‘i have not abandoned you.’
Write that down as well. Cobs of sweat broke out on Magic’s forehead. Somewhere, hundreds of letters, written in her own sweet hand, lay mouldering in a box.
‘i will find them,’
oh, yes he would, and then he could take down all those poor, unhappy copies from his wall and nail up the genuine love-filled articles. All of them.
Well, now he knew his letters were being read by Other People, they ought to know who they were dealing with. Yessir, they ought.
‘when you my darling love slave press your rosy nipples to my lips and plead with me to whip and beat you
—’
He felt a jolting in his loins, and the nib flew across the page as he envisaged all that he would do. He described the taste of blood, the pain, the pure, exquisite torture… He had nearly filled the page before he remembered his mission.
‘and when we fly to heaven sated and complete then other people will not need to die.’
Would they understand, he wondered? Yes, of course they would. They were clever people, these stealers of letters. Almost as clever as Magic was himself.
X
The door at which Claudia rapped was about as impersonal as a door can be. Hinges iron, studs without rust, timber durable, common, and because holm-oak rots down slowly, there were no clues as to the age of the door—a criterion which applied equally to the servant who opened it. Stolid and dough-faced with a nose like an anchor stone, the woman could have been any age from fifty-five to seventy. Her hands, puffed and red from scrubbing, offered no hint, her hair was dyed black and she wore a yellow scarf which concealed the lines around her neck. Claudia felt herself on shifting sands. Doorkeepers,
without exception,
were male.
‘I’m here to see Kaeso,’ she said breezily. ‘Is he in?’
‘Nnnn.’
Claudia thought irreverently of Cypassis telling Jovi about poor little Echo, spurned by Narcissus and reduced to repeating other people’s endings. However, this was no cave and this, certainly, was no nymph. Not now. Not ever. Doughface was examining the visitor like a fisherman inspects a mackerel and Claudia felt her blood start to bubble.
‘If it’s too difficult, I’ll rephrase the question.
Is he in
?’
‘Nnnn.’
Just as Claudia was about to yank on the scarf round
this awful creature’s neck, Echo stepped aside and wagged one swollen finger to indicate that the visitor should remain in the atrium. Had she been a dog, Claudia suspected she would have been expected to sit.
The hall, like the entrance, was miserably neutral. A bleak geometric mosaic, black, white and brown, hardly a challenge for the designer, and the walls had been painted yellow and green, the colours of spring, but the lack of ornamentation and the dogged repetition of colour blocks denied more imaginative connotations. There was, of course, the obligatory pool in the centre but again, this was a passive rectangle of water, not a sparkling, chattering fountain.
She could leave, of course. Walk out now. Hire another tracker, heaven knows there were plenty to choose from—men who traced runaway slaves, errant wives, missing children. But Kaeso had a reputation which went way beyond mere pursuit…
Time passed. Claudia’s ears strained for sounds, and picked up none, and that was the worrying part. The street itself sat tucked away on the flat of the Quirinal, comprising mostly of tenements for the moderately well-off artisans, craftsmen, self-sufficient freedmen. A quiet, respectable suburb, where no dogs barked, no hawkers touted, no children kicked inflated pigs’ bladders through your windows every half hour. But indoors? In a house this size, you’d expect to hear servants scurrying about, floors being swept, pans clattering in the kitchens. Here there was only silence. And where were the smells that make a home? The camphor scent of rinsed linen? Or yellow cones of juniper burning day and night to keep the snakes at bay?
Invisible eyes seemed to follow her every movement and gooseflesh crept up her arms. This was turning into an Assyrian horror story, one of those gruesome tales the desert nomads seemed so fond of as they sat around their camp fires, while jackals howled in the hills.
Let me tell the true tale of the House of Silence, where the door was held fast by invisible demons, imprisoning for eternity all who passed through its portals…
Never had Claudia found stumping steps more reassuring, and she had to physically refrain from grabbing those red, chapped hands and showering them with kisses. This time, Echo eschewed vocal communication in favour of a jerk of the head and set a cracking pace up the atrium. The peristyle at the end offered shelter from the drizzle, although precious little comfort in the summer. No busts, no statues, no fountains, no shrines, just the one marble seat covered with birdlime. Even the garden was depressing, devoid of any plant that could not be classified as functional. At the far end of the peristyle, the doorkeeper stopped short, flung wide a cypress door and all but pushed Claudia inside.
From the cold detachment of its spartan surroundings, the contrast here was dramatic. A log fire crackled majestically, filling the room with a haze of applewood smoke, and had the bear still been inside its skin on the hearth, no doubt this was the place it would have chosen to lie. The walls were painted a rich dark red, like old mellow wine, embellished with gold and with green, and from a lampstand dangled four bronze lights illuminating a vast assemblage of busts and curios. So busy was Claudia, digesting this warm, inviting treasure trove, that she failed to realize she had company.
‘I trust my collection amuses you.’
She spun round. He was standing in the corner, in the shadow, perched against a chest. She would not show what he’d intended her to. ‘Are you Kaeso, or simply another lackey?’
It was hard to tell, him being shaded, but she thought she caught a change of expression, which might have been amusement. Or then again, might not.
‘I’m whoever you want me to be.’ Was that a yes or a no?
‘Then you’re not the man I’m after,’ she said. ‘The man I seek is quick and decisive, and I’ve been waiting half an hour—’
‘I am Kaeso.’ He shifted his weight, that was all. ‘And I very much regret the delay. You see, this is just a room I rent, Tucca had to fetch me.’
Tucca, not Echo. And this was not Narcissus, fallen in love with himself, there was not a mirror in the room. The voice remained in shadows.
‘She might have explained.’ Let him make small talk. Sooner or later he’d have to come out.
A flash of teeth showed in the corner. ‘There is a slight problem with that,’ replied Kaeso. ‘Someone cut out her tongue. She’s a mute.’
Claudia wanted to whistle, to say, ‘No shit,’ but held back.
‘She lives here alone,’ he was saying. ‘Tends the whole house herself, apart from the groceries, and her daughter does that.’
‘I’m surprised any man bedded her once, never mind enough times to give her a child.’
Claudia hadn’t realized she’d spoken aloud until she heard Kaeso chuckle. ‘Oh, Tucca was married. In fact it was her husband who cut out her tongue.’
Bastard. ‘Where is he now?’ Despite herself, she was curious.
‘Officially? Lost in a shipwreck. In practice? Planted in the lawn, between the bay tree and the yew. You passed him.’
Claudia tipped her head on one side. ‘Are you a keen fan of Assyrian horror stories, by any chance?’ she asked.
‘No. Is it relevant?’
‘How about Tucca?’ she persisted. ‘I suppose it’s too much to hope she comes from a long line of desert nomads?’
This time his laughter was rich and unrestrained. ‘You don’t run with the pack, do you?’
Prising himself off his perch, Kaeso stepped forward and Claudia was glad she had steeled her senses earlier. Imagining some terrible deformity which had made him wary, she was unprepared for raw perfection.
‘No, sir, I do not.’
Claudia watched him cross the room to stoke the fire. As to his age, she put him at thirty, but admitted she might be out five years either way. Not exceptionally tall, he was strong, she could see rounded biceps strain the sleeves of his tunic, saw powerful calves below the muscular knees of the athlete. On a man who trains hard in the gymnasium, it was unusual to see collar-length hair. In the darkened recess, it looked dark and yet now, under the light, it seemed almost fair. Tawny.
‘Please. Take a seat.’ He poured white wine into pale-green slender glasses, but instead of taking the second chair, sat on the bearskin rug at Claudia’s feet, staring into the crackling flames. His profile was pointed, rugged even, with a jaw that was sharp rather than square. His musky scent mingled with the applewood burning in the hearth, and now his hair seemed golden. Sleek.
Oh, yes. The war machine was sleek.
As the logs glowed red, Claudia waited.
‘Claudia Seferius,’ he said lazily, his grey eyes watching soot motes dance up the chimney.
She felt a jolt down the length of her spine. She had not given Tucca her name.
Kaeso rose to his feet and began to pace the room. ‘Let me think. Your husband died last September, no, I’m wrong…last August. He bequeathed the entire estate to his young widow and nothing whatsoever to his family.’ He turned his sharp, lean face towards her. ‘Contrary to expectations, though, the widow did not liquidate the assets, she tried to make a go of it.’
Claudia stared into her glass and hoped her cheeks were not as red as she feared. The reflection in the glass showed no break in the fluidity of his tread.
‘But there are problems for a woman going solo in commerce. The men, they are against her. They will not accept her in the Wine Merchants Guild, and thus they hope to ruin her.’
Now when Claudia’s face burned, it was from fury. Bastards! Once close friends of Gaius, the minute he died they were like vultures, circling his business and hoping to pick it clean without cost to either coin or conscience.
‘They won’t,’ was all she replied. She would beat these sons of bitches, so help her, yes she would. She would bring them crawling on their knees. ‘But that’s not why I’m here.’
The powerhouse faltered in his pacing. ‘Is it not?’ He padded back and coiled himself in the empty chair. ‘Then what does bring you to Kaeso?’
‘I heard you are very good at finding people.’
He bridged his fingers and considered her. ‘Not always do they wish to be found,’ he replied.
‘But you find them, nonetheless,’ she countered, and he smiled.
‘Are you hungry?’ he asked, drawing a tray of steaming chestnuts from the fire.
Watching as he squatted on the bearskin, one knee raised, prising open shells, Claudia saw now the reason for the apparent change in hair colour. It was not one shade, but a blend of several making up the whole. As one of the nuts proved stubborn, he dropped it, sucking at the finger it had scorched, and the long mane bounced. Yes, mane. In fact, now she came to think of it, there was much of the animal in Kaeso. The pointed features, the strong grey eyes, the trained physique, the lope. For a moment, she could not place the animal. Then suddenly it came. The wolf. The ultimate tracking beast.
When he’d finished digging out the chestnuts, he passed half across, dribbling them slowly into Claudia’s cupped palms. Between them, logs crackled and spat and glowed orange, and the apple-scented smoke spiralled upwards, blue and hazy. Finally, Kaeso sat back in his chair, put his feet on the table and said, ‘Who is it you want found and why?’
Claudia nibbled the succulent nuts. ‘Why is not your concern.’
‘I beg to differ. Have another glass of wine.’
She studied the collection of artworks. Busts, ivories, a faience vase showing leaping billygoats, a marble cat with jewelled eyes which must be at least five centuries old.
‘I want you to locate a man who calls himself Magic,’ she said. ‘He signs his letters with the seal of the cobra.’ Kaeso unfurled himself from the chair and threw a log on to a fire which did not need additional fuel. ‘Is that all you have to go on?’
He meant, is that all you intend to give me.
‘Those are the only tangible facts I have,’ she replied slowly. ‘But if, during the course of your enquiries, you come across a woman who has mislaid a small son answering to Jovi—’
‘And what,’ interrupted Kaeso, ‘shall I tell this Magic when I find him?’
‘Tell him?’ Claudia set down her glass and leaned forward. ‘My dear Kaeso, I think you are under something of a misapprehension. I don’t want you to
tell
this Magic anything.’ She shot him a dazzling smile. ‘I want you to kill him.’
XI
Marcus Cornelius Orbilio emerged from the tavern, gingerly rubbing his belly and deliberating which direction to take next. Should he turn right and head for the Field of Mars, because if there was loose talk to be overheard, it was there at the baths and along the porticoes, amongst the running, wrestling and fencing? Or ought he to cut up to the Palatine, give his report to his boss and catch an update on policy and matters of state? He sighed. It was all very well, wanting to clap the Market Day Murderer in irons, but when the security of the Empire was at stake, a man had to be clear about his priorities. Nevertheless, there was a Scythian tattooist on the Vicus Tuscus, was there not, who might shed light on blue dragons…
?
Having made his decision and with his thoughts firmly centred on a wild adventuress who made his heart turn somersaults, Orbilio went out of Silversmith’s Rise. Say what you like about the weather, it never affected life in the Forum. From the winter winds which blew straight off the marshes to sticky summers riddled with insects, the hucksters continued to go with the flow. On the wet, slippery steps of Concord’s temple, cloth merchants spread gaily coloured bales to tempt the ladies, while over by the basilica, fortune-tellers promised riches and happiness for the price of a meal, and four men carried a strong box to a depository.