Mike Ashley - The Mammoth Book of Locked-Room Mysteries And Impossible Crimes

And when searching blue eyes bored deep into her own, Claudia saw a man who was very much pleased with himself. Not smug, not self-satisfied. Just quietly confident, like a man who’s achieved something special. Any other time and she’d have put that down to his counting all those lovely gold pieces that he’d fleeced off the men who were so noisily swilling his wine – had it not been for that little matter of the sapphire ring.

“That perimeter fence,” he continued, “was erected not only to keep my hunting beasts in, but also to keep other animals out. Since I breed my own stock,” he whispered, and she felt his breath on her cheek, “I can’t risk weakening the strain by letting them loose with the native population. My bears, for instance, are particularly belligerent, and it’s touches like these that give my hunts their – shall we say, competitive edge.”

Claudia knew what he meant. Only last year, the scion of one of Rome’s leading tribunes had died of wounds received whilst tangling with one of Max’s famous wild wolves – an incident which, far from deterring others, had in fact doubled the hunter’s trade. The greater the danger, apparently, the more men wanted a slice – especially rich men, who had never seen action in war. It was a pretty bizarre consequence for two decades of peace, but man’s compulsion to dance with Death had made Max wealthy in the extreme. Who was Claudia Seferius to decry a system that worked?

“Somehow we seem to have drifted away,” he said quietly, “from the subject of this little trinket…”

The drifting was not accidental. “Max, this isn’t the time.” Claudia kept her gaze on the horizon. “With the banquet in full swing, you should be there for your guests.”

He lifted the back of her hand to his lips and kissed it lightly. “Beauty. Intelligence. And impeccable manners, as well. Darling, you and I will forge a brilliant alliance.”

Claudia said nothing, and it was only when she was alone once more in her bedroom that she realized that, somewhere along the line, Max had pressed the betrothal ring into the palm of her hand. She slipped it on to her finger and watched the light reflect off its facets.

Hot damn, this was working out well.

“To Claudia!”

“Hurrah for the lady!”

“A toast to Claudia Seferius!”

One cheer after another ran round the banqueting hall, drowning the flutes in the background. All this, she thought, because I was the one who put Max on to Soni at the slave auction – what would they have been like, had she suggested he purchase a whole string! Goblets chinked, roasts were carved, and plates of salmon and oysters and hazel hens were passed round as slaves continuously topped up the wine. Except. Claudia coaxed a scallop out of its shell. Except Max had only bought the one slave, and what a magnificent specimen he was, this Soni from Gaul.

As a Greek balladeer recounted Jason’s triumphant lifting of the Golden Fleece, Claudia leaned against the arm of her couch and thought back to her first meeting with Max. Was it really only three weeks ago? So much had changed in that short space of time. She popped the scallop into her mouth and reflected that, without that chance meeting at the slave auction, she would not be here tonight as… well, as “guest of honour”, shall we say, of the man on whom Rome’s wealthiest citizens descended with greater regularity than a double dose of prunes, and where small fortunes changed hands for the gamble of turning wives into widows…

“See this?” A portly marble merchant on the couch opposite lifted the hem of his tunic to show his fellow diners a livid red scar. “The puncture wound was so bloody deep, I’m left with a permanent limp, but he was a plucky bugger, I tell you. Game to the end.”

“Call that a scar?” The magistrate beside him yanked at his neckline to expose a long and jagged line, barely healed. “Compared to mine, yours is a scratch.”

Much to the balladeer’s confusion, all eight then began dismantling expensive clothing in a bid to compare injuries, each insisting theirs was the worst while swearing at the same time that their quarry was the bravest, the toughest, possessing by far the most guile – ever. The singer’s words became drowned in the melee and Max shot a slow, but happy wink at Claudia. He had noticed, then, the ring which she wore on her finger…

Perhaps not as rich as Midas, hunts which were famed the length and breadth of Italy had enabled Max to not only purchase this fabulous villa stuffed with antiques and fine art, but lands that stretched to every horizon. No, sir. Claudia impaled a prawn on her knife. Without that chance meeting in Rome, Claudia Seferius would not be sitting here tonight with the man around whom Great Plans revolved…

Sometimes, she reflected, the gods on Olympus do smile down on mortals. Her mind drifted back. She’d been crossing the Forum from the east and another man had been crossing the Forum from the west. Marcus Cornelius Orbilio, to be precise, but- But dammit the man’s name was not important! What mattered was that the sweetest of all goddesses, Fortune (may her name live for ever), Fortune arranged for the slave auction to be held smack in the middle of their crossing paths. And Marcus Cornelius, god bless him, knew Max…

Marcus.

Marcus Cornelius.

Marcus Cornelius Orbilio.

Something skittered inside her when she pictured his face and she gulped at her wine to settle the jitters. Pfft! So what if he was tall and dark and – all right – not exactly bad looking? Who cared that his hair was wavy, except where it sometimes fell over his forehead, and that he wore the long tunic of a patrician? Marcus Whatsisname Thingy meant nothing to her. Nothing whatsoever. Less than zilch. In fact, the only reason her pulse raced now was owing to the lack of legality of certain scrapes she’d been in, seeing as how Supersnoop was attached to the Security Police.

In fact, that’s what she’d been doing in the Forum, returning from some rather dodgy dealings, but hell, what other option is there, when merchants conspire to freeze a young widow out of the wine trade that she’d been thrust into after inheriting her late husband’s business? Goddammit she’d married the old goat for his money, the least others could do is allow her to spend it. But no. Supersnoop’s always there, sticking his investigative snout in her business, hoping to catch her red-handed. One day he’d cotton on that she was too damned smart for him, but in the meantime Marcus God-but-I’m-handsome Orbilio had, for once in his miserable life, come up trumps.

Until then, Claudia was stuck with relying on moneylenders, con-tricks and bluff to keep the creditors at bay, but Fortune was favouring more than the brave that day. She was favouring Claudia Seferius. It was obvious, from their frosty introductions, that the two men weren’t exactly bosom buddies and chances are the meeting would have come to nothing – had Max not then excused himself, saying he needed to purchase a slave from the block.

“Just the one?” Claudia had asked. Normally people picked up quite a number. “One is hardly worth coming to Rome for.”

Suddenly the opening was there for the blond hunter to score points over his aristocratic rival. “My lovely Claudia,” Max had rasped, his eyes stroking her curves. “For me, one person is always enough.” Arched eyebrows indicated the auction block. “Which of those slaves would you recommend?”

“It depends on what qualities you’re looking for,” she’d purred back, with barely a glance in Marcus’ direction.

“In men,” Max replied huskily, “it has got to be staying power. Don’t you agree?”