Man Eater

XXIII

The pale blue gown that Claudia stepped into was one of three she’d picked up in Tarsulae. The style might be a little old-fashioned, the linen neither Syrian or Alexandrian, but the colour was perfect-reminiscent of seaspray breaking against rocks. Tulola would not look twice at such subtlety-indeed, when Claudia was returning to her room, it was the woman’s brassy robes embroidered with scarlet that caught her eye long before she noticed the rest of the family grouped around the atrium pool.

Familiar with Tulola’s plans to celebrate the equinox tonight, Claudia had paid scant attention to them. Her own plans had been galloping a somewhat different course, because by the time Tulola’s frolics began, Claudia intended to be tucked up in Narni before her final push to Rome. Damn, damn and double damn! Still, a party is a party. The boys would be in fancy dress, various entertainments were lined up-wrestling, knucklebones and board games, all worthy of a bet or two-and then the feast itself. Why not?

A hennaed talon beckoned her over to the pool. ‘We have so few diversions compared to you capital-dwellers, sweetie, it amuses me to play another little game tonight.’

I’ll bet it does. Except Claudia’s interest lay in her host, rather than his sister. Alis was right, she thought, Sergius Pictor is health personified. A muscle tugged at the side of her mouth. Marcus Cleverclogs Orbilio’s conclusions about poison were way off target. She must remind herself to tell him so.

Tulola stroked her long neck. ‘I think I’ll introduce a note of-how can I put it?’

‘Discord?’ interjected Pallas.

Playfully Tulola bared her teeth at him. ‘Forfeit. Tonight I’ll forgo my perfume…Euphemia, you can forfeit your jewellery’-there was a sharp movement in Miss Moody’s eyes which Claudia could not interpret, but the girl remained silent-‘while you, Alis, what shall we omit for you?’ The cunning bitch actually pretended to consider the problem. ‘I know! Cosmetics!’

Awkward, flustery Alis could not be considered plain exactly, but even she knew that, with a pallid complexion, carmine and antimony were her best friends. She opened her mouth to protest.

‘Excellent!’ In clapping his hands, Sergius very effectively silenced his wife. ‘Tulola, my dear, I don’t know where you get your ideas from. Claudia, what will you do?’

Claudia had smiled sweetly. ‘I, Sergius, will think about it.’

Now, girdling her gown with a single, dark blue ribbon, she watched the dolphins leaping round her bedroom walls, the prickly sea urchins, the squid, the lobster, the writhing sea serpent. Ah, yes. Isodorus. Claudia adjusted the folds of her tunic. The invalid who, curiously, died of snakebite, not his ailments. As though reading her mind, Junius whistled his secret signal.

‘Well?’

Prudence was not a quality one immediately associated with Claudia Seferius, but on this occasion she had deemed it of sufficient importance to find out what she could about the manner of Isodorus’ death and this is where slave gossip became invaluable. She listened, and wasn’t sure she was hearing right.

‘Excuse me?’

Far from a long dissertation on violent death, the imbecile appeared to be babbling about slipping away. Again!

‘Junius, do you have bubbles for brains? As it is, my hipbones are clashing together like cymbals.’ Sergius needed to check out the suspension on his vehicles occasionally, instead of spending every waking hour with his silly striped horses!

‘There’s no better time,’ he urged. ‘With the Prefect gone, it’s dark, we could easily-’

Dear Diana, give me strength. ‘Did you ask around about Isodorus?’

‘Well, yes, but-’

‘Then dish the dirt, or the party will be over before I arrive.’

The Gaul had done well, she’d give him that. He’d pieced together how Alis was married off to Isodorus, whose wealth could not compensate for his congenital ill-health and who, as a result, had had great difficulty in securing a wife. The general consensus, Junius said, was that although the marriage had been consummated, it was hardly a regular occurrence, and that when the boy’s faint spark finally extinguished itself, few expressed surprise.

‘Although there was some irony about his death,’ he added. ‘The snake was curled up inside the mouth of one of the marble monsters in the courtyard.’

Claudia felt herself sway. ‘Don’t tell me. The chimera?’

‘How did you know that?’ he asked. ‘Anyway, I can have another car rigged in ten minutes flat-’

‘Junius, do you seriously believe I can go swanning off to Rome’-snap! – ‘just like that?’

‘You wouldn’t be enjoying yourself, would you, madam?’ he’d replied with what she could only describe as a sly smile.

Teeth began to grind. ‘I’ll forgive you for that, because I can see from your colour that you sat out in the sun, it’s obviously coddled your brains, but tread gently, young Gaul.’

‘Or is it because he’s still here?’ he jerked his head along the guest wing. ‘The copper?’

Dammit, that breached the pale. As of now, Claudia informed Junius with chilling clarity, he no longer headed her bodyguard, and if he wished to avoid standing on the blocks at the next slave auction, the best way to set about it was to get out of her sight. Now, forthwith, and immediately. Scoot!

In the looking-glass, Claudia noticed that her lips were pursed white as she snapped a faience pendant round her neck. How dare he, she thought. She drummed her fingers on the table at a speed that would have made any self-respecting woodpecker envious. In fact, she decided, with the full light of reason shining on the issue, if Tulola wanted the boy, she could bloody well have him. With an hour before the festivities started, she called for a jug of white wine. Chilled, because, by Jupiter, it was warm tonight. This year, she calculated, the equinox coincides with the first quarter of the moon, meaning the first of April, Juno’s sacred Kalends, will fall when it’s silver, shiny and full. A rare occasion and cause for much celebration-Juno’s powers will be great indeed after the sacrifices and rejoicing in her honour. Blowing out all but one lantern, Claudia looked up at the millions of stars twinkling bright above her. Your places will be different by the time I return. In fact, knowing Tulola, you mightn’t even be around. She was clipping on a gold anklet set with Sicilian agates when she heard a knock at her door. If that was Junius, he can damned well slither under it. Then she remembered the wine she had ordered.

‘You won’t find better service anywhere in the Empire.’

‘Wasn’t that the basis of Gisco’s complaint?’ She snatched the jug out of the waiter’s hands. ‘However, I do feel that even our red charioteer, limited though his deductive powers may be, could rumble that cunning disguise.’

‘Tulola said fancy dress,’ Orbilio explained, stepping into her room. ‘What’s wrong with coming as a slave?’ For some reason, his eyes were sweeping every flat surface, including under the bed. Ah!

‘Drusilla’s out.’ Such exquisite pleasure, the minute and a half before she put him out of his misery. ‘Tried to pounce on a flock of pecking doves, but they cooed and flew off, so-’

‘-on the basis that if you can’t eat ’em, join ’em-’

‘-she was last seen scavenging in the kitchens. Exactly.’ What is it about Supersnoop? Every time you open a chest, you half expect him to come popping out. I’m wondering if he’s attached to my skirt hem by string.

‘Good.’ Orbilio flung himself lengthways on Claudia’s bed, bounced a few times then folded his hands behind his head. ‘Hey, this couch is comfortable.’

‘Make yourself at home,’ she muttered, tipping half a glass of wine down her throat. Dammit, I’ll be glad when you’re posted to that distant corner of the Narbonensis or wherever it is you have your beady eye on. ‘I’ve been thinking about your shortcut.’

Hope the barracks are swampy and the bedbugs have rabies. ‘Was this while you skinned rabbits as part of your undercover work?’

‘Which reminds me. Oughtn’t you to tip the waiter?’

‘Only off my bed.’

‘I’d rather you didn’t, it’s far comfier than mine.’ He prodded the bolster, pinched the mattress. ‘Who knew you were taking the old road? That’s what’s been bothering me.’

‘Couldn’t it have bothered you in your own room?’

‘It wasn’t luck, snatching part of a conversation from your overnight stop in Tarsulae. No, this took planning and you know what I think?’

‘You’re squashing my slipper.’

‘Not a lumpy mattress, then? Mine’s riddled with them.’ He pummelled the leather back into shape. ‘I reckon that at some stage in the dim and distant past, this route was suggested to you. Think back-maybe you were at dinner, in the baths, meeting with clients?’

Sore point, Orbilio. Dinner, perhaps. Baths, perhaps.

But the meetings with clients have been pitifully few and far between.

‘It’s possible,’ she admitted slowly. A faint bell was beginning to ring.

He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. Generally encased in long patrician tunics, a girl doesn’t expect a sudden plethora of thighs all over her bedroom. Especially firm, bronzed, muscular ones. Not when there’s just one small light flickering in the darkness. And definitely not when the room you’re in seems to shrink and shrink to the size of a closet. Claudia drained her glass in one swallow.

‘You were wrong about Sergius.’ That should put Hotshot in his place. ‘He told me he gets these bouts from time to time- Are you listening to me?’

‘What do you know about Tulola’s husband?’

Obviously not. ‘Only that he walked out on her eons back and she still gets uppity.’ It would be truer to say that the merest mention of the subject and Tulola goes ape.

‘Do you know why?’

‘She was shaking her tail feathers beyond the confines of the nuptial couch, behaviour which apparently failed to coincide with her husband’s views on love, loyalty, marriage and fidelity.’

‘No, I meant do you know why she won’t have his name so much as mentioned?’

Tulola is not a girl who takes lightly to being dumped. ‘I can guess.’ She seeks revenge on all men.

‘I’d bet you a quail to a quadran you’d be wrong.’ He stood up and stretched his arms upwards towards the ceiling. ‘Suppose I tell you the husband comes home one night, discovers Tulola’s been playing around, they have an almighty row and he walks out?’

Claudia felt the tension pull in her neck and in her shoulders as she wondered where this was leading.

‘Then suppose I tell you that he’s never heard of again? That she takes his clothes, his books, his lyre, dumps them in a pile and makes a bonfire? What would you say to that?’

What indeed. ‘You’re suggesting it was an excuse for a funeral pyre?’

‘Not necessarily, I was merely canvassing your opinion, but it’s interesting how we both arrived at similar scenarios.’

He wandered across to the table, rattled the dice cup and tipped out the contents. ‘Full house,’ he chuckled. ‘Would you believe it?’

Claudia quickly scooped up the dice and tucked them into the folds of her pale blue gown. Of course they’d turn up a different face. They were weighted to!

‘Then there’s Pallas,’ he continued, pouring the thin, white wine into the gaming cup. ‘Where does he fit in?’

‘Not many of his tunics, that’s for sure.’

Orbilio refilled Claudia’s glass and passed it across. ‘By his own admission he’s been here two years, almost as long as the newlyweds. I trust there aren’t three on our honeymoon.’

I shall ignore that. ‘Four, actually. You’re forgetting Tulola.’

‘Five, then. We’re both forgetting Euphemia.’

For several moments they stood together by the open window watching the moon bleach the treetops and turn the clouds to silver, and the silence grew. It took on a life force all of its own. It began to condense, heat, pulsate. There was too much of him, she decided. The short tunic, the smell of sandalwood, that one bare shoulder with a little scar just to the left of…

‘One thing struck me as odd.’ Why the hell did she blurt that out? ‘Sergius was bloody quick off the mark when it came to summoning Macer.’

‘Meaning that finding his house guest stab a stranger in the dead of night is not?’

‘Don’t be obtuse, Orbilio, it’s beneath you.’

‘After the names you’ve called me lately, I thought nothing would fit.’ It was the moonlight, of course, that looked as though his eyes were sparkling. ‘So, what’s worrying you? You think Sergius set you up?’

‘Uh-uh. He went white as a sheet when Macer made his accusation, but I have a feeling he knows more than he’s letting on.’ She tapped one finger thoughtfully on the windowsill. ‘Maybe Fronto stumbled on to the training programme and asked too high a price for his silence?’

‘Why send for the might of the military? Sergius would more likely want it hushed up.’

‘Full circle,’ she replied, ‘and that’s what’s so damned peculiar.’ A vixen screamed across the valley, tightening the screw of tension. Blood throbbed in Claudia’s ear. ‘If Sergius is on the level, he could have dealt with the matter himself, and if he’s not, why play cat and mouse with the Prefect? Why aren’t you drinking your wine?’

‘Uh-stomach ulcer.’ He patted his rough, hessian belt. ‘Right here. Very tender.’

‘I thought it was the other side?’

‘Eh? Oh, the pain moves about. Wicked. What do you know about arson?’

The nearness of his profile began to irritate her. ‘It wasn’t me.’ She could see every line, every goddamned crevice. ‘Subject closed.’ Bloody moonlight.

‘Wrong words to use to a policeman who is both tenacious and uncompromising.’ Today’s dust was still lodged in his throat, why else was his voice even deeper and huskier?

‘Born under the sign of the Bull, were we?’ Any second now, the ceiling would come brushing her head and the walls smash together like the Clashing Rocks off Sicily.

He shot her a suspicious glance. ‘What makes you ask?’

‘You give out so much of it, it was an obvious conclusion.’ Someone was already sucking the oxygen out of the room.

‘I think it’s time to join the party.’ She turned to face the open window, resisting the impulse to gulp the fresh air. ‘Sounds like they’ve started without us.’

‘We don’t have to join them,’ he spoke so quietly she could barely make out the words. ‘Not if you don’t want to.’

What I want, Marcus Cornelius, is for you to take me in your arms, to feel you pressed against me so tight I can hear both our hearts beating at once. ‘Of course I bloody want to.’ It’s a party, right?

She heard a loud exhalation, smelled the sweetness of rosemary on his breath. ‘I see.’ There was a terrible long pause. ‘Well, for gods’ sake, be careful, will you? Three people are dead before their time, one attempt has already been made on your life-’

‘These points didn’t seem to trouble you when you followed me to Tarsulae.’

‘Pre-empted,’ he said stiffly. ‘Running away won’t help one iota.’ He leaned forward, and now she could smell sandalwood and juniper as well. ‘I’ll protect you as much as I can-’

‘I don’t need a bloody nursemaid,’ she snapped. And I don’t need your dark eyes under my nose reminding me how bloody handsome you are, and I don’t need that damned sandalwood stinking my wine…

‘Oh, yes, you do!’ he barked back. ‘Stop pretending, Claudia. You thrive on risk. You get high on the odds, that desperate thrill of uncertainty, those heart-stopping near misses-’

Her eyes flashed in the lamplight. ‘How dare you preach at me!’

‘Preach? You think my job’s different? Compulsion, addiction, obsession, call it what you like, Claudia, it drives me the same as it drives you, only with me there’s a difference.’

‘Damn right. I’m free to go where I choose, with whoever I choose and whenever I choose, and you know what, Orbilio? I’ve had just about enough of you.’ This room’s not big enough to take both of us. ‘Now get out!’

‘Dammit, woman-’

‘Out!’

‘Listen for a minute. I’m on equal footing with the villains, I know their game and the rules they play by, but out there is another player,’ he jabbed his thumb towards the banqueting hall, ‘with a very different set of rules.’

Claudia wanted to scream, Don’t you think I don’t know that? Don’t you think I’m not starting at shadows every time I leave the sanctuary of these four walls? That every time I see Alis or Corbulo or Barea I wonder are they going to turn on me and slit my throat?

She gave a short, hollow laugh. How can you get through to an over-rich, over-confident, overpowering sexual magnet like Supersnoop? You can tell him you’re frightened, he’d understand that, and sure, he’ll be happy to comfort you…for the night. But try telling him how deep it really goes. That with danger comes a fire in your belly you never want extinguished. That unless you feel the cold thrill of horror you don’t feel truly alive. How can you explain the passion, the craving, the hunger for this prodigal life force to Marcus Know-it-all Orbilio?

On the other hand, survival was high on Claudia’s agenda and extra security (no matter what tall, dark, handsome form it came packaged in) was not to be sniffed at. Sergius’ guards had done bugger all when she was nearly fed to the crocodiles-and, as for the army, Macer had laughed in her face. Fed up with house arrest, was she? Well, he had a nice warm lock-up available if she preferred,

And Marcus had a point. The attack could come from anywhere… Since there was no obvious suspect, the whole family fell under suspicion. Claudia parted her lips and hoped it resembled a suitably abject smile. ‘Let’s call a truce.’

It seemed to take a fair bit of adjustment on his part, but Orbilio caved in eventually. He lifted his gaming cup, still full of wine. ‘To you,’ he said.

‘To peace,’ she corrected. Why was it from this angle the moon lit exactly one half of his face and that one paltry little flame managed to light the other?

Orbilio kissed the lip of the dice cup to the lip of her glass. ‘What about to friendship?’

She felt her heart thumping against her ribcage, and when she nodded, albeit reluctantly, a curl fell over her eye. ‘To friendship.’ Dammit, where did that stupid little quiver in her voice come from?

‘What about to,’ his own pitch had dropped to a gruff rasp, ‘to more than friendship?’

A pulse was beating at the base of his throat, and Claudia watched the light of the lantern flicker in the shine of his unruly mop, saw it reflect dark hairs on the back of his hand.

So much from one little flame, how hard it has to work in the cloying blackness.

Too much.

‘Too soon,’ she said, and the faience pendant round her neck threatened to choke her.

‘Too bad.’ Orbilio’s face broke into a sad, lopsided grin and, taking Claudia’s nose between his thumb and his index finger, he gave it a gentle tweak. ‘That really is too bloody bad,’ he said quietly.