Marilyn Todd - Black Salamander

‘Mrrow?’

‘Oh, don’t be silly. Saving Hotshot’s life by not allowing him to become embroiled in rebel politics is no big deal, poppet. I’d have done it for anybody, it doesn’t mean I give a fig for him personally.’

He’s just a man. Nothing special. The way the light reflects off the flecks in his hair doesn’t mean a thing. Or the way it felt, when he’d gripped her hand on the road yesterday ‘Right.’ Claudia kissed the yellow pouch. ‘Time to make a move, I think.’

And for this-she pulled the shutters closed and latched them tight-she needed total privacy. No chambermaids. No room service.

‘And now.’ Ten minutes later, she shook the folds of her gown and inhaled the sweet smell of peach blossom. ‘The finishing touch.’

She slid her hand deep into her satchel and extracted a thin-bladed knife.

‘Mrrrrrr.’

‘Don’t look at me like that, poppet.’ She stroked the cat until, pacified, feline ears flattened hard against her wedge-shaped head. ‘This is simply a sensible precaution. Junius will be with me at all times, nothing can go wrong at this stage, trust me.’

‘Rrrr.’

‘Nonsense. That business with the saddle strap? All settled.’ Didn’t she say at the time it felt like the wrong horse? Later Volso made the very same point and it was obvious, with hindsight, what had happened. ‘The astrologer was the killer’s target, poppet. Not me.’

‘Prrrrr.’

‘Exactly! The worst is behind us, it’s plain sailing from now on, and I can see no reason, Drusilla, my girl, why tomorrow morning the three of us, you, me and Junius, are not heading straight back to Rome.’

‘Prr.’

Although had Claudia Seferius thought to consult a Sequani dictionary at that stage, she may well have discovered that the Celtic definition of the word ‘worst’ differed considerably from the Latin interpretation.

Apart from a pair of cresset lights burning on either side of the doorway, the house was total darkness by the time Claudia returned to her lodgings. One or two stars twinkled between the scudding clouds, but the night was warm and the river smelled sour, even from here. Down at the waterfront, where she’d spent several hours, the stench was considerably worse. Raw sewage, stale beer, the lingering odour of stevedores’ sweat. But at least there was life down there. Vitality. The shrill laugh of whores, drunken singing, brawls which spilled from the swillpens into the streets. Back here, in the dark, sinister shadow of Black Mountain, only the silent footfalls of a cat revealed the scene was not a still-life painted fresco.

Looking up at the bolted shutters, Claudia was suddenly conscious of the two distinct categories which divided her fellow travellers. On the one hand there were those, like Titus and Iliona, who’d found stimulation from their unplanned adventure and whose limbs would be intertwined, naked and sated, as they slept in one another’s arms. Then there were the Dexters and Marias who had not, and now lay side by side, awake and unspeaking, in the hollow emptiness of their room, separated by a hand-span and a gulf of understanding. Involuntarily, Claudia shivered. Then, dismissing Junius, she slipped into the tavern. What a night!

‘I’ll light you to your room, miss,’ the porter said, hobbling out of his cubbyhole.

‘You’ll do no such thing,’ she retorted, snatching the oil lamp from his hand. ‘I can manage perfectly well by myself.’

With a suit-yourself shrug, the porter retreated to his jug of ale and game of odds-and-evens, stubbing his toe on the table in the darkness and cursing as his counters scattered over the floor, ruining the run of play.

With an eerie flicker, the lamp lit Claudia’s way up the stairs. Wretched bloody Gauls. Can’t they build with anything but timber? Talk about gloomy. And even between the beams, they’d made no attempt to paint the lumpy plaster. All you got was a clumsily fashioned statue of some silly bitch riding side-saddle stuck in a niche in the wall halfway up this rickety staircase. Epona, didn’t they call her? For a goddess, Claudia thought, you’re not much of a rider. She was tipped sideways, rather like Claudia when she tumbled over the edge yesterday. Pausing to straighten the statuette, she realized that the sculpture had a thick stone spike on the bottom, which fitted-or in this case, did not-into a socket. Curious, Claudia peered into the hole and saw that it contained several bronze and silver coins, and it was this munificent offering which kept Epona offbalance. Easily remedied…

With the Celtic goddess upright once again, Claudia continued her way up the stairs and by the light of the porter’s oil lamp counted her profits. Previous guests had been generous to the lovely Epona. Twelve sesterces. Quite a What was that?

With one puff, she extinguished the lamp. All evening she’d felt sure she was being followed. Even Junius had clutched his dagger tightly in his hand, rather than loosely in its scabbard and she knew it wasn’t Supersnoop on their tail. He’d have throttled his own shadow rather than let it give him away. She tiptoed across the room and listened, there were faint scufflings on the landing.

Whoever it was out there would know she was still in possession of the deerskin pouch, although by the gods, it wasn’t for the want of trying! Her instructions had been clear. Go down to the waterfront to the Temple of Neptune, turn right, then take the first street right again. You’ll see a modern brick-built warehouse showing the sign of the salamander. Go inside, up the stairs, second floor, first door on the left, knock this signal: one long, two short, two long. Ask for the slave dealer, Ecba.

Like Clemens with his wretched taboos for Jupiter’s Priest, Claudia had memorized the instructions, could have recited them backwards and in Phrygian in her sleep. Therefore, after taking a convoluted route, as though out for a gentle evening stroll, she had worked her way down to the wharves. Here it would be much easier to give her tail the slip, and it would appear so innocent, too. After all, what wealthy Roman gentlewoman would knowingly make for the rough part of town, where sailors catcalled obscenities from the safety of their ships, where raddled whores with ravaged faces spat at her? With so much loading and unloading going on, barrels, sacks, crates, amphorae being wheeled, winched, hefted, rolled, it was easy to get lost in the crush.

For thirty dull minutes she and Junius had remained flat on their stomachs underneath the granary, conveniently raised on stone piers to prevent rat damage, their prostrate bodies hidden by a consignment of fleeces, while gangplanks were lowered and raised, masts stepped and unstepped, oxen hooked up to and unhooked from barges. Wagons rolled in, wagons rolled out. Chains rattled over the quayside, ropes dragged, hoofs scuffed impatiently, but no two pairs of boots which passed back and forth were the same.

The warehouse had been easy to find. A stone salamander slithered over the pediment, picked out in black paint. Up two flights. One long, two short, two long knocks on the door. ‘I’m looking for Ecba,’ she called. ‘The slave dealer.’

Nothing.

Next time louder. The third knock they’d have heard in Dalmatia.

He’s out. Why shouldn’t he be? He’s not to know the delegation has finally arrived. I’ll wait.

Two hours passed, with no sign of the slave dealer.

Why should there be? This was his place of work, not his home. She enquired at the barber’s shop opposite. The barber, a big man with the aquiline features of the Babylonian, sent a gobbet of spittle past Claudia’s skirt. He came. He went. He minded his own business. And if the grating of heavy shutters sliding across his shopfront between himself and Claudia didn’t get the message across, the rattling of safety chains did.