Ah, well. To each his own, she thought, climbing under the bedclothes. To each his own.
*
She couldn’t hear it, she couldn’t see it, but Claudia knew. Somebody was in her room. The hairs on her neck prickled. Gooseflesh crawled over her arms and thighs. Instinctively her body stiffened, her ears alert to pick up the slightest movement. And then she caught it. Heavy breathing followed by a long, low chuckle.
‘Is no good enough, Claudia.’ Whisper or no, she had little difficulty placing that voice. ‘When Master Lucan ask for five hundred, he mean five hundred. He don’t mean no piddling fifty.’
There was garlic on his breath.
‘How did you get in?’
‘Tch, tch, tch.’ She saw the glint of white teeth in the darkness. ‘You no ask questions like that to a man in my business.’ Otho moved closer to the bed and hunkered down. ‘Five hundred, Claudia. By Monday.’
Her breath was coming short and shallow. ‘All right, all right. Tell him…no problem, he’ll have his damned money. Now get out of here!’
‘I do hope you no lie to me, Claudia.’ A hand reached out and touched her cheek. ‘Such smooth skin, it be shame to spoil it.’
The silence seemed eternal, but she couldn’t bring herself to break it.
‘You maybe want to deal, yes?’
‘No.’
He let out a soft, sibilant chuckle. ‘You no mean that, Claudia. You have no money. I know this. You no have the five hundred.’ He clambered on to the bed beside her. ‘So I ask again, you want to deal?’
‘I’d rather die first.’
‘Suppose we talking, maybe ten sesterces?’ He leaned over her. ‘Ah, you push me away. That mean no, huh? Then suppose we say fifteen-Aieeee!’
Suddenly the huge Thracian was screeching like a banshee, clawing frantically at his face. Blood poured into his eyes.
‘Aieeee!’
Drusilla had returned from her night patrol.
‘Get it off!’ he shouted, his arms flailing. ‘Call your demon off.’
Claudia was still pinned beneath him, her fists pummelling his chest, when the door burst open. Light flooded the room. Strong hands clamped round Otho’s throat, hauling him on to the floor. Redundant now, Drusilla leapt lightly on to the windowsill, from which vantage point she could oversee events, ready to step in again if necessary.
‘What’s happening?’ Now Gaius’s huge frame was blocking the doorway. Behind him, half the household slaves had mustered. ‘Claudia, are you all right?’
Having easily overpowered the Thracian since he’d caught the man off guard, Orbilio began to truss his prey. ‘Looks like this great ape was trying to rape your wife.’
‘Rape, my arse! This bitch invite me, you ask her she-’
Otho was silenced by a fist slamming into his mouth.
‘Are you all right?’
It was clear Orbilio wasn’t talking to Otho and for the first time Claudia realized she, too, was covered with blood.
‘It’s his,’ she explained. ‘I’m fine.’
‘She bring demons of underworld on me,’ Otho mumbled through the stream of blood pouring out of his mouth. Claudia calculated he’d probably lost a few teeth with that punch.
‘No demon,’ she said sweetly, brushing her hair out of her eyes. ‘Just one little pussycat.’
‘Demon,’ he insisted. ‘Torn my face to shreds.’
True, true. But don’t fret, Otho, I shan’t bill you for the improvement, you can just thank me later.
‘Well, chum. Care to tell me who you are and what you’re doing here?’ Orbilio heaved the Thracian to a sitting position by the neck of his tunic. ‘We’ll find out sooner or later, you might as well make it sooner.’
Otho used his shoulder to wipe his mouth. ‘I work for Lucan the moneylender. This bitch owe many thousand sesterces, I come to collect.’
‘Is that true?’
That was Orbilio.
‘Of course it’s not!’
That was Gaius.
‘No one collects debts at three in the morning by forcing themselves on decent, respectable, defenceless matrons.’
Matron? Matron? Still, she could overlook the description, she supposed, seeing as how Gaius was so valiantly sticking up for her.
‘Is true, you ask Master Lucan. He confirm.’
Claudia’s eyes darted from Gaius to Orbilio and back again. Orbilio, she thought, was inclined to believe the thug, circumstances or no circumstances, because hadn’t Rufus blabbed about her and a big Thracian geezer on the day of the riot? Two big Thracians in a girl’s life was stretching coincidence, and she knew damned well how Orbilio felt about coincidences. In Gaius’s life, however Thracians were spread particularly thin on the ground… She flashed her husband a look of utter helplessness and waited.
‘What say we geld the bastard on the spot, Marcus?’ Bless you, Gaius!
Orbilio gave a half-smile. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘This charmer goes for trial.’
‘Why waste public money? Together we could-’
‘No.’
‘That’s not fair he’s-’
‘Gaius, if life was fair we wouldn’t need trials in the first place. This scumbag goes to court and that’s final.’
A public airing? Juno, I need leprosy more than I need that!
‘I’ve got an idea,’ she said. ‘Why don’t we-’
‘My sweet, your cousin’s quite right. Regrettable as it is, I agree we ought to hand him over.’
‘But-’
‘Now don’t distress yourself, Claudia. I give you my word, nothing like this will ever happen again. I’ll mount a permanent guard on the doors…’
He didn’t come in through the door Gaius!
‘…get a dog, even.’
Cover your ears, Drusilla.
‘Oh, Gaius, you’re wonderful. Thank you so much.’ She turned to Orbilio. ‘You, too, Cousin Markie,’ she added through her teeth. Dammit, twice in four days! She really had to break this habit before it went to his head.
Otho was bundled unceremoniously out of the room by the slaves, supervised by Junius, she noticed. Looks like he managed to wangle himself a promotion into the bargain, the sneaky little sod.
‘Leave that,’ she commanded the girl mopping up the blood. ‘We’ll sort it out in the morning, when the light’s better.’
In truth she was feeling too weak and jittery to want a servant hanging around. What she needed was a glass of wine and a good kip.
Orbilio combed his hair with his hands. ‘See you in the morning, then.’
Not if I see you first.
‘Look forward to it, Marcus…’
Oh, shit. ‘Gaius, are you all right?’
His face was contorted with pain, he was clutching his chest.
Claudia was out of bed in an instant, slipping and sliding in Otho’s blood as she ran across the room, but Orbilio had beaten her to it.
‘Sit down,’ he was saying, leading Gaius towards the bed.
Claudia held the lamp nearer his face. Shit. It was grey. Spasms of pain wracked his huge frame.
‘Junius? Oh, there you are. Junius, fetch a doctor, the master’s ill.’
XVIII
For centuries, the Roman people had revered their gods through propitiation, be it the sacrifice of a pregnant sheep, the donation of valuables, a hefty tithe or simply the pouring of a libation to remind the immortals they had not been forgotten. From mighty Jupiter to the humblest guardians of the storecupboard, the underlying factor was fear. And the message? Anger the gods at your peril. So with this so firmly instilled in his fine patrician blood, Orbilio couldn’t fathom why Claudia’s performance at the household shrine didn’t so much as break his stride.
‘You miserable sons of bitches,’ she was saying. ‘Every single day for the past four and a half years you’ve had more bloody attention than a bride on her wedding night. You’ve seen this shrine doubled in size, rebuilt in the finest Carrara marble money-and try telling me you’ve seen carvings to match and I’ll call you liars to your faces.’ She made a great show of pouring the libation.