He sighed. He was
this close
to changing the course of the Empire,
this close,
and when he got his papers back, then he’d see a difference in his health. A very rapid upturn.
‘You must drink, master,’ the dwarf cajoled, setting down another bucket. ‘Drink to keep your strength up.’
The nephew felt a glass of pressed bilberries against his lips and he tried to swallow, to wash away the sour taste of bile, but half the liquid dribbled down his chin. That’s all he was bringing up, of course. Bile. Black and stinking, it made his head pound like bloody thunder and he could barely stand of late, but that would pass. Like those ridiculous hallucinations his manservant assured him were simply the product of a stomach empty for too long. Hell, he was even getting used to seeing multi-coloured haloes round the lights and double, sometimes treble, vision when people moved about, like the dwarf just now, helping him out of his stained shirt, and sometimes it seemed normal, viewing things as though he was peering down a rabbit hole. But the dwarf was right. He really ought to start keeping something down, because a couple of times of late he’d been haunted by strange, disturbing visions. The faces of demons springing out of the walls, with teeth like a rabid jackal’s, snarling, foaming…
Delusions come with fever. Fever comes with vomiting. Vomiting comes from diarrhoea—a side effect of fruit juice which is the only thing I can take because of nerves.
Which will settle when I get that fucking paper back!
He slumped forward and closed his eyes, imagining how his fortunes would change. He had just nine more days before the Senate reopened after its unofficial recess, before Augustus made his pronouncement about the future of the Empire. Nine days.
‘Janus!’
Slavering wolves began rising out of the desk, snapping at him with their sharp incisors, baying for his blood.
‘Go away,’ he screeched. ‘Get away from me!’
Diving off his chair, he flung himself under the desk, coiling into a ball, his eyes screwed shut, and after a while, a very long while, the howling died off and the desk was a desk once again.
‘Master, what’s wrong?’
‘What?’ For an instant he feared the delusions were back, but no. It was the face of his servant, made uglier with the pucker of concern. ‘Oh.
I…
dropped my pen—’ Sweat poured down his face, soaking his tunic as the dwarf helped him back to his chair. Fucking hallucinations. The quicker he got this sorted out, the better.
Nine days, didn’t he say? Retching another stream of black bile into the bucket, he considered the timescale was ample, providing he recovered what that Seferius bitch had stolen.
‘No delivery from the fat man?’ he rasped.
‘N-no,’ the dwarf replied, and the nephew wondered, was that also a figment of his imagination, that hesitation? He thought he heard, a few moments ago, an interchange between his servant and the man who smelled of cardamom. And through the fuzzy lamplight, he also thought he saw a piece of parchment, lying on a silver plate on the table in the hall. His mistake, surely. The dwarf was a model of efficiency and no doubt the fat assassin was already back in Atlantis, taking care of unfinished business. It was more than either of their lives were worth, to double-cross him.
‘Master. Please. You must replenish lost fluids.’
‘I can’t,’ he gasped, ‘keep anything down.’
‘Try, master. This is good chicken broth.’
‘It tastes bitter.’
The dwarf tutted and pressed the bowl to his lips. ‘Your tastebuds are out of sorts, sir. Come now,’ there was a distinct edge to his voice, ‘drink up.’
Swallowing the filthy brew, the nephew wondered what drove a woman, teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, to steal his letter then just sit on it. What the hell game was this tart playing? Was she holding out for him to divorce his wife and marry her, to share in the power and the glory of the next phase of the Empire?
Think again, he told her a few minutes later as he spewed noisily into the leather bucket. If you could see me now, you’d see I’m wearing black, in mourning for my dearest Uncle Tullus. What path I take, after wreaking my cataclysmic change, is up to me, and so is who I walk with on that path, but one thing is quite certain.
There will be no witnesses left behind to testify to this fiasco. Ask Uncle Tullus, if you don’t believe me.
Behind him, the dwarf smiled.
XXIX
‘All rise for the Emperor!’
Claudia squinted open half an eye, grunted, then rolled over. The man was insane. It was still morning. Also…
‘What the hell are you doing in my bedroom?’
‘Opening the shutters.’ Orbilio seemed oblivious that the brightness might cause permanent damage to her retina. ‘It smells like a winery in here.’ She heard a brisk rubbing of hands… ‘Right, then. Five minutes, and I’ll meet you at the jetty.’
‘Bog off.’
…followed by an ominous chuckle. ‘How much did you knock back last night?’
Claudia burrowed deeper under the sheet. ‘One.’ Which happened to be followed by another after another after another…
‘So why am I counting two, correction three empty wine jugs?’
You’ve missed one, try under the bed. ‘I’m a vintner, remember? We take a sip of wine, swill it round our mouths, then,’ she pulled the pillow over her head, ‘we spit it out.’
‘And I’m Mars, god of war. Never mind, for a hangover on this scale, I’m prepared to extend the time limit to six minutes,’ he said. ‘The countdown starts now.’
‘You’re unnatural.’
‘You’re out of bed.’
And with that, Claudia found herself in an ignominious heap on the floor and by the time she’d disentangled herself from the sheet, it was against a closed door that the missing wine jug smashed into a hundred smithereens. Damn. Bleary eyes consulted the reflection in the mirror and instantly regretted it. Was that a dead vole protruding from her mouth? Or just her tongue?
‘I need to talk to someone,’ she yelled down to Orbilio, striding out along the path below her window.
‘Later,’ he called back, indicating the jetty. ‘This is urgent.’
What is? Claudia withdrew her head and stuck it in a washbasin full of cool, clear water, watching the bubbles bloop to the surface. What could be so important that Supersnoop had to prise her out of a perfectly good sleep…
holy shit!
Claudia surfaced and shook her head like a dog. Tarraco must have left the hare behind, its slashed underbelly pointing loud and clear that a key had been smuggled into
jail…
how else could he have escaped?
Cyrus would go absolutely rabid.
Like a cat with mustard on its tail, Claudia hauled on a fresh tunic and raced to the jetty. What was the penalty for jailbreak? She had a sneaking suspicion it made exile from robbing Sabbio Tullus’ strongroom look tame…
With her heart thumping like a kettledrum, Claudia shot a glance back down the path which ran around the promontory. No clunk of soldiers’ boots, no snickering horse bearing a tribune’s weight. Not yet. She practically jumped in the boat. Thank heavens for Marcus Cornelius, having a boat at the ready, how could she ever thank him for saving her bacon?
He had stripped off his tunic and began to take the boat across the lake, and it may only have taken half an hour, but for Claudia it seemed half a lifetime. Every slurp of the oars made her jump, every grunt of exertion from Marcus made her swivel over her shoulder to check Cyrus wasn’t rowing behind. Getting closer…
‘Do you have any paper on you?’
‘Oars are made of wood, as a rule,’ he said.
‘But I need to send a letter,’ she protested. To warn an old woman. Just in case.
‘You need to sober up.’ He grinned, and she didn’t see what was so funny. Croesus, what time was it she stumbled into bed? Dawn was breaking in the east, she remembered that, and the something hot and horrid which had twisted inside her as she recalled the fifty-foot colossus, Memnon, who sings to his mother, the dawn. For an instant, Claudia could almost hear the peacocks ‘rrrow, rrrow’, could almost smell his valerian and roses wafting on the sultry air. This morning Tarraco would not be around to hear Memnon sing. No longer could he spin his magic on a dead man’s island, or suck up to wealthy women in Atlantis…
Unexpectedly her vision blurred, and a lump formed in her throat. Dammit, she should be glad she’d never feel the charge which shot through her veins when his hands latched over her wrists or watch his long mane shining in the sunlight. The same damned mane he used like a tool, one moment to veil his expression, another to tie back with a long, scarlet fillet—
‘It must be one lulu of a hangover,’ Orbilio remarked cheerfully, hauling on the oars. ‘You look as though you’re chewing a wasps’ nest.’
‘Then bee quiet and let me get on with it.’
They rounded a sharp jutting point and suddenly green eyes loomed up, not black, bringing back memories of a cave, a tunnel, a hundred whispered secrets…
Hurry, Marcus, hurry. Get me away from this place. So jumbled were her thoughts, her fears, her vivid recollections that Claudia was taken aback when Orbilio pulled up at a small rocky beach beside a stream which danced down a gully to disgorge into the lake. She looked upwards, where the hill rose sharply, pines and birch and juniper and hawthorn, dense and seemingly impenetrable. Claudia frowned. ‘Where’s the horse?’
‘Try to exercise a modicum of restraint.’ Orbilio laughed. ‘Your humble servant has not yet secured the painter and you’re asking—’
She was immediately contrite. Heavens above, he’d risked his reputation to do this thing for her, the least she could do was let him get his breath back. Helping him heave the boat ashore, she watched him lug a heavy basket out from under the seat. Drusilla! Good grief, in her panic she’d forgotten all about her cat or the packing. Idly wondering what tactics this intrepid investigator had used to lure Drusilla into a strange basket, Claudia scrutinized the sky. Clouds hung low, like a grey canvas awning, trapping heat which grew stickier by the minute. There was a rumble, grumble growl in the distance. The Titan rattling his chains.
‘Great spot for a picnic,’ Marcus said, chasing the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.
‘Excuse me?’
‘It was you who said you could eat a horse, remember?’
‘What I said was…
’
Claudia’s voice trailed off.
That’s not Drusilla in the basket
? ‘W-what about the tribune?’ Marcus shot her an amused sideways glance. ‘You wanted him along as well?’
‘Not exactly.’ Claudia scratched her head. Well, this rather changes matters. Maybe she wasn’t wanted by the army, after all? At least, not yet. Of course, had it not been for this dire hangover, she’d have realized long ago that Tarraco would leave no trace of
anything
behind him. ‘Why the sudden urgency?’
‘This, of course.’ He tapped the wicker basket. ‘I’m starving, aren’t you?’
Actually, now you come to mention
it…
‘Besides,’ he said, spreading out a selection of cold cuts, wine cakes, cheeses, fruit and some fresh-baked steaming pies, ‘this is one place where we can talk openly without risk of being overheard.’
‘Funny you should say that.’ Claudia sank her teeth into the crumbly pastry of a venison pie and decided now was as good an opportunity as any to re-evaluate the situation. Win him over. Make him understand. Perhaps.
Far out on the waters, fishermen were casting their nets. ‘Because,’ a trickle of sweat ran down her neck, ‘I have a tiny confession to make.’
‘You know, that place,’ Orbilio said, perching on a square, flat chunk of rock and nodding backwards to Atlantis, ‘reminds me of a snowscene. Snow is nothing but pretty frozen water until you scoop it up and make a snowman. Then it becomes something altogether different.’
Excitement stirred in Claudia’s blood.
But at base it’s still snow,
she thought, consigning her confession down a mental shute. ‘What if I tell you,’ she said, licking the last vestige of gravy from her fingers, ‘there might be a connection between certain seemingly isolated incidents? Deaths, for instance, which have been dismissed as accidental, but which might have had a more sinister motivation?’
And before his eyebrows raised themselves up off their elbows, she launched into the rumour surrounding the woman who wore red, the silversmith, the lady in the mud room and expected him to laugh, pass it off as idle speculation, and say the same could be true of oysters, and there was a vast difference between a grain of grit and an iridescent pearl. Except he didn’t. He merely scooped up a handful of pebbles and began skimming stones across the water.
‘Why don’t you just marry me and have done with,’ he said mildly. ‘It would cut out so much duplication, minimize the workload—’
‘It’s your brain which has been minimized,’ she snapped, reaching for a wine cake. ‘Goddammit, Orbilio, I’ve just told you Atlantis is nothing short of a bloody murder factory and all you’re concerned about is getting your leg over.’
‘So was that a yes?’ Orbilio skipped another half a dozen stones before swivelling round to face her. She mashed the wine cake underneath her heel and wished it was his nose. ‘I notice,’ he added, crossing his feet under his thighs, ‘you made no mention of a young man in his prime who falls fifty feet in the middle of the afternoon and no one sees it happen.’