Claudia was dreaming. In her dreams, the fertile fields that swept down to the Carent were being ploughed by oxen lowing softly in the endless sunshine. Behind them, lines of singing workers planted vines, and among the bent-backed labourers was a woman with dyed blonde hair and pointed, painted features, whose beauty had long faded.
I wish I'd thought of vineyards, Marcia sang. We wish, we wish, we wish, the chorus followed. It's such a respectable way to grow rich. Grow rich, grow rich, grow rich, the chorus added.
The stems in their hands were thick and black with age, the leaves free of mildew, and, as Marcia tipped amphorae of vintage Falernian red over the vines, bunches of dark, purple grapes brushed the ground, the yield was so heavy. Claudia ticked the hours of endless sunshine off on her tally-stones, and with each click of the stones gold coins showered from the heavens. Then she lost track of the count, because hounds baying in the distance distracted her tally. Louder and louder it grew, as the dogs came closer and closer, until she realized she was no longer dreaming.
'Hrrrowwl.'
On the counterpane beside her, Drusilla was standing with her back arched and ears flat, her hackles so sharp they could cut stone.
' Hrrrrrowwwww.'
Leaning out of the window, Claudia counted a dozen dogs in the courtyard straining on the leashes of their handlers. Turning circles on their leads, squirming, jostling, twitchy and tense, the dogs were eager to go, and Claudia pulled the wooden shutters closed, which blotted out much of the sound, although that wasn't her motive.
'You can't take them all on,' she told Drusilla. 'You're staying in until I get back.'
Vicious hooks clawed at the shutters, but they were no match for a strong metal bar.
'Mrrrrp?'
'Cute won't work, either,' she told Drusilla, who'd taken to posing prettily on the pillow. 'You're grounded.'
'Frrr?'
'Yes, I'm afraid I will be gone some time. I need to go into Santonum.'
'Hrroww.'
'Sorry, poppet, Hannibal left me no choice.'
She remembered how he'd stood up, his shadow consigning the delphiniums to deep shade, when she'd told him she had a favour to ask.
'Is it about your father?'
She'd felt a mule kick inside when her gaze locked with his. 'No.'
'What a strange species you fair sex are,' he had drawled. 'You hire me at a measly one sestertius a day to find the man who abandoned you, yet you are prepared to pay thirty gold pieces to a rogue for information, but before you even meet with the scoundrel, you order me to drop my enquiries and follow up on the Scarecrow instead!' His eyes narrowed. 'Is there something you are not telling me, you saucebox?'
I could ask you the same question, she thought. Instead she asked him if he would translate a set of documents written in Greek, because although Orbilio had gone nearly a week, who knew when he might return?
'Rrrrr.'
'Exactly,' she told Drusilla. 'How was I to know he had an aversion to the Security Police?'
No matter that she was the one who'd be breaking and entering, she was the one who'd be stealing them.
'At the risk of repeating myself,' he'd said firmly, 'penal servitude is not on your faithful servant's agenda.'
Dammit, she needed to know what Orbilio had on her, because it wasn't just blocks of falling masonry that had kept Claudia awake this past week. Heaven knows what that little snake Burto had confessed to, but she had a horrid feeling that he'd blabbed everything about their lucractive venture then embellished it tenfold in order to cut a deal and save his skinny hide at the expense of her, and she knew it was fraud he was investigating, because Marcia had said so.
'He doesn't confide the full details,' she'd said, tapping the side of her long pointed nose. 'Discretion personified, that man, but yes. Quite a high-profile case from the sounds of it.'
'What do you think, poppet? Would you consider the fraudulent activities of the only female wine merchant in Rome to be high profile?'
Particularly when one has evidence that said female wine merchant had inveigled herself into marriage with a man above her station who'd died a violent death and is therefore living off a will which is illegal? There was only one course of action left open. Throw herself at his mercy and hope for the best! Shutting the door on Drusilla, Claudia was surprised to find herself colliding with Tarbel on the gallery. What on earth was he doing in the upper-class quarters?
'So sorry, I didn't recognize you without your armour,' she breezed.
Chestnut eyes stared down at her for a beat of perhaps three. 'But you recognize the Mistress's livery?'
Ah. Wearing Marcia's colours made his skin itch, after all. So what made him stay on, she wondered? Was the motive purely financial, as he claimed? Purely, therefore, mercenary! Or was there another — more personal — reason?
'Why is every dog in Gaul camped in the courtyard?' she asked him.
Tarbel shrugged. 'The Mistress has it in her head that if she can track down the Scarecrow, it will bestow even more kudos on her.' He paused. Shifted position. Folded his arms over his massive chest. 'It seems another local woman has gone missing. No trace of the girl, no signs of a struggle and the villagers are starting to fear that Death himself stalks these woods.'
'Maybe he does.'
'Anything is possible, si,’ the Basc said. 'But I am a soldier. I do not hold with shapeshifters and superstition. That scarer of birds is flesh and blood, nothing more, and it is flesh and blood that I fight.'
'Or rather don't,' she said sweetly. 'As we've already established, you're unarmed and unarmoured.'
Something rumbled deep in his throat, and it didn't sound like a laugh. 'The Mistress has ordered me to stay at her side.'
'And you're a soldier, as you said, so you obey orders.'
'Si',' he snapped. 'I obey orders.' Turning on his booted heel, he strode down the corridor, leaving a smell of dense, cedary forests in his wake.
'It's fascinating what one stirs up when one mixes a brew,' a voice cackled from the shadows.
'How much of that did you hear, Koros?'
He stepped out from behind one of the tapestries that hung on the walls, stroking his long white beard. 'My lady, a man can hear everything around here,' he said, with a shrug of his bony shoulders. 'Provided he knows where to stand.'
Claudia tried to count the wall hangings and gave up. 'Then maybe you can tell me who told Marcia about the connection between the missing girls and the Scarecrow?'
Koros's wizened face creased into a grin that was, for once, neither all-purpose nor meaningless. 'I may have overheard a conversation between the Mistress and the Arch Druid to that effect.'
'Vincentrix?' The impression Vincentrix gave Claudia was that he very much wanted their disappearances to be played down.
'Those two are closer than you might think, my lady.'
Was that a hint of malice that sparkled in his rheumy eyes? 'You're a wicked old man,' Claudia told him.
'It's why you like me.'
'Doesn't it trouble your conscience, prescribing Marcia daily enemas?'
'Why should it?' The twinkle in his eye clicked up a notch. 'Or do you take issue with my diagnosis that the Mistress's bile duct is blocked?'
Claudia tried to imagine what might happen if Marcia's bile built up any more and decided old Prune Face had a point. All the same. 'Forgive me for being blunt, but I'm detecting a certain deficiency in the loyalty department.'
In a blink, the humour was wiped from his face, instantly replaced by a sober expression and neat, empty smile. 'My loyalty to the Mistress is undying,' he insisted, bowing so deeply that his long white robes swept the floor. 'What she asks for, I give. I am hers to command.' When he straightened up, the piety had gone again, to be substituted by a sly and slanting smile. 'You see?' He spread his bony hands and laughed. 'I am what she wants me to be.' Koros paused, sombre once more. 'We all are.'
'Actors,' she asked, 'or magicians?'
'Both,' he said woodenly, making a farewell gesture with his hand that Claudia recognized as Eastern, but beyond that couldn't place. Hell, though. Maybe that was phony, too. Everything else was around here.
Cocking an ear in the direction of the baying of the hounds, the Scarecrow detected an increase in their numbers from packs in previous hunts and this was coupled with a sense of urgency that had also been missing in the past.
A chill rippled up the Scarecrow's spine. It was the chill of a net that was closing in. There was no time to waste.
Wrapping a few precious belongings in his ragged cloak, he kicked over the traces of his camp fire, collapsed his makeshift tent of yew branches and hides, and buried it beneath a mound of leaf litter.
Grimacing at the painfully low level of liquid in his little blue phial, the Scarecrow headed down towards the river at a run.
'I thank you most humbly for permitting me to ride with you into Santonum,' Padi murmured in his ingratiating lisp. 'The Great Mistress does not permit us to travel free on personal business.'
As the gig clip-clopped along the forest track, Claudia thought how typical of Marcia to make a few extra coppers by charging her own people for transport into town! But then the traumas of her past would be a driving factor in her obsession to amass wealth, because, in her book, money equalled stability.
'You're from the Indus Valley?'
'In a manner of speaking.' His rosebud lips pursed. 'We Padaei are a nomadic people, which makes our children easy pickings for fast horseback raiders.'
A scene flashed before Claudia's eyes. A serene and tranquil place, where men water humped cattle in the river as the women pound clothes on the rocks and children splash each other in play. Suddenly there is a thunder of hooves, and before the Padaei have time to wonder what's happening, a group of riders charge down, their curved swords flashing in the sunlight, and while the tribespeople run for their lives, the children are snatched at the gallop. Far away before their mothers know they are missing…
And what did that say about Marcia? she wondered. It was like Claudia being sold into slavery and being called Roma. Degrading wasn't the word.
'Tell me, Padi, do your rods see Marcia's beauty lasting? Will she find love?'
'Undoubtedly,' he assured her in his soft, sibilant undertone. 'The Stones-That-Talk speak of a long and happy life for the Great Mistress, and a tomb that will ensure she is venerated for immortality.'
'Really?'
'Indeed, Mistress Claudia. They foresee excellent health enjoyed in the company of a strong man, who is prepared to lay down his life for her, such is the depth of his affection. My stones speak clearly of such things.'
Looking down at the soothsayer's little plump face, his eyes wide with sincerity, she thought his lies were so transparent, she wondered why he bothered.
'How…' Padi wriggled on the uncomfortable seat. 'How are your soil tests coming along?'
So that was what this morning was about! The lying little toad didn't have personal business in town. Marcia had sent him to bleed Claudia dry, because she knew that if a wine merchant had found the soil unsuitable for vines, as Claudia had claimed, she wouldn't be wasting time in Aquitania, but would be on her way back to Rome to oversee this season's vintage.
'It's more than simply identifying the right soil which retains water without turning to clay,' she said earnestly. 'One needs to monitor rainfall versus sunlight then factor in summer temperatures and compare them to frost cycles, then decide how best to shade the roots, whether this type of soil can cope with layering for the propagation of the vines, establish which cultivars are suitable for this climate how one prevents the young leaves from being eaten by deer, and
Claudia leaned towards him and lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper.
'Purely between ourselves, Padi, these things are not looking good. Of course, I need to wait for the results of the salt tests to be sure.'
'Salt tests?'
'Too much salt in the air can kill the delicate vines,' she confided. 'And remember, we are less than twenty miles from the ocean.'
'Aah.' The sound was like the sighing of the breeze through a grove of poplars. 'Salt.'
And hogwash, she added silently. Don't forget the hogwash, Padi. 'If you could consult your rods for me,' she said with a radiant smile, 'I would be eternally grateful.'
On cue, the little pink palms plumped together and his little head bowed. 'My stones do not lie, Mistress Claudia,' he lisped. 'I will cast them this very evening.'
Excellent. Because if Marcia wanted to grow vines on these slopes, she could bloody well pay for her own research.
As the gig pulled to a halt in the Forum, Claudia's mind turned back to the reason she'd come to Santonum this morning. Given that she was unlikely to outwit the Security Police on this occasion, considering Orbilio had travelled halfway across the Empire specifically to nail her, there was only one solution. Dredge up the helpless-little-woman routine, then pray to every god up on Olympus that Orbilio fell for it the same way every other man had in the past. (Burto included, may his black soul rot in Hades!) And since our fine upstanding investigator preferred the well-upholstered charms of local girls to the gold and marbled luxury of Marcia's villa, Claudia had little choice but to go to him.
And, besides, what manner of floozies he associated with was entirely his affair. She didn't give a damn what he got up to when he wasn't clapping criminals in irons, and the thought of his bronzed torso rolling naked round the bedsheets didn't even cross her mind…
'Wait for me here,' she told her bodyguard, as they reached the apartment block. 'This won't take long.'
Oh, no. This won't take long at all.
Orbilio slumped down in the chair and combed his fingers through his hair in desperation. It had been a whole week now, and still this bloody case was going nowhere. Face it, the trail was colder than a witch's arse.
He rubbed the stubble on his jaw. Dammit, every waking hour had been spent on surveillance work and following up what he'd hoped were leads, and what time he hadn't spent doubled up under hot, stinking tarpaulins he'd passed in taverns, bath houses and brothels, spreading the word that he wouldn't be averse to reading bedtime stories to little children, boys or girls, it really didn't matter. And what had he achieved during that week? He'd had nothing but the honour of being branded a pervert of the very first order, and hopes of flushing out the child-abductors by offering himself as a punter were fading fast. It suggested they already had their market sewn up. But where? Who, for heaven's sake?
Zina remained convinced that her stepfather's accomplice must be local, poised out back to whisk the child away, because, as she'd pointed out, if there'd been a cart, they'd have heard it — and he agreed. Santonum wasn't Rome. Night-time traffic was unheard of here. Maybe an occasional despatch rider passing through the town, or a young blade's chariot arriving home late from a party. But neither he nor Zina had heard hooves or wheels, and for that reason she'd been pursuing the local angle, in spite of his misgivings. Fat lot of good that had done him, too!
She was well aware of the risks, thank you very much — in his mind's eye, he could still see her planting her hands on her hips, black eyes blazing, bosom heaving — but that bastard's married to my mam, and I'll not have it bandied around that my mam's part of this, and, in any case, it might sound strange but he loves her, that he does, and if anything happened to me it'd be the death of her, and that's me safety net, my lord.
Had he not been utterly exhausted, he might have smiled. He wasn't sure how she came about her reasonings half the time, but more often than not Zina hit her nails squarely on the head. It didn't mean the boatbuilder would have qualms about eliminating her, necessarily. It just meant he'd need to be ultra careful how he set about it.
As Zina laid a jug of wine on the table and hauled a tray of steaming, spicy rissoles off the gridiron above the hearth, Marcus scratched his neck in irritation. Half the problem was that he was working this case without access to the massive resources that he usually relied on from the army, but if 'Persons In High Places' were indeed involved in this repulsive trade, as Zina very much suspected, they would undoubtedly have soldiers in their pay. If word filtered back that Orbilio was investigating child sexual abuse, the operation would simply be closed down here and opened up elsewhere. He wouldn't risk it.
And of the two men he'd recognized in the yard the other night, the carpentry foreman and one of the riveters, all he'd been able to establish during this past week was that the former lived a lifestyle far beyond his means, with a smart town house near the Forum, his wife draped in fine clothes and his children schooled by private tutors, while the latter lived alone in a cramped apartment close to the boatyard, spending all his spare time and money on getting drunk and gambling on cockfights, often simultaneously.
'Croesus,' he groaned, 'how many more children are going to be subjected to a miserable existence because of my stupidity?'
Throwing herself at the feet of the Security Police and begging for mercy wasn't a procedure Claudia was overly familiar with. The technicalities of such a move were fraught with difficulties, not least because he sheathed his menace in a scabbard of urbanity. She'd had to think.
In terms of appearance, it wasn't difficult. Once inside the apartment block, a quick wipe over her face with a damp cloth removed the artfully applied cosmetics that concealed the black hollows round her eyes caused by too many sleepless nights and filled in the worry lines that had furrowed her forehead. Add a tweak of a seam here, the pull on a pleat there to create a hint of dishevelment, together with a slight readjustment of her girdle and mismatched alignment of her ivory hairpins and trained investigators would soon pick up the signals. There was no need to overdo the female-in-distress thing. Less was definitely more. All the same, worms slithered inside on an industrial scale as Claudia mounted the stairs. For years she'd worked to rid herself of the stink of the slums, and now her future hung in the balance once again, only this time it was a hundred times worse. She had eaten of the lotus and found its taste very much to her liking. Whatever it took, she thought, whatever it bloody well took…
'Croesus,' she heard a familiar baritone groan, 'how many more children are going to be subjected to a miserable existence because of my stupidity?'
The front door was ajar. Through the gap, she could see him slumped in a high-backed chair, head in hands, while a girl wearing a skirt that was little more than an oversized belt with a fringe round the bottom kneaded the tension out of his shoulders.
'It's not your fault, Marcus, my lord,' she told him gently. 'We're in this together, remember.'
And how, Claudia thought, looking at the cosy little domestic scene through the open crack. Table set with home-cooked food. Jugs of wine. Fresh bread. The bitch could cook, as well, it seemed. That was mustard Claudia could smell, with coriander, garlic, veal and olives, and her mouth might well be watering had it not been for the rumpled, unmade bed in the corner of the room and the obvious stubble on the Security Policeman's chin. Oh, well. Maybe this was a good time, after all. He'd be relaxed, after a lengthy bout of couch athletics…
What had they said?
She ran it back through her mind. Orbilio bemoaning the miserable fate awaiting kids due to his stupidity, and Curvy Thighs telling him that it took two. The worms in her stomach were replaced by something else.
'I can't stop thinking about how we could have prevented this poor child-'
'Too late to worry about that now, Marcus, my lord,' Curvy Thighs replied briskly. 'We'll just have to make sure there won't be no more.'
Claudia's fists clenched white.
'I wish you'd be more careful, Zina.'
Claudia watched as he turned round in the chair to look up at the girl with big black eyes and even bigger bosoms.
'You've really got to take precautions.'
'Well, you're a fine one to lecture people!' The black eyes rolled. 'I don't recall you thinking much about precautions the other night! Oh, no, not you! You just went at it like nothing else mattered in the world, and I'm all for passion, Marcus, my lord, but when there's consequences like this kid-'
Claudia couldn't stomach any more.
Throw herself at the feet of this arrogant patrician, who goes round getting local girls pregnant then puts the onus of responsibility on them? The sun could freeze over and Hades ring with laughter before that day came to pass! She stomped down the stairs, straightening her girdle and pinching her pleats black into place. Orbilio could whistle for his bloody fraud. Just let him damn well try and nail her for it. Just let the bastard try!
Orbilio heard the clump of footsteps on the stairs and shot out of his chair. Shit. He hadn't shut the door properly after Zina had let him in, and he knew he was dog tired and probably overreacting, but suppose the boatbuilder or one of his accomplices had grown suspicious of him and/or Zina and had followed one or other of them here, overheard them talking, then gone back to report?
In the corridor, he caught the whiff of a distinctive spicy Judaen perfume and, leaning his head over the balustrade, was just in time to see a familiar coil of ringlets flouncing out the door. What was eating her? She knew about this apartment and since she'd already misread the situation (a common practice among women entering this establishment, it appeared!) Claudia was hardly likely to conceive a sudden disapproval of what she'd perceived as his amorous activities. Jealousy, unfortunately, was out of the question, so what on earth made her come here in the first place, then storm off in a huff?
From the balcony, he watched her elbow her way through the crowded street and thought, hell, you could chargrill cutlets on Claudia Seferius at the moment. He shook his head, and wondered if he'd ever crack the mystery that was Women.
After all, it wasn't as though she was involved in the paedophile gang; her exploits in the world of forgery and fraud were solely confined to what she considered 'victimless' crimes, and it wasn't as though he and Zina had been engaged in anything untoward. Mother of Tarquin, they'd only been discussing…
Oh, shit. He slumped against the door jamb. Holy, bloody shit.
'Whatever's the matter, Marcus, my lord? Are you ill?'
'Zina,' he said, 'if I die, promise me you'll burn my bones. I know how much reincarnation means to you Gauls, but please, please, please don't let me come round again.'
The thought of enduring this hell for eternity was simply too dire to contemplate.