Wolf Whistle

XII

As dusk spread her cloak across the seven hills of Rome, Claudia slipped in unseen through the garden entrance. The drizzle had stopped. Or had it? It was the sort of day when you could barely tell the difference. Transparent beads of moisture had collected on the junipers and cypress, and fairy pools of water had formed in the crucibles of the peonies; well, water was fine in its place, but what Claudia needed to unwind with was wine, and strong enough to sink a horseshoe, if you please. So then. A glass (make it a jug) of Falernian. A quiet hour reading Virgil, a lavender massage, supper sent to her room. Definitely no sucking up to the old boilers, who’d only want to gossip about the Market Day Murders.

‘Claudia.’ Fannia was waiting indoors in ambush. ‘My bolster-I’m sure it isn’t swansdown, and you know how delicate I am. Could you get it changed, or I’ll never sleep a wink?’

This, after seeing a girl hacked to mincemeat and just minutes after she had hired a professional assassin to dispose of the maniac who threatened to torture the life out of her. Nevertheless, Claudia was sure she had a winsome smile somewhere.

‘My dear Fannia, for your pillow I bought soft cygnet down.’ Chickens, swans, they’re all birds, aren’t they? ‘Trust me, you’ll sleep well tonight.’

As will the rest of the old trouts. I’m lacing your drinks.

But no sooner had Fannia clucked off, than Claudia’s escape route was blocked by a skinny creature with watery eyes and prominent cheekbones who came flying down the staircase. She appeared to be clutching a hairless brown rat under her arm.

‘Cousin Claudia! Oh, Cousin Claudia, what are you going to do about Hercules?’

In the Forum, in the colonnades, in the public libraries you will hear philosophers argue daily the finer points of rhetoric. Should one, for instance, go ahead with a birthday celebration, even though the augur has cautioned against it? If the man you find in bed with your wife is your boss, do you still go ahead and castrate him? But never do you hear it mooted what one ought to do about Hercules.

Claudia stalled for time. ‘It’s Cousin Fortunata, is it not? I don’t believe we’ve met I’m-’

‘It’s affected his appetite, you know. Put him right off his din-dins, hasn’t it, Herky?’

Claudia goggled. Hercules? That sawn-off runt’s named after the hero who undertook feats no other mortal dared? Herky let out a high-pitched yelp, and Claudia realized it wasn’t vermin but some sort of dog Fortunata had in an armlock, and thought wistfully that if only the moneylender in the Subura had had a pack of Herkies, it would have been a different story yesterday.

‘Terrified, weren’t you, baby? Yes, you were. Some spiteful boss-eyed cat chased Mummy’s Herky-perky under the bed and Mummy had to throw a glass of water over the nasty beastie. He’s very highly strung, you know.’

Not strung up high enough, in my opinion. ‘Shall I take care of Herkykins? Come on, darling, come to Cousin Claudie.’ She whipped the lapdog out of Fortunata’s arms, marched into the kitchens and thrust it at the nearest kitchen maid.

‘I can’t cook that,’ the woman squealed. ‘It’s still alive!’ Pity. It would have gone down well with a pepper sauce and parsley. ‘Find a cellar, lock it in,’ she ordered. I’ll not have him teasing Drusilla like that. ‘What is it, Verres?’

‘I was wondering,’ said the cook, ‘which wines you’d like serving with dinner.’

‘Try giving them saucers of milk.’ Claudia turned to Leonides, warming his backside by the bread oven. A row of pastry piglets cooled on the rack, and a batch of olive dough was proving in an earthenware bowl covered with linen. ‘You miserable traitor!’ She picked up a broad-bladed flesh knife and when she pressed it to the tip of the Macedonian’s nose, the squeak that came from his throat was not too dissimilar to the one which Herky gave when he bounced off the cellar step. ‘Right now I have but one household steward, but I am quite prepared to convert you into a dozen, thinner versions unless you answer truthfully. Did you or did you not show Marcus Cornelius Orbilio my crank mail?’

Someone must have put more charcoals in the bread oven, because sweat began pouring down his face. ‘Well…’

‘Well is not a condition you’ll be in for long. Answer me!’

‘It was for your own good, madam-’

For your own good. Can any words strike terror into a soul the way those four can? ‘I shall be the judge of what’s good for me, Leonides, and if I ever catch you with my welfare at heart again, I’ll turn you into a human torch and you can light my house for a week, understood?’

A toad-like croak escaped from his mouth and, satisfied this was as close as he was physically able to manage by way of a grovelling apology, Claudia impaled a couple of hot pastry piglets on her knife and flounced off into the atrium.

‘Jovi!’ Horror of horrors, he was buck-naked in the fountain playing with what had, until recently, been a very elegant potted fern. ‘Out,’ she hissed. ‘Right now!’

‘I’ve given old Passi the slip,’ he said, rubbing soil into his hair. ‘She thinks I’m in the bog with the guts-ache.’

‘And so you will be when I’m finished with you. Out of there, this instant!’

Would anyone notice the colour of the water if she scattered petals on the top? From the upper galleries floated down the sounds of womenfolk preparing for an evening, the scrape of clothes chests, barked instructions, the sickly mix of unguents, creams and perfumes. Sweet Juno, please let the old crabs be perfectionists. Please don’t let them come down yet. As Claudia lunged for the boy, he darted out of the way, crashing the flat of his hands on the water. To some extent she sympathized. Previously, when he’d encountered the stuff, it had always come in a pail. After five attempts, however, Claudia was ready to negotiate.

‘If you come out of the pool, I’ll let you play there all day tomorrow and we’ll even heat the water for you, how does that sound?’

‘Can I keep the plant?’

Call that a plant? ‘Yours for ever, Jovi. Only come here, please.’

‘Do I get a hug, too?’

Anything, anything, just name your price. I’ll give you the sun, the moon and the stars, only please, please climb out of the pool before those wretched aunts find ‘Larentia. Julia. How nice.’

Too late now for explanations, anything she said would seem like a cover-up. Imagine it from Larentia’s viewpoint. She walks in to be confronted by her son’s widow and a small boy in his birthday suit, cuddled up so tight they’re both dripping wet and covered with mud. Could one paint a cosier picture of domesticity? Jovi jumped down and began to prattle about everything and nothing to his new audience, and Claudia decided her only recourse was to silence. Even when Jovi told them proudly he had no idea who his father was and Larentia snapped ‘I’ll bet you don’t, boy’, Claudia merely clamped her teeth tighter together. When that dessicated old bag learned the truth, there would not be a plate large enough on which to serve her humble pie. In the meantime, it was reward enough watching her frosty-faced sister-in-law turn puce when Jovi, quite without guile, took it upon himself to show Julia his willie.

After a mortified Cypassis had rounded up the runaway, Larentia crossed one hand over the other on her stomach and turned to face her daughter-in-law. ‘I think,’ she said, spitting out one word at a time, ‘this might be as good a time as any to discuss finance, so let us begin with my granddaughter’s dowry.’

Well done, Larentia. Just when I thought we were only ever going to eat the bloody thing, you finally start talking turkey.

The dowry, of course, was a sensitive issue. Legally the girl was Claudia’s stepdaughter, but from birth, Gaius had foisted his unwanted daughter on to his frigid, childless sister, Julia. If for nothing else, Claudia had loved him for that, because in the five years that Claudia had known her, the girl had proved awkward and sulky and dull, traits which in children can be overlooked, forgiven even, but not when she was entering womanhood and a competitive marriage market. Even in an arranged marriage, a man needs to feel some attraction for his wife. Claudia’s stepdaughter had all the sex appeal of a plucked goose.

‘Or would you,’ snapped Larentia, ‘prefer we start with Julia’s endowment?’

Claudia carefully examined her nails. The lyre player she had hired for the evening began to warm up in the banqueting hall. ‘Since when, pray, did Julia have an endowment?’ she asked quietly. Gaius had left Claudia the lot.

The old woman’s eyes narrowed. Clearly she had been expecting blackmail to be an easier path. ‘Morally-’ she began.

‘Morally?’ Claudia evicted soil from under her thumbnail. ‘A strange word to use, when you and I both know, Larentia, any money I bestow on Julia would be swallowed up by her wastrel of a husband-’

‘What?’ squawked Julia. ‘How dare you call my-’

‘-who has already “borrowed” his foster child’s generous annuity.’

As Julia fought to grasp the issues, it occurred to her that both women were talking as though she wasn’t here. She’d expected that gold-digging whore to cold-shoulder her, but Mother?

‘It’s quite beyond belief,’ continued Claudia, raising her voice to override Julia’s shrill protests, ‘how an architect can run short of money when the Emperor is undertaking the restoration of over eighty public buildings and temples, not to mention flood defences, bridges, aqueducts and parks.’

Larentia waved that aside. ‘Everyone knows my son-in-law’s a prat-’ She broke off and turned to Julia. ‘For gods’ sakes, woman, if you have nothing sensible to say, go away. Go on. Shoo.’

For several seconds, Julia’s mouth opened and closed like a river pike before she finally withdrew, eyes brimming. But beneath the tears, Claudia observed something the old woman had not-Julia’s burning hatred for Larentia. Julia was thirty-five. It was not an age to suffer humiliation lightly, especially in the face of the enemy.

Larentia waited until her daughter left the hall. ‘My point, you money-grubbing bitch, is that whatever my son-in-law’s faults, it’s not fair Julia should suffer.’

‘So invite her to live with you in Etruria. I’ll increase your allowance to cover the pair of you.’

‘I’m not sharing a roof with that self-righteous cow and you know it. I have a good life up at the villa, I’ve got friends-’

‘Do you all fly out of the same cave at nightfall?’

A bony claw jabbed into Claudia’s breastbone. ‘Think twice about mocking me, you degenerate hussy. You can’t parade your bastard brat under my nose and get away with it.’

Bored with her cuticles, Claudia settled herself on the edge of the pool and threw one long leg over the other. ‘Maybe I’ll get married again,’ she said lightly.

The changes which skipped over Larentia’s face were pure entertainment. Surprise. Disbelief. Amusement. Puzzlement. Fear.

Claudia trailed one of the severed fern fronds in the water and didn’t wait for Larentia to stop spluttering. ‘As a widow, I’m a free agent.’ She flashed the old witch a keen glance. ‘And if the man I choose happens to be a butcher’s boy, then a butcher’s boy I shall marry.’

‘You’ll do no such thing! Ours is not a family of alley cats. Respectable families don’t crossbreed and you’ll do well to bear that in mind!’

Her husband had been a humble road builder. It had been Gaius, her son, who had slogged night and day to build up a business and establish a reputation for his fine wines. Gaius who had raised the family from freeborn to high-ranking equestrian status. Gaius who had married his silly sister to an up-and-coming architect. Gaius who died and left all his money to some high-handed bitch instead of his own blood relatives.

Larentia looked as though a rotting rodent had been wedged up her nostril. ‘Tch! We’re getting nowhere,’ she snapped. ‘But just you remember, you can’t wriggle out of your obligations, my girl.’

‘Why, Larentia.’ Claudia’s eyelashes fluttered like butterflies round a hyssop bush. ‘Let me show you the accounts some time, dear.’ Another delectable flash of suspicion crossed the old woman’s face. ‘The business is booming, I have extended wine sales right across the country and am hoping to expand into Gaul in the summer. If I chose, the dowry could be double what Gaius had promised.’

Greed lit the old cat’s rheumy eyes like candles at Saturnalia, but she still had the last word.

‘Frankly, daughter-in-law, your business acumen surprises me, but make no mistake. When I find the father of that brat and prove you cheated on my son, I’ll have you disinherited as an adulteress and thrown on the street with barely a rag to your name.’

She stormed off to her room, leaving Claudia fanning the warmth which had rushed to her cheeks. On the whole, though, Claudia felt she had argued her case rather well, considering the business was foundering and she was deeply in debt. And, whilst Jovi might not be her child, if Larentia actually dug deep enough, she’d have cause to throw Claudia Seferius out on the street at least two dozen times.

*

In a house of a very different shape, in a room of very different furnishings, a weapon lay swaddled in cotton. The cotton was maroon, to match the cornelians in the knife’s handle, for this was no common kitchen knife, no carpenter’s companion, no genteel dining implement. Once it had been an illustrious heirloom, handed down from father to son upon each boy’s coming of age, but that had been during the time of the Republic. Since then, civil wars had ravaged three generations, taking its toll just as heavily on the nobility as on the plebeians and the knife had suffered a similarly chequered career.

Stolen by a trusted secretary upon the death of its owner and sold for a mere fraction of its value, it first passed to a legate, who bequeathed it to his grandson, who in turn was captured by buccaneers off Gaul and held for ransom. For a while the knife did sterling service, changing hands in a series of fierce piratical raids until it was requisitioned in the name of the Empire by the captain of a warship who bequeathed it to his only child, a daughter. She, having no use for such an artefact, bejewelled or otherwise, sold it for enough to buy a small house in Frascati to keep her handsome Cretan lover safe from the prying eyes of her fat and ageing husband. Then again, it could have been because she had learned that, way back in its bloody history, the weapon had been given a name.

Nemesis.

But whatever her reasons for selling, the knife was back where it belonged. With a fond and loving owner, one who would cherish its sinister beauty and keep the blade sharper than any barber’s razor.

Had the weapon ears, it would have heard, as the Day of Luna faded, the flurry of activity which accompanies any household as it settles for the night. The splash of washbasins being emptied with iron ladles. The clatter of shutters opening and closing, as hopeful eyes once more wondered if the weather wasn’t changing for the better. Instead, the sumptuous weapon was left to reminisce, inside its wine-dark cotton shroud, on its fortunes and adventures. How its worth had varied from owner to owner, and how its owners, too, had varied-male to female, noble to criminal, light of touch to downright light-fingered. And yet, with the exception of the naval captain’s daughter, every owner from the date of its first and splendid forging had used the weapon to kill and to maim. Sometimes in anger, maybe in defence, all too often in war, that same thin blade had slipped between ribs or sliced through a windpipe, leaving scars and widows in its wake.

The household slid into a silence broken only by the occasional coo of a pigeon in the roofspace or the creak of a mattress as its occupant turned. When the air began to chill, the knife was removed from its hiding place and laid upon a bed, the cotton drawn back, fold by tender fold, until the cornelians glinted in the single flickering flame of a candle and the blade shone blue in the shadows.

‘Tomorrow the sun moves into Aries,’ a voice whispered as a finger traced the line of the blade. ‘Tomorrow, the temple of the goddess they call Fortune will be purified, and you know who worships Fortune, don’t you? Women.’

A cloth began to buff the blood-red gems.

‘Not rich bitches-that lot pray to Venus. We’re talking slaves and whores, Nemesis, which means…’

Warm breath misted the steel, prior to the blade being burnished.

‘We don’t have to wait until market day for our special girlies to be out.’