Virgin Territory

XXIII

‘For gods’ sake, man, I could have harnessed snails to this bloody car and got more speed up.’

The driver negotiated a tight turn before replying. There was sweat on his brow and on his upper lip. ‘This is a built-up area, milady. Someone might get hurt.’

‘You, unless you crack that bloody whip.’

‘We practically overturned back there, when you jerked on the reins.’ He was wondering how his wife would take to widowhood and decided she’d probably love it, the hypocritical old cow. ‘To go fast, we’d have to leave the city.’

‘Which is the nearest gate?’

The driver grinned. He had a feeling the day might not turn out so badly after all. ‘Gela.’

Claudia unpinned her hair. ‘Then let’s put a bit of froth round this nag’s mouth.’

An hour at full pelt was quite sufficient for Claudia’s head to clear. Whatever was she thinking of, letting scum like Varius needle her? Claudia Seferius wasn’t going to be displaced. No way. And certainly not by that verminous object.

‘What’s your name?’ she asked the driver.

‘Theocles, milady.’

‘Well, Theocles, I’ve got what I came for. Let’s head for the coast. And for heavens’ sake, drop that milady business, it makes me sound like an arthritic old matron.’ Unfortunately it was such a grubby, scrubby coastline that Claudia had no desire to linger. What next? The mule was too tired to gallop, and in any case she’d done that once. It was time to find fresh flowers to pick. Theocles was apologetic. He was used to driving men, he had no idea what to suggest to a lady seeking excitement. A man, now…

‘Where would you take him?’

‘For a wager, you mean?’ He still only half-believed her. ‘The fight, I suppose.’

Even as they drew up outside the village, he hadn’t really expected her to dismount, but Claudia bounded down and elbowed her way through the crowd towards a clearing sprinkled with sand. It was purely a local bout, nothing on the scale of the matches staged in Agrigentum, but Claudia’s experienced eye weighed the men up and realized immediately that this was a grudge match.

‘Put ten sesterces on him,’ she instructed Theocles. ‘The one with his hands on his hips.’

‘Alypius? I’d go for the other one, me. Look at his face, you can see how many battles he’s won.’

Yes, Meno’s face was pitted from studmarks, his nose squashed to a pulp and both ears had bits missing and yes, he made Utti look positively handsome-but the other man, this Alypius, looked dangerous. Whereas his opponent had worked himself into a blazing temper, puce in the face as he stomped up and down shouting abuse and shaking his fist, Alypius stood stock still, his mouth a thin white line. The clincher, for Claudia, was the red puckered scar which ran from ear to mouth. It was that disfigurement which had probably given him his temperament-and men who contain their anger are men to be reckoned with.

‘It’s three to one against,’ advised Theocles. Who could miss the high spots of colour on her cheeks or the way her tongue flickered nervously round her lips? She was squeezing her hands as though in grief and he felt responsible, milady losing ten sesterces, seeing as how this was his suggestion and all.

‘Is it indeed?’ Her eyes glistened as she delved into her purse. ‘Then you’d better make it thirty.’

It was a deflated and defeated Theocles who finally placed the bet as the bout started. It was to the death, the umpire announced, bringing down his rod of office to signal the start. Let honour be triumphant.

Claudia had no idea what score these two men had to settle, but from the first it was bloody. Alypius waited for his opponent to lunge, stepped smartly aside then jerked at his ear. Blood spurted into the front row of the crowd. With a roar, Meno brought up his foot and, with a vicious kick to the knee, sent Alypius flying off balance. Squaring up, they charged again, Meno bellowing like a mad bull, and Claudia nodded. She was right to bet on Alypius. Only amateurs yelled.

For a good ten minutes she sat, knuckles white, lips pursed as they slugged it out, their bodies slippery with blood as they bit and gouged and tore at each other. Then to her disgust, Alypius threw a wild and clumsy punch at Meno’s ribs, which any fool, never mind a professional like Meno, could see coming and Alypius’s knuckles crunched on to the metal studs in his opponent’s belt, impaling themselves in the process. It was the only garment either man wore and the crowd groaned in unison when Alypius’s other fist closed round Meno’s testicles and twisted. A sweet shock of realization shuddered through Claudia and her heart began to pound. Alypius had deliberately sacrificed his hand for the greater good, because while Meno was distracted by the excruciating pain, Alypius wedged his knee into his opponent’s back and looped his damaged arm round Meno’s neck. Quick as a flash, he released Meno’s testicles and locked both wrists together.

The crack that rang out as Meno’s neck snapped sent a momentary hush over the crowd, then cheering and clapping and whistling broke out which was probably heard in Libya. Claudia tossed a denarius in the air and Theocles caught it.

‘I can’t take that, milady.’ It was a whole day’s pay. ‘The repairs to the tilt will only cost an ass or two.’

‘What are you babbling about? What tilt? Just fetch me a mug of beer-yes, beer, man, are you deaf? — and let’s get going before it’s too dark to see the damned road.’ The grand house of the city prefect still echoed with drunken laughter and girlish squeals as Theocles pulled up, and Claudia groaned. Deal me out, she thought, and marched straight past the two bronze pillars flanking the front entrance towards the slaves’ door round the corner. It was pure misfortune that the first person she bumped into was that ferreting investigator emerging from the kitchen with a plate piled high with chicken, eggs, celery and onions and a long crusty loaf tucked underneath his arm.

‘Good evening,’ he said pleasantly, licking the grease off his fingers.

‘Drop dead.’

Orbilio ignored the invitation and matched his pace with hers. ‘How’s the new stepson?’

Claudia turned sharp right into the Cretan-style labyrinth and gained two paces. Of all the people she wanted to avoid, this man topped the list. By Jupiter, the gods must have had a field day when they watched Varius drop his little bombshell in front of Orbilio. Good life in Illyria, hadn’t the whole point of this wretched exercise in Sicily been to neutralize the threat against her inheritance-discreetly?

Back in Rome, rummaging around for dealings with Collatinus, she’d unearthed a letter from some bawd by the name of Livia Maximus who was in Agrigentum and who claimed she’d given birth to Gaius’s bastard. At the time of writing, the boy was fifteen and if Gaius wanted him to have a good marriage, etc., etc., etc.… The letter was clearly a bid to get him to part with money, but there was no record of his reply, which was unusual. Gaius kept meticulous records. Thus Claudia had used Eugenius’s offer of a holiday as a cover for finding out once and for all whether this Livia creature really did have a son by Gaius. She’d sent Junius on exhaustive missions and it had cost her an absolute fortune in bribes to well-placed civil servants and other lowlife to establish that the answer was a resounding negative.

There was no Livia Maximus. There was no son. There was no pretender to the House of Seferius.

All this way she’d travelled, through storms and saddle-sores, misers and murders, to find not only this little cockroach crawling out of his dung heap, but making his announcement in front of Supersnoop to boot.

‘Claudia, you’re chilling me out so much I’m getting frostbite.’

‘Somewhere painful, I trust.’ She swerved to the path on the left, and was delighted the torchlight was bright enough to see two onions roll into the night. A second swerve, also to the left, took care of the eggs. ‘Ouch!’

She spun round to see him grinning where he’d whacked her on the bottom with his loaf. ‘Now I have your attention,’ he said, ‘perhaps we could retire to the peristyle. Walking Indian-file is hardly conducive to conversation.’

‘That’s the Cretans for you. Probably never spoke to each other from one year to the next.’ Lucky devils.

She ducked to the right so fast he overshot, but before she had the chance to take another path, a firm hand had closed round her arm.

‘The peristyle, Claudia,’ he said sternly.

Carefully placing the remains of his dinner on the sundial, he continued, ‘If you stand still long enough, you might realize that, with my contacts, I’m actually in a position to help.’

I’d rather die than take help from you, she thought. Then be cremated, just to be on the safe side. She smiled sweetly and patted his hand.

‘In times of trial, it’s a real comfort to know you’re there for me, Marcus.’

The side of his face twisted up and there was a wicked glint in his eye, but his voice remained level. ‘In times of trial, Mistress Seferius, you should be aiming for an acquittal.’

It was damned hard not to laugh, but by grinding her heel on to her toe Claudia managed it. She wondered why she made no effort to move away and put it down to the relaxing sound of the fountain gurgling nearby. The music from the banqueting hall, which was hitherto providing pleasant background noise, had been replaced by the sort of guttural laughter associated with blue comedians. Why men found bodily functions amusing was beyond her, but in the days when she earned her living as a dancer, she made damned sure her own act followed the dirty jokes. That way you could guarantee good tips.

An elderly man, round as a marble and clad only in goatskin leggings, came tottering down the side of the peristyle. When he saw them, he made a wobbly detour in their direction.

‘Claudia, we’re playing sylphs and satyrs next. Come and join ush.’

‘Not if you paid me.’

When he moved in closer, the overwhelming stink of stale wine and turnips was scary. ‘Come on-’

‘What are you goggling at, you disgusting little man?’

‘I expect he’s wondering why you’ve got bloodstains all over your stola.’

‘Rubbish, he’s staring down the front of it.’

‘I am,’ the man said cheerfully. ‘I’m shtaring down the front of it. Hey, we’re playing sylphs and satyrs next. Why don’t you join ush?’

‘I told you before, you malodorous little pusboil, I-’

‘Sounds great!’ Orbilio clapped the drunk on the shoulder and propelled him down the path. ‘We’ll be along in a minute, there’s a good chap.’ He watched him totter out of sight before saying, ‘Tell me about Varius.’

Credit where it was due, he didn’t let go, this boy.

‘What’s there to tell? We meet by chance at Julius’s banquet and he realizes I’m the same Claudia Seferius his father married.’

‘With an inheritance like yours at stake, chance doesn’t come into it. As you know.’

When Claudia bent down, it wasn’t so much to pick a marigold as to decapitate it. The best course of action, she decided, was to charm his patrician boots right off him.

‘At least Varius is a bastard by birth. You, Orbilio, you’re a self-made man.’ She lobbed the marigold into the fish pond. ‘Anyway, it’s none of your damned business. You investigate murders, remember?’

‘Oh, I’m investigating. So much so, this is-’ he weighed the sadly misshapen loaf-‘was my first meal of the day. I’ve been chasing…’

The kerfuffle in the corner diverted him. It seemed more intense, more serious than the usual scuffles in the peristyle, which tended to be of a carnal rather than an argumentative nature. Suddenly a woman in a dark-coloured tunic broke free of the small knot of slaves and, as she raced past a torch, Claudia recognized the fuzz of red hair.

‘Tanaquil! What on earth are you doing here?’

The girl seemed bemused, and then Claudia realized that Tanaquil had come in search of Orbilio, not herself. Well, of course she had, because no one at the villa knew where Claudia was staying. But the irritating thing was, if Tanaquil knew Orbilio’s address, how come Claudia hadn’t known it? That would teach her blithely to assume he’d sloped off back to Rome.

‘Marcus, something terrible’s happened! Terrible! You must come quickly.’ Oh, it’s Marcus, is it? You a lowborn hustler, him a patrician policeman, and you call him Marcus.

‘Everything’s under control.’ Orbilio waved away the anxious slaves. ‘Now, Tanaquil, calm down. What’s the matter?’

Her face, which was chalk white to start with, now had a greyish tinge to it. It was swollen from crying and her eyes were red.

‘It’s Acte,’ she said. ‘She’s dead!’

Claudia felt an icy wind blow through the peristyle. Not Acte. Sweet Jupiter, tell me it’s not Acte. Not at the hands of that butchering lunatic.

The muscles on Orbilio’s face tightened, the only sign of emotion. ‘What happened?’

Tanaquil dug her fingers into his tunic and made fists of them. ‘Oh, it was awful. Just like Sabina. Only that’s not the worst of it.’

Claudia and Orbilio exchanged glances.

‘No?’

‘Eugenius is beside himself, he doesn’t know what he’s doing, you’ve got to come, it’s awful, I think he’ll do it, he says he will and I believe him, you’ve got to hurry-’

‘It’s all right,’ he said gently, placing a hand on each of the girl’s shoulders.

‘Oh, but it’s not, it’s not, you don’t know what Eugenius is saying, he’s beside himself, I told you, he means it.’

Orbilio applied slight pressure with each hand and shook her gently. ‘Tanaquil, you’re not making sense. What does Eugenius mean to do?’

The redhead began to cry. ‘Utti,’ she wailed. ‘Eugenius means to kill him.’