Marilyn Todd - Jail Bait

To the sounds of trumpets, horns and cymbals loud enough to scare every spirit, not just the bad ones, the funeral procession rumbled past leadbeaters and coppersmiths, bakers and glassblowers, apprentices and matrons. For a moment, Claudia thought she glimpsed a familiar face in the crowd, someone from Rome, but maybe she was wrong, because when she lifted her mourning veil for a better view, there was no one she recognized after all. Bugger.

Finally, on the far side of the newly constructed triple-arch gateway, the parade ground to a halt, silver censers blinding in the sunlight. With professional ease, Cal’s final wooden bed was hefted on to the pyre and Claudia noticed that the immense Oriental she’d seen yesterday on her arrival had also latched on to the party. His posture was identical-feet squarely apart, arms crossed-and he still wore that tight leather vest and strange kilt. Today, though, the long tuft of hair was tied in a thong like a mare’s tail on parade day. Somehow it looked like a weapon, as deadly as the curved blade at his hip. Despite the heat, Claudia shivered.

Then the bruiser slid from her mind as Pylades stepped forward to deliver the oration, and to hear him list the achievements of a young man he probably never knew to a crowd of people who’d never heard of him, you had to admire the professionalism of this stocky hillsman, so glowing were the tributes, so touching the anecdotes. As a young acolyte swung a censer with clumsy abandon, a priest in long flowing robes sprinkled the bier with wine. These two, Claudia deduced, must be Leon and Mosul. Spluttering from incense overdose, the priest snapped for Leon to withdraw, and as his little black eyes met with Kamar’s, so he shrugged in a mixture of irritation and despair. This, then, was the perfectionist who tended the shrine of the water nymph all by himself? A tub of a man with the eyes of a mole.

As Pylades began to quote a few lines of Virgil, appropriate to the occasion, Claudia noticed the hint of fluff on Leon’s upper lip and sympathized with Mosul. Already the lad’s concentration had veered towards a shapely ankle protruding from the long, white tunic of a flautist, although from this angle, Claudia could not tell w nether the joint belonged to a youth or a girl.

Mosul completed his purification procedure and resumed his place next to Kamar. Pylades, keen to give Cal a good send-off, was now quoting Sappho and Claudia glanced round the crowd. Strange. Not a military uniform in sight. Not that she minded, of course! The greater the distance between the army and Mistress Seferius the better at the moment, but all the same, it struck her as odd, no official attendance at a funeral. The Oriental, she noticed, had melted away as invisibly as he had appeared, but right at the back, Lavinia’s tall field hand had appeared, his ebony skin shining in the sunlight. At his shoulder, the young Jewish girl appeared to be pleading with him, and Lalo spread his weathered outdoor hands in silent pacification, as though to say ‘not now’, and Claudia made a mental note to find out how long Ruth had been with Lavinia and where she had come from before. Her Latin was perfect, barely a hint of a Judaean accent, but it was strange she hadn’t adapted to Roman attire, and equally strange that Lavinia didn’t object. If only to spare her servant from Mosul’s cold and contemptuous stare.

Observing the nimbleness of Lalo’s olive-picking fingers and the raw, damaged knuckles, Claudia decided that it wouldn’t hurt to enquire how long he’d been in the old woman’s employ, either. What exactly was his role within her smallholding? For a field hand, he was exceptionally familiar with his mistress, even to sleeping in her bed. Did he bully her? That seemed unlikely, but why should he be here today? Had Lavinia sent him to watch and report back? Or was he paying his own last respects?

As Pylades wound up his oration, the pre-paid sobbing took over and branches of cypress were solemnly laid over Cal’s body, covering for ever that mop of corn-coloured hair. With a lump in her throat, Claudia inched through the crowd. Lecher or not, the Greek ought to know his efforts in ensuring Cal didn’t journey alone on this tragic morning were appreciated. When she saw him turn to Kamar and mutter, ‘I can’t take much more of this,’ under his breath, Claudia froze.

‘Be patient,’ the physician replied. ‘It’ll be over soon enough.’

Pylades snorted. ‘That’s fine for you to say,’ he flashed back, ‘you’re a doctor, but me! I have a business to run!’

The hiss of the flames sweeping over the pyre drowned the rest of the interchange, but in any case Claudia could stomach no more. Sickened by the callousness, she reeled away from the congregation, to be swallowed up amongst the basketweavers and the moneychangers, the fishmongers and the wheelwrights.

Did no one care? A boy dies, and nobody here gives a damn?

Forget Kamar. He’d pronounced death by falling and nothing would sway him from that conclusion, and in any case who’s to call him a liar? The evidence was literally going up in smoke, and as to a few bloodstains on the rock, why, you’re overwrought, my dear, those could be anything-fishguts, a cracked shin, in fact are you sure that it’s blood? It looks very like paint, you know… Turtleface’s stock would probably soar as a result of the calm and professional way he dealt with another neurotic attention seeker!

By the basilica, she pulled close to the wall to let past a bloodied carcass of beef. Bluebottles swarmed over the meat and a mongrel trotted behind, pausing to lick the odd drip of blood.

If the priest with the shiny black eyes won’t let even his own acolyte near the spring, he’d not wish to become embroiled in a scandal which might cast a cloud over his nymph.

Leon was too clumsy, too obsessed with galloping hormones to care, which only left Pylades-and far from being the high-minded deliverer of Lake Plasimene, bringer of trade and prosperity and cures for the sick, Pylades turned out to be just another shallow, self-seeking money-grubber, concerned more with his daily schedule than the boy who had died!

When it came to matters of conscience, it was clearly a case of the bland leading the bland.

‘You wish to steal my boat again, yes?’

The voice in her ear made her jump, causing Claudia to stub her toe on the kerbstone. What else could account for the colour flooding her face? ‘Ah.’ The grey rowboat. ‘Um-’

He was leaning against the side of a barber’s shop, the sole of one foot flat against the stonework as he carved a small piece of wood with a knife. Today his long hair was tied back at the nape, though there was no change in the depth of the accent. ‘Is “ah-um” Latin for yes or for no?’ the Spaniard enquired and despite his dark, dark eyes being hidden in the shadows, Claudia knew they were laughing.

‘I assumed the boat was the property of Atlantis,’ she said stiffly. Dammit, he had no right to creep up on her like that! ‘However, I wish to thank you for saving my life yesterday.’

‘No need,’ he replied, flashing a sharp glance. ‘The bear, also, was trespassing.’

Also?

‘You know, this man Tuder-’ he shrugged expressively ‘-for a banker, he have very good taste. Maybe I show you around? The villa, the grounds. You wish to see, yes?’

Above the hum of conversation from the barber’s came the sound of iron scissors snipping at hair, bronze knives being stropped, the sizzle of curling tongs heated in charcoals and whetstones being lubricated by spitting.

‘I wish to see, no.’

The Spaniard grunted, and the grunt could have meant anything.

Funny, but despite the lane reeking with the wolf’s grease used to cure baldness, with steam and the dust from the scrape of their stools, Claudia could smell only a subtle blend of woodshavings and pine…