Marilyn Todd: Dark Horse

'Litter!

A shabby green arrangement came running, but it was already taken and trotted straight past.

'Burglary, for one,' Orbilio said amiably. 'A large number of wealthy patricians have been steadily relieved of their gold and precious jewels in the eight months since Saturnalia, and since ordinary investigations were getting nowhere, my boss thought my blue blood might help shed insight into the matter.'

'How riveting. Litter!' Oh, thank you, Jupiter. 'The Forum,' she told the head bearer, 'and I'll double your fare if you run.' To Orbilio, she said, 'We really must do this again some time.'

'I'm free on Monday.'

'I was thinking of some time in the next life.' Claudia clambered inside and pulled the drapes shut. She would send her scribe to collect her winnings later.

'I'm working on another case, too,' Orbilio said, as the bearers picked up the litter.

'Really?'

'Something which I think might interest you.'

'I doubt that.' Claudia's sole concern was the two oafs who had been making such singularly fast progress through the crowd.

'Not even,' he asked, as the bearers adjusted the weight on their shoulders, 'if I tell you I'm investigating race fixing through the doping of horses?'

A small blue cotton bag appeared between the curtains and dangled in mid-air for a second or two before landing gently in her lap.

'Yours, I believe,' he said smugly.

Two days later, and Claudia Seferius was in no mood for visitors.

'My cousin said rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb..

How could Hylas the Greek have found out where she lived?

'… blah blah divorced and marrying again blah blah blah…'

It was that bloody bookie, wasn't it? She'd kill him. By thunder, she'd bloody kill him. Rip his heart out, feed it to the cat, chop his children into pieces and make meatballs out of them.

'… rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb this magnificent embossed betrothal medallion…'

Once she was free of Hylas's clutches, of course. Dammit, couldn't the man see she was perfectly prepared to apologize? Explain that she hadn't realized the grain she'd fed his horse was doped/a rival breeder put her up to it/pure coincidence Calypso won the race. Oh, all right, twelve pure coincidences if he wants to be pedantic, but the point is, don't these Greeks negotiate? Like a stoat negotiates with a rabbit, according to the scribe who tried to collect her winnings. Adding that in his opinion Hylas was in a less conciliatory, more a break-both-her-legs kind of mood. Shit, there were only so many ways a girl can sneak out of the house when his bullies come calling..

'… blah blah these are very difficult times for…'

Then there was the Security Police. Was it coincidence that Marcus Cornelius Orbilio just happened to be hanging around on the off-chance that someone would drug the top runners? The hell it was. Someone tipped him off and suddenly it's

Saturnalia and his birthday all rolled into one, because some stupid bitch actually hands him the bag of doped grain! What a mess.. rhubarb rhubarb I quite understand if you-'

'Wait!' Hold it right there, chum. Claudia suddenly began to pay closer attention to her visitor. Mid-thirties, tall, dark haired, well-built with a slight cleft in his chin, Leo was a patrician to boot. 'Say that again.'

'I said I was so, so sorry to hear about your husband's demise. I met him several times over the course of the-'

'No, the bit after that.'

'Uh… You mean, when I said how courageous I thought it was of you to take on his business, because it can't be easy, you being so young and a woman as well?'

'Not that bit either.'

That was the reason she was in this shit — taking on the bloody business. Dammit, if those bastard fellow wine merchants hadn't banded together to try and drive her to the brink of ruin, she wouldn't be doping horses to raise capital, which meant Hylas the Greek would have no axe to grind and she wouldn't be facing several years in penniless exile because the Security Police had been handed the incriminating evidence in a little blue cotton bag. Which Orbilio had returned, true. But only after conscientiously removing the contents.

'Didn't you mention something about inviting me to visit your estate in the Liburnian archipelago?' she prompted Leo.

Orbilio can build up as compelling a dossier as he likes, but if the chief suspect is nowhere to be found, such was Rome's magnetism for criminal activity that it only needed a couple of juicy murders or a really good conspiracy and race fixing would drop right off the end of his scale of priorities.

Oh come on, it was only a gentle narcotic! A few seeds from a species of chervil given to her by an Armenian for whom she had once done a favour. Not enough to give the horse colic, merely sufficient to render White Star a little unsteady on her hooves and induce a pleasant feeling of equine apathy. (Provided the damn drug had time to work, which is touch and go if the second race ends up being abandoned!)

'I thought it might take your mind off your grief,' Leo said, 'if you saw my revolutionary method of training the vines.'

For all she cared, Leo could use whips and a three-legged stool to train his damn vines. Claudia was packed almost before she'd said yes. Unfortunately, there just didn't seem to be the right moment to confess that the grieving widow wasn't exactly grieving. Not unless it was on account of the inheritance coming in vineyards, bricks and mortar instead of the luscious gold pieces she'd envisaged. I ask you. Who can buy a new gown with half a coppersmith's on the Via Latina? Or take home that delightful little brooch shaped like an owl with a stubby old vine bush or two? But even before her husband's pyre was cold, the sharks had moved in.

First they'd tried to buy her out, at a price far below the market value.

Then they'd tried to squeeze her out.

That did it.

Her husband, may he rest in peace (and she really must visit his grave along the Via Whatever sometime), had worked hard to build up the outlets for his prestigious Etruscan wines. Goddammit, these sons of bitches couldn't just barge in and take what they wanted for nothing. By hell or high water, or Hylas the Greek, Claudia would not let it go. Not, of course, that she knew the first thing about viticulture. That was what she employed experts for: to save her the bother of having to learn which of those twiddly bits needed pruning, whether it was better to line the vats with pitch or with resin. All she cared about was how it tasted. Because that made the difference between 7 and 10 per cent profit.

'I promise you,' Leo said, as the sails of the little merchantman bellied in the warm summer breeze, 'you won't regret coming to Cressia.'

Four hundred miles from Rome, Claudia had no doubts whatsoever on that score. She'd have taken up his offer had it meant spending the summer in the middle of the Libyan desert, providing that certain Greek nationals and the Security Police didn't get to hear about it. But the instant she set eyes on the island rising vertically out of the water, its wooded cliffs plunging hundreds of feet into the sparkling Adriatic, Claudia knew Leo was right.

Through adversity comes opportunity — and it didn't need to knock twice at Claudia's front door. Talk about landing on her feet! The Island of the Dawn, according to one legend. Paradise for Claudia Seferius. Set amid hills redolent with a thousand aromatic herbs, Leo's estate was an idyll of orchid-strewn pastures, oakwoods, pines, olive groves and vineyards, peppered with caves and freshwater ponds.

All of it eclipsed by the Villa Arcadia.

Shaded by figs and pomegranates and ancient gnarled olives, and affording breathtaking views over the Liburnian Gulf, luxury oozed from every pore. Over the past few months (as Leo had explained at numbing length during the journey), a veritable army of builders, sculptors, painters and mosaic-makers had been brought in, no expense spared, to turn the house into a palace. Extensions had been added, gardens landscaped, every surface covered with marble or gold, and the work was not finished yet. A squad of Rome's finest artists were still beavering away, covering the walls with frescoes and such like, in preparation for Leo's forthcoming marriage.