I, Claudia (4 page)

But why, why, why rip out their eyes?

One thing was certain, the murders were becoming increasingly frequent. Tigellinus was killed two days before the Ides of January, leaving the authorities to follow up what appeared to be a purely domestic affair: Except Orbilio could find no motive. The prefect was a popular man, loved by family and friends alike. Twelve weeks passed before the next victim and what should have been the start of a week of celebrations, of theatrical performances, processions, banquets and races, had culminated in another brutal murder. Orbilio’s mind raced on. Suppose Horatius was the intended victim, with Tigellinus killed as a decoy? He didn’t think so. April was a time of beginnings. Flowers open, so do the seas. Land travel becomes once again possible, campaigns begin in earnest and he was sure this would turn out to be a campaign of wits. He was right. Seven weeks passed, then Fabianus was killed, six weeks later Crassus…who was the most bizarre yet. What in Tartarus was he doing in a backstreet slum, tied up like a pudding?

Orbilio had just one tangible piece of evidence: that snippet of green cotton. He folded his hands behind his head. She was there. Without doubt, she was there! She was lying through her lovely teeth—and so, dammit, was the slave girl. He just couldn’t prove it. Not yet, anyway. He grimaced at the memory of that evil monster of hers. That bloody cat was enough to frighten the dead away. They were well matched, those two, scowling and spitting and attacking head on if they thought they were being threatened!

The furrows in his brow relaxed as he thought about Claudia Seferius. Venus, she was lovely! Orbilio was no ladies’ man, but he could tell that no matter how many pins she stuck into her hair nothing was going to restrain those luxuriant dark tresses for long. There were terracotta tints in there, and old gold and bronze and amber. He’d seen them when the sunlight caught it. Seferius was a lucky sod—assuming he ever got past that damned cat of hers. Oh yes, Gaius got his money’s worth with that one, and he’d like to bet she wasn’t such an abrasive bitch in bed. He pitied her though, having to satisfy a fat old slob like Gaius, when half the young men in Rome would give their right arm to have her. But of course, half the young men in Rome put together didn’t have one quarter of Gaius’s fortune…

He hadn’t missed the way that strong-backed slave Junius had looked at her either. She was certainly a woman to love, was Claudia Seferius, rather than a woman to merely make love to. She’d make a man possessive and if she was in Marcus Orbilio’s bed he wouldn’t want her underneath him. Oh no! He’d want her on top, straddling him, so he could see every luscious curve of her body. It would be daylight, too. He’d watch her arch her back and thrust out her breasts. She’d throw back her head and… Realizing the prospect was arousing him, he turned on to his side and cupped his hand over Vera’s breast. Claudia’s breasts were fuller and rounder.

‘Marcus, I’m trying to sleep.’

His hands began to explore.

‘Leave off.’

Vera shrugged her shoulder but he pulled her roughly on to her back. Yes, much fuller and rounder. His mouth closed over her nipple. Underneath that brittle veneer he was sure he could sense a pulsating passion in Claudia Seferius.

‘Marcus, stop it!’

‘Claudia!’

‘Who?’ Vera tried to roll over on to her side, but he pinned her down. Claudia had long legs, they would be slender like her arms and neck. She would call out his name.

‘Claudia!’

He climbed on top of Vera, who was frantically pushing at his shoulders. ‘Get off me, you self-centred, two-timing, double-crossing lizard.’

If he closed his eyes, he could pretend it was Claudia wriggling underneath him in the throes of passion, not Vera fighting him off. Except with Claudia it would be long and slow, not a few quick thrusts like this. It would take from midnight until daybreak just kissing and arousing her, then when dawn finally broke, when sunlight flooded the room, the rhythm would begin. The age-old rhythm that would have them sweating and groaning and panting and screaming…

‘Oh, Claudia, Claudia!’

The last words Orbilio heard before he climaxed was a woman’s voice snapping, ‘I’m Petronella, you stinking, slimy bastard.’

V

Sliding into her seat, Claudia felt the same old sensations take over. The racing pulse, the trembling hands, the brightness in her eyes. A ripple of pleasure shuddered her body as she surrendered to the excitement ahead. Good old Apollo. Eight delicious days in his honour. The last games, the Fishermen’s Games, were a month back and a decidedly inferior affair too, lasting one mingy day. High spots of colour rose in her cheeks as the babble around her increased. The raucous chuckles of the men, the high-pitched giggles of the women, the delighted squeals of the children. Well, if any one of them extracted a mere fraction of the pleasure Claudia would get, they could count themselves jolly lucky. She smiled to herself. That Gaius was beside her, unaware of her cravings, added a certain piquancy, to the occasion.

‘Seferius!’

One of his business associates clapped him on the back.

‘Seeing as how you’re here early, I don’t suppose you could spare me ten minutes?’

Gaius and his colleague settled into an animated discussion about wine—quantities versus price—while Claudia absorbed the atmosphere of the amphitheatre. It was filling up now. Amazing how so many working people still managed to squeeze in the time to attend these lavish spectacles and she wondered whether that ferreting investigator Orbilio had found time to indulge himself today. Probably not, he’d be too busy grubbing around in filthy tenement slums to relax with simple pleasures. She wished him joy.

While musicians sought to make themselves heard above the din of the crowd, Claudia adjusted her cushions and drummed her fingers, impatient for the entertainment to begin. Gaius had secured seats near the front, reflecting his privileged status, but not for Claudia the savage thrill of the bloodlust. She began tapping her foot and glanced round for the seventeenth time to catch the eye of her slave, Junius. As usual, the muscular Gaul was watching attentively and signalled acknowledgement with a slight incline of the head. He was a good boy, was Junius. Knew precisely what to do.

The parade began as the lump of lard that was her husband resumed his seat, chortling because he’d talked his colleague into taking another two hundred amphorae without so much as dropping his price by one copper quadran. In a flurry of gold and purple cloaks, the gladiators strutted round the arena, followed by slaves holding aloft their plumed helmets and weaponry. That was typical of Gaius, she thought. So damned shrewd. Through sheer hard work and enterprise he’d amassed a veritable fortune—yet he saw nothing contradictory in spending the same amount of money on a small consignment of Black Sea caviar for his banquets as he did a yoke of oxen for his farm. Both were justifiable expenses in his eyes, and he’d flay her alive if he learned she was squandering his money on fripperies.

Except that her gambling was no idle pastime. It had become an addiction, a monster of Olympian proportions, forever ravenous and totally out of control, and not for nothing did Claudia Seferius spend more time on her knees propitiating Fortune than any other deity.

The gladiators marched out, the musicians upped their tempo and, to a crash of cymbals, an elephant lumbered into the arena to be matched against a bear. Claudia felt her whole body tense. Already her mouth was dry, her heart pounding. Using a secret signal, she indicated to Junius, ‘Bet on the elephant’, and wiggled five fingers, intimating the bear would be dogfood within the space of five minutes. The way she tilted her head told him to bet two quadrans. She always started low, it was part of the game. Small bets gradually became large bets which in turn became almost impossible bets and, dear Diana, she couldn’t help herself, the daring was all part of the exquisite torture. The same way your heart freezes as you wait for the dice to land, or when your charioteer tries a tight manoeuvre at the end of a circuit and you just don’t know whether he’ll make it.

Unfortunately Fortune seemed deaf to her prayers, or perhaps Minerva had thrown in her might with the moneylenders. Either way, Claudia’s debts had spiralled. She’d tried to stop herself, but be it a simple game of knucklebones or a full-scale race at the circus, she was there and it wasn’t unheard of for Claudia Seferius to be hanging around the training schools, betting on the practice fights. What, initially, was a straightforward case of syphoning off the household expenditure fell at the first hurdle when Gaius had begun to comment, and thus she set out to find another well to dip into. The answer when it came, was amazingly simple.

To pay for her own vice, others could pay for theirs.

Not that hers was a service she bandied about. On the contrary, these clients had been carefully cultivated for their unusual proclivities and little could she have envisaged the scale on which it would take off. Magistrates, merchants, high-ranking civil servants were suddenly queuing up to be spanked or whipped, tortured or humiliated, and whilst they didn’t deserve to die for their perversions, Claudia had scant sympathy for them. Except maybe Quintus, for no one deserved the indignity of being found in that frightful flyblown room.

She signalled to Junius. Two quadrans on the panther tearing the lion’s throat out within four no—three minutes. It would be a lie, of course, to say Orbilio’s visit on Tuesday afternoon hadn’t shaken her. Probably the best thing was to go back to that dreadful dive, in full view of everybody, and confound the boots off possible witnesses. And she’d have to do it pretty smartly, she supposed. Memories, in slums like that, would be relative to their lifespans. Meaning short in the extreme. Tomorrow morning? Why not? Let me see, that would make it the, ah yes, the Nones of the month, she could excuse herself, if necessary, by pleading attendance at one of the ceremonies. Splendid.

Come the interval she was five asses and a quadran ahead and should have been feeling pleased at the strict limits she’d imposed on herself. Instead it rankled that she still was no closer to finding the murderer than before. Gaius, bless him, shuffled off to talk to one of the praetors and his wife, but Claudia remained seated. Who could possibly have discovered what she was up to? She had a nasty suspicion it was one of her clients, but who? In each case, discretion was everything. Only old Quintus approached her direct, and because his request to meet in the tenement was unusual, even by her standards, and she’d exacted such an exorbitant fee she hadn’t bothered to enquire further. Until he’d been murdered.

She stood up and stretched. Junius was nowhere to be seen, so she set off in search of refreshment. Rumours were spreading fast of a maniac abroad, gouging out the eyes of the nobility to keep as grisly souvenirs, and locksmiths could charge double (and often were) for the protection the governing classes were seeking with such desperation. Callisunus had scores of men working day and night to catch the demented lunatic, but Claudia’s intuition told her that Orbilio was working silently and secretively to find a link.

‘There you are, my sweet.’ Gaius handed her a quince decorated with thorns to resemble a sea urchin. ‘A dainty treat, what?’

Claudia wrinkled her nose and swapped it for a pomegranate. Speed was certainly crucial here, because should Gaius catch wind of her activities, he’d throw her into the street without so much as a backward glance. Hadn’t he insisted on both prudence and fidelity as part of the marriage contract? Under no circumstances would this man allow himself to be made a fool of. Oh yes, she’d really have to move fast.

‘Gaius, old man! You’re looking well!’

‘Ventidius Balbus! Well, I never. Claudia, you remember Ventidius?’

Remember him? How could she forget him? The mention of his name had sent shivers down her spine when Orbilio had thrown it into the conversation—but for reasons he could never have imagined. The very last thing she wanted was to see the fellow today.

‘Of course. How are you, Ventidius?’ Dying of leprosy, I hope.

Six, seven years ago in Genoa, when he was an ambitious young magistrate, Ventidius Balbus would hire nubile dance troupes to entertain at his banquets and she honestly couldn’t remember whether she’d slept with him or not. Good tippers she’d recall, but otherwise a punter was a punter, you never looked at his face. Especially one as bland as that pasted on Ventidius Balbus. She studied him now. Puny as ever, eyes like boiled gooseberries. When she’d taken on the persona of the other Claudia, the one whose family had been wiped out in the plague, there were precious few people in Rome who might recognize her but Balbus had been one. Luckily for her she’d been installed as Gaius’s wife for nearly a year before their paths crossed, and when they did meet at some function or other it was patently obvious he hadn’t made the connection. Nevertheless, prudence was one of Claudia’s saving graces and it didn’t hurt to avoid him wherever, and whenever, possible.

‘Can’t complain. But you, my dear you look more ravishing as time passes.’

Claudia bared her teeth in the semblance of a smile and was about to turn away when she remembered
why
Orbilio had mentioned him. She heard Gaius saying: ‘You’ve been buying property in the south, I hear?’

‘Vultumum, do you know it? Dull town, despite its—’

Claudia wasn’t interested in dreary chitchat. ‘You’re landlord of the apartment block where they found Crassus, aren’t you?’

Both men looked startled. ‘Why, yes—’