‘Very well, you scrub the room. I’ll pack,’ she said cheerfully, waiting until the girl had set down her broom and bucket before adding, ‘only mind that satchel, won’t you?’ She timed her pause carefully. ‘Not that snakes are particularly active in the late afternoon.’
‘S-snakes?’ The servant eyed the satchel warily.
‘Only two,’ Claudia breezed. ‘And being pythons, they’re not very fast-oh, I say,’ she called after her, ‘you left your sponge behind!’
Down in the street, the Silver Fox was nowhere to be seen. Three youths, still drunk from their lunchtime binge, wove a zigzag path, their arms clamped round one another’s shoulders as they sang a loud and vulgar song. All right for them, Claudia thought. Rich fathers, you could tell by the cut of their clothes, the rings and the boots they were wearing. Probably taking the scenic loop home from university in Massilia, their futures all mapped out for them, jobs, wives, the lot. But when you’re born to the slums and orphaned young, it’s a different game you play, requiring skills no teacher in Massilia can ever impart or pupils would be jammed in to the rafters. Claudia ran the deerskin pouch lightly between her fingers, felt its velvety softness in her hand, inhaled the rich, warm smell of leather.
Now she knew that it was part of a treasure map she held, it seemed so much heavier somehow. She rattled it again, listened to the familiar chink. He was one smart squeeze, the Salamander Rat-a-tat-tat.
‘Go away.’
She was in no mood for come-and-join-us. What she had to do next required total concentration and no small degree of privacy.
Rat-a-tat-tat, tat, tat, tat, tat.
Hardly Iliona’s style. It must be that bloody landlord! Try to evict Claudia Seferius from the premises, would he? Ha! Well, next time his wife sees him, he’ll be wearing ears where his kidneys once sat The latch lifted. ‘Room service,’ carolled a familiar baritone, the scent of sandalwood preceding him into the chamber. His firm grip held a silver tray containing two stem goblets and a decent-sized jug of wine, together with a heap of steaming pastries.
Shit! Claudia dropped the pouch, kicked it under the bed and leaned against the door frame, as though too busy enjoying the roses on the balcony to notice tavern slaves. ‘Leave it on the table,’ she said haughtily, flicking her wrist.
‘House rule,’ he said. ‘New guests have to take a drink with the staff. Here.’ A glass of fragrant vintage red appeared in front of her. Strange, she’d never noticed that little scar on the inside of his wrist, white and old, but… ‘Now, now, don’t snatch,’ he chided. ‘Or I’ll suspect I have an alcoholic on my hands.’
‘Orbilio, I am about to go out for the evening. Kindly get the hell out of my bedroom.’
‘Anywhere special?’ He leaned his weight against the door frame opposite, their shoulders nearly touching.
‘Frankly,’ she said, ‘I don’t give a hoot where you go.’
‘I’-he focused on the building opposite, a warehouse, newly built and partly empty-‘was referring to you, actually.’
She didn’t need to look at him to know he was grinning. She took a sip of the wine, then another, then another. It was far too good a plonk to be sold in a smoky dive like this, and the pastries seemed somewhat superior, too. Especially that cinnamon bun…
‘Me?’ she replied. That bun had almonds in it, she could smell them, along with raisins and just a hint of apple. ‘Ooh, just out. See if I can’t find a decent place to eat.’ Since the better lodgings had been snatched up by the main body of the delegation days ago, he could hardly pick holes in that argument.
‘So how come you’ve taken two buns?’
Damn! ‘I dine late,’ she said, licking the honey from her top lip.
‘Then why are you going out early?’
Somewhere, Claudia could hear teeth grinding. Hers. ‘Orbilio, it’s a lovely summer’s evening, in case you hadn’t noticed. Who in their right mind wouldn’t want to explore this beautiful city?’
‘Mmm.’ He frowned in concentration. ‘Well-’
‘That was not a serious question.’
‘Maybe not,’ he said mildly, ‘but it deserves a serious answer. And I can think of at least one category of person whose thoughts wouldn’t be on exploring this particular town, where the Sequani tongue predominates, where the buildings are nothing to write home about, being mostly timber framed and thatched, and where organized entertainment is painfully thin on the ground. The person, for instance, who has an appointment to keep?’
‘Is blue blood a prerequisite for tunnel vision?’
‘An appointment, moreover, for trading certain packages?’
‘Marcus, Marcus, Marcus.’ Claudia fluttered her eyelashes. ‘Surely if you, as one of Rome’s leading investigative lights, believed a certain citizen was conveying treasonable information, you would do your utmost to ensure this was not passed to the enemy?’
‘I would.’
Still they stood side by side, leaning against opposite doorposts, sipping wine and not looking at each other.
‘Therefore you would be confident that said citizen was actually in possession of said document?’
‘I would.’
‘And to acquire said information, you’d have had to make a search of said citizen’s belongings?’ Breathe in. Deep breath. Cross fingers. ‘Therefore you must know by now I am not a courier.’
There was a beat of six. Had the bluff worked? ‘I haven’t searched your belongings,’ he growled.
Yes!
‘And you know damn well why.’
Don’t I just! Not because he couldn’t. Even though the satchel had been attached to Claudia tighter than a barnacle, a professional like Supersnoop had the nous to find a way, and neither was it because he feared Claudia would notice. His hands were far too deft for that. No, no. Marcus Upright Orbilio had not searched her satchel because it breached his code of ethics.
‘I have absolutely no idea,’ she said, topping up their glasses with a guileless smile.
Orbilio rubbed a weary hand over his face. ‘Time is running out for silly mind games,’ he said eventually. ‘So I shall spell it out.’
Although clearly the alphabet was not his strong point. Several minutes passed, in which Claudia could feel the heat from his body shimmering across the handspan which divided them. There were moments, she thought she could hear his heartbeat, even above the clamour of chariots rattling over the flagstones below, above the incomprehensible jabber of Sequani hucksters and the pleas of beggars, unmistakable in any language. Noises filtered up from the wine room below, the clink of plates, the chink of goblets, laughter, banter, and tantalizing aromas of roast boar and sucking pig, of garlic, leeks and fresh baked yeasty bread.
‘Jupiter alone is privy to what happened in your past,’ Orbilio said, so quietly she had to strain to catch the words. Then he cleared his throat, and his baritone was crisp and level once again. ‘I could have searched your bags,’ he said, turning for the first time to face her. ‘Any time I wanted, and you’d have never known. But I would.’ He would never know the strength of mind it took to keep on staring straight ahead, so he might only catch her profile. Unblinking and unconcerned.
‘And I am not prepared to live with that deception.’ His voice rasped. ‘On the other hand,’ and suddenly there was steel in his voice, ‘neither am I prepared to stand aside while you profit from Rome’s downfall.’
He could not see the hand at her side which clenched so tightly that her nails drew blood from the palm as they dug into the flesh.
‘Cheap shot, Marcus. Which, incidentally, has failed to hit its target’-my integrity-‘if only for the simple reason that, had you felt it prudent to remove and presumably destroy the various sections which comprise the map, you would have done so. Therefore your strategy must be to allow the rebellion to continue right on schedule.’
It was not enough that he nipped this plot in the bud. He wouldn’t rest until he’d brought the conspirators to book, and he could only do that by letting the couriers hand over their precious deerskin pouches and following the middleman, in the hope it would lead…where? The middleman was working for the rebels.