Suppose she slipped on to one of the boats? She shivered in the darkness, recalling tales of horror at what befell stowaways. She was desperate now. She had no one to turn to. She daren’t return to the house to collect her paltry savings, for they would be waiting, with their lies and their accusations.
She drew up her knees, wrapping her arms round her body for comfort. Why were her gods punishing her like this? It had been a normal working day and she’d simply been going about her business. Then, quite without warning, a man she’d never seen before, a man with a limp, had rounded on her and publicly branded her a thief. A crowd had begun to gather. She hadn’t understood. There was no reason for it. He had no grounds, no evidence, but the man insisted on sending for the police.
Then she heard the word ‘murder’.
Murder?
As the crowd’s interest turned to the arrival of the soldiers, she had seized the moment to run and run and run. Ten hours of running and hiding and crying and whimpering already seemed like ten days. Ten years.
She wanted to go home.
Home was where blue-white frosts sharpened your senses. Home was where soft summer rain whispered into the broad leaves of the trees. And home was where those very same leaves blazed copper and bronze and gold after the harvest. There was no dry, dusty wind to choke your lungs up there. Nor a sun which thickened and darkened your skin like leather. Home was kind, benevolent. It would welcome her back to its bosom.
Wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, the girl picked up the shard that had scratched her leg. She stared at it long and hard for several seconds, then slashed it deep across her left wrist before plunging it into her right.
Now I am going where they can’t hurt me, she thought. Now I am going home.
XV
By any standards, the journey back to Rome was a damned sight better than the journey out, despite Kano’s continued reluctance to chivvy up those foul-smelling nags, and Claudia thought that if she saw one more swish of a tail after this she’d scream till she exploded. Not that she ought to complain, she decided. She was going home, and in less than no time she’d be rolling around theatre aisles, cheering military parades and living it up at the Circus, you just try and stop her, because in the end the threat to her cosy existence hadn’t come from Larentia, or from the crazed killer whose elimination was imminent. The threat had come from tedium.
Quite why ordinarily level-headed people scuttled to the hills in summer was beyond her. Try the freshness of the air, Gaius suggested, which shows how much he knew, because you couldn’t smell a damned thing in the air, not one damned thing. Good life in Illyria, there were only so many times a girl could inspect the beehives or wander round the orchards or potter in the winery, and you simply couldn’t stay indoors. You either ran into that poisonous old dustbag, Larentia, or else you were faced with poor Valeria’s pregnancy problems, Julia’s nagging or Flavia’s geyser. Claudia would have sold her soul for a party, but it was out of the question, Gaius explained. Not only was the villa isolated, but this was the busiest time of the year for everybody. Thus July fell quietly upon its sword and August showed no signs of improvement as talk continued to revolve around wine and hay, peas and beans. She was pig sick of it.
Take last week, for instance. Gaius was making his way down from the threshing floor as Claudia stepped off the verandah. He looks his age, she thought. He really looks his age and despite being flanked by slaves he had every appearance of being utterly alone.
‘How safe are the roads around here?’
‘Huh?’ He was a million miles away.
Claudia shrugged impatiently. ‘The roads. How many men do I need for a bodyguard?’
Gaius looked confused. ‘Five, six, I suppose.’
‘Then I’ll take six. See you later.’
‘Wait! Wait.’ He was slowly coming back into focus. ‘Where are you going?’
Claudia looked round sharply. ‘Nowhere, of course. I’m going for a walk.’
Gaius’s jaw dropped. ‘A what?’
She patted his cheek and smiled. ‘There’s a first time for everything. YOU!’ Her voice stopped a Nubian in his tracks. ‘Pick five others, arm yourselves, then meet me at the main gate in ten minutes.’
The negro, who was pushing a loaded barrow across the barnyard, glanced fearfully at his master as Claudia flounced off.
‘Do as she says,’ Gaius said wearily, shaking his head. ‘Just do as she says.’
He was right to look startled, she thought, as Galla laced up her stout boots. I’ve never been for a walk in my life, but there can’t be much to it. Follow the road for an hour, turn round and follow it back again.
‘We’ll need water, wine, and I daresay something to eat as well. Figs, pears, peaches and raisins. I like raisins.’ She held up the other boot for lacing.
‘Throw in a couple of chickens, something to go with them, say, onions, leeks, a few eggs, and perhaps a rabbit. I think I smelled honey cakes cooking in the kitchen, so they’d go down well, oh, and some almonds. What’s the matter?’
The girl quickly shook her head. ‘Nothing, madam.’
‘Then wipe that stupid look off your face.’
‘Yeth, madam.’
Bloody girl. Why couldn’t they find her a slave who didn’t lisp?
‘And if there’s any pecorino cheese floating round the kitchen, pack that, too-it’s my favourite.’
‘Yeth, madam.’
‘And apples. Don’t forget the apples.’
Claudia tested her boots for comfort and found them wanting. I’ll get blisters, I know. Bloody countryside. Trees and sky and hills and whatnot-dull as a dolphin’s dongler. Now then. To wear a pulla, or not to wear a pulla, that was the question. Not, she finally decided. The girl could carry it.
‘Galla, aren’t you ready yet?’ For heaven’s sake, what was keeping her? ‘Dear Diana, what’s that?’
‘We’ll need the donkey for the food, madam.’
‘Galla.’ Claudia crooked her finger. ‘Galla, come here, I want to explain something to you. We’re going for a walk, not a bloody route march. The moke stays.’
‘What about-’
‘You’re not listening to me, Galla. The ugly sod stays, that is my final word. What the-’
Flavia was shouting and waving from the doorway, apparently signalling to Claudia to wait for her, she was coming with them. Claudia wrinkled her nose.
‘Second thoughts, Galla, the donkey’s fine. Gee up, boy.’
She set a cracking pace and when she looked back Flavia was still in the yard flapping her arms and looking for all the world like a windmill with sacks for sails.
Blisters. Donkeys. No doubt she’d get bitten to bits by gnats and midges as well. Juno, Jupiter and Mars! To think people actually put up with this in the name of enjoyment! Oh well, the big Nubian seems happy, that’s something, she supposed. First she tried counting vines, but, since they spread as far as the eye could see, she gave that the elbow in favour of a succession of nonsense. Spotting roadside flowers. Birds. Not stepping on the cracks between the octagonal slabs. Composing idiotic rhymes. At the fourth milestone, she spun smartly on her heel and marched home, tutting as her bodyguard tripped over both themselves and the donkey at the suddenness of the turn.
‘Good walk, my sweet?’
Gaius and Rollo the bailiff were deep in conversation when the sorry procession straggled through the gates.
‘The sun was too bright,