Second Act

Thirty-Two

‘Skyles? A word.’

The dress rehearsal was already underway, but Claudia didn’t care. What she wanted to say couldn’t wait, and in any case it shouldn’t take longer than Felix’s balletic mime.

‘Shut the door.’

He made an exaggerated show of closing the door to her office, but she was sick of the act-act-act, pretend-pretend-pretend style of this actor with no name and no past.

‘Flavia,’ she said crisply.

‘You weren’t kidding when you said you only wanted one word.’

It would have been easier, this conversation, if he’d been dressed in the Buffoon’s brightly coloured patchwork, a razzle-dazzle juxtaposition of reds and yellows, oranges and blues. Instead, his first skit was impersonating the Emperor and he remained in character. Dignified and majestic in purple, with a cropped wig and laurel crown, he took a seat in a high-backed upholstered chair, crossing one stately leg over the other.

‘You took her to a post-hotel,’ Claudia said.

One noble eyebrow rose languidly. ‘As I said before, Livia wants to keep his mouth shut.’

‘If it hadn’t been for Doris, you irresponsible bastard, we’d have been out of our minds looking for Flavia. Where did you take her?’

One imperial shoulder shrugged. ‘How could I afford hotels?’ he asked. ‘Me, who hasn’t two copper quadrans to rub together, and you can search me, if you don’t believe me.’

‘I didn’t ask how much.’ Typical. The girl even pays to lose her virginity! ‘I asked where? Hold on a moment-’ She flung open the office door. ‘Leonides, did I just hear someone come in?’

‘No, madam. That was a cask falling over in the kitchen.’

‘Orbilio isn’t back yet?’

Leonides shook his head. Damn. She’d left strict instructions at his house to call here as a matter of urgency. She’d even said it was concerning the rapist. Which meant he hadn’t called there, either. Double damn.

‘The instant he sets foot indoors, then?’ she reminded Leonides.

Across the atrium, Helen of Troy was doing her utmost to convince Paris that she was the most beautiful woman in the world and worthy of the prized golden apple. Time to cut to the chase.

‘How much do you want?’ she asked Skyles.

The intensity in his eyes darkened. ‘I thought I’d made that point clear. I never take money from ladies.’

‘I’m no lady. How much will it cost to keep you away from Flavia?’

Puzzlement swept his face. Claudia didn’t think he was a good enough actor to fake it. ‘Are you serious?’ he asked, his eyes narrowing. ‘Is she really missing?’

The word ‘missing’ made Claudia’s heart skip a beat.

‘Her bed wasn’t slept in and she hasn’t been seen since the dress rehearsal last night, when she sat gooey-eyed following your every movement.’

Another time and he would have smiled and said, ‘Every movement?’ Now he swore, a four-letter word rhyming with duck, and the Imperial impersonation popped like a bubble.

He didn’t like to say anything, he said, because he hadn’t wanted to get the poor kid into trouble. But last night, after the rehearsal, Flavia had rushed up to him, told him in an excited whisper that she’d rented a room near the Capena Gate, that she’d wait for him there, and that she loved him and was going to marry him and have his babies.

‘I had no idea,’ he said, spreading his hands. ‘I mean, I wanted the kid to have a good time. I took her to a few grown-up places, a cock fight, stuff like that, and I made her laugh, flirted a bit-’

‘A bit?’

‘All right, more than a bit, but come on, you’ve seen her parents. No wonder she’s mixed-up and repressed.’ He ran his hand over his shaven head. ‘That kid’s not like Jemima or Adah, who eat because they enjoy food and thus life. Flavia’s fat because the food she stuffs in her mouth is a substitute for love and affection.’

Claudia felt a pang of something that might have been guilt.

‘I admit I opened her eyes to another world, showed her a side of life that was shocking and exciting to someone her age, but never in a million years did I think she’d read so much into one afternoon touring the fleshpots of Rome plus a few odd winks on the side.’

Flashes of imitation wedding bouquets flashed through Claudia’s mind. Of Flavia pouncing on this blessing of her engagement to Skyles. ‘What happened?’ she asked.

Outside, Periander was singing about Paris’s dilemma. Which of the three should receive the apple engraved ‘To the Fairest’?

‘I told her I couldn’t go to the hotel. I explained about the script conference and the rewrites that were necessary after rehearsals and thought, hell, that would be that. “But you have to sleep some time,” she said. “And it doesn’t matter what time, day or night, you come to me, I’ll be waiting.” Oh.’ He flashed her a grin. ‘I think she called me “darling” as well.’

Outside, Paris had made his judgment. He’d awarded the apple to Venus and now, in angelic soprano, Periander sang of the irony of that decision. How Venus would m a ke Helen of Troy fall in love with him, starting the war to end all wars…

Claudia waited.

‘In the end, I realized I had no choice. I had to go to the tavern and tell the poor kid the truth.’

‘What is the truth, Skyles?’

‘That she’s too young. Obviously.’

‘Yes, and she’s too fat, and she’s spotty, and awkward, and silly, but Flavia will grow into herself, and her age isn’t the reason you didn’t sleep with her.’

‘Hey, I don’t go around deflowering virgins-’

‘I know. You go for married women with no strings attached, you shallow bastard.’ She leaned forward into his face. ‘You’ll take sex, provided it comes without emotion.’

‘What I do is my business.’

‘Not where my stepdaughter’s concerned.’

The last haunting notes of Renata’s flute died away.

‘I have to go,’ Skyles said.

He covered the room in three strides, a blur of imperial purple, and as he did, other images flashed through Claudia’s mind. A bald Buffoon chasing the kitchen girls, riding make-believe horses round the garden to amuse the children, slapping his head like an ape, tripping over imaginary ropes, caressing Erinna’s shadow, mimicking Leonides, the cook and anyone else. Act, act, act. Pretend, pretend, pretend. But running through this round-the-clock performance ran the constant thread of the entertainer. A man who wants to make people like him. Tell me, are those the actions of a man who is shallow?

‘One more thing. That wound on your side.’

‘Cramp.’

Yes, and I’m Pegasus and I can fly. ‘How did you get it?’

The intensity of his eyes burned through to the back of her skull. ‘That’s also my business,’ he rasped.

The draught from the slamming of the door was reminiscent of the draught from the front door in the early hours. Skyles might have sneaked out this morning, Claudia thought. But Juno be praised, neither he, nor anyone else, would be sneaking out for a while. Her bodyguards had the house sealed.

Dammit, Orbilio, where the hell are you? I can’t cope with this by myself.

*

In a gr im little room in an overcrowded hostelry close to the Capena Gate, Flavia snivelled into her pillow. Unlike the pillows at home, it wasn’t stuffed with soft swansdown, it was lumpy and dirty and she could swear she’d seen something move. She hated this horrible place. She hated Skyles, and her aunt, and her uncle, she hated them all.

No, she didn’t. She loved Skyles.

No, she didn’t. She hated him. It was spiteful and cruel to lead her on, pretend he’d fallen in love with her.

No, he hadn’t. He hadn’t said or done anything. It was her.

No, it wasn’t. It was Julia, the frigid old cow. She never let Flavia out of her sight. Never let her have any fun. Only Claudia understood how she felt. She’d sent her blessing for the marriage with Skyles.

No, she hadn’t. Bitch. It was sarcasm, that’s what it was. She didn’t mean a bloody word. That was Claudia being horrid, as usual.

No, she wasn’t. Claudia didn’t sit at home, like other women, dependent on men. She stuck two fingers up to convention, forged her own path through life, and stuff anyone else.

Flavia turned the soggy pillow over and sobbed some more. She couldn’t go home for the shame, and she couldn’t stay here, and it was Saturnalia Eve tomorrow, and she hadn’t bought any presents.

And that was something black, wriggling around under the bolster.

*

Having confronted the brutal truth, that she had been violated and abused and that it was for real, Deva’s body collapsed as quickly as her mind had done, when it had tried to block the attack out. The herbalist’s tears had triggered a series of cold sweats and uncontrollable shaking, a reaction her man had strangely pronounced to Orbilio to be a good sign.

‘These are symptoms I can treat,’ he said confidently.

Between them, they carried her to the remaining habitable guest room, where the herbalist covered her with blankets and raised her feet. ‘And no poppy juice,’ he told Marcus firmly, adding that he felt bad that it had taken an arsonist to bring Deva out of her trance.

‘A small price to pay,’ Orbilio told him, and meant it.

Aired, warmed and scented with lavender, you wouldn’t know there had been a fire in this room. The gilded stucco on the ceiling glittered in the light of the flickering lamp stand, and the frescoes on the wall might have been painted last week. On the bronze couch, under a pile of soft blankets and with a pale green damascene coverlet on top, Deva looked twelve years old. The herbalist ran the back of his finger lovingly down her cheek. His own face and his clothes were still black with soot and he left a dark smudge on her skin.

Marcus watched the rapid rise and fall of the covers. Stared at the white, waxy face on the pillow. The fringe plastered to her forehead with sweat. And thought of the cordon around Claudia’s house.

‘If you need me, my steward knows where to find me,’ he said, but that only led to another problem.

‘Oh, no!’ The steward buried his head in his hands when his master passed on the instructions. ‘With the fire, I completely forgot, sir. Mistress Seferius.’

‘What about her?’ Orbilio asked.

‘She sent word that you were to go to her house immediately. She had urgent news about the Halcyon Rapist.’

Shit. ‘When was this?’

The steward stared at his sludge-sodden boots. ‘Four hours ago,’ he said dully.

*

Orbilio didn’t have time to change. He didn’t have a clean toga to change into, even if he’d wanted. His clothes chests were ruined, the contents contaminated, in the end he’d had to scrounge a cloak from the porter. Nor did he care that his face was streaked black or that his hair was thick with soot as he sliced his way through the crowds of Saturnalia revellers. He wondered what she’d found that was so urgent. What she would think, another girl he’d let down He was barely two hundred yards from his house when a small figure darted out of the shadows.

‘How dare you be unfaithful.’ Angelina hissed. ‘You belong with me, no one else.’

Two strigils short of a bathhouse, the herbalist had pronounced. That had to be the understatement of the decade. The girl was nuts. Pistachio, pine, hazel and walnut, every kind you could imagine. He drew a deep breath and turned to face her.

‘It does me no credit to admit this, Angelina.’ He drew her by the elbow into the doorway of a shuttered silversmith’s shop, out of the main thoroughfare. ‘The only reason I approached you after that dinner party was because I was drunk and thought it might lead to sex, and that, I’m afraid, is the truth.’

‘Who cares how relationships start-’

‘Angelina, listen to me. I’m really sorry, but you have to accept the fact, even if you hadn’t drugged me, it would never have been more than a one-night stand.’

How could he ever have thought of this demented vixen as a pixie?

‘Just because I’m lowborn and you’re an aristocrat doesn’t mean we can’t see each other, Marcus. I don’t expect you to marry me, darling-’

‘Marry you? Angelina, I don’t know you, I don’t like you, I don’t want anything to do with you. How much clearer can I make this?’

‘But you will, Marcus. Given time, I know you’ll fall in love with me!’

‘Mother of Tarquin, woman, you burn my house down, endanger the lives of a lot of good people and then expect me to fall in love with you? Exactly which part of the word “no” don’t you understand?’

As he spun round to leave, he saw a flash of bright steel in her hand. It was something he hadn’t expected. Hadn’t been prepared for. Although it was, he realized too late, inevitable.

The only way she can protect herself from a complete mental breakdown is to eradicate the source of the fantasy. Once it no longer exists, it is as though it never happened.

What a fool. What an absolute fool. Orbilio was the fantasy. Not the house.

Even as he understood, he felt the blade plunge into his flesh. Heard a strange ripping sound. Felt a burning pain shoot down his side.

‘Angelina-’

As he slipped down on to the cobbles, his vision started to blur. His hands were covered in something hot and sticky and he thought, Croesus. Now my boss really will think I’m the Halcyon Rapist. I’ve got the bloody knife wound to prove it.

As the blackness finally swallowed him up, it occurred to Marcus Cornelius that he knew who the rapist was. What a ridiculous time to find out.

*

For a farce that hadn’t been born a week before, Caspar had created a tour de force with The Cuckold. True, it was a patchwork of old scripts and ancient gags set to a backdrop of familiar songs and set pieces, but there was a freshness about the way the play had been cobbled together that gave it a vitality all of its own.

Doris made a surprisingly good Miser. Thin and sinuous, he was perfect for all that agonized hand-wringing and coin counting, and his throwing in the odd feminine gesture when the Soldier came on only added to the humour.

Ugly Phil hadn’t been warned that his cloven hoofs had been greased to make him slip, but the thick wad of furry padding broke his fall. The only injuries there, Claudia thought, would come from tomorrow’s audience splitting their sides.

Caspar’s eye patch glittered in fierce competition with his dazzling kaftan and bejewelled feathered turban, and no one could ever accuse the Narrator of blending in with the background. Half his lines he made up as he went along, a complete switch from last night’s performance, but the cast fitted in with his ad-libbing, their confusion only adding to the hilarity.

Whether Ion remained in a foul mood or not, Claudia couldn’t tell. Ever the professional, he put personal issues aside and boomed out his Jupiter to comic perfection, looking handsome and god-like and every inch the show’s heartthrob.

He wasn’t, of course. The bald-headed Buffoon stole every scene as well as every heart.

The girls were terrific. Jemima, that arch-exhibitionist, decided to lift her robe to examine the m a rk where Cupid’s arrow had hit her bottom and Adah, despite her whingeing, made a lasting impression on the audience, being the first nude of the show. She wasn’t the last. Fenja performed a statuesque striptease for the man she believed was the Poet, but who turned out to be the Satyr wearing a mask, and the point in the play where it fell off was one of the funniest, especially since he had one limp horn.

Not that Claudia could concentrate. She’d staged the Spectaculars to suck up to buyers and steal a march on the Guild. How petty and irrelevant that all seemed now. Yet tomorrow, the first of many potential clients would be taking their seats in this hall and she must smile and laugh and be witty, she must look ravishing and desirable, the perfect hostess, and they must leave thrilled, sated and won over.

Never before had she had so much respect for actors for whom the show, above everything, must go on…

Eventually, though, the confusion about the identical twins was resolved. Cupid’s arrows hit their targets, albeit wrong ones, and Periander even threw in an ad-lib himself by firing one at the Narrator. Happy endings all round, clap, clap, clap. The Wife had run off with her Lover and got to keep all the money. The Miser fell in love with himself. The Virgin remained virginal. Jupiter duly went back up to Olympus, removing Hermione’s clothes as the platform was winched up.

Claudia shook her head. Impossible that any member of this troupe could be a monster. Quite impossible.

*

In a gesture reminiscent of the incident in the Alban Hills, the Digger mopped up the sweat with a cloth. Everyone was laughing, the Digger included. The rush of adrenaline after a show, especially when it went well, was amazing. Indescribable. The feeling of unity among the company closer than family ties.

The Digger knew this euphoria could not last.

That this feeling of contentment was a mirage.

Soon, there would be more blood spilled. Very soon.

The Digger prayed to Hercules for the strength to put off the inevitability for as long as humanly possible.