Second Act

One

Six weeks later and the tramontana, that vicious desiccating wind that sweeps down from the mountains in the north, arrived in Rome with a vengeance. Leaves which had managed to withstand autumn storms and early frosts now scattered like chaff in the wind. The soil, as with a defenceless crowd of peasants facing mounted Persian hordes, shrivelled and receded beneath the icy blast.

‘Makes you think about those Briton barbarians,’ Claudia said to her bodyguard, as they pushed their way through the crowds. ‘I mean, what kind of people find blue skin attractive?’

There had been no question of travelling by litter today. Snug as she would have been beneath a pile of bear skins with heated bricks at her feet, the chair would never have got through. Half the universe descended on Rome for Saturnalia. A crush of handcarts and donkeys, despatch riders and pedestrians, soldiers and slaves clogged every road. Traders and students jostled shoulder to thickly cloaked shoulder with athletes and letter carriers in a kaleidoscope of colour and customs. Dark-skinned Abyssinians, pantalooned Dacians, Cretans with their thickly oiled curls swarmed in on everything from camels to stilts, bringing with them the scents of the Orient, new breeds of sheep, panther claws, pepper, silver-coated drinking horns, turbans, marmots and liquor.

They came armed with stories, as well. Of ants that mine gold in the Indus. Of virgins auctioned off in Illyria. Of headhunting Gauls and Teutonic warriors sending their sons tobogganing down snow-covered slopes on their fathers’ bronze shields.

All these things congested the streets, filling the air with laughter and awe, while prisoners of war rattled their chains and sang songs of defiance in incomprehensible tongues and children rode piggyback on their fathers’ shoulders, squealing, tugging, dripping pastry crumbs as they passed. Wrestling her way through beneath the Capitol, Claudia noticed that not even weather as cold and drab as this could dull the gold on Jupiter’s chariot on the apex of his temple. But the sun, what little of it percolated the grey, leaden clouds, was sinking faster than she would have liked.

She was already late.

Crossing the vegetable market, finished for the day, empty-eyed beggars pressed together for warmth against the walls of the warehouse. Cripples in rags moaned with the pain. For a fleeting moment, she faltered and the past rushed up to meet her. Suddenly, she, too, was smelling the vile stench of poverty, feeling the icy cold hand of despair grip her shoulder… Then pfft! The moment was gone. She was back in the open plaza, the twenty-five-year-old widow of a wealthy wine merchant on her way to an urgent appointment.

The flower market afforded little variety in midwinter and for the most part stallholders displayed identical wares. Early white Cretan crocus feathered with amethyst, black-eyed anemones forced under glass (and which were already wilting in the freezing air) or pots of late Damascan crocuses, although one booth offered iris, narcissus and the white bells of snowflake for a vastly inflated price, gambling on wealthy womenfolk paying through the nose for exotic, unseasonable blooms. Nevertheless, the bulk of today’s trade was in greenery, and trade was brisk. With Saturnalia just one week away, Roman matrons were out in force, sniffing out the best of the bargains in fir, yew, holly and myrtle to deck out their apartments or hang in their halls.

Claudia glanced around. Pretended to peruse the foliage displays. Curled one booted foot round the leg of a collapsible stand. With a crash, the table pitched forward on to the cobbles, spraying evergreens in every direction.

‘Junius.’ She extracted a prickly holly leaf from the hem of her gown and snapped her fingers. ‘Help this poor woman with her table, will you?’

‘Must be the cold,’ the stallholder muttered, gathering up armfuls of fragrant fir before they were trampled. ‘Got into the hinges, I’ll wager.’

She was extremely grateful to the young noblewoman for lending her a strong arm to help.

While Junius rushed to lift the collapsed stand, Claudia slipped away. In theory, of course, she should have been able to order her slave to stand guard while she kept her appointment, but theory had no place with the young Gaul. Closer than her own shadow, orders meant nothing when it came to protecting his mistress. Guile was the only solution.

Daylight was fading fast, and the smell of the Tiber was sour in Claudia’s nostrils as she negotiated her way through the maze of twisty lanes. The din of commerce receded with her every footstep. With the seas closed from October until March, the only traffic on the river in December came from local barges and the occasional coaster. The docks were deserted and Claudia’s boots echoed over the quayside.

Funny how circular temples remained so popular in the provinces, yet had long fallen out of favour here in Rome. There were only three of them left-the one she was making for, the Temple of Portunus, Hercules’s shrine across the way and, of course, Vesta’s temple in the Forum. But whether they were situated in the heart of the Empire or the back of beyond, every circular temple toed the same architectural line. Fluted columns round a circular cell. Domed roof. Elaborate bronze grating between the columns.

In the temple precinct, she paused. ‘Captain Moschus?’ She could have sworn she’d seen a figure. ‘Moschus, is that you?’

A skinny black cat shot out from behind the sacred laurel. Unless the gods had been turning men into animals again, safe to assume it’s not the trusty captain. She shrugged off her unease, mounted the steps and pushed open the door.

‘I’m a tad late,’ she said, and her breath was white in the air.

The man with his back to the altar stone struggled to his feet, dirty hands scrubbing the sleep out of his eyes and pushing greasy, greying locks back from his face. ‘No problem, missus. It’s your show.’

The tidal wave of body odour sent her reeling. Hygiene, Claudia remembered belatedly, taking in the greasy stains down his waterproof goatskin cloak and the ingrained grime round the neck of his tunic, did not top the captain’s list of priorities. But hungry dogs eat dirty puddings, or so the proverb goes. Putting a hand across her nostrils, she got straight to business.

‘The Artemis is officially recorded as sunk?’

‘S’right.’ He smiled a black-toothed smile. ‘Old Moschus put the word round good and proper.’ He sniffed noisily to emphasize his point. ‘To all intents and purposes, ’er ribs is scattered over Neptune’s sandy soil from Naples to the Messina Straits.’

A simple yes would have done, but never mind. ‘You had no trouble convincing the merchant, Butico, that his consignment of Seferius wine went down with her?’

‘Word for word like we agreed. “Risky business, shippin’ this time of year,” I tells him. “Storms whips up outta nowhere and wallop. Lucky to be alive meself,” I says. “Me crew escaped by the skin of their teeth.”’

‘And Butico believed you?’

‘Looked ’im straight in the eye and said I got fifty witnesses what saw the old girl go down.’ A grimy finger tapped the side of his nose knowingly. ‘You can trust old Moschus, mi ssus.’

Anything less likely Claudia could not imagine, but under the circumstances, a girl can’t afford to be choosy. Especially when the idea had been his in the first place.

When Butico had approached her with a view to purchasing a large consignment of wine for his estate in Sicily, the seas were already closing.

‘I’m afraid shipping it would be logistically impossible,’ she told hi m.

‘There is a boat, the Artemis, which is leaving shortly to lie up in Syracuse for the winter,’ Butico pointed out. ‘Perhaps she might be willing to oblige?’

Perhaps she might, Claudia thought, but if you don’t have the goods to sell, you don’t have the goods to sell, although she saw no merit in mentioning that minor detail to Butico. Consequently, she thought no more about it, until Moschus knocked on her door two days later.

‘I hear you might have a cargo for me?’

She’d had to come clean then. Admit that she didn’t have the quantity in stock that Butico wanted. But instead of shrugging and turning away, the old sea dog had laughed.

‘Don’t see that as no problem, missus. I mean, Butico ain’t to know, is he?’

Suppose they pretended the shipment went down in a storm? With his estate on Sicily, Butico, more than most, would know the unpredictability of the Ionian Sea, the storms that ravage her coasts. And old Moschus could sure use the money, he’d added, almost drooling.

‘Uh-uh. This is out and out robbery,’ Claudia had replied. ‘Bargepoles aren’t long enough for me to touch this.’

Besides. Not only would they be defrauding some poor slob of an awful lot of sesterces, but if she was caught, she would be stripped of her assets and exiled. No fear.

‘Butico’s richer than Croesus,’ the captain spat. ‘Small change to ’im, that.’

‘Maybe so, but-’

‘Trust me, he won’t even miss it, and if it’s your pretty skin you’re worried about, forget it.’ The old sea dog had wiped his nose noisily with the back of his hand. ‘Once I gets the Artemis refitted and sailing under a new name and canvas, you and me’s got no worries.’

Claudia glanced at the statue of Portunus the harbour god and hoped to heaven he was right. ‘As agreed, then.’ From her purse she withdrew five bronze receipts, each stamped with the hallmark of the Temple of Castor and Pollux. Each token would redeem a thousand sesterces from the depository.

Moschus’s price was high. Very high. There was his crew to be bribed, as well as the Artemis’ s refit, but even so, Claudia had made a comfortable three thousand on the deal. Outside, daylight was almost gone, but she was taking no chances being seen with the captain. She would allow Moschus a slow count of thirty before following.

Nine, ten, eleven A figure appeared in the doorway. Taller. Broader. Better dressed than Moschus, and a decade younger.

Call it the twilight, but to Claudia, inside that tiny circular shrine of Portunus the harbour god, the figure looked extremely reminiscent of Butico.

The merchant whose consignment of wine was supposed to have washed into Neptune’s sandy soil from Naples to the Messina Straits.