Second Act

Twenty-Three

One of the less noble consequences of a quarter of a century of peace was gluttony. As the Empire stabilized, it grew increasingly fat on its victories, and since fat had become synonymous with affluence, wastage with wealth, it was a sign of true prosperity that a person could stuff themselves until they were sick, then start again.

Whether her Saturnalia guests might be so inclined or not (and the johnny-come-lately merchant classes definitely showed a tendency to keep abreast of fashion), Claudia had no intention of allowing anyone at her tables to progress to such disgusting extremes. For a start, no one was stinking her house out with their nauseating practices, thank you very much, and secondly, if they wanted to throw up, they could bloody well bring their own slaves to hold the goddamned bowls. Outside!

On the other hand, certain social standards had to be maintained and this was where cooks became unwitting conscripts in the ferocious social war being waged among the equestrian and patrician classes. For as the rich grew richer, the pressure was on to keep coming up with more and more innovative menus, which-roughly translated-meant more and more outlandish delicacies were served up at banquets.

In this, cooks were aided by the influx of exotic creatures as the boundaries of the Empire continued to expand. Wild beasts were already being captured for the arena, why not ship over ostriches, gazelles and porcupines for the dinner table? Very quickly it became a benchmark of status that a man could afford to have peacocks despatched from farms on Samos in the Aegean at the same time as a delivery of lampreys arrived from Spain for the same banquet.

Unfortunately, as Claudia was rapidly discovering, bear cutlets and antelope steaks were no longer singular enough to satisfy the jaded taste buds of the Roman glitterati. Which meant that, now the novelty value of Syrian hazel hens and specially fattened dormice was wearing increasingly thin, the burden was falling upon the holder of the banquet to come up with further culinary refinements, with the emphasis shifting away from content towards ostentatious presentation. In a nutshell, then. the more complicated the meal and the more elaborate the preparation, the more impressed the guests-and thus the more amenable they would become to engaging in trade with Gaius’s alluring widow.

Hence her idea of a zodiac theme for Saturnalia.

That she couldn’t actually afford to buy the food was neither here nor there.

‘Da zodiac vill be a real talking point,’ her cook boomed when she outlined her proposal. ‘A real talking point!’

Behind her back, Claudia carefully uncrossed her fingers. With twenty Spectaculars sprung upon him without warning, the cook had not been in the best of tempers lately. Naturally he would carry out whatever commands the mistress ordered, but far better to have the big man on her side.

‘Bugger stuffed sow udders and pickled goat wombs dat the nobility are demanding,’ he expounded in his loud Teutonic roar. ‘Give people proper food on dere plates, dat’s vot I say. Give dem things dat makes da mouth vorter.’

By the time he’d finished outlining his ideas for twelve substantial, unpretentious and wholesome dishes to correspond with the signs of the zodiac, Claudia’s mouth was already vortering and she left him rubbing his hands as he went off to plan the banquet, oblivious of any conflict in the Roman ethos that nothing divides society quite like food, even though he was enslaved himself. Going well, she thought happily. Now she’d got him hooked, it would be so much easier when he went to buy the food to find that he’d also have to negotiate credit terms.

‘How dare you barge in here like this,’ a female voice shrieked from upstairs, ‘ then have the bare-faced cheek to — ’

Taking the steps two at a time, Claudia thought, that bloody Marcellus! The old, old story no doubt. How his guilt preyed on his conscience and now he wants to make a clean breast of it, blah, blah, blah. Men! She raced along the gallery. When will they ever learn that adultery shared is not adultery halved? But when she flung wide Julia’s door, it was Flavia on the receiving end of Julia’s tongue, not Marcellus.

‘You won’t believe what this little bitch has done now,’ Julia hissed, slamming the door behind Claudia, as though no one in the house had heard her voice rattling the nails in the roof tiles.

‘I’m not ashamed of it-’ Flavia countered, but her aunt’s strident tones drowned the girl out.

‘She’s only insisting on marrying that…that gigolo of an actor!’

‘I love Skyles, so there,’ Flavia said sulkily.

‘And what about the oleiculturist?’

‘I thi nk you can forget that angle,’ Claudia interjected.

‘After all I’ve done to get you hooked up with him,’ Julia continued, ignoring her. ‘He’s handsome, rich, extremely well-connected-’

‘I don’t care if living with Skyles means living in poverty,’ Flavia said. ‘At least I’ll be happy.’

‘Happy?’ Julia, of course, had never understood the word, what chance of projecting it on to a third party? ‘For gods’ sake, the man’s old enough to be your father. He’s a sexual predator on an Olympic scale and heaven knows what unspeakable disease he spreads with his alleycat morals. Tell her, Claudia. The only reason that vile little man plays the stage is because it gives him the opportunity to screw anything with a pulse-’

‘I love him,’ Flavia screamed. ‘And I’m going with him when the troupe leaves.’

‘And what happens when he discards you? Do you really think men like Skyles like women? His type are misogynists, girl, they loathe women. That’s why they use them so freely and so cheaply. They want to defile them, exploit them-’

‘Skyles loves me, I know it, and in any case, you keep telling me I’m old enough to make my own decisions, well I’ve made one. I’m going to make my career in musical farce, and so what if it means taking my clothes off in public? Anything’s better than being stuck in this shit hole for the rest of-’

The slap was so hard, it sent both Julia and Flavia reeling with its ferocity. For two stunned seconds, Flavia could not believe that her aunt had actually struck her. Then her cheek started to burn and before Julia could stop her, she was storming out of the room, calling her aunt all the names under the sun, although ‘bitch’ figured more frequently in her tirade than most.

Julia rounded on Claudia. ‘I warned you what it would be like, inviting that vulgar tribe into your house. That beast has not only corrupted my baby, he’s manipulating the child. I tell you he’s only after her money-’

What is it with this family? Can’t any of them see past the end of their elbow? ‘Leave it with me, Julia.’

‘-the scandal won’t just taint Flavia, it will sully the whole family name and everything my dear brother worked for will be washed down the drain because of his stupid, self-centred daughter-’

‘She’s not going to marry Skyles, now calm down. I’ll sort this out.’

‘Doesn’t that girl have any concept of the word responsibility? Doesn’t she stop, just for an instant, to think what impact the scandal would have on Marcellus and me? We, who brought the poor child up, when her father wanted nothing to do with her-’

‘ Julia!’

Claudia’s tone stopped the older woman in her tracks. Julia blinked, regrouped, then poked a bony finger into Claudia’s flesh.

‘This is your fault,’ she snarled. ‘You got us into this mess, Claudia Seferius, you can bloody well sort it out.’ And in a swirl of green linen she was gone, slamming the door in her wake.

Claudia rubbed at her temples. Dear Diana. To thin k Caspar actually wrote a script for his farce.

*

All across the city, women walked the streets in fear. Official proclamations had been posted. No journey to be undertaken unless it was absolutely essential, and on those journeys, women should be accompanied wherever possible. Fine for the rich, but there remained a large sub-section of the female population who had no option, other than to risk it. And these women trembled.

Opinion on the rapist was divided. Either the wrong man had been executed last time round, or else this was a copycat. Either way, they could not afford to take chances.

The rapist might only snatch one victim a day. Then again, he might not.

Women all across the city prayed. To Jupiter, to cast his thunderbolt of justice on the rapist. To Nemesis, that retribution would be harsh.

*

Any doubts Claudia might have harboured about the Halcyon Spectaculars not hitting the professional standards she’d been hoping for were dispelled the instant Caspar appeared in full stage regalia to lead her to her seat. For the two hours building up to this dress rehearsal, there had been no activity whatsoever in the atrium, not even from the labourers. Just a loud, empty silence, reminding Claudia what it would be like when the troupe packed up and moved on, only without the gaudy canvas backdrop for company. Hell, so what?

(a) she enjoyed living alone,

(b) it afforded her all manner of freedoms unavailable to most Roman women,

(c) she was accountable to no one and nothing, and so on and so on went her list of counted blessings until she reached the letter m in the alphabet.

(m) M is for Marcus Cornelius, a little voice said, so she quickly skipped m and continued the list of reasons why alone is best, with:

(n) being that she had a wide double bed all to herself and

(o) -

(o) is for a man who smells of sandalwood with a faint hint of the rosemary in which his clothes had been rinsed, and whose baritone is as evocative as any actor’s and-and — oh,

(p) off, she told the voice.

And because Claudia comprised the entire audience for this dress rehearsal, she felt it would not do for the critic not to meet the same exacting standards required of the cast. For that reason, and not because of any Security Policemen roaming round the house, good heavens no, she took extra care in dressing. The gown of midnight blue and trimmed with gold that showed off her breasts to best advantage. The little brooch shaped like a leaping dolphin, her favourite. The gold chain round her left ankle, which led the eye towards a flash of shapely leg. Why should that be affected by tall, dark investigators on the loose?

‘Dear lady, you positively snatch the breath from my body,’ Caspar said, having called at her bedroom to escort her to her seat.

‘The feeling is mutual,’ she replied honestly.

Colourful at the best of times, his costume as Narrator was prism combined with rainbow then mixed with a very big paddle. It took a moment or two before it registered that the spots before her eyes were, in fact, a collage of stylized fabric fruits sewn on to a plain apple-green robe. Figs, melons, apricots, mulberries, cherries, raspberries and grapes proliferated round his ample form.

‘You approve?’

‘I certainly do.’ Claudia linked her arm with his. Any man who goes to such lengths to impress the punters is all right by me, she thought cheerfully, reflecting on her own plans for the Saturnalia banquet.

It did not cross her mind that Caspar’s, or indeed anyone else’s equally dazzling costume, might be a distraction. That it was eye-catching for that very reason. To catch the eye-and thus draw attention from the face.

Killers like to observe. Not to be observed.

*

In the end, Claudia had not been able to get the quiet word in Skyles’ ear that she had hoped. During dressing for the rehearsals, the company’s quarters had been off limits to anyone not part of the production, and that, apparently, included the mistress of the house in which they were staying.

‘Time is so of the essence on these occasions,’ Caspar had explained, adding that he most truly hoped the dear lady would not be offended, but the schedule needed to be timed to the same accurate perfection as the water clock in the atrium, which, incidentally, he had moved, because although its drips did not interfere with the show’s timings, alas the same could not be said of the whistle and ping which marked each passing hour.

Fine. There was no hurry to speak to Skyles. In fact, the longer Flavia stewed in her own stupidity, the longer she had to reflect. Sadly, with most girls fifteen is mature. More than old enough to know their own minds, choose their own husbands, run their own households, plan their own babies. Thanks to Julia’s coddling, Flavia couldn’t plan her own wardrobe, although immaturity in itself wasn’t a problem. Girls grow up fast. Fact of life. Flavia’s problem lay in that, caught between the rock of her father not wanting her and the hard place of being fostered on an aunt who wasn’t given the option, she’d developed selfishness to an art form. She neither noticed nor cared that image was the diet on which Julia, the daughter of a lowly road builder, had grown strong. That image was the yardstick by which Julia measured her life. Or, therefore, that image was the one thing that could destroy her Right in the middle of Felix’s balletic miming of the Judgement of Paris, and just as Claudia was wondering how to bring Flavia to her senses and make her realize that Skyles wasn’t remotely interested in the stupid little cow, she caught a faint whiff of sandalwood.

‘One simply cannot get the staff these days,’ a baritone murmured, easing itself into the seat beside her. His chin no longer resembled a hedgehog, and his dark eyes were clear. ‘Would you believe I found my trunk outside on the pavement? Fully packed, too? Tch. And when I’d left strict instructions for it to be unpacked, as well.’

‘It’s probably homesick, trying to make its way back by itself. Why don’t you humour it?’

‘You know, anyone would think I’m not welcome here.’ He winced as Felix performed the splits.

‘Yes,’ she agreed, clapping. ‘Anyone would.’

If, in rehearsal, Felix had been magnificent, in costume he was sublime. Considering he was playing four characters with only soft cloth masks to differentiate the roles, and considering that three of the characters were female, it was amazing. Felix was more than capable of earning his living by going solo with just a flautist to set the mood of each scene. He didn’t even need the young castrato to sing the story. But there was comfort in group companionship, she supposed. As well as emotional security.

‘What do you know about these people?’ Orbilio whispered, applauding loudly as Felix retired from the stage. Quite a few of the slaves had slipped in to watch, Claudia noticed. Leonides, the cook, several of the boiler-house boys, half a dozen of the kitchen girls (to swoon over Skyles, most likely), plus a small contingent of the cleaning staff, too.

‘What’s to know?’ she replied as Skyles, dressed as Augustus in imperial purple and with a laurel crown over a cropped wig, strode on to the stage with Doris, as the Emperor’s lushly adorned wife, on his arm. Her agent’s report echoed in her head. There is nothing on this man at all, he insisted. He is self-made in every sense of the word.

‘What do I do all day?’ Skyles boomed, and dammit he even sounded like Augustus. ‘ Livia, darling, haven’t you seen the giraffes I’ve brought back from the African plains? The black bulls from Spain? The lions from the Syrian desert?’

‘ Exactly. All you do is play zoo — ’

That was it. Chip-chip-chip at the political scene. Nothing too contentious, just a gentle poking of fun at the expansion of the Empire, and fingers crossed Livia won’t take offence or we’ll all be facing lions from the Syrian desert. Seated on the floor with her back to the pillar, Flavia applauded Skyles’s every word and movement, funny or otherwise.

‘You men are all the same,’ Doris-as-Livia said. ‘I suppose you think it’s easy, being a woman, while you’re out potting Germans and Gauls all day long?’

Beside her, Orbilio stared at his thumbnail. ‘I apologize for the subterfuge, but I felt it was necessary, because of the Halcyon Rapist.’

‘I do have a bodyguard,’ she reminded him sweetly. ‘Or is one Security Policeman better than six lowly slaves?’

‘… Livia, darling, last year I built eight-two temples. All you did was weave me this shirt…’

Claudia clapped, not so much because it was a funny line (indeed the humour came not from the script but in the fact that the scene was set inside a humble thatched cottage, another dig at the Emperor’s asceticism), but because she didn’t want Caspar to think his satire was so poor that it made her attention drift. Beside her, Orbilio understood and said nothing until Jemima, Hermione and Adah came on to perform the first of three song-and-dance routines. Since they weren’t acting, the girls weren’t obliged to wear veils for this part and, versatility being the name of the game, they played their own percussion instruments. Hermione’s lisp was unnoticeable when she sang.

Orbilio leaned sideways in his seat. ‘It occurs to me that the rapist might be an actor,’ he said.

Claudia swallowed. ‘Because of the mask?’

‘Not entirely.’ He gave a broad beam of encouragement to the girls, but the smile didn’t extend to his eyes. ‘The rapist only strikes during the winter solstice, which just happens to be when most strolling players are in Rome. He’s also a man with a pathological hatred of women, who has the ability to stalk his victims without arousing suspicion.’

‘He could be any one of several entertainers, not just actors,’ she said. ‘An itinerant musician, an acrobat, a juggler, a rope walker.’

‘I’m sure he is.’ He turned round to face her. ‘I’m just not prepared to take any chances.’

‘Well, he’s not one of the Spectaculars, that’s for sure.’ Jemima, Adah and Hermione left the stage, and Erinna and Fenja took their place, but Claudia barely registered the change. ‘After all, I think I’d know if I was harbouring a monster under my roof.’

A muscle tweaked at the side of his mouth. ‘You didn’t know I was here.’

‘Oh, you’re like a draught. You sneak in anywhere.’

‘Thanks. It makes a change from being told I’m a load of hot air. But the point is, Claudia, I’m worried.’

‘Orbilio, I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.’

‘If you were able to take care of yourself,’ he countered mildly, ‘you wouldn’t be so wary of the Security Police. But shabby as it is to admit to such base needs, it’s not just you I’m thinking of.’ He drew a deep breath and held it. ‘There’s been a shift in policy at Headquarters. My boss insists it’s purely political, but whatever the reason, he’s handed the case over to Dymas.’

‘Then let Dymas have the headache of solving it.’

‘I can’t,’ Marcus rasped, and suddenly he looked ten years older. ‘Because of me, an innocent man went to the lions. I have to make that right.’

Claudia pleated the folds of her dress. That’s the trouble when you keep saving the world, Marcus. After a while, the world comes to expect it.

‘Silly question,’ she said, ‘but you have spoken to last year’s victims?’

‘Some.’ He rose to his feet and called for an encore, but she could see his mind was elsewhere. ‘Unfortunately, so deep was the trauma that it’s virtually impossible to draw the girls out.’

He spiked his hands through his hair. As a member of the same sex as the beast who’d perpetrated those brutalities, how could he explain how it felt when he saw the victims recoil physically-and sometimes violently-when he and Dymas had knocked on their doors?

‘All we’re doing is forcing the victims to relive the agony,’ he said thickly. ‘They don’t deserve that.’

One had trembled and started to whimper. Another curled herself into a ball and howled like a wolf. One screamed her lungs out. One clawed at her own flesh, drawing blood. Worst of all, one, like the Damascan girl Deva, had even tried to commit suicide. Only that poor bitch had more success.

‘What makes you so certain you didn’t put the culprit on trial last time?’

‘That’s the trouble. I was sure.’

He waited until the intermission between the second and final routine before outlining the evidence that had nailed the man he and Dymas believed to be the Halcyon Rapist. Information through street contacts that led them to a suspect. The mask beneath the suspect’s bed, which tallied with the description the victims had given. The strong smell of aniseed on his clothes.

‘Crucially, of course, the suspect signed a confession.’

‘Wouldn’t you, under torture?’ Claudia countered.

‘He was a citizen,’ Orbilio replied with the ghost of a grin. ‘Not Captain Moschus. He was never put to the torture. And anyway, it was immaterial. Three of the victims identified him.’

As Fenja and Erinna wound up their routine, Claudia digested the information. Well, if those were the facts, those were the facts. Unless…

Unless -

She thought of the mask and the creeping around, the rapist’s ability to merge with his surroundings, the mentality of the man who committed such visceral crimes. Secrets, secrets, so many secrets.

Then, suddenly, as though a lamp had been lit, everything fell into place.

*

‘Master Orbilio?’ The messenger nodded apologetically to Claudia. ‘Sorry, sir, but the steward says you’re to come home as a matter of urgency.’

Jupiter, Juno and Mars, should she tell him now, Claudia wondered. Or think it through first? Later, she decided. She’d tell him about her suspicions later, because Mr Upright-Conscientious-and-Thorough had made what he believed was one terrible mistake on this case. He’d need to be one hundred and ten per cent convinced next time round.

The arrival of the messenger provided the very breathing space that she needed. Yes, of course, she thought she was right. But far preferable to jumping to conclusions and forcing the pieces of the puzzle to fit, wasn’t it better to lay the evidence out in her own mind first? Check any cracks in her theory?

Claudia watched Marcus go. And prayed to Jupiter that her hunch was wrong.

*

‘The lady is in your bedroom, sir,’ Orbilio’s steward announced.

‘Lady?’ he queried. ‘What lady?’

But he might have known. Angelina lay sprawled across his wide double couch in a diaphanous silver gown.

‘I think we should paint these walls green,’ she purred, ‘and have clouds on the ceiling, so we can pretend we’re making love outdoors, under the open sky.’

‘Define we,’ he said, bundling up her belongings.

‘We could get a couple of dogs, too. They’ll be company for me while you’re out at work-’

‘The only thing that’s going out, Angelina, is you. Right this minute.’

‘-and in the evenings we can walk them in the public parks and-’

‘Mother of Tarquin, woman, there is no “we”, there never was, so let’s hit this thing dead here and now.’

‘I’ll have to give up dancing, of course-’

‘Did you hear one bloody word? I want you out of my house, Angelina, and out of my life. Now.’

The pixie drew a little-girl-lost circle on the coverlet with her forefinger. ‘Don’t tease me, Marcus,’ she pouted. ‘I know how much you love me, I can tell by the way you make love to me.’

‘I never made love to you, Angelina. You drugged me, god knows why, but-’

‘Don’t! Don’t say such horrible things!’ She sat up, her hands over her ears. ‘I would never do anything so mean and so horrible. I love you, just the same as you love me.’

‘Is it money you want?’

‘Look, I know you’ve been working hard lately, Marcus, but please don’t be bloody. You know the only thing I want is you. I adore you, Marcus. I’d give you the world if I could.’ She patted the couch. ‘Come to bed now. Pretty please?’

Croesus, the woman was absolutely barking! Well, no point in employing rational argument with a lunatic. Orbilio hauled her off the bed, dragged her screaming across the atrium and threw her bodily into the street, tossing her clothes and her baggage behind her and slamming the door as hard as he could.

Cruel, humiliating, and it made him feel a right bastard, but there was no other way to get his message across.

Stalkers not welcome.