Virgin Territory

XXXII

It was over. Finally, it was over.

Physically drained and emotionally exhausted, Claudia halted on the plateau. Below, a molten silver streak cleaved a path towards the shimmering ocean beyond and suddenly she was impelled to immerse her whole body in this river of forgetfulness. A cold plunge which was no luxury, but a necessity.

There was much to forget.

The raw injustice big ugly Utti had been given, and the dreadful truth confronting Aristaeus after he made love to Sabina. Alas, it said much about Aulus that Aristaeus, Faustulus, even Claudia herself, believed him capable of the charge laid against him, but the unpalatable fact was, a grim brutality simmered underneath the surface in that family which was as sickening as it was incomprehensible.

Linus, knocking his wife into next week. Aulus, chopping off thumbs left, right and centre. Even the viciousness of Senbi, Piso and Dexippus. It seemed Fabius had felt justified as long as the vacant creature calling herself Sabina wasn’t related…

Claudia slithered down the slope, using rocks as footholds and tree roots as handholds. Far in the distance were the whitewashed walls and red shimmering tiles of the Villa Collatinus, surrounded by small, bleating puffs of white. A peaceful scene, and utterly uninviting.

She listened to the babble of water as it raced over the stones in its excitement to reach the sea.

Orbilio had believed Diomedes the killer, since who but a doctor would have the precise medical knowledge? There had been no ‘trouble’ before he arrived. And yet the same criteria applied to Fabius. Army life would teach a man how to kill, maim and immobilize. Did it, then, desensitize him to such a degree that he could plan the cold-blooded killing of two women? Cut their spinal cords, leave them paralysed-helpless and desperate for air-so he could rape them?

Like the beechwood earlier, precious metal turned to base as the silver became nothing more exotic than water, yet it was no less appealing. She sat on a rock and pulled off her sandals, thinking of the murder weapon embedded in the tree trunk. In time, no doubt, the bark would grow to envelop it, obliterating all traces of this hideous crime, but despite the warmth of the sun trapped in the valley, Claudia shuddered.

She waded into the middle of the river, her iris blue cotton darkening to blueberry, and sat facing downstream, hands outstretched on the river bed behind her, head tilted towards the sun. The icy water washed over her, floating her skirt and numbing the bruising on her neck. Stay here long enough and it’d wash away the guilt and the horror and maybe, just maybe, the fear of waking in the night and seeing the hollow eyes of Hecamede staring back at her.

It was over. Praise be to Juno, it was over. She was stupid to have come to Sicily in the first place, but in a matter of hours that freighter would be whisking her back to Rome and life would continue as normal. Well, not Rome exactly, she thought, hauling herself upright, amazed at the weight of her wet stola. It’ll drop us on the mainland and we can cover the coastal route by road, picking up the Via Appia which will be a damn sight quicker than fighting headwinds. I can’t wait to get back to the-

‘Dammit, Aulus, you made me jump’

Pervert. Still, he wasn’t the only man in the world who got turned on by watching women bathe and by wet cotton clinging to feminine curves.

‘Ooh, you made me jump,’ he mimicked. ‘Oooh, Aulus, you made me jump.’

Claudia wrung out her skirt, wondering how much satisfaction she would feel when Old Conky heard his eldest son was a depraved monster. She picked her way towards her sandals, trying not to let him see how painful the jagged rocks were on bare feet, and she was gripped by an exhilarating surge of mischief.

‘Aulus,’ she said, heaping on the sympathy. ‘I know who killed Sabina and Acte, and I’m afraid it…wasn’t Utti.’

‘Oh?’

Claudia smiled to herself. String him along a little further and the blow would fall the harder. ‘But I know who, and I know how, and I know why.’

‘You do?’

The bolt shot home, you could see the emotions race across his face. Anger, hatred, resentment, possibly even respect. A strange light burned in his eyes and Claudia nonchalantly reached down for her sandals.

‘Pity you won’t have the chance to tell, then.’

It was the venom in his voice that made her look up, and the scalpel in his hand which held her eye.

Oh shit.

‘Orbilio knows,’ she said quickly, not daring to take her eye off the blade.

‘Is that why he left you alone?’

‘It’s a trap. I’m the bait. He’s up there, waiting…’

It sounded feeble, even to her own ears. ‘You’ll have to do better than that, soft sod can hardly walk-and don’t think your servants can save you either, they’re busy lugging boxes over to Fintium.’

Claudia kept her eye on the scalpel. To slice her spinal cord, he’d have to get behind her.

‘You won’t get away with this.’ Is that what Sabina and Acte had said? Were those their last words?

‘Maybe I will and maybe I won’t.’ He took a step closer, Claudia took a step back. ‘I’m knocking sixty, yet my father treated me like a schoolkid. No responsibility, no nothing. You’ve seen that brainless cow I’m married to. The old man even picked her, because it was a good match. Good for him, he gets a good dowry, but what do I get?’

‘I-’

‘I’d learned everything there was to know about wheat. How to combat rust, the optimum yield from threshing, the best way of burning stubble-everything there was to know and you know what he does?’

‘No.’ It came out a squeak.

He took another step closer, she took another step back. The sharp point of a rock against her instep drew blood.

‘He sells up. I’m thirty-three years old, and he doesn’t even consult me. I tell him the war’ll be over soon, he tells me to mind my own business. He tells me I should count my blessings that I, an equestrian, have a daughter serving Vesta. Had it not been for the war, they’d have had their pick of patricians.’

‘Sabina-’

‘After a lifetime tilling the soil, I have to forget about wheat and learn about fucking sheep. I don’t even like sheep! But he’s my father, I do what he tells me.’

He took another pace, Claudia backed up, her eye still on the blade. As long as he was talking, she was safe.

‘Aulus, listen-’

‘Finally the old man tells me he’s given permission for my son, my son, to join the army. I told him, I’ve got a girl lined up, the dowry will mean we can live better-because by then, he’d spent all his bloody money building that damned house. Got to impress the locals, he said. Let them know who they’re dealing with. No one messes with Eugenius Collatinus.’

‘Look-’

‘He was right. No one did mess with him, except the one person he never suspected. Me. For sixteen years, I’ve been ripping him off and he didn’t suspect a thing. Not one damned thing. The day he had that riding accident, that was the day I began. Even bedridden, the old bastard wouldn’t let go of the reins, but I prized them away without him even knowing.’

‘Aulus, please-’

‘How? I’ll tell you how. His eyesight was bad. That little cow Acte thought she was the only one, but he couldn’t fool me, I knew what was going on. Dexippus is in my pocket, did you know that? Found him doing things to lambs you wouldn’t ask a butcher to do, and I went spare. Then I realized this gave me a hold over him. Through Dex, I could manipulate the old man. Write letters, keep ledgers. I controlled the whole bloody shooting match.’

‘Surely-’

He made a slashing movement with the scalpel, the sinister swish audible even over the burbling waters. ‘Then things went wrong. Don’t ask me how, maybe I made a few bad investments, all I know is, the business began to go downhill.’

Comprehension dawned. The food (or lack of it), the sparsely planted garden, the household economies. These were at Aulus’s instigation, and because he had pared them down to the bone gradually, no one had noticed. Only a visitor would comment and visitors, as she knew from experience, were unwelcome.

‘Do you know what a shock it was to find Sabina was coming home? Just didn’t seem like thirty years. The old man waits till the day she arrives to tell me he’s agreed a dowry with that old oil merchant. Eight thousand sesterces. Croesus, we didn’t have eight hundred in the coffers, let alone eight thousand.’

He’d calmed down, but Claudiawasn’t in the clear yet.

‘Thank the gods when Sabina announces the old sod’s ravished her. Turned her head, I thought, holy orders. Actually felt sorry for the little mare. I mean, chastity isn’t natural, is it?’

Claudia remained mute.

‘I said, it’s not natural. Is it?’ He was shouting and waving the scalpel, and she felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickle.

‘No.’ She cleared her throat. ‘No, Aulus, it isn’t natural.’

‘Damn right, and you listen to me when I’m talking to you.’

‘Yes, Aulus.’ She was suddenly the downtrodden and dutiful woman he expected. ‘Sorry.’

‘What was I talking about?’

Had he genuinely forgotten or was this a test? ‘Sabina’s dowry,’ she said quickly.

‘Oh, yes. Well, she turns the merchant down, then damn me if the fucker doesn’t do a deal with the old man. He’d take her, daft in the head or not, for twenty thousand,’ Aulus snorted. ‘Twenty thousand. No bugger’s worth that.’

‘So you…?’

‘Tried to reason with the silly bitch, told her what the score was, that we were broke. I was totally honest, explained everything to her. Offered her all the money we had to run away, disappear, start a new life. I begged her, I actually went down on my knees and begged the little cow not to ruin my life and do you know what?’

His face was in the grip of strange contortions.

‘What?’

‘She’d never been a bloody Vestal. She’d run away once, she said, and didn’t like it. Spent thirty years in a hovel without servants, and now she was home she liked it.’

His eyes were staring past Claudia. She wondered whether she dare make a move, but the scalpel was close enough to slit her throat-and Aulus had nothing to lose.

Dammit, surely the ship was in by now. Why wasn’t someone out looking for her? And then she realized that, in reality, very little time had passed. Her gown was still dripping, the shadows had barely moved round with the sun.

In that instant, Claudia knew with a chill certainty that she could not carry the strain much longer. After the physical fight with Fabius and the emotional encounter with Aristaeus, she was drained almost to her limit.

It was too far out for the Collatinus slaves. Aulus was right, Orbilio was dead on his feet with the poison and the exercise. She was on her own.

Tears of helplessness welled up.

He was talking about that fateful day (was it really only twelve days ago?) when he met Sabina on the path. Claudia forced herself to listen, it was her only chance.

‘What do you mean, run away? I asked, and she said it was because of what I’d done to her when she was a child. What, I asked, and she…Janus, she said I did to her what I did to her mother. How sick can you get?’

Claudia could not bring herself to state the obvious. Instead she said, ‘So you killed her?’

He made a sound of impatience. ‘You won’t believe this, but it was an accident. I always carry a scalpel, it comes in useful in the dyesheds, in the clipshed, collecting berries and bark for the dyes. Like today, collecting baneberries. What you call all-purpose. Sabina turned her back on me. Just like that!’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Turned her back and started to walk down the path. I grabbed her hair and, as Jupiter’s my witness, I swear I meant only to cut it off to teach her a lesson. She jerked…and the blade sliced the base of her neck.’

He shrugged. ‘I realized then she’d made me kill her. I tried to punish her, hitting her and hitting her, but she was dead, there was nothing I could do to hurt her the way she’d hurt me. She’d made me kill her, and now she was getting away with it. But guess what? It gave me a hard-on. It gave me a bloody hard-on. So I did it. I did what she accused me of doing when she was six. I fucked the bitch!’

Claudia was trembling. ‘What about Acte?’

Aulus produced a gleeful slurping sound Claudia never wanted to hear again. ‘Got what she deserved, did Miss High-and-Mighty. Turned me down so often I lost count, yet I saw the old man putting his hands all over her, sucking on her, and her, the conniving bitch, egging him on so she could get her hands on my business, tricking me out of what’s mine.’

Claudia’s legs could barely support her. The bank was too high, the riverbed too jagged, and all the time the scalpel was wavering in front of her. Her nerves were so stretched that, when Aulus did make his move, she wondered whether she’d have the reaction time she so desperately needed.

‘It was fun with Acte.’ He was laughing. Actually laughing. ‘I knew by then that Sabina didn’t die immediately, that she was aware she’d had to be punished for what she’d done, and so it was better with Acte.’

‘You didn’t beat her, though?’

‘Why should I?’ He seemed genuinely puzzled. ‘She didn’t need to be punished. All I gave her was what the old man had been giving her for years, but the best joke of all was, he hadn’t. Acte was still a virgin. I tell you, it was all I could do to stop myself running in and telling him that, for once, I’d got somewhere before he had!’

Claudia swallowed hard. ‘Then you poisoned him?’

‘No one can blame me for that. He’d had his run, it was time for the next generation to take over.’

‘What about me?’ It was the question she’d been dreading to ask, but it needed to be said. She had to know what was in store.

‘Ah, yes, the lovely Claudia. Since Utti killed Sabina and Acte, we can’t have you going the same way, can we? Let me see.’ He waved the scalpel up and down to taunt her. She refused to let him see it was working. ‘Are those bruises I see round your neck?’

Instinctively her hand shot up to cover her throat. ‘Fabius knows about them,’ she said. ‘He put them there.’ Aulus clucked his teeth. ‘Perfect. When I hold you under this lovely clear water, he’ll be able to swear they were made earlier and put his old father in the clear.’

Shit!

‘They’ll know it was you.’

‘Me?’ His face was a picture of innocence. ‘I’m out collecting berries.’

‘Wasn’t Fabius collecting them?’

‘My son doesn’t know his baneberry from his bum. They grow in damp places yet he goes searching the woods. I am surrounded by fools.’ His tone changed. ‘This has gone on long enough.’ He made a beckoning gesture. ‘Come here.’

‘Go bugger yourself!’

‘Claudia, Claudia. Why fight it?’ he said reasonably. ‘Drowning’s quick, it’s painless and, believe you me, there are plenty of other ways. I could even do to you what I did to the others, providing I bury you deep.’ Manic eyes swept over the blue cotton clinging to the curves of her body. ‘You’re a beautiful woman, I could really take my time.’

‘We could do a deal?’ Feeble, Claudia. Very, very feeble. ‘I have money.’

‘Too late, I’m afraid. You could have married Fabius and come to live with us, but you had to go and spoil it, didn’t you? You had to worm out my little secret?’

A spark of irritation flared.

‘It’s been the day for people’s little secrets, Aulus. Don’t feel privileged. Look!’ She pointed. ‘Up there!’

‘Bitch!’

She had run into the river, it was her only chance. Hampered by bare feet and waterlogged skirts, she aimed for the middle. Swim to safety. A hand reached out, but her arms were wet and his grip wouldn’t hold. Splashing like a hippopotamus, Claudia zigzagged towards deep water, ducking and twisting to escape him. She could hear his stertorous breathing, see his shadow on the clear, babbling water.

Then she was free! Launching herself into the current, she felt the icy water on her cheeks, one stroke, two-

The grip on her ankle was of iron. In a frenzy, she tried to kick, but the twisting and writhing served only to wrap her skirts round her legs like bandages. Aulus, panting, was dragging his quarry to the far bank. She held on to rocks, but he was stronger, they cut into her hands, grazed her arms, she had to let go. She picked up a boulder.

Yesss!

His hands flew to his face. The stone had broken his nose, that big, long nose. Blood streamed everywhere, he was trumpeting like a bull elephant.

‘Shit!’

Her foot slipped, her ankle twisted and rocks fell inwards to trap it. She tried to claw free, but the boulder over her foot was huge.

‘Got you, you bitch!’

Too late she realized he’d come up behind her, and for the second time in one day a vice clamped round her neck, dragging her head backwards and under the water. She saw him, grinning, as her arms flailed. A pebble, that’s all I need, a pebble to blind the bastard! Her leg held fast, the knee twisted and sending out waves of excruciating pain. She saw weed, thin green strands of it, trailing in the current. She heard a roaring in her ears which wasn’t water, and now the picture of Aulus, face twisted with hatred, had red tinges round the edges. With one monumental surge, she pushed herself out of the water, spluttering in the warm sunshine.

‘Oh, no, you don’t!’ Before she drew breath, he’d thrown her back under.

Fingernails clawed. At his hands. At his arms. She could see red trails spiralling in the current, saw strips of flesh flapping in slow motion, saw the white flash of bone. With her last remaining effort before oblivion, Claudia forced back his middle finger. Back, and back-and snap!

Aulus, roaring with pain, let go. Gasping, Claudia jack-knifed towards the bank, kicking at the boulder pinning her ankle. With a second mighty jerk, she twisted again, freeing her trapped leg while her arms pulled on her stola.

‘Bitch! You’ve broken my finger!’

Choking, she threw her sodden gown over his face, hoping the weight and the wetness would confuse him while she pelted him with stones. She had forgotten how weak she was. Like raindrops, they bounced off and he easily shrugged off the soggy cotton.

On the bank lay a branch, swept down in the spring floods but stranded when the waters receded. Coughing water, Claudia hurled herself towards it. She’d break his bloody leg! Hurry, hurry… Over her shoulder, she saw Aulus was gaining. Faster… Willing the strength into her body, she heaved herself out of the water. Sweet Jupiter! His hands, his arms, his tunic were saturated with blood and where fingernails had clawed, gobbets of flesh flapped loose.

Six paces. Five. Four… Too late she discovered the ordeal had left her too weak. She fell to her knees. Somewhere a girl was whimpering. She was shocked to find it was her. Crawling, the gravel cutting her knees to shreds, Claudia stretched out an arm. Oh no. It was still out of reach! A shadow fell over her. A cry lodged in her throat. Aulus, dripping with blood as though he’d been peeled, eyes blazing with fury, raised his scalpel.

Then, above the gurgle of the waters, Claudia heard a twang. Aulus jerked, astonishment written clear on his mangled features. She rolled herself into a ball, hoping to minimize the target, but Aulus stood there, wobbling, a vacant look on his face. As he pitched forward, she rolled out of the way.

For a moment she thought it was a ruse, a ploy to tease and torment her.

Until she saw the arrow in his back.

On the far bank, at roughly the point where she clambered down from the plateau, stood the gigantic figure of a man.

By the time Aristaeus had made his way down, Claudia had watched her iris blue stola drift on the current until it was out of sight. She wished the shaking would stop.

Aristaeus handed her his tunic. It came to her ankles, smelled of cherrywood and fresh sweat and you could have fitted a whole troupe of Syrian dancing girls inside.

‘Good shot.’ He couldn’t make out the words, they were still a gargle from the throttling, but he probably got the gist.

Confident his quarry was dead, the huntsman pulled his arrow free and rolled the corpse over. Claudia backed away, covering her nose with her hands. The stench was vile. Aristaeus pointed to the black stain oozing over the front of Aulus’s tunic.

‘Looks like he fell and crushed his baneberries,’ he said with a grin.

*

Later, when the joke about baneberries had worn off and the pain in her throat had eased to a throbbing, she thanked him properly.

‘I tracked you,’ he explained, ‘to give you this.’

He held out a golden filigree net, as light and insubstantial as gossamer.

Claudia took the gift in trembling hands. It was a hair snood, the sort women wear when they’re alone-or with their lover. When their hair hangs loose and they have no need of curls or ringlets or ribbons. In the centre was a single, golden ornament.

‘It’s beautiful.’ One of those items which is both inexpensive and yet utterly priceless. ‘Thank you.’ It wasn’t necessarily the bruising round her throat which was the problem at the moment.

Eventually, when the mist cleared from her eyes, she explained why Aulus was trying to kill her.

‘I’m glad it weren’t Fabius,’ Aristaeus said. ‘They makes a good pair, him and that readhead.’

‘Fabius and Tanaquil?’ The hustler who dyed her hair and padded her breastband?

‘Thought, after the way those two hit it off in Syracuse, you’d have known about them love trysts in the birch grove? When I heard of this second murder I assumed it was her, not poor Acte.’

‘Tanaquil and Fabius?’ In love? In Syracuse?

‘Real upset he was when her brother died, terrified she’d up and leave him because of it. Tried to stop the execution, but, course, the old man never budged on nothing.’

Which explained this morning’s tantrum. Discovering Sabina really was his sister, he was petrified Tanaquil would leave him in case insanity ran in the family. Fat chance. That redhead had Fabius just where she wanted him. From now on, Fabius would follow her orders, it was what he did best, and as for Tanaquil, not only had she fallen on her feet financially, she’d slotted Fabius into the role her brother had played.

‘Don’t reckon they needs to run off to Katane, now he’s got this lot to see to.’

‘Do you know why he joined the army as a footslogger?’ That, like the reasoning behind Sabina’s blue flagon, had been nagging away at Claudia for ages.

Aristaeus wiped the blood off his spent arrow. Perhaps he wanted it as a souvenir, most likely he wanted to destroy evidence of his involvement.

‘Fabius was fifteen when Eugenius forced him to watch the impaling of six thousand fugitives. He believed there was a better way to serve justice by fighting men face to face, and I’m inclined to agree with him.’

He snapped the arrow shaft in two and threw the pieces into the water.

Claudia thought of the little freighter bobbing in Fintium bay, of the man waiting on board. ‘I have to go,’ she said, and the huntsman nodded.

‘Safe journey.’ She thought his voice sounded gruffer than usual.

He began the arduous ascent, the quiver of arrows slung across his nutbrown back, showers of red arbutes raining from the branches he used to lever himself up. Soon, she thought, it will be winter. The leaves will fall, there will come a bite in the air which is welcome for the olives but not for the rest of us. The asters will blacken, and snow will cover the mountains and drive down the wolves.

She trickled the snood through her hands. A golden spider in its golden filigree web, made by the man who collects spiders’ webs.

Her throat was throbbing, her knee was on fire, her left ankle had puffed up like an inflated pig’s bladder. Heaven knows how she’d find the strength to climb that bank, let alone make it to Fintium.

But, she thought, kilting up the huntsman’s tunic, it was definitely the right decision, coming to Sicily.

Hadn’t she always said so?