Now she could see why the door was kept locked. And bolted again from the outside…
‘I’m painting,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I always paint, I find it relaxing. Tell me, do you approve of my landscapes?’
Landscapes
? Stuck for words, Claudia suddenly realized it was his right arm which was inviting admiration
of his work. His right arm. His sword arm. His painting arm, in fact—had it not ended in a stump. A chill wind blew round the horrid yellow room, which had nothing to do with the weather. Because it was only when looking at one law tablet that she’d noticed another next to it.
SHOULD A SON STRIKE HIS FATHER,
LET THE OFFENDING HAND BE CHOPPED OFF.
So this was Arbil’s secret. No wonder Sargon was concerned about her entering.
‘Who are you?’ he asked, merrily splodging his brush in the paint. Shadows from the iron bars at the window striped the yellow floor.
‘Me? I’m a friend of um, Angel’s.’ Claudia backed slowly towards the door.
‘Liar.’ Shannu sprang across the room, and she felt splatters of paint on her face. ‘Angel’s dead,’ he spat. ‘Arbil killed her.’
Oh-my-god! ‘Yes. Yes, I know that. I…wanted to see where she lived, that was all.’
‘You knew Angel?’ The intensity that burned in his eyes froze her bones. ‘Angel was beautiful, wasn’t she?’ he said dreamily, taking Claudia’s arm with his remaining hand and leading her into the room. ‘Long, black hair, as lovely as Ishtar herself.’ The tone changed abruptly. ‘But my father debauched her and she died.’
‘How—’ Claudia cleared her throat and tried again. ‘How, exactly, did Arbil kill her?’
‘Don’t you know?’ Shannu snarled. ‘He took her maidenhead, and whoosh! Out went her soul.’
Sweet Juno, get me out of here. Claudia heard voices outside the window, but nothing would squeeze past her larynx.
‘I tried to avenge Angel,’ Shannu said. ‘I tried ramming a glass in my father’s face, but that fool Tryphon stepped in front. I told him. I said, “Arbil, one day I will kill you.” And one day, you know, I will.’
Claudia believed him. Insane he might be, but the boy was bloody determined with it. She wanted to get out, run up the corridor, but her legs would never make it. Oh, Sargon. Why weren’t you here to stop me this morning?
‘He said, strike me again and I’ll cut your bloody hand off.’ Shannu started drawing circles with his paintbrush on the wall. ‘Every time I tried to kill him, that’s what he would say.’
Janus. Claudia hated herself for asking, but— ‘How many times did you try to kill Arbil, Shannu?’
‘Seven or eight,’ he said casually. ‘But my brother was always there, or Dino. And then finally—’ he held up his stump ‘—the bastard did what he threatened. Tell me, do you really like my landscapes? Or—be perfectly honest—do you prefer the seascapes over there? I think I’ve got that storm just right, the waves and that zig-zag flash of lightning. What—?’
The second he turned his back, Claudia slammed the door shut and rammed the bolt home just as hard as she could. The broken end of her hairpin tinkled as it fell on to the floor, but she was well out of earshot. In fact, Claudia didn’t stop running until she met up with Junius, and then it was only to gee up the horses.
XXVIII
From the moment he received the news of his Regent’s death, the Emperor Augustus had remained virtually closeted inside his basilica on the Palatine, digesting reports, wading through correspondence, thrashing out the endless possibilities and despairing at the crackpot theories which surfaced with greater frequency and more frantic desperation as time wore on. Sedition, my lord? Round up the troublemakers, that’s what I’d do, make examples of the bastards. No heir? No problem. Let the herald proclaim your wife pregnant, declare public holiday, throw Games in her honour. All feasible. All dismissed. Certainly it was not beyond the realms of possibility that, even after fourteen barren years, her imperial majesty might fall pregnant—but how long before the populace saw that they’d been conned? Quick-fix solutions were no use, Augustus needed to gather the facts, sift them carefully, then see what nuggets were left.
In the end, perhaps, the difference between Marcus Cornelius Orbilio and the Emperor was not so great after all.
Market day had come and gone, scaffolding had been dismantled, monies banked, barges moored up for the night and as the city braced itself for yet another round of whoring and deliveries, roistering and burglary, weary street sweepers pushed spinach stalks and eggshells, donkey dung and pot shards in an ever swelling tidal wave of debris. Orbilio watched it all from the steep escarpment on the Palatine and remained unsure how, now the rioters had settled down and tempers had cooled, a security policeman kicking his heels outside the basilica helped any.
‘Why?’ he asked his boss, and the answer was revealing.
‘It’s not enough we do the work,’ his boss had replied. ‘Above all, we must be
seen
to be active.’
Active? Watching laurels being clipped in the Palatine Gardens when he could be moving quietly amongst his network of informants, mixing with the merchants, separating loyalists from traitors? What his boss hoped, of course, was that by sucking up to Augustus during the crisis, he’d land the post of Toady Supreme and as Orbilio stamped his feet in an effort to resuscitate his circulation, he could think of no better candidate. Across the way, priests illuminated Luna’s shrine as they did every night, and from the Temple of Apollo, Orbilio caught the last whiff of incense before the censers were locked away for the night. Incredible that, for two whole years, Penelope’s child had been a cog in the temple’s machinery, while he’d never even suspected her existence. At least this year, he thought, when I drop poppies in the Tiber, I can tell Penelope that she can walk the Elysian Fields in peace.
Initially he’d been hard put to see anything deeper than a physical resemblance between Annia and her mother, until he realized that neither woman felt bound by labels. Penelope behaved like no ordinary aristocrat,
Annia like no orthodox slave. Marcus shook his head.
How many times during his innumerable trips to the palace had he passed the time of day with the young temple warden? Sent a present, too, when the young man married, last July wasn’t it? A silver salver with a dome-shaped lid, if Marcus remembered correctly. And how often had he nodded in acquaintance to his new wife, without noticing Annia at her side? Strange, the quirks of life.
Yet wasn’t it the quirks he thrived on? Unpredictability is the drug of youth, they say, and if that was so, Orbilio was hooked. His drug wore strong Judaean perfume and had a smelting pot of metals in its hair. It possessed a deep and throaty laugh, a dancing step, and kept a man awake throughout the night with an aching in his loins and in his heart.
But the drug did not come home last night…
Bugger this, he thought, bounding down the Palatine ramp. This isn’t serving my country!
At the bottom, a crowd had gathered in the aid of an elderly statesman whose horse had thrown him awkwardly, Jews congregated on the Aurelian steps as they had for centuries and a male prostitute posed against a seated bronze hero and pouted.
Why
hadn’t Claudia come home last night? Where had she been? And with whom?
Marcus quickly discounted any possibility of danger—that Gaulish bodyguard would protect her with his life. Unfortunately, though, he could not discard the young Gaul. What was the relationship between them? Junius’ eyes followed her every waking movement, and his step faltered as his mind pictured them, entwined. Or was it Porsenna she found so attractive? Him with his blond hair and vacuous charm—and pots of money stashed away? Orbilio swallowed. Mother of Tarquin, this is madness. The same thing happens every bloody time. The closer I get to Claudia Seferius, the more jealous I become and why? Because with each fraction I move closer, the more frightened I become that I might lose her. And thereby lies the sting.
She isn’t mine to lose.
Claudia belongs to no man, never will, and that’s what’s so damned alluring. Not that she’s stunningly beautiful, with curls I want to bury my head in and a freckle on her collarbone I want to investigate closer. Not because she’s Miss Firecracker one minute, Ice Maiden the next. It’s her spirit that sets her apart—and any man who tries to tame that spirit might as well try tethering lightning.
Although any man who wants to is a fool.
The house on the Caelian was quiet, as he knew it would be, because the price she demanded for checking out Arbil had been for Orbilio to get rid of the aunts. Which he had, goddammit. Which he had.
The shutters were drawn. Was she in? Janus, Croesus, who was she with? Porsenna? The Gaul? Whose bed would she sleep in tonight?
‘Oi!’
Startled, Orbilio spun round and found himself staring into the doleful eyes of an ass.
‘Shove over, mate,’ its driver yelled amiably. ‘You’re holding up the traffic.’
Marcus spread apologetic hands and stepped aside. The spell was broken. He’d been a fool. A damned possessive fool at that, and he was deeply ashamed of himself.
Nevertheless, he remained beneath her balcony as cart
after cart jolted past, their reins rattling, their rawhide whips cracking like logs on the fire as the drivers whooped and hollered. An invisible procession followed with them. The scent of straw which protected the fragile terracotta pots. Soft tangy leather. Acid charcoal. Fruity wines. Threaded through with the smell of sulphur from the torches and the sullen snorts of mules. At one point he thought he heard a whistle, whit-whit-whit, and despised himself still further. And because nothing could be achieved by standing here, Orbilio took off to get pissed.
It was well into the early hours when he sauntered back along the Caelian. There were no longer wagons fetching in comestibles, no whistles now to mock his investigative prowess. Only a hardboiled ginger tomcat, paws tucked in, whose amber eyes followed with the unblinking secrets of a century. A dog barked from the depths of a building as he worked his way round to the slaves’ entrance and unlocked the door. Just a peep into Claudia’s bedroom. That was all.
In the atrium, a faint light flickered. He could hear the trickle of a fountain near the entrance, heard snoring from the slaves’ wing. Silently he worked his way past the marble busts and columns to the stairs which led to Claudia’s bedroom, then stopped. It must be the effects of the sun, he thought, beating on his head all day long. Followed by too much wine, much too quick.
Because sitting on the floor beside the fountain, cross-legged and with her long hair loose, the woman he had come to check on leaned towards a small boy kneeling in his nightshift. They appeared to be competing for a local gurning championship, and it took every ounce of Orbilio’s willpower not to rush over and scoop them both up in his arms.
*
‘Goody, it’s the man in the frock.’ Jovi scrabbled to his feet and dragged Orbilio across to the window, where he twizzled his neck and flattened his cheek against the thick glass. ‘Look! There’s the Divine Julius, that star up there, can you see it?’ His stubby finger pointed directly at the Pole Star.
‘The Divine Julius?’ Orbilio asked mildly.
‘He was turned into that star after he was murdered, Claudie says so.’
Claudie, he noticed, was adjusting her gown with great meticulousness. ‘Then it must be true.’ Marcus nodded solemnly. ‘Now then, young man, why aren’t you tucked up?’
‘I couldn’t sleep, so me and Claudie played a game, you can join in, if you like,’ Jovi said eagerly. ‘All you have to do,’ his little face puckered, ‘is lick the tip of you nose,’ pucker, pucker, ‘with the tip of your tongue.’
‘Who won? You?’
‘Claudie.’ Jovi sighed philosophically. ‘Every time.’
‘Ah, well, she has a natural advantage. You see, she sharpens her tongue on a cuttlefish every morning.’ Taking care to avoid the venomous glare which burned into his back, Orbilio picked the lad up, wheeled him round in the air then patted his bottom. ‘Come on, you. Back to bed.’
‘What, already?’ But Jovi had already discovered that the force of grown-ups was too strong to tackle head-on and off he stumped, singing rude words to a popular
marching song.
‘I won’t ask where he learned that,’ Orbilio laughed. ‘But oughtn’t he be learning money matters, or something?’
‘Orbilio, he knows that money matters. We all do.’
‘I meant arith—forget it.’ His mood sobered. ‘The mother’s not come forward, then?’
Claudia’s face twisted as she turned away. ‘Nor likely to,’ she muttered.
Yesterday, Leonides managed to pinpoint the whorehouse where she worked. Mean little dive, he said. Stank of stale wine and cabbage water, with stand-up cubbyholes for sex and fishheads in the doorway. So keen was Jovi’s mother to break the sordid cycle, she upped sticks with the first man to ask her—but not before turning her son loose on the streets. Until Leonides arrived, the other whores had naturally assumed she’d taken the child with her.
‘What have you told Jovi?’
Claudia threw up her hands. ‘What am I supposed to tell him?’
‘The truth?’ he suggested quietly.
‘For gods’ sake,’ she cried. ‘The boy’s still a baby! Do you expect me to sit him on my knee and say, “by the way, your mum’s abandoned you, she had a better offer”?’ From the corner of her eye, she caught a movement. Fleeting, but it was there, nonetheless. The unfolding of two tiny hands from where they’d been gripping the stair rail…
Shit!
Her eyes began to sting and the atrium blurred. A week ago he’d been wandering the Argiletum, lost and lonely, and she’d promised him upon her honour she would take him home next day. If only she’d persevered that same night! She might have caught his mother before she flitted off, changed her mind and persuaded the bitch to take the lad with her. At the very worst, Claudia could have prepared Jovi from the start, instead of raising his hopes day by day…