Verres, as plump as a boiling fowl, beamed with pride.
‘The sow’s womb I stuffed to look like a fish? You want me to do that again?’
‘Great heavens, no!’
Gaius had to believe she’d invested the utmost care and attention in its long-drawn-out planning.
‘This has to be exceptional, Verres. I want their eyes popping out on stalks at this…this magnificent extravaganza, so think carefully.’
‘Ummm. Dormice in honey and sprinkled with poppyseeds?’
‘Yes, yes, by all means. Whatever delicacies you can come up with. But I’m talking about a particularly lavish spectacle. Think, man. What can you produce that’ll be the talk of the Senate for months afterwards?’
For a while it looked as if Verres had lapsed into a coma, but eventually a broad grin split his face. ‘I’ve got it! A wild boar which, when you carve it, lets loose a score of live thrushes which I’ll sew up inside at the last minute!’ You had to hand it to the man, he was a genius. ‘Excellent! Well, you go away and work on that-’
‘We’ll start with oysters and leeks stuffed in a peacock, then move on to tuna disguised-’
‘Wonderful, Verres, absolutely splendid. Now go and plan it alone, there’s a good chap.’
He looked a mite crestfallen as he stood up, but Claudia had no interest in domestic trifles and shooed him away with the back of her hand. Drusilla, meanwhile, having cleared every last scrap of sardine, was helping herself to chicken off Claudia’s plate.
‘Melissa!’
A boar filled with thrushes, eh? Oh yes, that’ll make ’em spill their wine.
‘MELISSA!’
The cat jumped and a lump of chicken fell out of her mouth, which she promptly scooped back up when she realized there was no sign of danger.
‘Oh, there you are. Look, there’s a list in my husband’s room of the people attending the banquet. Don’t look so blank, the feast next Saturday, I told you about it weeks back. Now run off and fetch the list-and bring a jug of wine while you’re about it.’
It’ll be interesting to see who he’s inviting. With any luck, Gaius will have forgotten about adding that boring old fart Balbus to the list-but suppose he’d thought to invite Orbilio? No, no, he couldn’t. He wouldn’t have seen him since yesterday. Which was just as well, really. She didn’t fancy another round with Cousin Markie. She nibbled on a date. Well, not yet, anyway.
‘Here you are, madam. Is there anything else?’ Claudia spat the stone across the courtyard. She was getting better. One of these days she’d hit that sundial. ‘Yes, as a matter of fact there is.’
She picked up the lyre again and began to strum. ‘We need entertainers. Singers, dancers, acrobats, that sort of thing. See to it, will you, Melissa?’
‘Me? But I can’t-’
‘Don’t talk rubbish. Here.’ She unclipped her obsidian brooch. Well, it was Quintus’s really, but…easy come, easy go. ‘This might sugar the pill.’
The girl’s eyes widened. ‘For me?’ She’d been given the odd sweetener from her mistress before, but never anything valuable.
‘One problem, though. It might be short notice for some of them, but do what you can, Melissa, and, failing that, bribe the buggers to say they’d double-booked and it was the other party’s misfortune, not ours.’
Hopefully at least one of them will put a spoke in the wheel of that Marcia trollop. Claudia closed her eyes and offered up a silent prayer to Minerva to be with her rather than with the linen merchant’s widow on this. Anything to outdo her! Twenty-two and inherited a fortune indeed. Well, it’s your own fault, she chided herself. You would pick Gaius. More fool you, because the linen merchant was older and had no living children, whereas Gaius had four waiting to inherit, didn’t he? Furthermore, she’d actually wished that spotty little gold-digger luck with the linen merchant. He was a grumpy old sod and a real tightwad, but now the boot seemed firmly on Marcia’s dainty little foot, the bitch. She sighed. It was too late grumbling. Wheels were in motion, there could be no turning back now.
‘What on earth are you babbling about, girl?’
‘I was asking about tumblers, madam. Do you want-’
‘What I want, Melissa, is for you to go away and organize it without pestering me.’ She jerked her head towards the house. ‘Go on, off you go.’
The girl’s fingers wrapped themselves tight around Quintus’s brooch as she ran off, leaving Claudia to scan the list in peace. When Gaius said his guests were important, he meant instrumental in furthering his business activities rather than any reference to the political hierarchy, though there was a healthy smattering of magistrates, prefects and the like. No less than seven, she noted, were punters. There was a heavy night ahead, then, questioning seven men without letting any of them-or Gaius-suspect a damned thing. Still, it was the sort of challenge she could rise to standing on her head and, if the truth was told, even enjoy. She’d track that maniac to his grave, so help her-though she’d be a lot happier if that damned Orbilio wasn’t so fly.
‘Quick as a coney he was, Drusilla, double-checking with the mercer’s porter about that wretched bale of cotton.’
The cat paused in her washing and cocked her head.
‘I could have kicked myself for that.’ Lack of foresight was not one of Claudia’s faults. ‘Or Junius. He ought to have thought of the porter the numbskull. And as for that little arab Orbilio winkled out-well!’
It was difficult to tell how much that obnoxious little snoop had believed her over in that stinking tenement. On balance, hardly at all, she concluded…but he couldn’t prove a bloody thing.
‘Come inside,’ he’d said smoothly, thinking he was about to crack this tough little nut at last, ‘I very much want to listen.’
Listen to what? Did he honestly expect her to pour out a startling revelation? Oh yes, I was passionately in love with darling old Quintus, but please, please, please don’t let my husband know or he’ll divorce me on the spot? Hardly. Whatever else he might be, Orbilio wasn’t gullible. Maybe he was expecting a different sort of admission? The-swine-was-blackmailing-me type of confession? Well whatever, he was completely hamstrung by the time she’d finished and it served him damned well right.
She’d wasted no time. The instant the door closed behind him, she’d spun round, wagging her finger.
‘Listen to me, you filthy little meddler, I’ve had it up to here with you. I do not own, and have never owned, a garment in that vile shade of green, and however much you paid that abject little tramp, it wasn’t enough. A bump in the Forum is not proof.’
‘Proof enough,’ he’d said mildly.
‘You aren’t listening,’ she hissed. ‘If I hear so much as one more syllable drop from your lips on this subject, I’ll personally cut your tongue out, chop it into pieces and feed it straight back to you, do you understand?’
‘Is that a threat?’
‘All I need to do is tell my husband how dear old Cousin Markie laid his filthy paws on me and the rest, as they say, is mystery.’
‘Ah! A bribe as well.’
Damn you, Orbilio.
‘Any foul insinuations you make after that will brand you as a vindictive lecher who was spurned once too often and resents it like hell. You’ll be ridiculed from here to Hesperus and you can kiss all your ambitions goodbye.’
If that hasn’t disposed of the irritating little tick once and for all, I’ll eat my shift for breakfast.
A sparrow landed in the courtyard and Drusilla hunkered down, alert and ready to pounce. Claudia threw the bird a piece of bread, which it snatched up and flew off with. The cat stretched and began washing again, too full, too satisfied to think seriously about hunting. The edge had gone. And suddenly Claudia wondered whether her edge had been blunted, too. Without doubt, the hunt was exciting, but what would happen when it came to the kill? ‘Come, Drusilla, we’ve guests arriving shortly.’
Was she too full, too satisfied, to carry it through when it came to the crunch?