‘At a guess? Two hundred paces.’
‘Two hundred?’
‘Maybe three or four. Look.’ He pointed to a dark, damp mound.
‘A leak?’
‘A blockage,’ he corrected, shovelling frantically. ‘Which has put such a strain on the joints, we don’t have the bother of how to smash our way through.’
‘It’s quicker if we both dig,’ Claudia offered. Any excuse to dump this revolting lump of goat fat. As she balanced the candle on a shelf, Orbilio jumped up as though scalded.
‘Holy, holy shit!’ he said.
In the bright halo of light, a hand was sticking out of the earth.
As Orbilio clawed at the soil, she saw the arm was attached to a torso, and the torso attached to a neck, which still bore the deep mark of the garotte. Attached to the neck was a head with a crown of baby-fine hair, and a thin pink nose.
‘Macer!’ Claudia gulped. Orbilio’s expression was grim as he hauled the body out of the drainage pipe.
‘Look again,’ he said roughly.
For it was not the Prefect who lay dripping in his lap. It was his nephew.
XXXII
To this day, Claudia could not say how she made it out of that store room. At some stage, Orbilio must have pushed her headlong into the sewer. He must have told her to keep her head up, perhaps he showed her how to drag herself down the channel by her elbows. Certainly they were red raw when she emerged, gasping and spluttering, into the pond, as were her knees and her feet. It could even have been that he had jerked on her hair from time to time, to keep her face out of the swirling waters and save her from drowning. She just did not know.
Dawn was beginning to break in the Vale of Adonis as Orbilio tumbled into the pool after her, the air sweet and fresh and full of birdsong, as though nothing so sordid as murder could have happened under its disappearing stars. Since the goddess Aurora had not yet placed her rosy kisses on the sky, the water remained a translucent shade of grey as Claudia splashed around in it. He watched the graceful motion of her arms, the lithe movement of her long, long legs. She needed to wash away the effluent, she said, and he pretended to go along with it, and for the first time since he met her, Marcus Cornelius Orbilio did not feel a surge in his loins. True, she wore nothing but a breast band and thong, which, wet, served to accentuate her secrets, rather than hide them. But it was an overwhelming tenderness that coursed through Orbilio’s veins as she splashed and swam, and the feeling took him completely by surprise. He was not entirely sure he liked it.
She had done well, he thought, hauling himself out of the water. Swoons and hysterics were not part of her psyche, but she blamed herself for Salvian’s death and there was little he could do to dissuade her.
‘He told me,’ she’d wailed, cradling Salvian in her arms. ‘He told me he knew who the murderer was. I could have saved him, Marcus. I could have saved this boy’s life, but I laughed at him instead.’
Since he’d had no real answer, Orbilio reminded her sternly that time was a luxury they did not possess as he prised away a large section of the terracotta piping using a shelf as a lever. Now something was wrong. It prickled his skin and it prickled the hairs on the back of his scalp. Something was very wrong. And the danger that stalked them was almost bestial in form.
‘Claudia, we have to go.’ She had washed away as much of Salvian’s blood as was possible. The stains that were left were all in her mind.
To his surprise, she did not protest. ‘I’m cold,’ was all she said, hugging her arms tight round her shoulders.
‘It’s still early in the year,’ he replied, and his words were unconvincing.
He knew they both still saw the face of the junior tribune, rash-red from the razor, heard the clank of his ill-fitting armour. Seventeen, and almost a father. Seventeen, and more than a match for Tulola. Seventeen-yet much more of a man than his uncle.
‘We have to tell Macer,’ Claudia said, wringing her hair with her hands. But when she looked round, Orbilio was sprinting to the far side of the pond. His eyes were fixed on a coloured rag, dusky pink mixed with red. ‘My tunic!’ she cried.
He was hunkered over it. ‘Don’t touch it,’ he growled.
But it was too late. ‘I’m freezing,’ she protested, grabbing it out of his hands. ‘What the-?’ The red was blood. Fresh, dripping blood. And the tunic had been ripped to shreds.
There was a tenseness about him she had never seen before. ‘Be quiet,’ he warned. ‘And don’t move a muscle.’
Stealthily he padded towards the tree line, his eyes sweeping the ground. Claudia heard the snapping of a branch.
He returned with a piece of wood no thicker than her wrist, with two rough points at the ends. ‘Take this,’ he said. As a weapon it did not look convincing, but Claudia’s nails dug into the bark as he went off in search of a more promising defence.
Her eyes scanned the valley. The slaves would just about be stirring by now, another half-hour and pans would start to sizzle in the kitchens. At her feet, the tunic seemed to have a life force all of its own. It had turned into something evil and ugly, she half expected it to pulsate, to scuttle across the grass, to…
From the woods behind her came the rapid whirring of a hundred wingbeats. Finches, tits, stonechats and robins. Woodlarks, jays, warblers and an owl. Claudia felt her skin crimple. Dammit, Marcus Cornelius, what’s keeping you?
For a moment, she thought she saw movement. A pale blur among the branches. Stop this! You’re starting at shadows. Like dusk, dawn light plays strange tricks, and why shouldn’t a flock of birds stretch their wings? No reason at all, Claudia told herself, gripping the stake with both hands.
At the far side of the villa, the gazelle would also be stretching their thin, graceful legs, and Barea would be bringing out his stallion for an early-morning gallop. What she wouldn’t give to be astride that big, black horse at the moment! The fastest nag to reach Narni since Pegasus.
There is something moving. Up in the trees. Swinging. Swishing.
‘Marcus!’ she yelled. ‘Marcus!’
There was a flash of white. Muted. Soft.
‘What?’ He came crashing through the woods. ‘What is it?’
And then he saw it. The pale underbelly. The danger in bestial form…
With a snarl, the cheetah pounced upon the victim it had been stalking so silently.
With no weapon to defend himself, Orbilio threw up his hands-but it was no match for a hundred-pound cat hurtling out of the canopy. He could see every sinew, every black spot on the bright yellow pelt. Her pink nose. Her long, white whiskers. He could smell her breath on his face, fishy, stale. He saw strands of saliva, saw her awesome white fangs.
They would be the very last thing he saw in this life…
And then…
In mid-leap, it twisted and jerked. The snarl changed, became deeper, guttural. He felt a surge of liquid hot on his face. As the cheetah crashed down on top of him, a shudder rippled through its powerful frame. It convulsed twice, and twice more, then lay still. And the liquid he tasted was its blood.
Dazed, he looked round. Sticking clean through its neck was the point of his rough-hewn stake.
Marcus Cornelius Orbilio heaved the cat’s corpse clear of his body and scrambled to his feet. He wanted to thank her for saving his life, he wanted to tell her how lovely she looked, hair wild, cheeks flushed, body almost naked. He wanted to ask her to marry him.
Instead he was sick on the spot.
*
Claudia was still shaking as she lifted the hasp on the orchard gate. It was reaction, of course. Read nothing more into it. A man’s life was in danger, she had a weapon to hand at the time. That was all. She’d have done the same for anyone, and heaven knows it was easy enough. She’d seen the cheetah long before Orbilio, watched it spring. Hell, the damned cat practically impaled itself!