‘Imminent demise my foot.’ He laughed. ‘Young lady, you positively thrive on danger—hang on! What did you say?’ He slammed one fist into the palm of his other hand. ‘Of course!’ In three quick strides he was across the debris, hooking one leg over the windowsill. ‘Claudia, you’re a genius.’
‘I know,’ she yelled. ‘But what about the mess in my office. Didn’t your mother teach you to tidy your toys?’
‘Later,’ he promised, racing down a path strewn with leaves and blossoms, and vaulting over the statuary toppled by Drusilla and the monkey. Cause of death. Pay more attention to the cause of my death, she’d said. ‘I need to see Zygia’s body before they cremate it.’ At the gate, he paused. ‘Do give me the name of your gardener.’
He grinned, and deftly ducked the inkwell which came whizzing past his ear.
*
Claudia surveyed the war zone that had once been an office, then aimed a kick at the trunk which she’d used to hide Supersnoop. Cedarwood, and therefore expensive, it normally took pride of place in the dining room, but something had to make way for that lifesize bronze Venus and where better than here to house the stack of silver plate she’d hired from the banker? Unfortunately the wretched banker turned up at the front door, not the back, where there was no Cypassis to mention the dreaded typhus. As a result, the chest now lay empty. Claudia slammed the lid open against the wall. Painfully empty, in fact, and the big question was: how to stop Larentia finding out? Once the old cat got wind of one borrowed hoard, she’d be off on the scent like a truffle hound. Claudia was still slumped over the trunk when Leonides hobbled in, his left foot resembling a swaddled infant, and said, ‘There’s a young lady in the atrium, asking for he coughed gently ‘—Marcus.’
‘What?’ Claudia jerked up so hard, she bumped her head on the lid of the chest. ‘I don’t suppose she happens to be rather well turned out?’
Leonides’ stick tapped a tattoo as he advanced across the ink-stained peacocks. ‘Indeed she is, madam, and jolly attractive with it, if I might say so.’
‘You might not.’ Claudia rubbed at the lump which was forming. ‘Just show Miss Fancypants Camilla off the premises—better still, I’ll do it myself.’ And should I leave a footprint on her pretty little bustle, so much the better. She swept past the debris, then paused. ‘What’s the matter with you?’
‘Eh? Oh, nothing, madam. Nothing at all.’
Claudia peered up at her lanky steward. ‘You have two choices, Leonides. Either I take this paper knife and cut off your earlobe, or you come clean.’
He smiled thinly. ‘My ankle’s troubling me, that’s all.’ Claudia picked up the knife. ‘Another earlobe for my collection, then.’
He gulped, but persisted with the ankle story. Perhaps it’s personal, she thought. None of her business. Then she saw the parchment protruding from a fold in his tunic.
‘Madam, no—’
‘Too late.’
The scroll was wrapped round a ball of stranded wool. Strange. Why should this make him…? Not a ball. It had shape. A head, and arms and legs. Claudia felt her skin crimple. Once upon a time, this had been a little girl’s dolly, knitted perhaps by her mother, with eyes and nose and a mouth sewn on. It would have had a tunic and some ribbons in its dark woollen hair. She would have taken it to bed with her, kissed it goodnight, it would have been the first thing the child saw in the morning. She would have talked to the dolly, whispered her secrets, fed it from toy cups and plates. Then someone had taken the dolly. Hacked at it with a knife, shredding the body and stabbing the face until only a vague shape remained.
The parchment crackled between Claudia’s trembling fingers. ‘
your mine understand you are mine
’. She looked into Leonides’ tortured eyes,
‘the next time we meet it shall be for eternity’.
As though both were contaminated, she dropped the doll and letter. ‘Can you, um—’ She waved an unsteady hand around the room. ‘Can you see to the mess, Leonides? I—I’ll sort our visitor out.’
‘Madam, I’m so sorry! You weren’t supposed to—’
Claudia forced her mouth to turn up at the corners. ‘Don’t be silly, they’re merely the ramblings of a madman. We shouldn’t take him seriously. Just…’ Her voice lost its power. ‘Just see to this. Please?’
How she wasn’t sick, she’d never know. But it took several minutes before the nausea passed, and by the time her fear had translated into anger, she was in just the mood for sorting out Miss Sweet Syrian Linens. In the hall, however, Claudia stopped short. Straight-backed as the visitor stood, this wasn’t Camilla. Not unless she’d shrunk overnight, dyed her hair blonde and tied it back with a neat cerise ribbon. More significantly, where Camilla wore jewellery, this girl wore none. Indeed, the pleats of her snow-white robe had no embellishment other than a girdle of the same hue as her hairband.
Perhaps catching a reflection, the girl spun round. She had a bright, shiny face and wide eyes. They were blue. Brilliant blue. And the hair was the colour of wheat in the sunshine, her waist slender, her smile all-encompassing. Claudia’s dislike intensified by the second.
‘Oh,’ the girl piped. ‘I thought you were Marcus.’
‘He tends to be taller and shaves rather more often. What do you want?’
The blonde creature patted one of the columns supporting the upper storey. ‘These are good marbles,’ she remarked. ‘Very good. But personally I feel he should replace them with Parian. It’s the finest marble money can buy, and he ought to have the best, don’t you think? I’m Annia, by the way, and I’ll be moving in.’ She glanced from one gallery to the other. ‘I wonder which of those is my room?’
Claudia thought of the parade which would be underway in the Circus Maximus, of the rope dancers and jousters and bears. ‘None of them,’ she smiled, throwing her wrap round her shoulders. ‘You see, this is my house and I say who moves in and who doesn’t. You doesn’t.’
‘But Marcus? I followed him here.’
Claudia made the most of the ensuing silence by adding to it, using the time to evaluate the girl. Neat nails. Clean, shining hair. Not a snag or a smirch on her tunic. On balance, Claudia thought she preferred his dallying with Camilla, and idly wondered how many women he kept in his harem.
‘Perhaps I should explain,’ Annia said, hopping after Claudia as she set off down the hill.
‘No need, I’ll give you his address, you can catch up with him there.’
‘Marcus doesn’t live there? But he let himself in with a key…?’
Outside the potter’s, Claudia spun round and Annia almost cannoned into her. Behind them hummed the rhythmic spin of the wheel, and the acid-sweet smell of the clay filled their nostrils. Three men in short workmen’s tunics decorated the bowls with paints of orange, blue and green and an apprentice loaded the kiln. Claudia felt its heat on her back.
‘For your information, Marcus Cornelius Orbilio is using my address for his undercover work—’
‘Then you must let me stay with you.’
‘Must?’ This little madam was getting on her nerves.
‘Please, Claudia.’ The scrubbed face crumpled. ‘Please don’t let the Market Day Murderer get me. I’m so scared, really I am.’
Claudia set a brisk pace down the Caelian. Cheap little con-artist! ‘Whatever your hard luck story, Annia, the answer is no.’
At the foot of the hill, she turned sharp left towards the Circus Maximus. Damn. The sun’s come out again, I knew I should have left my wrap at home. She swerved round a donkey which had a black and white goat riding in its pannier.
‘Marcus will protect me,’ Annia said with no small degree of petulance. ‘Even if you won’t. And it won’t matter whose roof he’s under, he’ll take care of me, because we’re cousins.’
‘Are you really.’ Claudia resisted the impulse to push her into the fountain they were passing.
‘His great-aunt Daphne is my grandmother, that’s Daphne Lovernius, you know, she’s very well connected. Of course, all we Orbilios are superbly connected, we have a history going back to—oops! Nearly lost you.’
Claudia heard teeth gnashing together. Clearly that loop round the block didn’t work, because Annia was still wittering.
‘…
Marcus was following a lead about the girl they found up there.’ She pointed up the escarpment of the Palatine whose contours they were following. ‘Her name was Zygia, you know. She was killed on her way to warn me, and that’s how Marcus found me after all these years, and it gets even more exciting, because he thinks I might hold a clue to the killer’s identity, so we’re going to work together and—’
‘Forgive my interrupting, Annia.’ Claudia stared up at the statue of the Divine Julius standing atop the tower by the Circus he’d re-built and wondered what he’d make of his city thirty years on. ‘But you see, I possess an entrance ticket and you, I regret, do not. Cheerio, it’s been so nice knowing you.’
Amazement washed over Annia’s features. ‘You don’t believe me.’
‘Not a word,’ Claudia admitted, picking up a honeyed pastry from a street vendor. Cinnamon, almonds and warm, plump raisins danced upon her taste buds when she bit into it. The rumour was true, then? There were elephants in the parade, she could hear them trumpeting.
‘I’m next on the hit list, you know.’
Oh lord. In her fantasy world, not only has this creature convinced herself Orbilio’s her cousin and she can play a key role in solving the murders, she believes she’s the murderer’s next victim. How sad. Not unlike Magic in a way. Except at least Annia’s delusions hadn’t made her a sick and dangerous lunatic…
Claudia wiped her sticky hands and fished out two copper quadrans for the snake dancer who was entertaining a crowd with two fat reptiles draped around her shoulders. An old man played the pan pipes as serpents and dancer writhed in sensuous unity, the snakes’ red tongues flicking in and out to smell the crowd. When Claudia turned round, she expected Annia to be gone. Instead, what she saw, she couldn’t quite believe.
Another writhing creature. Another tongue flicking in and out. Only this one was blue, and the colour matched Annia’s eyes to a tee. But this was no snake. This was a mythical dragon staring back.
‘Now do you believe me,’ Annia was saying, rolling down her immaculate white sleeve. ‘Now can you see I’m telling the truth?’
Claudia shivered and wondered why, when there was so much sunshine about, she should be cold. It was only a tattoo, for gods’ sake.
Only a miserable tattoo.
XXII
On the question of necklaces, Claudia much preferred pearl ropes to millstones, and since Annia very definitely fell into the latter category, Claudia saw no reason why said stone should not hang round the neck where it belonged. The girl was a slave, let her master protect her.
‘Mistress, actually,’ she’d trilled. ‘For the past two years I’ve been dressing the hair of the temple warden’s wife, she pays very good bonuses, you know. That’s the Temple of Apollo. Magnificent building, have you been inside? Probably not, they don’t allow commoners past the portico, but it’s solid Numidian marble, and you’ll have seen, the yellow marble colonnades and all those wonderful sculptures on the outside. Greek, mostly, and though they haven’t finished painting all the friezes, they are
so
atmospheric.’
And so it went on. Prattle, prattle, prattle. But beneath it all, Annia was resolute. Wild horses would not drag her back. Point out that fifty, sixty people are employed in the temple, she’d be far safer there, but would she listen? Would she hell.
‘The Temple of Apollo is right next door to the Wolf Cave, Claudia, I don’t want anything to do with it. I’m sticking to Marcus, he’s my cousin and he has an obligation.’ Without drawing breath, she’d moved on. ‘It’s a downright disgrace what they did to me, handing me over to be raised as a slave, my life could have been so different, it could have changed everything. Everything. But I’m only eighteen, too late to start over. Once I receive my Cap of Freedom, I shall take my true place in society and wear diadems and fine slippers and ride in a litter, but of course that’s not until October, so in the meantime, I shall move in with Marcus.’
‘But—’
‘I shall be no inconvenience, you won’t know I’m around. But really, Claudia, you ought to let me do something with your hair, you need more than just a few pins and combs to keep it in place. What I suggest…’
Belatedly Claudia realized she’d capitulated, simply because Annia ground her down. That the story was true, she had little doubt. Had Orbilio not confessed his desperation to save ‘ann-other’ slave girl? To save Annia? But the girl’s sickly wholesomeness, her innate snobbery and her morbid curiosity about the Market Day Murderer wore Claudia’s nerves threadbare. You drop something, guess who pounces to pick it up? You sneeze, guess who’s there with a hanky? No, no, you should never match silver with gold, it looks crass, tell me again how those poor creatures died, oh, this plate’s worth a fortune, just look at the moulding! In truth, Claudia suspected the temple warden’s wife wouldn’t have Annia back for all the gold in Dacia.
Meanwhile, the Megalesian Games were ticking by, a festival of gladiators, theatre and athletic events, alongside feasts, conjurors and puppet shows and she was buggered if she’d give that a miss. Stuffing her cushion into the small of her back, Claudia noticed that the Circus Maximus was filling up rapidly. The place hadn’t seen a chariot raced round its circuit since Agrippa succumbed, so the excitement and tension was growing minute by minute. She was glad, now, she’d dumped the aunts down the easternmost end and left Annia in Junius’ care.
Down at track level, a flurry of activity broke out in the royal box. Five out of six Vestal Virgins surrounded Augustus and his only daughter, heavy with Agrippa’s unborn child, but the buzz centred on the arrival of two sombre, white-robed priests. A collective groan rippled round the Circus. The augurs had studied the cloud patterns and declared the omens for the first race unfavourable.