Stone Cold

Twelve

Claudia was well aware that there were many risks a girl could take in this life, but walking round the backstreets of a strange town with a chap you didn't know and twenty-two gold pieces weighing you down was surely up there with the best of them.

'Eez not far now,' her guide muttered sullenly.

'I should bloody well hope not,' she retorted, because that was another thing. In Rome, you snap your fingers and a litter comes trotting. In this part of Santonum, litter meant discarded pies, slimy cabbage stalks, broken pots, slops, and let's not even mention the piles of steaming manure left by the hordes of draught beasts! Shuddering, she picked her way behind the young tribesman and wondered if Hannibal hadn't been right all along.

'I implore you, madam, do not go with this fellow. I distrust his motives with every fibre of my well-travelled body. The man is a scoundrel, I can smell it.'

Turning into the Gaulish quarters, Claudia was beginning to believe him. At the time, it seemed the right thing to do, leaving Hannibal and her bodyguard in the Forum and coming alone, as the young Santon insisted. Given that robbing a Roman citizen was punishable by being sold into slavery and that the taking of Roman life was discouraged by crucifixion — a deterrent, incidentally, that was fiercely effective, since a strapping, fit warrior could take two days to die on the cross, sometimes three if his torturers were proficient — it was obvious to Claudia that Hannibal's informant was after secrecy, not acting with criminal intent. I mean, what man in his right mind is going to sell out his comrades in public? she thought. But that was half an hour ago, in streets full of Romans, where people spoke a language she understood…

Thatched houses gave way to the wooden shacks of one of the poorer potters' quarters. Frowning earnestly over their wheels and sweating from the heat of the kilns, some applied glaze, others drew intricate patterns, while over here they painted faces on drinking mugs, over there they stacked vases for export, and everywhere young boys scurried about fetching baskets of charcoal, buckets of water, running errands left, right and centre. The guide led her on through the twisting labyrinth, turning left, cutting right, and at every corner assuring her that it wasn't far now. Claudia thought of the thin blade strapped to her calf and took a modicum of comfort from it.

'Eere.' The youth finally stopped outside a jumble of scaffolding, platforms and ramps. 'Ze man says to meet you eere.'

Bastard! He'd led her through all those stinking backstreets when he could have brought her here in a third of the time! All the same …

'Are you sure?'

Claudia shouted to make herself heard above the din of hammering and the cranking of the giant crane, but when she turned round, her surly guide was nowhere in sight. Double bastard! But before she could ask one of the carpenters sawing over their trestles which was the best way back to town, or attract the attention of one of the million bricklayers beavering away with hods and trowels as sweating apprentices mixed piles of wet concrete, a horn blew. As one, the workers dropped tools and scurried down the ladders.

'What's happening?' she asked a stonemason who'd stopped to brush the dust out of his eyebrows.

'Midday, m'lady.'

He gave his stomach a fond pat as he trotted off after the others, and she couldn't believe how, in less than a minute, the site was transformed from industrious ants' nest to deserted ghost town, where only the gentle swing of a rope and the odd settlement creak of a plank testified that a labour force had even been here. And suddenly she understood why Hannibal's informant had chosen this place for a meeting. Far enough out of the main crush to render it impressive, yet not so far that people wouldn't make the effort to come and worship, right now the Temple of Augustus was nothing more than an empty, roofless shell. Where better than a deserted building site to sell out your nearest and dearest?

'Hello?' she called out. The air was sour and dry, and near her feet a lizard scuttled under a pile of loose stones. 'Anyone there?'

'Oh-oh-oh,' her voice echoed back. 'Anyone there-ere-ere?'

Choosing a stone block in the shade of the soaring temple, Claudia sat down and prepared to wait. The informant would want to give the workers ample time to get clear and, as she unhooked the heavy money belt, her pulse quickened at the thought of the information this purse was about to buy. Dear Diana, she hadn't slept a wink last night for the excitement, and as for Hannibal's concern, honestly! Did he really think she didn't know she was being ripped off? Hannibal had beat his informant down from thirty to twenty-two gold pieces, but she would have paid twice that — three times — four! — to find her father. Only how time had dragged since Hannibal first told her of the appointment. She had just returned from Santonum and was crossing the peristyle when he'd come loping over, little Luci piggyback on his shoulders.

'Down you go, young lady.'

'No, more,' Luci squealed, tugging on his purple striped tunic. 'More, Uncle Hanni! More, more!'

'Uncle?' Claudia laughed.

'Her mother's idea, I assure you,' Hannibal droned, as he swung the child round in an arc that billowed her little dress out like an angel's. 'My own flesh and blood can never be far enough away in distance physical, financial or emotional.' He set the laughing child down and mopped the sweat from his brow with a theatrical swipe. 'You have killed me, young lady. I lie mortally wounded, but am honoured to die in your presence.'

'You're not dead!' Luci rolled her enormous blue eyes and tutted as he dropped to his knees, clutching his chest. 'Mummy says you're as strong as the Bull God and everyone knows the Bull God's immortal!'

'Then I shall take comfort from that, as I writhe here in agony. Now run along and help your mother, there's a good girl, because Luci and I have an agreement, don't we, Luci?'

The little girl nodded. 'I help Mummy with the washing and in return Uncle Hanni shows me how to climb trees without tearing my frock.' She pulled at Claudia's ear and whispered into it. 'The trick is to tuck your dress into your knickers, you know.'

I'll remember that,' she said solemnly, and Luci skipped off, yodelling at the top of her off-key voice. To Hannibal, Claudia had said, 'Strong as the Bull God?'

'Not what you're thinking, madam, not what you're thinking. But it pains me to see good women beholden to bad and thus, when I am not lurking in taverns in search of information regarding certain missing persons, I see no reason why I cannot chop the lady's firewood or help haul the water.'

'Stella won't be needing your help for long,' Claudia said, musing that it was an interesting choice of words to describe Marcia. 'Her cousin bought half the slaves at the auction this morning, so Stella won't have to do those chores herself.'

'And sold them,' Hannibal murmured, darting a sharp glance towards the kitchens. 'Don't forget selling them, madam.' He swallowed what could have been a bitter taste in his mouth. 'Which reminds me. Our informant has made contact…'

The details of the appointment were then followed by a lengthy sermon on trust, folly and greed, but Jupiter alone knew how long that went on for, because Claudia backed away quietly and left Hannibal lecturing himself. All the same, you'd think any decent stool pigeon would arrive on time for his own bloody meeting! She pulled out her travel sundial, set it flat on a stone and flipped up the central pin. More time passed, in which the only sound was the hammering of metals far in the distance and the mewing of a buzzard high in the sky.

She thought about the temple. What it would look like once it was finished, a masterpiece of local limestone clad in Pyrenean marble, its portico lined with works of art, its precincts dotted with gaily painted statues and its carved entablature gilded and gleaming. This temple was earmarked to house a library, someone said, adding with a snigger that it wouldn't need much of a room, bloody ignorant Gauls couldn't read. Not yet, she'd thought, but give it a generation of free schooling and inequalities would soon level out — and she pictured the Druids, trapped in their secret language of runes, becoming more and more isolated from a people who no longer needed priests to do their thinking for them. Oh, Vincentrix. What tricks will you turn to then? Pushing the enigmatic Druid out of her mind, she imagined instead the Emperor strutting round the echoing halls of his temple, nodding his handsome head in approval at the magnificent works, while his heart mourned his best friend and Rome's finest general, the man who'd laid out the grid plan for Santonum and who'd been ferried across the River Styx long before his allotted span was up.

Hey, ho. Claudia felt an emptiness weigh down her heart as she snapped her pocket sundial shut. The informant wasn't going to show now and whatever paths might lead to her father, this one was blocked, and the only surprise was the pain that twisted inside. Ridiculous, really, to imagine that the first trail would lead her straight to him, but 'Lady Claudia?'

The voice didn't belong to the surly young guide. It was deeper, had greater resonance and clearly belonged to a much older man.

'Lady Claudia?' it called again. 'Are you there?'

'OVER HERE!' she yelled, grabbing the money belt as she jumped off her makeshift seat.

Bloody guide, she would skin him alive, she thought, racing into what would, in a year or so, be the sacred back room where Augustus's mighty statue would be housed. The sullen little bastard had led her to the back of the temple and god knows how much precious time she'd wasted while Hannibal's informant had stood pacing up and down at the front!

'Coming,' she called, 'I'm just — youch!'

Emerging from shadows into what would one day be a magnificent portico fronted by a flight of white marble steps, the sunlight was blinding and her shins cracked painfully against a plank. Pitching forward, from the corner of her eye she caught a flash of movement overhead. Heard a low, grating sound.

Instinctively, Claudia hurled herself against the temple wall.

Just as half a ton of masonry crashed to the ground.

It could have been an accident. A falcon she'd seen from the corner of her eye as she tripped. A dove alighting on the scaffolding. And who's to say it wasn't a frayed rope or snapped swallowtail clamp that caused the block to slip from the platform? This is a building site, for goodness' sake. Accidents happen. But even before the clouds of choking white dust had settled, Claudia knew this was more than sloppiness on the part of a temple stonemason.

Unable to stem the flood of tears that were pure liquid reaction, and with limbs that were shaking like aspens in a gale, she forced herself up the ladder, one rung at a time, where the evidence was plain for all to see. A lone plank, still rocking from where it had been used as a lever. A hastily abandoned crowbar lying beside it. Leaden legs descended the steps, but wait! There was still the possibility that it was mischief, not attempted murder, because with so many workmen's tools lying about this was a thieves' paradise. Maybe one of the gang panicked, using the levered block as a distraction to divert the attention of any security guards poking around. Because all building sites have to have guards, and the Temple of Augustus was no exception.

She cursed herself for not remembering them before, and almost tripped again as she raced through the precinct towards their hut. Bursting open the door, Claudia was confronted by three burly guards, sure. Except they lay slumped over the table and she could picture the next bit. Site foreman returning from lunch. Taking one glance at the empty goblets in front of them and sacking the men on the spot. But there was another smell that lingered in the warm, midday air. Barely discernible over the wine and stale sweat, it was hard to spot unless you were trying. Cloying and not particularly pleasant, Claudia recognized it at once. Oil of narcissus. From which the word narcotic derives…

The shaking in her limbs was replaced by the stiffness of truth, and something primordial slithered in her stomach. The youth had not ushered her to the back entrance by mistake. There never had been an informant waiting. No misunderstanding in which the two parties waited in different parts of the building, unaware of the other's presence.

This was a carefully planned attempt at murder.

The idea was so simple, she had to admire it. Leave your victim kicking her heels in the shade, so that by the time her name was eventually called, she would be well and truly dazzled by the sunshine out front. Temporarily blinded, she would, of course, fail to spot the plank that had been so carefully laid across her path, causing her to trip in the very place where the block was designed to drop. 'X' marks the spot, as it were.

And it had nearly — so nearly — succeeded.

Leaning over the workman's fountain to wash her face, Claudia half expected to see the Grim Reaper peering over her shoulder. But Saturn clearly had an appointment elsewhere, and the only thing that stared back was a pale creature with distended pupils and white hair cascading around her shoulders. It came as a shock to realize that the reflection was hers.

Hastily brushing the limestone dust from her hair, Claudia pinned her wayward curls into place, smoothed the pleats of her robe, pinched the colour back into her cheeks, and by the time she found her way back to the Forum she had not only removed every last trace of her close call with death, she'd also controlled the jumping at every creaking wagon that passed, the flinching at each brush of a hand.

Squeezing past pack mules and porters, there was no outward suggestion that many nights would pass in which she would be kept awake by a continuous replay of half a ton of limestone smashing to the ground within inches of her.

But at least Claudia Seferius would have the satisfaction of knowing that the bastard who planned this wouldn't sleep, either.