If he noticed any irony in the fact that here was a qualified physician banishing disease by the simple action of drinking wine he didn’t let on, but calmly poured wine into clean glasses from the jug on the right.
‘From the new wine we drink,’ he said, ‘and from the new illnesses may we be protected.’
There followed sufficient hear-hear-ing and enough your-health-ing for Claudia to feel she could slip away quietly, but Eugenius beckoned her over.
‘I’m going to my room,’ he said. ‘I’d appreciate some intelligent company.’
What could you say to the man whose house guest you were?
‘I was hoping you’d invite me,’ she said silkily.
Sod it.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Fabius clap a hand on Paulus’s shoulder as the boy was set to make his escape, and heard his voice boom out.
‘Can’t stand sloppy drill. Sloppy drill meant a crack from my cane and the man on barley rations for a week.’
So he was a centurion, then. Strange! Wealthy equestrian ranks, like the Collatinus clan, usually put a son in the army as a junior tribune as a stepping stone to a decent career in administration. The treasury, civil engineering, the usual stuff. Why should Fabius sign on as a legionary, an out-and-out footslogger, serving six or seven years before he could even qualify for promotion? She wondered whether she’d ever understand this family. Or frankly whether she was interested enough to bother.
Back amongst his own possessions and his dirty pictures, Eugenius seemed less frail, more the tyrant she knew him to be. Acte went through her paces once again, tucking and folding, pouring and serving, silently but not subserviently attending his needs, which she did without having to be told.
‘Here’s your alum water.’ She placed a glass on the table beside his couch. ‘This time you drink it.’
She turned to Claudia. ‘Keep an eye on him, will you? I found out yesterday he’s been tipping it under the bed.’ The old man’s mouth turned down at the corners. ‘Horrible stuff. Why can’t I have wine?’
‘Diomedes says it’s good for the paralysis.’
‘I haven’t noticed any improvement.’
Acte shook her head. ‘I don’t hear you moaning about the massage he ordered, and that hasn’t made a scrap of difference either.’
Her eyes, when they met Claudia’s, said ‘Honestly!’ and Claudia smiled. She liked Acte. How old would she be? Twenty-eight? Thirty? There was a rumour circulating that she was still a virgin.
The room seemed a lot emptier without her.
Picking up the alum water, Eugenius began to sip. ‘I’ve been talking to that Orbilio fellow.’ He pulled a face and replaced the glass on the table. ‘Seems very young.’
‘I fear he’s seen the porticoes of the Senate House, Eugenius. He’s running a direct course.’
‘Good luck to him, then. Patrician stock, should do well.’
‘They usually do,’ she replied caustically.
Eugenius made a sucking sound with his teeth. ‘You’re telling me! Look at Agrippa! The Emperor gave him half the plains of Katane after the war, and you’ve never seen more fertile soil.’
Claudia knew he wasn’t referring to the terrible civil wars which had racked the Empire, he meant the war for independence when Sextus, youngest son of Pompey the Great and commander of Augustus’s naval forces, rebelled and took control of the island.
As with most wars, of course, no one came out a winner. Although Sextus occupied Sicily for nigh on eight years before Augustus managed to recapture it, the cost to both sides was immense. Sextus cut off grain supplies to Rome, creating a famine and almost (but only almost) bringing the city to its knees, but as a result the wheat farmers had nobuyers for their harvests and the island lost much of its prosperity. Augustus retook Sicily around the time Claudia was born, but the province had never recovered. Augustus showed his mettle by finding additional sources for grain (his people would never go hungry again!), and by granting vast tracts of prime Sicilian land to his army veterans, thus keeping it in the family, as it were. Agrippa, his friend and general, fared particularly well.
A thought occurred to her. ‘Sabina went to Rome around the time Sextus took Sicily, didn’t she?’
He seemed surprised by the question, rather than ruffled by it. ‘She did,’ he replied, ‘and I can remember it like last week. That was the year after the Divine Julius was murdered. I was forty-seven years old and a prosperous wheat farmer, when along comes some snotty-nosed upstart ordering me not to ship my own grain to the motherland.’
‘So you sent your granddaughter instead.’
A glint of cunning crept into his eyes. ‘Took some palm-greasing, I can tell you, since they have a preference for patricians, but yes, I sent Sabina. Sextus and his ragbag followers were after the whole Empire, see, not just Sicily, and even scum like that understood the value of the Vestal Virgins.’
Crafty old sod! Torn between two masters, and Eugenius Collatinus managed to keep sweet with both. One thing was clear, though. He saw no reason to doubt Sabina’s authenticity.
There was a long pause, and Claudia did not fool herself into thinking his mind was wandering. Finally he said, ‘Fabius has been something of a disappointment to me.’
‘Really?’ Only Fabius?
‘His father never showed an aptitude for business I rather hoped the son would do better. Since he was always playing soldiers as a boy, I suppose I thought if I let him join up, he’d quickly tire of it as a man.’
‘Instead he took to it like a duck to water?’
It went a long way towards explaining why Eugenius kept such a tight control on the reins, but it was interesting what he’d said about Old Conky. Claudia had got the impression (admittedly from Aulus) that Aulus was practically running the show.
‘Twenty years I’ve waited for that boy to come home.’ The old man shook his head. ‘Twenty years-and most of them in this bed.’
‘And he’s not showing any aptitude for sheep rearing now he’s home, is that what you’re telling me?’
Eugenius looked up sharply. ‘Not unless you call route marches an interest.’ He tugged at his lower lip. ‘On the other hand, now he’s back in the fold, ha-ha, I feel that if he had a suitable wife it might be different.’
A faint flame of intuition began to glow. ‘Strangely enough, Eugenius, I am tempted to agree with you.’
She picked up the glass of alum water and walked over to the wall.
‘Don’t drink that,’ he said, ‘it’s vile.’
Claudia shot him a glance which said she believed it as she poured it straight out of the open window. With any luck, Orbilio would be sitting underneath eavesdropping.
‘It’s coming up to noon,’ she said gently. The slaves would be back any moment to convey him to the litter which would accompany Sabina’s funeral procession.
‘It’s funny,’ he said absently. ‘Sometimes I think the years have dragged, being crippled and bedridden, then I think to myself, hold on. Last January you were bouncing your grandson on your knee and now here we are in October and he’s got four children of his own.’
Claudia smiled to herself. They were all the same underneath, weren’t they? Soft men inside rock hard shells.
Now, from her perch beside the old lighthouse, she noticed the last vestiges of daylight were almost extinct. High in the hills, lamps and lanterns shone from the houses in Sullium. Closer to hand, torches flickered at the Villa Collatinus and oblongs of yellow thrown from the windows gave a honey glow to the courtyard. But with dusk the chill had intensified and could no longer be ignored. Claudia threw her palla round her shoulders, but made no move to pick her way home.
Sabina’s funeral this afternoon had made for a good turnout. For a small town, the wailing women weren’t bad, although Claudia would have preferred to see a bit more ash plastered about. Also the undertaker leading the cortege tended to give the impression he was more important than the dear departed, but on the whole it went well, the men with black togas drawn over their heads, the women with their hair dishevelled. Indeed, a stranger might have been fooled into thinking they cared.