Virgin Territory (11 page)

With a toss of her head, she flounced out of the room in the direction of the garden, wondering why it felt uncomfortable, Diomedes seeing her in such close proximity to this oily patrician weasel.

For obvious reasons, the annual toast for health could hardly take place in the atrium. Not in the presence of Sabina’s stiff and mutilated body. Now in Rome they made a real event of this, with the priest of Mars heading a flamboyant and boisterous occasion. In the Collatinus household it had every appearance of turning into something solemn and dreary—even allowing for the recent death.

Which, apart from the inconvenience of cluttering up the atrium, seemed to affect no one in the slightest.

And again Claudia wondered where Sabina could have been these past thirty years. Thirty years! It was hell of a long time. Was there somebody (a man?) pining for her, as yet unaware what the Fates had in store…
?

The family was beginning to gather in earnest now, their black mourning clothes and gaunt faces making them look more like vultures than human beings. Two strong slaves arrived, carrying Eugenius towards his special Head of Household chair, beautifully carved and inlaid with ivory, and shaded by a bay tree. The accident, a riding accident by all accounts when he fell off his horse and broke his back, had left him paralysed from the waist down, but he’d at least retained full mobility of his arms. The blatant stare he bestowed on Claudia’s breasts belied his seventy-seven years. As did the twinkle in his eye when it met hers.

Immediately he was settled, Acte moved into action, pulling a blanket over his knees and tucking it round, knotting a light woollen scarf round his neck and smoothing the wisps of hair on his head as an aged claw slid up her thigh. Claudia wondered what would happen to Acte, should anything happen to Eugenius. The family clearly resented the fact that the old man consulted with slaves on matters about which he didn’t even consult them, and twice now Claudia had seen Acte resisting Aulus’s advances. Really, she thought, the best Acte could hope for was that Eugenius lived for another twenty years.

Eugenius was patently enjoying the fuss being made of him. Aulus shot a look of blatant disgust down his long nose.

‘Get on with it, man!’ he ordered, but Diomedes, with barely a glance at Eugenius, reminded him politely they were still waiting for Master Fabius. Claudia wondered whether the old man had caught the drunken slur in his son’s voice.

As sandals were shuffled, sighs let loose and yawns stifled but with still no sign of Fabius, Claudia’s thoughts returned to Sabina. She was definitely not one of Vesta’s priestesses, yet she’d timed her return carefully, ensuring it coincided with the retirement of the real senior Vestal. Which meant—assuming she was a Collatinus—she had deliberately deceived her family, one and all, into believing she had been in service for those last thirty years. Why?

‘I’ll tell you this much, you’ll not catch me wearing one of those nancy-boy tunics.’ Fabius’s voice preceded him into the garden.

‘Isn’t it customary for patricians, the longer tunic?’ The second voice was light and high, which made it Marius, Linus’s younger son. Hero worship was written on his face. Linus’s other son, Paulus, was dragging his feet behind them.

‘Customary, my arse. Poofs, if you ask me, wearing skirts almost as long as a woman’s.’

Good old Fabius. Spent twenty years in the army where they wore their tunics high above the knee and obviously he still enjoyed the air whistling up his thighs, bless him. Claudia thought she ought to be able to draw a conclusion from that, but for the life of her she couldn’t think what it might be.

‘Bit late,’ he said by way of apology. ‘We’ve been practising our drilling, the boys and me. Got carried away by the time.’

Ungrateful lad, that Paulus. Didn’t look at all like one who’d been carried away by the time. More like one who’d been counting off the minutes…

The ceremony got under way with Diomedes filling glasses from the jug on the left and passing them round.

‘From the old wine we drink,’ he intoned solemnly in that thick, delicious accent, ‘and from the old illnesses may we be cured.’

If he noticed any irony in the fact that here was a qualified physician banishing disease by the simple action of drinking wine he didn’t let on, but calmly poured wine into clean glasses from the jug on the right.

‘From the new wine we drink,’ he said, ‘and from the new illnesses may we be protected.’

There followed sufficient hear-hear-ing and enough your-health-ing for Claudia to feel she could slip away quietly, but Eugenius beckoned her over.

‘I’m going to my room,’ he said. ‘I’d appreciate some intelligent company.’

What could you say to the man whose house guest you were?

‘I was hoping you’d invite me,’ she said silkily.

Sod it.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Fabius clap a hand on Paulus’s shoulder as the boy was set to make his escape, and heard his voice boom out.

‘Can’t stand sloppy drill. Sloppy drill meant a crack from my cane and the man on barley rations for a week.’

So he
was
a centurion, then. Strange! Wealthy equestrian ranks, like the Collatinus clan, usually put a son in the army as a junior tribune as a stepping stone to a decent career in administration. The treasury, civil engineering, the usual stuff. Why should Fabius sign on as a legionary, an out-and-out footslogger, serving six or seven years before he could even qualify for promotion? She wondered whether she’d ever understand this family. Or frankly whether she was interested enough to bother.

Back amongst his own possessions and his dirty pictures, Eugenius seemed less frail, more the tyrant she knew him to be. Acte went through her paces once again, tucking and folding, pouring and serving, silently but not subserviently attending his needs, which she did without having to be told.

‘Here’s your alum water.’ She placed a glass on the table beside his couch. ‘This time you drink it.’

She turned to Claudia. ‘Keep an eye on him, will you? I found out yesterday he’s been tipping it under the bed.’ The old man’s mouth turned down at the corners. ‘Horrible stuff. Why can’t I have wine?’

‘Diomedes says it’s good for the paralysis.’

‘I haven’t noticed any improvement.’

Acte shook her head. ‘I don’t hear you moaning about the massage he ordered, and that hasn’t made a scrap of difference either.’

Her eyes, when they met Claudia’s, said ‘Honestly!’ and Claudia smiled. She liked Acte. How old would she be? Twenty-eight? Thirty? There was a rumour circulating that she was still a virgin.

The room seemed a lot emptier without her.

Picking up the alum water, Eugenius began to sip. ‘I’ve been talking to that Orbilio fellow.’ He pulled a face and replaced the glass on the table. ‘Seems very young.’

‘I fear he’s seen the porticoes of the Senate House, Eugenius. He’s running a direct course.’

‘Good luck to him, then. Patrician stock, should do well.’

‘They usually do,’ she replied caustically.

Eugenius made a sucking sound with his teeth. ‘You’re telling me! Look at Agrippa! The Emperor gave him half the plains of Katane after the war, and you’ve never seen more fertile soil.’

Claudia knew he wasn’t referring to the terrible civil wars which had racked the Empire, he meant the war for independence when Sextus, youngest son of Pompey the Great and commander of Augustus’s naval forces, rebelled and took control of the island.

As with most wars, of course, no one came out a winner. Although Sextus occupied Sicily for nigh on eight years before Augustus managed to recapture it, the cost to both sides was immense. Sextus cut off grain supplies to Rome, creating a famine and almost (but only almost) bringing the city to its knees, but as a result the wheat farmers had nobuyers for their harvests and the island lost much of its prosperity. Augustus retook Sicily around the time Claudia was born, but the province had never recovered. Augustus showed his mettle by finding additional sources for grain (his people would never go hungry again!), and by granting vast tracts of prime Sicilian land to his army veterans, thus keeping it in the family, as it were. Agrippa, his friend and general, fared particularly well.

A thought occurred to her. ‘Sabina went to Rome around the time Sextus took Sicily, didn’t she?’

He seemed surprised by the question, rather than ruffled by it. ‘She did,’ he replied, ‘and I can remember it like last week. That was the year after the Divine Julius was murdered. I was forty-seven years old and a prosperous wheat farmer, when along comes some snotty-nosed upstart ordering me not to ship my own grain to the motherland.’

‘So you sent your granddaughter instead.’

A glint of cunning crept into his eyes. ‘Took some palm-greasing, I can tell you, since they have a preference for patricians, but yes, I sent Sabina. Sextus and his ragbag followers were after the whole Empire, see, not just Sicily, and even scum like that understood the value of the Vestal Virgins.’

Crafty old sod! Torn between two masters, and Eugenius Collatinus managed to keep sweet with both. One thing was clear, though. He saw no reason to doubt Sabina’s authenticity.

There was a long pause, and Claudia did not fool herself into thinking his mind was wandering. Finally he said, ‘Fabius has been something of a disappointment to me.’

‘Really?’ Only Fabius?

‘His father never showed an aptitude for business I rather hoped the son would do better. Since he was always playing soldiers as a boy, I suppose I thought if I let him join up, he’d quickly tire of it as a man.’

‘Instead he took to it like a duck to water?’

It went a long way towards explaining why Eugenius kept such a tight control on the reins, but it was interesting what he’d said about Old Conky. Claudia had got the impression (admittedly from Aulus) that Aulus was practically running the show.

‘Twenty years I’ve waited for that boy to come home.’ The old man shook his head. ‘Twenty years—and most of them in this bed.’

‘And he’s not showing any aptitude for sheep rearing now he’s home, is that what you’re telling me?’

Eugenius looked up sharply. ‘Not unless you call route marches an interest.’ He tugged at his lower lip. ‘On the other hand, now he’s back in the fold, ha-ha, I feel that if he had a suitable wife it might be different.’

A faint flame of intuition began to glow. ‘Strangely enough, Eugenius, I am tempted to agree with you.’

She picked up the glass of alum water and walked over to the wall.

‘Don’t drink that,’ he said, ‘it’s vile.’

Claudia shot him a glance which said she believed it as she poured it straight out of the open window. With any luck, Orbilio would be sitting underneath eavesdropping.

‘It’s coming up to noon,’ she said gently. The slaves would be back any moment to convey him to the litter which would accompany Sabina’s funeral procession.

‘It’s funny,’ he said absently. ‘Sometimes I think the years have dragged, being crippled and bedridden, then I think to myself, hold on. Last January you were bouncing your grandson on your knee and now here we are in October and he’s got four children of his own.’

Claudia smiled to herself. They were all the same underneath, weren’t they? Soft men inside rock hard shells.

Now, from her perch beside the old lighthouse, she noticed the last vestiges of daylight were almost extinct. High in the hills, lamps and lanterns shone from the houses in Sullium. Closer to hand, torches flickered at the Villa Collatinus and oblongs of yellow thrown from the windows gave a honey glow to the courtyard. But with dusk the chill had intensified and could no longer be ignored. Claudia threw her palla round her shoulders, but made no move to pick her way home.

Sabina’s funeral this afternoon had made for a good turnout. For a small town, the wailing women weren’t bad, although Claudia would have preferred to see a bit more ash plastered about. Also the undertaker leading the cortege tended to give the impression he was more important than the dear departed, but on the whole it went well, the men with black togas drawn over their heads, the women with their hair dishevelled. Indeed, a stranger might have been fooled into thinking they cared.

Fabius shone, quite literally, in his uniform so that whenever the sun caught it, anyone looking his way was positively blinded. Even Claudia had to admit he cut a dashing figure with his broad chest and gleaming bronze armour. The red crest on his helmet, running side to side to reflect his centurion status, ruffled in the breeze in the most stately and dignified fashion, drawing the attention of many a maiden along the route, yet even as she recalled the procession, she could think only of another man, a patrician, in the scarlet tunic and hammered breastplate of the tribune. Not that his would need to be beaten out to exaggerate the muscular development of the professional
athlete…

Dammit, that man gets on my whiskers!

Claudia pushed thoughts of Orbilio’s torso to a dim and distant recess of her mind and concentrated on the funeral cortege as it filed slowly through the streets. As they were entering the Forum, the wailing women almost drowning out the trumpeters, she spotted Utti in the crowd, his ugly mug practically obliterated by the bodies of two small children, one perched on each shoulder for a better view. Before Claudia had had a chance to identify Tanaquil, another familiar form had sidled up.

‘You’ll help me find her, won’t you?’ The rings under Hecamede’s eyes were darker, the hollows in her cheeks deeper. ‘Only you promised.’

‘I did no such thing.’ Praise be to Juno, both breasts were tucked up safely!

‘You did, you give me your word.’

Two of the Collatinus slaves pulled her roughly away and frogmarched the pitiful figure out of sight. Diomedes moved up beside Claudia.