In retrospect, though, wasn’t he reading too much into this miserable affair? Assuming Fronto and Crocodile Man had been in cahoots (for reasons she’d probably never know and didn’t really care about), surely it was safe to conclude the whole nasty business was now over and done with? That, whatever Fronto was up to, the scam had died with his accomplice? In the space of ninety hours, three people had met with violent death, but over the past two days it had been exceptionally quiet without a single attempt on her life-or anyone else’s for that matter. Suppose, like poor deluded Macer, Crocodile Man also laid the blame for his partner’s death at Claudia’s door. What was wrong with exacting his revenge? In short, what was wrong with a simple solution? Why couldn’t the revenge plan have backfired? Why couldn’t Coronis have slipped on the shiny surface and broken her neck?
More than satisfied that none of the partygoers could possibly be a killer, Claudia jostled to take her place for the roast and, in doing so, found herself brushing against a rough, woollen workshirt. The sensation was electric. Damn you, Marcus. Damn you to hell.
Wedging herself between Barea, in a long Phoenician tunic, and Corbulo the Camel Tamer, she deliberately set out to flirt. ‘Is that what they mean by painting the town red?’ she quipped. ‘Or are you a genuine redneck?’
‘Ritual ochre,’ he laughed, taking a great draught of wine. ‘Tonight,’ he made an elaborate flourish with his hands, ‘I am an Etruscan king.’
Tonight I could believe it. In white kilt and traditional gold torque, Corbulo strutted like a peacock, a prince among men, a pearl among pebbles. And had the double bump on his nose not screamed his heritage, then the way he’d looped and bound his hair did. She glanced across to where Orbilio was settling himself on the couch. Was it accident or was it contrived, that the hero of the hour just happened to be directly opposite? Who cares, she thought. Not me. I’ve decided there’s something horribly claustrophobic about the atmosphere in bedrooms where the lights are low and the moon is swelling. Nevertheless, as Corbulo’s tundra eyes bored deep into hers, Claudia felt a strange stirring inside.
‘That’s the trouble where you come from.’ She forced herself to listen to Timoleon baiting the Celt. ‘Men are men, but by Janus, your women are ugly.’
‘Huh!’ Taranis wiped his hands down the length of his pantaloons, his only concession to fancy dress being to twine his hair. ‘I have job to do, selling bears. When I make money, then maybe I take wife.’
‘Betcha bed the grizzly by mistake,’ the gladiator muttered under his breath.
‘You laugh,’ the Celt rejoined, ‘but you no marry.’
‘Damn right. Women are fine for one purpose, but who the hell wants to spend time with them? Bore me rigid, they do.’
‘I’ll drink to that,’ threw in Barea, flashing a contradictory wink at Claudia as he wrestled with the unaccustomed volume of linen.
‘Drink to what?’ asked Tulola. ‘Marcus, is that milk? Darling, how gross. Oh, look everybody.’ Even the cheetah glanced up from its lump of gazelle. ‘My masterpiece!’
Four slaves staggered into the hall carrying a whole roasted boar. On its head it wore a miniature cap of freedom, from its tusks dangled woven baskets bulging with dried dates and walnuts, and attached to its teats as though suckling sat a little bread piglet.
Salvian, who’d come dressed as a Spaniard, put his fingers in his mouth and whistled loudly. His face was a map of cuts and scabs from its first scrape of the iron blade, but behind the redness and the rashes, a chrysalis was beginning to emerge. Like shaving a pomegranate, yesterday’s razor had been totally unnecessary, yet psychologically the ceremony had boosted his confidence and Tulola rose in Claudia’s estimation. Salvian, she mused, as the hams and the hares and the ducks were wheeled in, is finally growing into his armour.
‘I don’t half feel a tit,’ mumbled Barea, his heel tangling in the long hem. ‘How them poor sods managed, I don’t know. They’re seafarers, right? Yet they traipse around in woman’s robes!’
Just up Tulola’s street, that egg-yolk yellow. ‘At least,’ Claudia quipped, ‘Phoenicians don’t miss one another in the dark.’
‘Here, Pallas,’ bawled Timoleon, palming a glazed figpecker as the tray went past. ‘How come you didn’t wear your long frock tonight?’
‘What? And fight you off all ruddy night? No fear.’ Timoleon’s vulgar gesture played right into Pallas’ hands.
‘Darling boy, your roots are showing. And I don’t mean your hair.’
The gladiator lunged, but Sergius put out an arm to restrain him.
‘Yes, sit down, Muscles, he’s just winding you up.’ With a thigh-revealing swirl of her skirts, Tulola stepped over her couch and began stropping the carving knife as Pallas pretended to pout. ‘Will this make it better, sweetie?’ She tossed Pallas a boned pheasant stuffed with onions and asparagus and sensuously licked the sauce off her fingers.
‘Of course it won’t,’ the gladiator sneered. ‘The fat slob can eat a whole farmyard at a single sitting.’
Yes, thought Claudia, whereas Tulola devours the farmer.
‘Gourmet food is an art, my boy,’ Pallas replied, sinking his teeth into the dripping fowl. ‘In its pursuit, I have squandered fortunes and-’
‘-not one your own.’
‘That’s enough,’ the keeper of the harem chided Timoleon. ‘I won’t have you keep taunting my house guest.’ Tulola ruffled the fat man’s hair. ‘I’m very fond of Pallas, aren’t I, Lover?’
‘Positively attached,’ he replied drily, eyeing up the remnants of the fish course. ‘Pass those oysters, will you? Criminal to see them wasted.’
As the conversation turned to which were tastier, oysters from the Lucrine rocks or those from Tarentum, Claudia was acutely aware that throughout this charged interchange, the gaze of Marcus Cornelius Orbilio had been in one direction and one direction only. As her wine was topped up, she tried not to think of the way he had chinked his gaming cup against the lip of her glass in the close confines of her bedroom.
‘Now before my poor boar starts shivering with cold, let’s move on to the business of carving,’ purred Tulola, and as the beast was sliced open to reveal a whole goose, which in turn was stuffed with a pullet stuffed with a thrush, Claudia ensured her eyes went anywhere except opposite.
‘I wish I’d been fit for the chase,’ growled Sergius. ‘I do enjoy a good hunt.’
You’re not the only one, thought Claudia. I know policemen who use sex the way hunters use spears.
‘That’s the trouble with these pimples the Umbrians call hills’ Corbulo heaped her plate with carrots and broccoli and celery. ‘They’re only fit for bloody hunting. Where’s the scope to cultivate the soil, eh?’ He seemed to be talking to himself. ‘Isn’t land the most important thing of all?’
‘What? Oh. Oh, yes. Absolutely.’ And that business about the ulcer. I’ve seen you, Marcus Cornelius. Every time the wine jug comes round, your hand closes over your glass, which means you, sir, are on the wagon.
‘Don’t you love it, Claudia? The living, breathing soil?’
‘Unconditionally.’ I can see why Gisco’s wife succumbed. Sleek, witty, urbane? Tinged with danger round the edges? Just the ticket for a woman tired of the marriage bed and seeking outside adventures.
‘The way it changes with the seasons, filling the barns and the vats and the cellars?’
‘I’ll say.’ How many more women have you strung along, who’d grieve for the tragic waste should the charioteer make you sing castrato?
‘It nurtures us while we live, hugs us when we die.’
‘My dear Corbulo, I couldn’t have put it better myself.’ What’s wrong with me tonight? Every time I look up, my cheeks start to burn. Dammit, I should never have called for that jug of white wine earlier. Red and white never mix.