‘Weren’t it just?’
A second, smaller head popped up. It looked better nourished than on previous occasions.
‘Oh no! Don’t tell me that filthy little arab is staying here as well?’
She shot Orbilio a look which said, What the hell are you trying to do to me? but he pretended he hadn’t noticed. The next look told him she’d flay him alive for this, and he pretended not to notice that, either.
‘Try to be charitable, my sweet. Marcus plucked this poor child from the gutter, we owe him our support, what?’
‘Like hell.’
‘Ah…well… I daresay it’ll only be for a week or two, eh, Marcus?’ Gaius ruffled the urchin’s hair. ‘Come along, Rufus.’
Claudia felt the colour drain from her face to her toes. ‘You’re not…you’re not going out?’
The boy’s face lit up. ‘Yep. Master Seferius has promised to show me his warehouse.’
He glanced up at Gaius, then signalled to Claudia by drawing one finger across his lips and winking that it was all right, he wouldn’t say a word about that day in the Forum. Claudia rubbed her forehead. There must be something she could do to stop them.
‘I’ll take him out,’ she said.
‘You?’ It was a joint male chorus.
‘Yes, me. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Rufus?’
‘Nope. I wanna go with the gaffer.’
‘Then I’ll come with you.’
Gaius frowned. ‘Claudia, you ought to stay here and keep Marcus company.’
Rufus repeated his I-promise-to-keep-my-mouth-shut gesture, but she ignored it. ‘Let’s all go.’
Orbilio shrugged. ‘Suits me,’ he said, but Gaius aimed a mock punch to the child’s chin.
‘Ah, we’ll keep it the two of us, eh, lad? Have fun, you two.’
Wonderful! Absolutely bloody wonderful! Claudia slumped on to the bench while Orbilio leaned back, draping his elbow over the ridge of the seat with the air of a man expecting to be crucified but who’d got away with a tongue-lashing instead. She poured herself a full glass of wine and swallowed it without stopping for breath.
‘I won’t ask why,’ she said wearily. ‘I’ll just ask when.’
‘When did I arrive? Yesterday.’
‘I see. And how long do you estimate before your house will be…habitable again?’
‘As long as it takes, Claudia,’ he said so quietly she almost missed it.
It felt as though snow had suddenly fallen.
She pursed her lips. ‘Is it better than sex, prying and spying in other people’s underwear?’
‘Claudia-’
‘I’m serious, Orbilio, I want to know. Do you get off on this lark?’
‘For pity’s sake, woman, can’t you get it through your thick skull, I’ve got a job to do? Four men have been butchered, their eyes chiselled out of their sockets, and it would be naive in the extreme to imagine the carnage has stopped-’
‘Stop right there.’ Claudia held up a hand. ‘Let me ask another question. Do you suspect me of killing them?’
‘Don’t be daft.’
‘So what’s stopping you from packing up this very minute? And spare me that hogwash about your roof still smouldering. You’ve poked and prodded in every little corner, what’s keeping-’
‘You’re wrong.’
She gave a half-laugh. ‘Still a few nooks and crannies left, are there? I do so admire a man who’s thorough.’ Orbilio rubbed his chin as though checking for stubble. His eyelids, she noticed, were blinking rapidly and he was avoiding her gaze. So this pondscum had a conscience, did he? Or was it pure embarrassment, finding a collection of whips and manacles in her bedroom? If challenged, she’d say it was strictly between her and Gaius what they got up to, and if he drew a comparison between her paraphernalia and Crassus, so what? Her client list-their names and proclivities-she kept in her head, he couldn’t prove a damned thing. No, it wasn’t that which troubled her. It was the fact that someone had violated her privacy by systematically rifling through her personal belongings. That the man who had laid her soul bare happened to be Marcus Cornelius Orbilio was neither here nor there, she told herself. Neither here nor there.
‘It didn’t seem…decent to ransack the place in your absence.’
The wine spilled over the table, forming a dark red pool which she made no effort to mop up. ‘Are you seriously expecting me to believe you’ve spent two days under my roof without making a search?’
Rivulets of wine trickled across the wood to drip noisily on to the tiles below. He puckered his lips. ‘Believe what you like,’ he said. ‘You asked and I answered.’
The snow melted, the sun came out, birds began to sing.
‘Oi!’ She clapped her hands. ‘Clear up this mess,’ she commanded the slave who came running. ‘Fetch another jug-and be quick about it.’
Orbilio brushed a fly away from the sticky puddle. ‘You ought to know, however, that I do intend to search this house. Ideally with your permission and you can be present, by all means, but if I have to get written authority from Callisunus, so be it.’
Claudia filled both glasses from the new flagon. ‘Why this house?’
‘I’ve got a hunch,’ he said simply.
‘Never mind, dear.’ She patted his knee. ‘There’s a way of hanging the toga that’ll disguise it completely.’
What the hell? Let him search the bloody place! She’d have ample time to move her knick-knacks in the course of his ferreting.
The corners of his mouth twitched. ‘You can be a real pain in the backside at times, Claudia Seferius.’
‘I simply take the shortest route to your brain, Cousin Markie.’
His eyes twinkled as he topped up his glass. ‘We could go out together this evening, just the two of us.’
‘We could, yes. Alternatively you could go to hell all by yourself,’ she replied companionably, ‘and I know which I’d prefer.’
Orbilio laughed aloud and for several minutes they sat in silence in the garden, sipping wine and listening to nothing but the drone of bumblebees heavy with pollen and the hiss of water, foaming white as it hit the marble fountain.
‘There’s one thing I discovered,’ he said at last. ‘You and Gaius have separate bedrooms.’
‘He snores.’
‘Come off it, Claudia. He’s on the opposite side of the house. In fact, it’s a separate bloody staircase.’
She shot him a look out of the corner of her eye. ‘Don’t tell me, let me guess. You just happen to be installed in a bedroom on my side, right?’
‘Wishful thinking, I’m afraid. If you want me, you’ll have to tiptoe past your husband’s door.’
She smiled. ‘You couldn’t afford me, Orbilio.’
‘Wanna bet?’
Any time, lover boy. ‘One million sesterces.’
‘What is?’
‘My price. One million sesterces.’
His breath came out in a whistle. ‘A million?’
‘A million.’
‘Then I suppose there’s little point in leaving my door unlocked tonight?’
‘You suppose right, Orbilio. However, while we’re on the subject of accommodation, I have something to say and I’ll make it plain. I don’t want you in my house. You’ve wormed your way round Gaius, so it looks like I’m lumbered, but the oik goes.’
‘That’s unreasonable, he’s-’
‘I’m an unreasonable person, Orbilio. Get rid of him. Tonight.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Tonight!’
‘Claudia, this lad’s got the chance of a decent, healthy life. Schooling, a trade. What am I supposed to do, throw him back to starve in some alleyway? Is that what you want? Have him die of the flux, like half the other guttersnipes in Rome?’
Claudia ran her finger round the rim of her glass until it produced a high-pitched humming sound. ‘What you do with him, Orbilio, is your concern, not mine. But take my word for it, that boy leaves this house tonight. Either you tell him or I do, it makes no odds to me.’
‘For pity’s sake, woman, he’s only seven years old!’
‘Try eleven.’ She flashed him a glance. Life on the streets stunts your growth. Believe me.
He hurled his glass across the garden. ‘You’re a hardhearted bitch.’
Claudia smiled a brittle smile. ‘I take it, then, that you’ll be telling him yourself?’ She stood up and shook her tunic into its folds. ‘Oh, don’t trouble yourself with the splinters, I’ll send a flunky to clear up.’