Where the hell did he spring from? Her eyes had swept the rooms as she passed through, the garden— Suddenly she looked at him with different eyes. The shoulder-length hair mane. The grey eyes. The powerful build. She thought of the brindle dog. Oh, for gods’ sake. No one believes in Shape Shifters!
She tossed back her head. ‘Have you made your decision?’
Kaeso clicked the door behind him and his musky scent engulfed the applewood. Swirling his cloak from his shoulders, he leaned his forearms on the back of a chair and bridged his fingers. ‘You’ll have to tell me why,’ he said, staring at the pictures in the flames.
Claudia studied the chiselled profile. Kaeso wouldn’t keep two women dangling. Kaeso wouldn’t ally himself to a woman whose blood was the same hue and still flirt with a rich merchant’s widow.
‘You don’t give up, do you?’
‘Never.’ He turned his craggy smile on her. ‘It’s a fault.’
It was too warm in here for a fire, she thought. ‘Then read these.’ Opening a secret pouch in her cloak, she drew out a sample of Magic’s ramblings.
Kaeso read them through several times. ‘These,’ he said at length, ‘are deeply unpleasant.’
There was an even longer wait as his fingers evaluated the parchment and its blob of golden wax. ‘He won’t be an easy man to track down.’ He squinted hard at the seal. ‘Third grade pith, the most common, and cobra rings are enormously popular.’
‘But you can find him?’
‘I can find him.’
‘And you’ll kill him?’
‘He won’t trouble you again.’
‘That’s not what I asked.’
Kaeso’s head turned sharply. ‘I’ll get rid of him. For a price.’
Naturally. Claudia’s finger trailed over the faience vases, the ivory cats, the marble stags, the figurines. These were no cheap market knick-knacks. Quality on this scale had to be paid for. ‘How much?’
‘Nothing you cannot afford.’ He was leaning against the wall, with his arms across his chest, staring at his feet.
‘Kaeso, you don’t strike me as a man of imprecision. Can you be a little more specific?’
She waited for him to answer, struck by the spooky silence of the house around her. All you could hear was the spitting of the logs. Orange flashes leaped out of the flames to land as dead, black ash. Blue smoke spiralled up the chimney. The scents of musk and applewood swamped the tiny room.
‘I am aware of your financial position,’ he said at length, fixing his gaze on an ivory kingfisher. ‘I was hoping to negotiate a fee of a rather different kind.’
Claudia’s eyebrow lifted. Oh, were you.
‘Not,’ Kaeso held up his hand, ‘what you’re thinking. A favour in return, shall we say? When the time is right?’
She lifted the vase of leaping billygoats and held it to the light. Faience. Exquisite. Golds and reds and greens with a silvery sheen to the glaze. ‘That smacks of blackmail,’ she said, turning the vase in her hands. ‘Oops.’ It crashed to the floor, a thousand shimmering smithereens.
She heard his jaws snap. Or was that a crackle from the logs upon the fire?
‘Magic is not some husband I want to get rid of, or a lover who’s proving tiresome.’ Her eyes flashed every bit as brightly as the flames. ‘This man poses a very real threat, with his pornographic fantasies and—’
‘I understand what he is, Claudia.’ Kaeso ran his tongue round his lips and then pursed them. ‘And there was never any question of blackmail.’ Sad eyes surveyed the broken billygoats. ‘So which is it to be? Silver, or payment in kind?’
‘I’ve always said, one good turn deserves another.’
‘Then that’s settled,’ he said. ‘You go home.’ He tossed a glistening object through the air. ‘And leave the Magic to me!’
With a swirl of his cloak, he was gone. Claudia examined the gold and emerald bracelet in her hands. He must have relieved her of it when she handed him the letters, but all the same…
Outside, the mute’s garden was deserted. Apart from a brindle dog, snoozing beneath the yew.
*
Arbil groaned. It was happening again. His vision was fuzzy. He felt sick. When he went to wipe his face, his hands were shaking, and moreover his fingertips were wrinkled, like prunes. The image of Enki, the water god, rose up before him then vanished into the mist of his vision.
‘What…?’ His tongue was too heavy to string words together and he thought the frogs round his fishpond croaked better.
Enki solidified, and Arbil realized he was sitting in his bathtub. The water felt tepid. No wonder he was shivery! He hauled himself out and blotted his face with a towel. ‘Shit.’
Thick streaks of black dye stained the linen, and pulling on his beard he could see immersion had straightened the crimping. He swore and kicked at the bathtub till water sloshed over the sides. How did he get here? How long had he blanked out this time?
Think, Arbil, think. Be logical about this. What’s the last thing you remember?
I remember lunch.
And?
It was with Dino and Sargon, and Dino was pouring out the ale and teasing me, asking when I planned to abandon the Babylonian practice of eating upright in favour of reclining on couches and I pretended to cuff him round the ear. I remember that quite clearly. We ate stuffed turbot and sucking pig, and Sargon was slipping titbits to Silverstreak under the table, and don’t think your father hasn’t noticed, I joked.
Then what?
Then—Arbil scratched his head. Yes, then I took a pee.
After that?
I went into the office, like I always do. Poured myself a date liqueur, picked up the ledgers and sent for Tryphon, now what was it I had to speak to him about? No, no, no. I’ve got it the wrong way round. Tryphon came to see me. That’s right, there was an outbreak of fever in the seventh block, the Captain said, nothing to worry about, though.
Can you remember your reply?
Absolutely. Keep them quarantined for a week, I told him, we don’t want any more going down—or you either, come to that. Tryphon’s been looking decidedly peaky of late, so I said, take the rest of the day off, man. Go to Rome. Have some fun.
Did he?
Have fun? Tryphon? No idea. But he thanked me and said in that case, he’d tag along with Dino and Sargon.
Then what? What did you do after the Captain left you?
Nausea swamped Arbil again. He didn’t know. That was the problem. He didn’t fucking know.
Naked, Arbil waddled into his bedroom, where Marduk’s golden image with its bejewelled crown and feathers gave his servant strength. He could feel it seep through his skin and into his muscles until it reached his very bone marrow. His reflection stared back from a sheet of polished copper on the wall. Plump, he decided. Not fat. Definitely not fat. And still able to go like a stallion. Arbil pumped up his biceps. Perhaps the problem was not him, but Angel. Maybe she was boring him? He rummaged around in his chest and brought out a batch of drawings sent from a man in North Africa who specialized in the refinements of love-making. Yes, yes. He looked at the drawings, one after the other, but his loins didn’t stir. He closed his eyes and imagined Angel doing that to him. And still his lingham didn’t move.
‘Angel,’ he bawled. ‘Angel, come here!’
Briefly he wondered whether he ought to make her coax it into life, but his vision was still funny round the edges and his head was swimming, and let’s face it, even stallions have their off days. He glanced at the eight-point star across his bedhead. Ishtar wouldn’t let him down. She’d see him right. But soon, he prayed. Please, Ishtar. Make it soon, eh?
The fabulous creature with the blue-black hair and doe-like eyes called Angel came running. ‘What is it, Arbil? What’s the matter?’
His answer died in his throat. She was dressed as he insisted a wife of his should dress for dinner. A tight gown of pure white linen to show off her perfect, nutbrown skin, with bangles round her wrists and round her ankles. Her small tight breasts thrust forward, and they were not false nipples that she wore. Her lips and cheeks were carmined. Kohl smudges lined her eyes. He had forgotten quite how beautiful she was.
‘What the hell are you all tarted up for?’ he snapped.
‘Dinner’s almost ready.’
Arbil felt himself reel. ‘Dinner?’ It can’t be. It bloody can’t be. Not already. He stumbled to the window and pulled open the shutter. It was dark. Panic rose in his throat. Not an hour this time. Not even two. He’d lost a whole fucking afternoon…
‘W-where’s my orange robe?’ he asked. It was his favourite, and he couldn’t find it anywhere.
‘I don’t know. Where did you put it?’
Arbil slapped her with the back of his hand. ‘If I knew that, you stupid cow, I wouldn’t have to ask.’
Angel rubbed her throbbing cheek. ‘Maybe you left it in Rome this afternoon.’
‘Rome!’ His sarcasm cut through the air.
‘Well, you went there, didn’t you?’
This time it was the flat of his hand which connected with her face, sending Angel reeling to the floor. ‘Don’t get fresh with me, you uppity bitch. You know damn well, I never go to Rome. Now find that robe, you lazy slag.’
Angel staggered to her feet. ‘You did too go—’ She never finished her statement of defiance. Arbil’s fist saw to that.
Tears welled up in her eyes. ‘If you don’t believe me,’ she blubbered through the blood, ‘ask Lugal. He drives you every week!’
‘Liar,’ he said, although there was less conviction in his voice than he’d intended. ‘Dirty, lying bitch.’ A strand of hair had blown across her face and was sticking to the blood. ‘Clean yourself up, you’re a mess.’ Her blood was on his knuckles, too. ‘Go on. Get out of my sight.’
For several minutes Arbil stood staring at the blue dragons which writhed over his walls. Marduk gave him strength, but it was to Shamash, the sun god that he should turn now. Shamash, seeker of truth. Shamash, dispenser of justice. Because if that long-legged bitch was winding him up, he’d give her a scar to match Tryphon’s. She could whine and wail and plead all she liked, by the time he’d finished with her, no man would want her. As Sargon had said only recently, you don’t mess with us Babylonians.
Arbil dressed with care, although his hands were shaking badly as he rubbed the cedarwood oil into his hair and beard to make them shine. She was making it up. Of course she was making it up. He hated the city, and the pigs who lived in it. Why would he go there? What did she mean, every week? The bitch was winding him up, that was all.
‘Lugal.’
‘Sir?’ A young groom looked up from where he was straddled across an ass’s hind leg, gouging a stone from its hoof. The stables smelled of acid manure and damp mule hair, of clover feed and polished leather.
‘Come here, boy.’
What did Arbil know of Lugal? Not much, except that like Dino and the Captain and a score of others he could name, the boy had shown promise in his field. Which meant Lugal was trustworthy.
‘Is something wrong, sir?’ He patted the donkey’s flank and walked to where Arbil was standing.
‘No. No, of course not.’ The slave master studied the boy’s face carefully. ‘I was looking for an old orange robe of mine. Have you seen it?’
Lugal shrugged. ‘No, sir. Do you want me to check the gig?’
In what he hoped would be interpreted as a casual gesture, Arbil leaned against the stable door as the strength drained from his knees. ‘Gig?’
‘I’ve not had time to clean up, yet. Nubu there,’ he indicated the donkey he’d been attending, ‘he’s been limping, so I thought I’d see to him first.’
He disappeared round the stable door, and after a count of ten, Arbil followed him. There was mud caked on the spokes, and splatters all over the buckboard.
‘Is this what you’re after, sir?’ Lugal was pulling his favourite orange robe from under the passenger seat.
Arbil cleared his throat. ‘Yes. You can…you can keep it, if you like, Lugal. It’s just an old thing.’ He’d never wear it again, that was sure. ‘Tell me, when we went into Rome this afternoon…’ He waited to be contradicted.
‘Yes?’
Shit. ‘When we went to Rome, what did I do there?’ Lugal shrugged and look blank. ‘I don’t rightly know, sir. I dropped you off at the usual place—’
‘The what?’
‘The Collina Gate, sir. Where I always drop you before I call you a litter and return to the post house to wait. Have…have I done something wrong?’
Arbil took a deep, deep breath. ‘No. No, Lugal, you’ve done nothing wrong. I’m…I’m just checking you get all your facts straight, lad. You need that, if you’re to stay long-term with me.’ There was another awkward silence, then he said. ‘How often do I go into Rome?’
No need to question Lugal further to see he had his facts at his fingertips. ‘Always on a market day,’ he said proudly, ‘and lately sometimes in between. Can I go now, sir? Nabu’s in a bit of pain.’
XVII
What a sight to behold in Claudia’s banqueting hall! The pickle merchant’s gold plate shining for all it was worth (and it was worth plenty). The ex-consul’s ivories. The senator’s bronze Venus. Tomorrow they’d have to go back, of course, but for tonight the room looked magnificent. A private flower meadow carpeted the floor, lush garlands hung on the walls and the porphry merchant’s lampstands lit the place like midsummer sunshine. But it was the sight of three hefty trunks sitting in the vestibule which made Claudia practically cartwheel into the room.