she reached for a comb to untangle her curls that she realized that, even in her own bedroom, she wasn’t safe. The room had been searched. Not just cleaned. Not just heated. Not just tidied. She meant searched. By an amateur at that.

She teased open the door. ‘Pssst.’

‘Who? Me?’ The red-headed slave looked round in confusion.

Claudia crooked her finger. ‘Tell me who came into my room while I was gone and this little fellow is yours.’ Her hand opened to reveal a shining silver denarius.

The girl’s heather broom clattered on to the floor, but Alis seemed not to notice as she continued to pour libations at the family shrine.

‘Um-’

Utterly transfixed by the coin, you could see the girl’s mind working out how to spend it, which, of course, was the object of the exercise. A couple of asses would have ensured Claudia had her answer, but it would not necessarily have given her an honest one. Silver would.

‘Um-’

‘Um, what? Umpteen Umbrians umpiring under umber-coloured umbrellas?’

‘Ever so sorry, m’m,’ the redhead bobbed down and picked up her brush. ‘I can’t say.’

‘Blackmail is a depressing concept,’ Claudia reminded her. ‘Let me make it quite plain that a single denarius is all that’s on offer.’

‘Oh, no, you’ve got me wrong, m’m. I mean I don’t know.’ Her eyes said goodbye to the silver coin. ‘We’ve just changed shifts, see? But I could ask around, if you like.’

Good life in Illyria, anything but that. For the time being, this remains our little secret, me and the son-of-a-bitch who’s been prying.

‘It’s not important,’ she replied airily, flipping the coin towards the servant. ‘And this should ensure I never asked the question. Now, fetch me a raw octopus, will you?’

‘A raw- Sorry, did you say octopus?’

‘Are you deaf?’

Actually, it was the only thing Claudia could think of that would reduce Drusilla’s hump to a meaningful proportion. The cat could slap it about a bit, and it would make her feel she’d gone some way towards catching the horrid slimy creature for herself.

Claudia looked again at her jewellery box. Walnut, inlaid with mother-of-pearl and with a hinged lid, it was an exquisite piece of workmanship. It contained bracelets and anklets of gold and of silver, diadems set with sapphires, pendants set with pearls.

Also, until very recently, it had contained the wing feather of a wren.

In colour wrens are very similar to walnut. You place the feather on the rim of the box and then you close the lid very, very gently to keep it in place. But no matter how carefully you open it again, that feather, that microscopic, insubstantial, practically invisible feather, becomes dislodged.

Intuition told her there was no need to unlock the box to learn nothing had been stolen, but Claudia went through the motions anyway. The key, which she kept on the webbing under her mattress, had been replaced, but the searcher had not been careful enough. The key now faced east instead of west.

Claudia tapped her lip thoughtfully. Whoever it might be, the spy was not Marcus Cornelius Orbilio.

Credit where it’s due, Supersleuth would have come and gone and probably taken the air he’d breathed with him to ensure he left no trace, so what was this person looking for?

A long soft whistle followed by two short ones came from the far side of her window.

What imbecile could possibly imagine Claudia either had something to hide or held incriminating evidence-and at the same time was foolish enough to leave it lying around? Someone who didn’t know her very well, that’s for sure.

The whistles were repeated before she realized it was her bodyguard’s signal.

‘Junius, did you know Rollo hadn’t sent any blasted message to Rome?’ Godsdamnit, she’d need to start sealing her letters.

‘Yes, madam-’

‘Don’t you turn your face away from me!’

‘But-’

‘Butt is just where I’ll kick you if you don’t look me in the eye. Now did you or didn’t you… For gods’ sake, boy, what’s the matter with you?’

Now the idiot had his hand across his forehead. Oh! Claudia bounced back from the window and grabbed her tunic off the back of the chair. It was damned hot, that cotton, because when she turned back to Junius, her cheeks were as scarlet as the tunic.

She cleared her throat. ‘Yes, that letter-’

‘I tried to tell you, madam, when I got back from Etruria-’

‘Rubbish. I’d have remembered something as vital as that. Anyway, what are you doing skipping around in this downpour?’

‘I wanted to ask you when you thought would be the best time for me to create a diversion.’

I suspected as much. You’ve been drinking. ‘What diversion, Junius?’

‘The one which enables you to slip away from here.’

‘Oh, and exactly where do you suggest I slope off to? Greece, Crete, Alexandria?’ And how long till the heat dies down? A year? Two? By then, I’ll have lost control of my wine business, I’ll be lucky to keep a roof over my head. Unfortunately I have to ride this one out.

‘No, no.’ When the young Gaul shook his head, it was like a dog shaking itself. Water sprayed everywhere. ‘I was only talking about Rome,’ he said in a small voice.

Rome! Bless him! ‘Junius, it’s a kind thought, but I can’t see that my doing a runner is going to help my case, so why don’t you-’

‘The Prefect can’t touch you in Rome, can he?’ Claudia stared at the elecampane as its leathery leaves shrugged off the raindrops. By Jupiter, the boy’s right. The same way Loverboy has no authority in the provinces, Macer holds no sway in the city.

‘Junius, come under the eaves, you’re starting to look like a water vole. That’s it.’ I don’t want my little genius catching a cold. ‘Now, one simple question. Do you want your freedom?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Come on, yes or no? Tulola wants to buy you’-it’d go to his head if she told him how badly-‘and I need to know where your loyalties lie.’

The bodyguard’s face flushed. ‘Where they always have. Madam.’ The last word came as something of an afterthought. ‘I didn’t think you’d ever need to ask.’

Dear me, his voice sounds a bit croaky, I trust he’s not going down with the fever.

‘That’s settled, then.’ He probably keeps some doxy over on the Aventine, or else he goes moonlighting, that’s why he sticks with me. ‘Now about this diversion of yours-’

*

Plans are fun. For a start they are such flexible little beggars, you can tweak them, twiddle them, you even have the luxury of abandoning, postponing or advancing them, all with the underlying reassurance that, come what may, they will repay you with the immeasurable satisfaction that can only be gained from voracious mental stimulation.

Then again, it could just be down to that indescribable, delectable, mouth-watering wait.

To a girl like Claudia, for whom anticipation was a drug, the dry throat, the increased heartbeat, the constant swallowing, was unadulterated bliss, exquisitely enhanced by the knowledge that the very earliest Junius could put his proposals into action would be tomorrow, Friday.

Which left her, she calculated, skipping up the atrium, the rest of the afternoon and all of the evening to gather as much ammunition as she could possibly muster against the residents of the Vale of Adonis. Snakes, each and every one, but among them, oh yes-among them was a viper. Would she have time to find out who?

It would not be easy defending herself far removed from the scene of the accusations, but at least in Rome there was a reservoir of lowlife willing to swear on their mothers’ graves that Claudia Seferius was with them at the time of the murders.

My word, the old spondulicks comes in jolly handy at times. Of course that was valid more for equestrians, she mused, ducking behind a marble bust to avoid certain marauding security policemen, than for patricians. There would be no need for the likes of Fancypants, for instance, to dip into his coffers. Toadies cluster round the aristocracy for free. She watched him knock at a door along the east wing and waited until it swallowed him up.

Strange. That was Sergius’ bedroom. Why should Orbilio decide to visit the sick? Claudia ran her finger up and down the cool, smooth upstand, absently noting the quality of the Numidian marble. It was difficult to know what to make of that man Pictor. On the face of it he was urbane and charming, and he’d extended every hospitality since her arrival, it was difficult to read anything sinister into his actions. Except, maybe…

‘That’s my father.’ Alis’ voice made Claudia jump.

‘Handsome,’ she remarked, glancing at the serene, white face set in its eternal watch over the colonnade.

‘I fear the sculptor somewhat flattered him.’ The enigma that was Sergius’ wife let out a slight, self-deprecating laugh. ‘He had the same ill-defined jaw as the rest of us.’

Providence might have pushed Alis into Claudia’s path, but there was no way Providence was going to have her back again. Not until Claudia had extracted her ore. She was on the point of commenting that Euphemia’s jaw was exceptionally well defined when she remembered that the man in the statue was in no way related to her.

‘How come you didn’t stay with your father after he divorced your mother?’

The law was rigid. Adulteresses, by definition, lose all their rights and access to their offspring-in fact, most consider themselves lucky if they’re granted an annual visit.

Tears filled Alis’ eyes. ‘Papa was such an honourable man, Claudia, I wish you could have met him. As a merchant who spent much of the year travelling, he believed that, at nine, I was too young to be subjected to constant upheaval.’

‘You’d have preferred that?’

‘Claudia, I’d have followed him through the Pillars of Hercules and searched for Atlantis if he’d so much as whistled. Instead I was stuck at home with the woman who’d cuckolded my father then laughed in his face when she was heavy with another man’s child.’

Quite. ‘Didn’t you get on with Euphemia’s father at all?’

‘That man!’ The keys at her girdle agitated as she shuddered. ‘He was coarse, he was common and oh, the way he and my mother flaunted their bodies! If I told you what they got up to, you’d throw up.’

I doubt it. ‘How did Euphemia cope?’ It was probably just honest, earthy sex.

Alis’ lower lip twisted and untwisted. ‘To be truthful, I’d have to say she was too young to understand and, in any case, they spoiled her rotten with pets and toys-will you think me terribly wicked when I say I was glad the plague took them?’

It makes you refreshingly human, Alis. Welcome to the human race.

‘They ruined my life, marrying me off to Isodorus like that, it was a nightmare, I can’t begin to describe it. Look, I have to go. It’s been such a relief talking to you, would you mind awfully if I…if I-’

‘Oh no,’ Claudia replied truthfully. ‘Come and have a chat any time you like, Alis.’ Enlightenment is always a welcome visitor.

‘Thank you! Thank you so much, but I’m late.’ Alis had reverted to type, fluttering her hands and tut-tutting. ‘I still haven’t prepared the dining hall for dinner.’

She set off up the atrium on the run, then stopped suddenly. ‘Where are my manners? I forgot to ask whether you’d like to organize the silver. Claudia? Claudia?

The side room into which Claudia had dived was small and cosy and very, very comfortable. Its friezes commemorated Agamemnon, the warrior king, from his initial involvement in the Trojan War through his quarrel with Achilles to his ill-fated return to Mycenae, and, on the floor, an exquisitely tessellated Paris was dithering about who to dish that golden apple to, which, to judge from his expression, was getting a tad too hot to hang on to.

Had it not been for the fact that the room was full of Euphemias, Claudia would have liked it very much. She was slouching against the window, watching the rain hammering down on the bath-house roof as she chewed a lock of hair.

‘I hate the country, don’t you?’

With every fibre of my body! I’ve had it up to here with birds tweeting, buds opening, bees buzzing and frog spawn clogging up the ponds. You can keep your blue swathes of Venus’ Mirrors, your marsh marigolds and your aconites in the orchard. I want to watch the concentrated frown of the leather-worker as I munch on hot sausages, wince at the burned arms of the glassblower as I drink tansy wine-and forget migrating cranes honking all over the place, give me the cheeky backchat of the fruiterer’s boy any day.

‘How can you say that, when the fields and waysides are chequered with anemones, the bellies of hinds are heavy with fawn and baby bear cubs are gambolling their paws off after winter hibernation?’

‘If Sergius makes the money he thinks he will with his shows, we’re going to live in Rome, did you know that? The Esquiline’s the place. Since they pulled the old stuff down, it’s gone really upmarket. Is that where you live?’

The Esquiline Hill is a pocket of aristocracy, Euphemia. Old money only need apply. ‘My house-’

‘Is Rome fun? Is it exciting? What’s it like this time of year?’

How could you explain, to someone who’s never been there, that in Rome the spring equinox signals more than the end of the winter rains? Trade routes reopen, bringing gold from Asturia, cotton from the Indus, cedar from Phoenicia. Ivory from Africa will flood in to the Forum, along with porphyries and pomegranates and pitch. Seas will be open, too, and wives, glad to see the back of their drunken lazy menfolk, will be dancing in the streets as their sailor spouses swap henpeck and trivia for life on a knife-edge and jokes with the boys. How could you begin to describe that?

‘Average.’

‘We’ll get to see all the races, the games, the gladiator fights. I’ll wear Syrian linens and watch every play going, even the Greek ones. Sergius says there’s entertainment laid on for every single day-’

‘Not quite.’

‘-and on top of that, there’s jousting on the Field of Mars and rowing on the Tiber. I can watch-’

‘My dear child, steady on-’

Euphemia flashed her a glance of undiluted insolence. ‘I am not a child.’

‘Indeed you are not,’ Claudia smiled back. ‘You’re eighteen years old, and well versed with delivering messages with menaces.’

‘Nineteen, actually, and the threat still stands.’ Euphemia spat out the lock of hair. ‘Fuck with me and I’ll kill you.’

‘I thought you’d already tried,’ Claudia replied calmly, positioning herself the other side of the window.

Euphemia pulled a sarcastic face. ‘Now why should I want to do that? As long as you don’t interfere with me, I won’t trouble myself over you.’

Consider me indebted!

Claudia was staring at the opposite wall, where a wounded Agamemnon was facing the prospect of the Trojans breaching his Greek defences, and wondering why Euphemia remained unmarried, because if she’d been Sergius, she’d have got rid of the moody little trollop ages ago, when she heard voices in the next room. As though eavesdropping was a social grace to be trumpeted from the rafters, Euphemia moved across to the dividing curtain and put her sulky little ear to it.

‘I don’t see the problem.’ Tulola’s voice drifted across. ‘We’ll get one of the carpenters to run you up a pretty pyx to take home to wherever you live and-’

‘N-N-Narni.’

‘Whatever you say, sweetie, just leave me to square it with Auntie Macer.’

Claudia peeped round the edge of the curtain. Draped on a couch in the next room, her tunic slit to the hip to reveal a shapely oiled thigh, Tulola dangled a bunch of black grapes in the air. Slightly wrinkled after a winter in barley, they didn’t seem to deter her couch-mate in his efforts to snatch one in his teeth. The cheetah, chained to one of the couch’s solid bronze feet, settled down as Salvian, plum red in the face and his hair ruffled, shifted his weight from foot to foot and looked everywhere except at Barea’s hand moving around inside Tulola’s tunic.

‘I d-don’t think I-’

‘Salvian, Salvian, leave the thinking to me. Every great man marks the occasion, even Augustus, so what do you say?’

‘B-B-But the Emperor was twenty-three, he had a p-proper beard to shave off.’

Claudia’s face creased into a smile. To round off the Festival of Mars, which, to say the least, had been overshadowed by events, Tulola intended to give the Tribune that well-looked-forward-to rite of passage every young man hungers for, the First Shave. Poor old Salvian. Railroaded again.

‘Bollocks.’ Barea spat pips into the corner. ‘You’re scared shitless.’

If possible, Salvian turned even pinker. ‘That’s n-not true! Look,’ he shot a tortured glance at Tulola, ‘I only f-followed you, because my uncle said to t-tell you he can’t find a record of your divorce.’

‘Tell him to look harder,’ she snapped. Then, raising one seductive eyebrow at Salvian, she murmured, ‘What it boils down to, sweetie, is whether you want to join the ranks of Real Men or whether you’d prefer to wait until your beard grows like a billy goat.’

Grudgingly Salvian nodded. ‘I suppose so.’

Tulola and the horse-breaker exchanged looks. ‘Come on, then!’ As one, they leapt up, each grabbing an arm and dragging a totally bewildered young Tribune to his doom, laughing at the tops of their voices.

‘Must see this,’ cried Euphemia, racing off to join them.

Claudia pulled back the curtain, saw the cheetah’s face contort into a snarl and quickly jerked it closed again. Jupiter, Juno and Mars, that animal makes Drusilla look like one of those little pink-cheeked cherubs that decorate my bedroom ceiling. Pallas assured me it only eats gazelle, but hell, I’m not going to be the one to find out Pallas makes mistakes.

She retraced her steps across the Judgement of Paris and pulled open the door to find a man leaning against the jamb, his patrician boots crossed comfortably at the ankles. ‘You’re sick, Orbilio, you know that?’

The policeman grinned, uncrossed his legs and advanced into the room, clicking the door quietly behind him. ‘Wrong,’ he said. ‘Sergius is sick. What do you make of that?’

‘Nothing. Would you stop blocking my exit?’

‘First a marigold,’ he remarked, his eyes sweeping over Claudia’s tunic, ‘now a pimpernel.’

‘I’ll have you know, Marcus Cornelius Orbilio, the Prefect says I look enchanting in cinnabar.’

‘Well, he would, wouldn’t he? It’s the same colour as his military tunic-which, incidentally, appears to have been ruined by a mucky mark on the back. You don’t happen to know anything about that, I suppose?’

Claudia’s smile was as innocent as a babe’s.

‘I didn’t think you would,’ he said, scrutinizing Agamemnon’s fight with Achilles. ‘Tell me, doesn’t it strike you as strange that Alis, sweet, doting, follows-him-around-like-a-puppy Alis, is not bothered by her husband’s illness?’

‘She’s merely doing what she always does. Carrying out Sergius’ wishes.’

‘Tulola’s pressurizing her to send for medical help.’

‘She won’t get anywhere. Sergius hates doctors.’ And I’m with him on that. Mistakes they can bury.

‘Does he really?’ Orbilio’s gaze wandered towards the window. ‘The rain’s easing. The smell of the soil after a downpour is exquisite, don’t you think?’

Claudia saw no reason to reply to that. She traced her toe round Paris’ golden prize.

‘I just spoke with Euphemia, too,’ he continued in the same dreamy voice. ‘She said Sergius Pictor was perfectly able to look after himself, he always had.’

‘The trouble with many of the more serious playwrights, they will include soliloquies. So deadly boring, don’t you agree?’

‘I wouldn’t know, I’m an Aristophanes man, myself, but one thing I’m absolutely certain of is that, whatever you might pretend, bored you are not.’

‘Damned well am so, too.’

A corner of his mouth twitched and that irritating sparkle was back in his eyes. ‘You can lie to yourself, but never to me, Claudia. You’re enjoying this.’

She threw up her hands and pretended to look out of the window. ‘I’m amazed asylum owners aren’t queuing back to Narni for your patronage.’

‘Come on. Action-packed adventure? It’s just what you’re made for! Look what it’s done for you.’

She pointed to her neck, wrists and ankles. ‘Seriously?’

‘Beaten, battered, bullied or bruised, you bloom under them all. Danger becomes you, Claudia Seferius, and you damned well know it.’

‘Have you been drinking?’

The merest mention of the milk he’d been swilling lately made Orbilio’s stomach churn. ‘You still haven’t told me what you make of Sergius Pictor.’

He was right, the rain was easing. The sky was lifting, despite the onset of twilight. ‘In my opinion, he’s a clever, strong-minded, ambitious man who undoubtedly knows what he’s doing. Now will you shift your fat carcass?’

‘Certainly, milady, seeing you put it so politely.’ Orbilio prised himself away from the door, but his hand remained poised on the latch. ‘But I’ve just looked in on him, and do you know what I think?’

‘No idea, but I have a feeling you’re going to tell me anyway.’

‘I think Sergius Pictor is being poisoned.’