‘I give in,’ he said eventually, yawning. ‘Tell me why you raised the subject of the salamander seal.’
Claudia shot a triumphant wink at the silvered nymph. ‘Now, it’s not that I was prying or anything-’
‘Perish the thought.’
‘-but during the course of our travels, I’ve had occasion to…help some of the others with their packing. There was a boy, a perfumer, I can’t remember his name, who carried a yellow deerskin pouch sealed with the salamander, although unfortunately he was robbed and turned back at Bern. But the curious thing is, Clemens is carrying an identical pouch. What do you make of that, Cleverclogs?’
‘Clemens robbed the perfumer?’
Claudia threw her sandal at him. He caught it in one lazy hand.
‘Tell me about your fellow travellers,’ he said, his fingers absently tracing the tooling in the leather. ‘The lyre-maker, for instance, who was swept away in the ferocious torrent-did anybody actually see him fall?’
No. ‘No idea.’
‘And Nestor. Hundreds of rocks raining down, what rotten luck he sustains a solitary blow, which kills him.’
‘Tragic.’
‘Mm.’ Orbilio tossed the sandal back to its owner and stood up, looping his thumbs into his belt as he gazed across the moonless glade, the heat throbbing with the beat of the cicadas. ‘My theory is this,’ he said. ‘Nestor, the lyre-maker, the perfumer, they were all carrying pieces of the treasure map, the same as Clemens and…well, let’s say at least one other person.’
He rubbed the back of his neck, where her glower had singed the hairs.
‘But suppose the conspirators don’t want the rebels to lay their grubby hands on the gold? They’ll need every gem and trinket in the coming months to purchase the army’s allegiance-after all, there’s no point in restoring the Republic if, two weeks later, a few uppity generals wrest control from you. They’ll need to convince the military high command that a Republic is in their better interests, bribing them with-I dunno, more lands for veterans, better garrisons, hospitals, generous pensions when they retire-while at the same time, they need to keep them occupied. The more time that passes after the overthrow, the harder it will be to dislodge the pretenders, and should the new administration manage to distract the army by sending them against the Treveri and the Helvetii, proven enemies of Rome, the takeover will be a resounding success, long live the new Republic.’
‘Hence the diversion of this section of the convoy.’ Whoops. She hadn’t meant to let slip her suspicions about sabotage, but either Hotshot hadn’t noticed, or…or he had taken her knowledge of the situation as read.
‘The conspirators need to fool the rebels into believing this detour was the result of a misunderstanding, that the landslide was a natural disaster. But I saw that rock from the top, Claudia. The iron wedges which had been driven into the fissures to weaken them were still in place. However, it goes deeper than simply stalling for time. The conspirators must ensure that, by the time this delegation reaches Vesontio, the map will have been rendered meaningless.’
‘Mercenaries have keen noses,’ Claudia protested. ‘They’ll smell rats.’
‘Possibly, but providing everyone who survives this jolly little jape testifies to the series of accidents which befell them, even the chieftains would find this hard to disprove, especially when they have been presented with so many of the missing pieces.’
And mine will be one of them, vowed Claudia. A whole year’s vintage rests on this.
Puzzled, Orbilio leaned over the strawberry cairn, muttering something under his breath about greedy hedgehogs and did the offering to Aveta still count. Then he turned his attention back to the matter in hand.
‘You do realize,’ he said soberly, ‘that each of the couriers is an accessory to treason? That when this plot comes to light, nothing I can do will stop the army, the Senate, the whole Roman people from taking retribution on anyone tainted with this conspiracy, however innocently they’d been duped.’
‘Clemens was never going to make Jupiter’s Priest, anyway.’
‘Claudia, for gods’ sake,’ he said, throwing up his hands. ‘I’m talking about exile, seven, maybe ten years, penniless and stripped of your assets.’
‘The couriers’ assets,’ she corrected silkily, and pretending not to notice the look of exasperation on his face.
‘Very well, we’ll play it your way,’ he growled. ‘Just remember that when this blows up, the conspirators are going to take as many with them as possible. They won’t want people to think they were an isolated group working alone, they’ll get their glory any way they can, and if that means hundreds of innocents dying horrible deaths, so much the better in their eyes.’
He fell silent, and Claudia knew it was gnawing away at him that, simply on account of their position in society, the conspirators themselves would be allowed to commit suicide. An honourable death…a system which no Republic would change.
A bird began to sing, even though the sky was still blacked out, but she didn’t hear it. There are times, she thought, when duty becomes an obsession. From the corner of her eye, she glanced at the investigator, his brow deeply furrowed, and wondered when he’d last taken a decent furlough. Relaxed properly. Found time to unwind. Sure, the Empire had been thrown into turmoil with the death of its Regent, sure, there were conspiracies, but these were constant, ongoing, and one man can’t fight every battle alone.
Claudia wondered why something wrenched inside her whenever she saw him like this, tortured and so terribly earnest. I mean, it wasn’t as if they meant anything to one another! Tall, dark patricians were ten a quadran back in Rome, and so what if they’d shared a few adventures now and again? It wasn’t as though she missed him when he wasn’t around-hell, she couldn’t escape his wretched baritone chuckle ringing in her memory whenever the moon was high and she had trouble sleeping, and all too often she saw him in a crowd-or at least a piece of him, reflected in the way one man strode so purposefully across the Forum, another spiked his fingers through dark curls, another smelled of sandalwood. And so what, when she re-ran the sequence of recent events in her head, if he was at the forefront? Too often her life pitted her against the law, and for heaven’s sake, he was the law. These things happen.
She jolted upright. Janus! He’d seen the rock, he said, with the damning iron wedges still in place. Did he realize the significance of this? Claudia’s hand clamped over her mouth to prevent her being sick. Sweet Jupiter, one among the party was a killer, she knew that.
But what she hadn’t realized, until now, was that that person would now be gunning for Marcus…
*
Crouched motionless behind a viburnum bush and heedless of the scent wafting from its flowerheads, white and flat as dinner plates, a pair of blue eyes watched intently.
XVII
July. When the sun is in Cancer and Jupiter watches over us, when fevered agricultural activity kicks in, scything hay and ricking it for winter, harvesting the barley, beans and wheat, pollinating figs. Everywhere around the Empire, Orbilio thought, hoes would be flashing between the vegetables, forks clicking under vines, there’d come the pungent hiss of burning fur as calves were branded with hot irons. Today’s the day when half-yearly rents fall due, giving rise to countless convoluted excuses, none of them original. Schoolmasters, the poorer ones, would look for work to tide them through holidays which start today, many coaching pupils they’d allowed to become lazy in the knowledge that their families could afford private tuition. With a quiet sigh, he watched the dawn rise over the glade. Some days, morning rushes to greet you like a child at play, wide eyed with open arms, but today’s dawn was a reserved and secretive creature, unwilling to reveal too much at once.