Virgin Territory

VIII

Damn, damn, and double damn. So much for keeping a low profile. Claudia reached for the jug of wine at her bedside. As breakfasts go, it wasn’t ideal, bread or pancakes would have been more sensible, but who on earth wants to be sensible?

‘Cypassis, is that you?’

Good grief, where was she? Sleeping late, lazy hussy. Probably with some callow household slave. How that child has the energy is beyond me. Work her to the bone and she still finds time to seduce pimply youths. Claudia swallowed half a glass of wine in one gulp. Jealousy, my girl. Just because you can’t remember what an orgasm is, no need to deny Cypassis her own pleasures.

Certainly anyone who’d noticed a muscular young Gaul slipping into Claudia’s room in the early hours would have jumped to the wrong conclusion. Since the bizarre manner of Sabina’s death was likely to generate gossip right across the island, the chances of the name Seferius not cropping up were parchment thin. So much for ‘early days’ and ‘no hurry’. Now she had to eliminate the threat and skedaddle. Fast.

Not that she wasn’t shocked and sorry about Sabina, she was. Goddammit, she was. But from the moment she’d realized the woman was an imposter, Claudia had been expecting trouble. In fact, she had covered every contingency…bar one.

Life was a bitch and, as irritating as she was, Sabina didn’t deserve this. Wherever she went, she had clutched that stupid, empty flagon, slept with it, even, reminding Claudia of a child with her favourite doll.

Yesterday there had been a tang of salt and cypress in the air, pines and wild celery, that made you forget winter was sneaking up on the backroads. The blue of the sea spoke of summer picnics and sleeveless tunics, the suck of waves against sand whispered peace and tranquillity. Neither of them so much as hinted at bloodshed.

Had it been a hot killing, like for instance gladiatorial combats which were bloody in the extreme, that would have put a different complexion on it. Or a crime of passion, where one man drives a knife into another in a fit of jealousy or revenge…

And yet passion there was.

Of a sort.

Except the cold brutality of the act was chilling. As was the dangerous and calculating mind behind it.

It was creepy, too, the reaction of the poor woman’s family, the callous manner they totally disregarded the violence of the crime yet threw themselves vigorously into the funeral arrangements. In a way it reinforced Claudia’s impression that they, too, had believed this strange, ethereal creature could not be one of them and had found a convenient way of covering it up. But why? Why not speak out? Were they all party to the conspiracy? Or was it just one of them, sowing seeds of doubt amongst the others? Questions, questions, questions. Claudia had barely slept for questions.

A gentle scratching at the door received a peremptory ‘Come in,’ and a small slave girl, no more than fifteen and with skin as dark as a chestnut, crept into the room. Drusilla stiffened.

‘Senbi sent me, madam.’

‘Why?’

Drusilla’s ears flattened as she let out a low howl from the back of her throat.

‘Hrroww.’

The girl blinked rapidly. ‘Um-’

‘Come on, spit it out. What do you want?’

‘Hrrro wwwwww.’

The girl backed up tight against the door frame. ‘Your maid’s bin taken sick with the fever,’ she replied in one frantic breath, her eyes riveted on the snarling cat. Claudia sat bolt upright. ‘Cypassis?’

Dear Diana, she was telling Diomedes only yesterday what a treasure that child was!

She considered the timorous creature flattening herself against the wall. ‘Can you dress hair?’

An imperceptible shake of the head.

‘Cosmetics?’

A grimace.

Claudia resisted the impulse to scream. ‘Is it within your powers, do you think, to help me dress?’

At last, a nod.

‘I can try,’ she whispered.

Good life in Illyria, what have I got myself into? Claudia threw off the bedcovers and marched over to the window.

‘For goodness’ sake,’ she said, throwing wide the shutter, ‘pour some water into that bowl and fetch a towel.’

Drusilla was watching the proceedings very carefully, and only when she was completely happy the intruder wasn’t a kitten-skinner in disguise did she ease up on the growling. The girl’s sigh of relief was probably audible the other side of the island.

‘Bring me that mirror.’

There was no way Claudia intended letting this novice loose on her hair and, without Cypassis’s expertise, she wasn’t going to spend half the morning fiddling with curls and plaits and ringlets and things. She’d wear her hair in a bun at her neck. Simple, elegant-and well under two minutes to fix.

‘Now fetch that misty blue tunic, the one with short sleeves and the flounce along the bottom.’

‘And which stola?’

The girl was untrained! ‘For heaven’s sake, you only wear that at formal occasions or when you’re going out.’ Where on earth had the child been? ‘Give me a hand with this belt.’

As the young slave neatened up the overhanging folds, Claudia asked, ‘What’s your name?’

‘Pacquia.’

From the atrium came a clatter, clatter, crash, followed by loud remonstrations met in return with querulous protests that it was not somebody’s fault, she’d tripped over Young Master Marius’s whipping top. Unlike home, where Leonides would sort the matter out quietly and without fuss, Senbi clearly decided that his presence needed to be felt-and in this case, more than just his presence. Claudia could hear the blow from her room. If that had been Leonides, she’d have his Macedonian ears for breakfast. With garlic on.

‘Oi! Pack it in!’

Good old Linus, putting his oar in now the fuss had died down. Typical of the man, a loser if ever there was one. To some extent Claudia could sympathize because he’d given fifteen years to the business and was still, thanks to the law, without an authoritative role.

That was the law which made Linus accountable to his father.

The same law which made Aulus accountable to his father, who had no intention of letting go the legal reins.

In other words, the same law which gave Eugenius Collatinus absolute control over every person and every thing that he owned, including his family.

Unfortunately for Linus, Fabius’s return after twenty years meant even the weak position he held had now been usurped. It was an unenviable situation by any reckoning, but whatever sympathy he might have earned was blown away thanks to his blatant whoring, his persistent bragging and his bullying. Like father, like son. Nothing Corinna did could please him and as an outsider, Corinna found no allies in this house, not even in Matidia.

Especially not Matidia. The old man wouldn’t even delegate the running of the household to his own daughter-in-law, which under normal circumstances was her right as matriarch. Daily, with the others, she had to endure the humiliating morning ritual whereby Dexippus, Eugenius’s secretary, passed across to Acte the wax tablet on which he had written the old man’s instructions and she would call them out to the slaves. Then, when the slaves had left, Dex would hand over a second tablet and she’d read out the old man’s instructions to his family.

Claudia jerked her head towards the hall. ‘How are they taking Sabina’s death this morning?’

Pacquia twiddled the flounces round Claudia’s ankles. ‘It’s all very sad, madam,’ she said without looking up.

‘That’s not what I asked you,’ Claudia replied. ‘I want to know how it’s affecting them.’

Pacquia’s hands trembled slightly, and Claudia relented.

‘Look, you don’t have to go through the motions with me. I’m well aware they’re not playing Happy Families out there, grieving and crying over a much-loved sister. Pass that silver pendant.’

Grief she had not expected. Even assuming the blood line was pure, Sabina had been as much a stranger to them as they were to her, and in four days precious little ground had been gained. Confusing her dream world with reality, Sabina had categorically refused to mix with her relatives and had stuck to Tanaquil like a snail on slime.

‘What happened to her prospective bridegroom, Gavius whatshisface?’

‘Master Labienus? He left on Monday, madam.’

That let him off the hook, then. Sabina was killed yesterday, Tuesday. Not that he could really be considered a suspect. The killer would be a local man.

‘Have they caught the culprit?’

‘There’s a search party out now.’

‘I see. And what does the effervescent Tanaquil have to say about the matter?’ Some fortune teller she turned out to be.

‘Tanaquil, madam?’

‘That flame-haired jack-in-a-box who’s been dossing in the clipshed.’

Sabina might have attached herself to the girl, but Eugenius wouldn’t have what he called the Sicilian trollop in the house. She and the Minotaur had been sleeping rough since they docked.

‘Oh, her.’ Even slaves looked down on these hangers-on, it seemed. ‘She’s gone.’

There was enough good-riddance in Pacquia’s voice for Claudia to save her breath. An admirable decision, she thought, to jump before you’re pushed.

The young slave girl’s fear seemed to have all but evaporated, and her eyes began to glow.

‘You know what they’re saying,’ she whispered, with all the enthusiasm of a gossip five times her age, ‘they’re saying she weren’t their daughter.’

This was more like it. ‘Get away! Who says?’

‘Senbi. I heard him talking to Antefa-and guess what Antefa said?’

‘Tell me.’

Pacquia glanced at the door. ‘He’d heard Aulus, Linus and Portius having a right old barney over how much the master was gonna settle on Miss Sabina.’

‘Was that before or after her run-in with Labienus?’

‘Mmm…’ Pacquia closed her eyes in concentration. ‘Before.’

Claudia leaned forward conspiratorially. ‘And just how much was Eugenius going to settle on Sabina?’

‘Eight thousand sesterces.’

Her breath came out in a whistle. No wonder they were aggrieved. Claudia could imagine that, after thirty years, they felt entitled to that money themselves. They wouldn’t be happy to see their birthright frittered away on a middle-aged fruitcake whose childbearing days were almost over.

Which was all very interesting, of course, and had Sabina been pushed over a cliff on a dark night, might well explain a few things. But she wasn’t. She’d been murdered in a particularly callous and calculating manner.

The timing had to be precise, the wound had to be precise. The man responsible for this bizarre crime knew exactly how much time he had between severing her spinal cord and then, as she lay helpless, stripping her and raping her while she was fully conscious. Claudia felt a column of insects march up her backbone. Judging by the bites and bruises, this was a vicious and concerted attack, the work of a maniac, sick and depraved. Not the work of a man trying to hang on to eight thousand sesterces.

Pity.

Pacquia selected two lapis lazuli studs from Claudia’s hinged jewellery box and began to fasten them on her mistress’s earlobes. ‘There’s a policeman sniffing around, too. Bin here all night.’

Now that was a surprise. Claudia’s impression was that the family were keen to gloss over the tackier aspects of Sabina’s demise. Still, credit where it’s due, the woman was brutally murdered and someone somewhere had thought it wise to start an investigation rolling. Perhaps they’d held a council of war? Or was this Eugenius’s brainchild?

‘He’s with Master F. right now.’

More than likely pinned down with a blow-by-blow account of every skirmish Fabius had ever been involved in over the past twenty years. Best of luck to him, Claudia had better things to do. It was another warm day, she’d take herself off to the garden. She could do her thinking and her planning out there.

In the atrium, with the morning sunshine streaming in from the open roof and the water sparkling on the surface of the central pool, the bestiality of the attack seemed far removed and if, in life, the Collatinuses had been proud to have a Vestal in the family, in death they were more so. You couldn’t move for cypress. With a torch at each corner, Sabina lay on her bier in full bridal dress, correct right down to her circlet of marjoram and verbena. Even her girdle was tied in that special double loop known as the Knot of Hercules (in itself no mean feat), but not for Sabina ribald jokes about this being the one labour Hercules couldn’t manage and wishing the bridegroom better luck. But ceremony she’d had, poor cow.

Claudia adjusted the woollen ribbons running through Sabina’s elaborate, conical hairdo which someone had taken great pains to get right.

Since Eugenius was physically incapable of performing the ritual, Aulus had been deputed to clash the two bronze kettles together and spit the black beans from his mouth to speed his daughter’s spirit. Afterwards, Eugenius resumed his role as head of the family and led prayers at the family shrine, except he sounded bitter rather than distraught.

You’d have thought that with Sabina’s body still cooling in the atrium, some respect would have been shown last night, wouldn’t you? Far from it. Aulus and Fabius all but came to blows, Portius drank too much and threw up, Linus openly groped the slave girls. Matidia and Corinna turned their customary blind eye on the pretext of discussing textiles while Eugenius absented himself, as usual. In fact, from what Claudia could gather, this was a run-of-the-mill evening for the Collatinus clan… Perhaps they were used to dead bodies littering the establishment?

She was smoothing the bright orange veil round Sabina’s face when she heard voices.

‘I’ve composed a lament, Father. I’ll read it in full at the funeral, but this is how it starts:

‘’Twas here that once the tainted air brought forth

A plague that raged with all an autumn’s heat.

It slew the herds and every kind of beast,

Infected pools and poisoned pastures sweet.’

Dear me, if they handed out laurels for pretentiousness, you’d mistake Portius for a bay tree.

‘Well done, son!’ Aulus clapped so loudly the sound echoed round the marbled hall. ‘Claudia, my boy here is destined to become one of the great Sicilian poets.’ He beamed proudly. ‘Wasn’t that marvellous?’

‘Wasn’t that Virgil?’ she replied artlessly, without stopping to watch the exchange of expressions.

Passing the dining room she could hear Fabius’s strident tones launched into his favourite moan about how the Praetorian Guard are paid three times the salary yet put in only three-quarters of the service. Pity the poor policeman from Sullium, probably fat as a bullfrog and red as a cockerel’s wattle, trying to make headway in this house. Serves him right, she thought, about time he earned his keep in that dreary, one-horse town where the only crime was an occasional spot of pilfering.

‘Quite so, but if we could just return to the moment you first saw your sister’s body…’

Claudia stopped in her tracks as though she’d been poleaxed. It couldn’t be! Jupiter, Juno and Mars, it bloody couldn’t be! She waited until her colour had subsided and her breathing was less ragged before sweeping into the room.

‘Well kick me for a cardamom, look what the cat’s dragged in!’