Marilyn Todd - Widow's Pique

Just a few yards away, the thick-lipped Arab was still pulling his robes straight.

'More than that,' Marcus whispered. 'I'm a man who always gets it.'

'Then you must come with me.'

There was no mistaking the innuendo, and as he followed the swaying hips along the portico, Orbilio wondered what in gods' name he was doing. His mind flashed back to his failed marriage. Too young, far too young, and good luck to her that she ran off with some sea captain from Lusitania, everyone deserves a shot at happiness. He was just thankful there were no children involved. Oh, but he wanted children. Sons to go hunting with, daughters he could protect, but, more than that, much, much more than that, he wanted a wife to grow grey and wrinkly with. He tried to picture Claudia Seferius with wrinkles 'Do share the joke, darling,' his companion begged.

'No joke,' he replied. Claudia would never get wrinkles. The wrinkles wouldn't dare!

'Then what are you laughing at?'

'Nothing,' he said, and suddenly it was true.

He looked at the rich patrons being fed wine, food and the other delights of this sumptuous whorehouse and his gut wrenched. For all its enforced gaiety, this was nothing more than casual, unemotional, pay-through-the-nose sex. Truly the coldest comfort in the whole world. And he should know. By the gods, after all this time, he ought to know 'How about this room?' His stunning companion paused in a doorway. 'It has the most naughty pictures on the walls-'

'I don't care what's on the bloody walls,' he said roughly. 'Get inside.'

'Ooh, goody. No foreplay, no Smalltalk, none of this my-wife-doesn't-understand-me bullshit.' The giggle was girlish but not forced. 'You know, sweetie, it really arouses me when a man gets straight to business.'

He thought again of the Arab…

'You want to get straight to business?' Orbilio yanked off the whore's expensive yellow wig and there was a harsh edge to his voice. Then straight to business it is. Sweetie.'

Red lips pouted prettily, before dropping into an astonished and horrified O.

'Marcus!'

'Yes, my dear cousin, it's me. Now you can pull your skirt down and explain just what the hell you're doing here.'

'I–I don't understand… What's this got to do with the Security Police?'

'Bugger all,' he growled. 'Your father asked me-'

The gasp was pure terror.

'My father?' Tears began to well up. 'Does he know about… about this?'

Orbilio wished he'd had the courage to follow his desires and walk out that front door a few minutes ago. Why did he have to be so bloody tied to his duties? Family duties, in this particular instance, but none the less binding for that. And how bloody ironic that his uncle so disapproved of his role in the Security Police, until he needed his help…

'He'd been hearing rumours,' he explained patiently, because, heaven knows, it wasn't the first time his little cousin had been caught whoring. 'He asked me to investigate.'

Translation, hush it up.

'Marcus, I beg you on my life, don't let my father find out! I'll be ruined. Oh, for pity's sake, Marcus. I'm married.'

The sobbing was pitiful.

'I've two boys and — sweet Jupiter, you know the law. What I'm doing isn't just adultery. It's — it's — Oh please, if word gets back, they'll take my kids away, I'll never see them again.'

'Pity you didn't think of the consequences beforehand,' he snapped. After all, it's not as though you needed the money.'

He'd checked. But no, this was for kicks.

The kohl was making ugly black stripes down the rouge. 'I can't help what I do, Marcus. I genuinely can't help it.'

He drew a deep breath. Held it. Let it out slowly. 'I know,' he whispered.

His cousin wasn't alone. There were plenty of people, wealthy people at that, who had the same problem. Addicted to sex. Addicted to selling their bodies. That was the reason he hadn't walked out earlier. The poor sods just couldn't help it.

'But you can't go on prostituting yourself like this,' he said gently. 'You have to stop, for your own sake as well as your family's.'

This was probably not the time to bring up the subject of diseases. Or blackmail. Or beatings. Or what happened when good looks started to fade…

'Marcus, oh, Marcus, what am I going to do?'

Orbilio spiked weary fingers through his hair. 'For a start, you're going to dry your eyes, patch up your make-up and put that ridiculous wig back on. Then, my dear cousin, you and I are going to walk out of here as though I'm taking my little playmate home for the night.'

He felt a hundred years old, not just twenty-eight, and a vice was crushing the life from his ribs.

'When we're far enough away from this place,' he continued, 'you're going to wash your face, change into a tunic that isn't see-through and slit to the crotch, then you're going to go home to your poor bloody wife, tell her you spent a wonderful evening with your cousin Marcus and then tomorrow morning, Horatio, you're going to sit on the magistrate's bench as usual. Is that clear?'

Silence.

'Horatio, I said, is that clear?'

Unable to speak, Horatio nodded dumbly.

As much as Claudia would have liked to think the islanders' searing scrutiny was centred on Mazares's skin-tight pants, she knew it was curiosity at a possible future Queen that had their eyes drinking in everything from the straightness of her back to the gilding on her sandals, the childbearing potential of her hips to the shining silver tiara that stopped her curls from tangling in the breeze. Darkness had encompassed the archipelago, but she could feel the women contrasting her elaborate coiffure with their own simple braids and comparing her fashionably pleated (and hideously expensive) embroidered gown with their own plain and practical tunics. Ah, but when they weighed up the stiff gold girdle beneath her bust, how did that rate against the comfort of a soft woven belt tied loosely round the waist?

Kazan had shouted, 'Drinks all round!' to everyone who'd turned out to welcome the King's bride, an offer seized upon with alacrity by his two sons. The ponytailed Pavan had strode off into the night, presumably to find some more badgers to pickle, Drilo had led his priestly entourage off to make sacrifice for Claudia and the ship's safe arrival, heaven knows where Vani had disappeared to, probably arm-wrestling with the crew if those muscles were anything to go by! So, with Rosmerta barking orders for the disembarkation of Claudia's luggage with an efficiency that many a centurion could learn from, it was left to Mazares to lead Histria's honoured guest through the labyrinth of winding streets to the King's house.

Any preconceptions of this being a nation of backward, warring pirates who needed to be kept in check by their Roman vanquishers had long gone. Between the late King, Dol, and his successor, a culture had been created that was as sophisticated as it was autonomous, and although the Histri worshipped different gods and retained their own traditions, theirs was as vibrant and progressive a society as any within the boundaries of the Empire.

Equally, though, Histria was a land of opposites. Half the kingdom comprised a string of isolated coastal communities who made their living from the sea and were defended by a fleet of fast, sleek galleys. The other half was made up of the hunters and farmers of the peninsula's interior and was policed by an army officially classified as Roman auxiliaries. Light and shade, she thought. Light and shade..

'The person who can successfully juggle the needs of two such diverse factions must be quite a man,' Claudia said.

She saw no need to add that there was no way such a hero would seek out a low-born, impecunious widow for his wife.

'Not for someone born among the two communities,' Mazares replied, holding the torch high, so she wouldn't miss her footing on the steps. 'To us, it's no different from having a man and a woman as parents. Separately, they're chalk and cheese; together, they make the perfect team.'