Marilyn Todd: Man Eater

‘You’re an aristocrat, Marcus, whose ambition burns as fiercely as that inferno in the valley below. To pass through those ivory-inlaid doors of the Senate, my boy, you need a wife to your name.’

Mother of Tarquin, he needed the reminder like he needed the hammering in his head, but one thing was certain. Never again would he make the mistake of letting his family contract a political alliance. Divorced, thankfully, from a profligate wife who ran off with a sea captain, he resolved that the next time he married, it would be for love.

Orbilio rolled over on to his stomach. In a bid to circumvent the rules, he had cultivated the acquaintance of a crusty ex-tribune, ex-prefect, ex-consul. Sucking up to people was not Orbilio’s strong point, but if it meant smoothing a primrose path to the Senate House, so be it, and only last night the ex-tribune, ex-prefect, ex-consul had confirmed to him personally that, in his eyes, merit was paramount and Orbilio need have no further qualms.

It was on the strength of those wheels being oiled that Orbilio had got so comprehensively oiled himself. No, sir. He would not be coerced into marriage again, not even by his own uncle, and especially not to the poor creature his uncle was pushing at him. The girl was fourteen years old, for gods’ sake! He rolled on to his back again. The appeal of pubescence was lost on Orbilio. He wanted a companion, a friend, a lover. A woman to laugh with, cry with, grow a wrinkled old rind with, not a mechanical producer of sons. With Gisco’s little redhead wife he’d enjoyed vigorous sex flavoured with the fun of conniving and the spice of forbidden fruit, but what he needed, what he desperately missed (and it sounded corny but there you are), what he needed was the love of a good woman.

Or, in Orbilio’s case, the love of a bad woman.

A woman, for instance, whose untamed locks had a shine you could shave in, whose spicy perfume sent shockwaves down a man’s spine, whose very image haunted him from sun-up to sun-down-after which, the pain increased tenfold.

When he took a woman like that into his arms, there would be none of the hurried thrusts and quick gratification he’d sought with Attica. He would light lamps, thousands of them, on every level and every ledge, every surface and every sill and, in the flickering heat, he would kiss her eyelashes and drown in the dip of her collarbone. He would explore every inch of her skin until his tongue tingled with the taste of her sweat, then let his nose wallow in the scent of her curls-long damp tendrils that clung to her breasts, short damp tendrils that led down to heaven.

The moon would rise and the moon would fall before he was through, and there would be no question of forgetting her name as he sometimes had with Attica.

He would whisper it, over and over again. Claudia Seferius. Claudia Seferius. He would run his tongue gently round her ear, feel the flutter of her breasts. Claudia Seferius. Claudia Seferius. The featherlight touch of his fingertips would part her thighs, pulsing, pulsing, the drumbeat of their hearts setting the tempo. Claudia Seferius. Claudia Seferius. Faster and faster their bodies would sway until finally in unison…

The knock made him jump. ‘Sorry to disturb you, sir. There is a messenger outside who says he cannot wait until morning.’

Shit! ‘No matter, Tingi, I wasn’t asleep.’ Now wasn’t that the truth?

Grateful to the darkness which hid the throbbing thickness between his legs, Orbilio opened the door to his Libyan steward.

‘The young man is also in rather a distressed state, sir.’

He recognized him the second he set eyes on him. Standing in the shadows, that muscular form was unmistakable, despite the bandage round his head, and Orbilio felt his heart lurch.

He was never sure of the relationship between them Claudia called him a boy, but here stood a man, barely younger than himself, the slave whose eyes never wavered from his mistress and who hung closer than her own shadow. Jealousy alone, though, had not rearranged Orbilio’s heartbeat. The injuries Junius had sustained might well be mirrored on Claudia.

Drawing himself up to his not inconsiderable height and throwing a towel round his waist, Orbilio listened to the words tumbling out of the exhausted Gaul. Pinch me, I am dreaming.

‘Mistress Seferius, you say, is accused of murder?’

Junius nodded sullenly.

‘Of a complete stranger?’

He nodded again, and Orbilio was no fool. The slave liked him as much as he, himself, liked the Gaul. How it must stick in his craw, this visit.

‘And she doesn’t know you’ve sent for me?’

‘No. Sir.’ The sir was either an afterthought, forgivable under the circumstances, or it was added as an insult.

Orbilio met the stare head on and gave no quarter in his own. ‘Give me the address again.’

It was with a satisfying sense of mischief that he despatched the weary bodyguard to saddle up, then nudged the sleeping beauty in his bed.

Nothing, not a moan, not a groan, not a twitch. Dammit, where did he get her from? Vaguely he remembered doing the rounds of several taverns, but surely he’d not lowered himself to picking up a common whore? Praise the gods, the quality of the garments on the floor set his mind at rest. At least he’d had the sense to pick up a courtesan. Catching his reflection in the glass, unshaven, sunken-eyed, with his head coming off at the hinges, it was a miracle he’d been any use to her, except those scattered clothes spoke volumes…

‘Up you get.’ He gave her bottom a gentle kick and realized he hadn’t paid her. Remus! He drew on a fresh woollen tunic. What was the going rate? Tavern whores charge eight asses, but a high-class hooker? Think, man, think!

Sluicing water over his face and wincing as the cold water dribbled down his arm to his elbow, Orbilio heard himself humming. Claudia Seferius! In trouble up to her beautiful, kissable lips and who’s the chap to pull her out of the mire? The humming turned into a whistle. Murder isn’t necessarily a job for the Security Police and the Security Police isn’t necessarily confined to murder cases, but it was what Orbilio did best. He towelled himself dry and decided the stubble on his chin could wait. With his widespread network of informants and spies, he’d solve it in no time-then let’s see how many of my letters she returns.

Lacing his boot, he recalled the last time he saw her, the wind whipping her curls about as she stood on the deck in Sicily. Wherever she walked, that woman, trouble walked beside her, and that day had been no exception. Barely one hour before she had escaped death by a cat’s whisker, yet to see her in the prow of that freighter, proud eyes flashing, her back as straight as any arrowshaft, it was almost impossible to believe the evidence. A man thought only of the liquid swish of her skirts, the molten folds of cotton over her breasts.

Scheduled to sail with her, Orbilio had instead been called away at the last moment on the Governor’s orders. What had happened during that voyage from Sicily? What had caused her to return his letters? Dammit, the air sizzled whenever they were in the same room together, what had ‘Dammit, you! Up!’ Harshly he pulled the bedclothes off the slumbering form. The chill night air would wake her more surely than his voice.

The woman in his bed began to groan like an ungreased axle, clawing at the bedclothes, but his grip was the stronger. ‘You’re out of here,’ he snapped, ‘and I mean now!’

He shook bronze into his hand. ‘Ten sesterces should see you right.’

The moaning stopped. ‘Did you say…ten sesterces?’

Orbilio rolled his eyes. There was no time to argue. ‘Twenty, then, you money-grabbing bitch.’

More coins showered the bed.