‘Excuse me?’
Far from a long dissertation on violent death, the imbecile appeared to be babbling about slipping away. Again!
‘Junius, do you have bubbles for brains? As it is, my hipbones are clashing together like cymbals.’ Sergius needed to check out the suspension on his vehicles occasionally, instead of spending every waking hour with his silly striped horses!
‘There’s no better time,’ he urged. ‘With the Prefect gone, it’s dark, we could easily-’
Dear Diana, give me strength. ‘Did you ask around about Isodorus?’
‘Well, yes, but-’
‘Then dish the dirt, or the party will be over before I arrive.’
The Gaul had done well, she’d give him that. He’d pieced together how Alis was married off to Isodorus, whose wealth could not compensate for his congenital ill-health and who, as a result, had had great difficulty in securing a wife. The general consensus, Junius said, was that although the marriage had been consummated, it was hardly a regular occurrence, and that when the boy’s faint spark finally extinguished itself, few expressed surprise.
‘Although there was some irony about his death,’ he added. ‘The snake was curled up inside the mouth of one of the marble monsters in the courtyard.’
Claudia felt herself sway. ‘Don’t tell me. The chimera?’
‘How did you know that?’ he asked. ‘Anyway, I can have another car rigged in ten minutes flat-’
‘Junius, do you seriously believe I can go swanning off to Rome’-snap! – ‘just like that?’
‘You wouldn’t be enjoying yourself, would you, madam?’ he’d replied with what she could only describe as a sly smile.
Teeth began to grind. ‘I’ll forgive you for that, because I can see from your colour that you sat out in the sun, it’s obviously coddled your brains, but tread gently, young Gaul.’
‘Or is it because he’s still here?’ he jerked his head along the guest wing. ‘The copper?’
Dammit, that breached the pale. As of now, Claudia informed Junius with chilling clarity, he no longer headed her bodyguard, and if he wished to avoid standing on the blocks at the next slave auction, the best way to set about it was to get out of her sight. Now, forthwith, and immediately. Scoot!
In the looking-glass, Claudia noticed that her lips were pursed white as she snapped a faience pendant round her neck. How dare he, she thought. She drummed her fingers on the table at a speed that would have made any self-respecting woodpecker envious. In fact, she decided, with the full light of reason shining on the issue, if Tulola wanted the boy, she could bloody well have him. With an hour before the festivities started, she called for a jug of white wine. Chilled, because, by Jupiter, it was warm tonight. This year, she calculated, the equinox coincides with the first quarter of the moon, meaning the first of April, Juno’s sacred Kalends, will fall when it’s silver, shiny and full. A rare occasion and cause for much celebration-Juno’s powers will be great indeed after the sacrifices and rejoicing in her honour. Blowing out all but one lantern, Claudia looked up at the millions of stars twinkling bright above her. Your places will be different by the time I return. In fact, knowing Tulola, you mightn’t even be around. She was clipping on a gold anklet set with Sicilian agates when she heard a knock at her door. If that was Junius, he can damned well slither under it. Then she remembered the wine she had ordered.
‘You won’t find better service anywhere in the Empire.’
‘Wasn’t that the basis of Gisco’s complaint?’ She snatched the jug out of the waiter’s hands. ‘However, I do feel that even our red charioteer, limited though his deductive powers may be, could rumble that cunning disguise.’
‘Tulola said fancy dress,’ Orbilio explained, stepping into her room. ‘What’s wrong with coming as a slave?’ For some reason, his eyes were sweeping every flat surface, including under the bed. Ah!
‘Drusilla’s out.’ Such exquisite pleasure, the minute and a half before she put him out of his misery. ‘Tried to pounce on a flock of pecking doves, but they cooed and flew off, so-’
‘-on the basis that if you can’t eat ’em, join ’em-’
‘-she was last seen scavenging in the kitchens. Exactly.’ What is it about Supersnoop? Every time you open a chest, you half expect him to come popping out. I’m wondering if he’s attached to my skirt hem by string.
‘Good.’ Orbilio flung himself lengthways on Claudia’s bed, bounced a few times then folded his hands behind his head. ‘Hey, this couch is comfortable.’
‘Make yourself at home,’ she muttered, tipping half a glass of wine down her throat. Dammit, I’ll be glad when you’re posted to that distant corner of the Narbonensis or wherever it is you have your beady eye on. ‘I’ve been thinking about your shortcut.’
Hope the barracks are swampy and the bedbugs have rabies. ‘Was this while you skinned rabbits as part of your undercover work?’
‘Which reminds me. Oughtn’t you to tip the waiter?’
‘Only off my bed.’
‘I’d rather you didn’t, it’s far comfier than mine.’ He prodded the bolster, pinched the mattress. ‘Who knew you were taking the old road? That’s what’s been bothering me.’
‘Couldn’t it have bothered you in your own room?’
‘It wasn’t luck, snatching part of a conversation from your overnight stop in Tarsulae. No, this took planning and you know what I think?’
‘You’re squashing my slipper.’
‘Not a lumpy mattress, then? Mine’s riddled with them.’ He pummelled the leather back into shape. ‘I reckon that at some stage in the dim and distant past, this route was suggested to you. Think back-maybe you were at dinner, in the baths, meeting with clients?’
Sore point, Orbilio. Dinner, perhaps. Baths, perhaps.
But the meetings with clients have been pitifully few and far between.
‘It’s possible,’ she admitted slowly. A faint bell was beginning to ring.
He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. Generally encased in long patrician tunics, a girl doesn’t expect a sudden plethora of thighs all over her bedroom. Especially firm, bronzed, muscular ones. Not when there’s just one small light flickering in the darkness. And definitely not when the room you’re in seems to shrink and shrink to the size of a closet. Claudia drained her glass in one swallow.
‘You were wrong about Sergius.’ That should put Hotshot in his place. ‘He told me he gets these bouts from time to time- Are you listening to me?’
‘What do you know about Tulola’s husband?’
Obviously not. ‘Only that he walked out on her eons back and she still gets uppity.’ It would be truer to say that the merest mention of the subject and Tulola goes ape.
‘Do you know why?’
‘She was shaking her tail feathers beyond the confines of the nuptial couch, behaviour which apparently failed to coincide with her husband’s views on love, loyalty, marriage and fidelity.’
‘No, I meant do you know why she won’t have his name so much as mentioned?’
Tulola is not a girl who takes lightly to being dumped. ‘I can guess.’ She seeks revenge on all men.
‘I’d bet you a quail to a quadran you’d be wrong.’ He stood up and stretched his arms upwards towards the ceiling. ‘Suppose I tell you the husband comes home one night, discovers Tulola’s been playing around, they have an almighty row and he walks out?’
Claudia felt the tension pull in her neck and in her shoulders as she wondered where this was leading.
‘Then suppose I tell you that he’s never heard of again? That she takes his clothes, his books, his lyre, dumps them in a pile and makes a bonfire? What would you say to that?’
What indeed. ‘You’re suggesting it was an excuse for a funeral pyre?’
‘Not necessarily, I was merely canvassing your opinion, but it’s interesting how we both arrived at similar scenarios.’
He wandered across to the table, rattled the dice cup and tipped out the contents. ‘Full house,’ he chuckled. ‘Would you believe it?’