Marilyn Todd - Man Eater

‘We shared a pretty intimate embrace.’

‘Distressing, I’m sure.’ His gaze swept round the room. ‘Your bodyguard. Where is he?’

Junius? Dear Diana, she hadn’t even noticed he was missing. Come to think of it, she hadn’t seen him since yesterday morning… ‘He’s running an errand.’

‘Oh?’

Think! Think! ‘I asked him to return to the gig and search for my earring. Present from my late husband. Sentimental value. Very precious.’ Wasn’t it warm in here?

‘You appear to be wearing two at the moment.’

‘Silly me.’ Claudia patted one of the studs. ‘I had it all along.’ Junius, you low-down son-of-a-snake, I’ll roast your gizzard for this.

Sergius’ eyes narrowed. ‘Prefect, you will be investigating Claudia’s accident, won’t you?’

‘Naturally.’ Macer seemed less than pleased with the insinuation. ‘Perhaps you can tell us exactly what happened, Mistress Seferius?’

Claudia’s blood turned to steam just thinking about it. ‘We were,’ she pointed south, ‘about two and a half hours out of Tarsulae. The fog was thick, but with the road deserted, we were still making reasonable time when half-a-dozen riders came up, blasting on trumpets and banging drums. The mares bolted and-’

‘Talking of mares, Barea reports one missing from the stables. Do you know anything about that?’

Try Pallas, he probably ate it. ‘Are you accusing me of kidnapping a horse, Prefect?’

A titter ran round the room.

‘No, no, I think we’d have noticed. Are you able to describe your attackers?’

Am I! ‘One was bug-eyed, another had a birthmark on his face about here,’ she indicated her right cheekbone, ‘and a third had ginger hair.’

‘I congratulate your memory for faces, Mistress Seferius. You, sir, can you add anything to those descriptions?’

‘Me?’ The driver looked up sharply. ‘I didn’t hardly see them, not to speak of. Me mares was bucking like crazy and I could barely see the frigging road as it was.’

‘You’re not the lady’s regular driver?’

‘No, sir. I’m new at the stand.’

Macer tweaked the lace of his leather corselet. ‘Was there much damage to your rig?’

‘Complete write-off. One of me mares was killed outright, the other broke her neck and Master Pictor here helped me cut her throat, she-’

‘Didn’t anybody stop to render assistance?’

‘Like milady says, it’s only local traffic, innit? We didn’t see no one.’

‘Yet it was Mistress Seferius here-a noblewoman, no less-who set off alone to fetch help. Why didn’t her bodyguard go? Why, for that matter, didn’t you?’

The driver shuffled from one foot to the other. ‘Well, young Junius was out cold, see, and-’

‘Yes?’

‘Well-’

‘Yes?’

‘Milady said-’

‘For pity’s sake, man, what did milady say?’

‘Well, as I remember it were,’ he coughed and fixed his gaze on the painted satyrs high on the ceiling, ‘“For gods’ sake, driver, where do you think you’re sneaking off to? Can’t you see there’s a crisis?”’ He looked anxiously at the Prefect. ‘It were her sandal, see?’

Macer blinked. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘The red one. It fell off when me gig turned over. She said it were valuable and-well, that I should stay behind and look for it.’

‘Is that right, Mistress Seferius?’ The incredulity in the Prefect’s voice was insulting to the point of malice. ‘You insisted the driver hunt for your sandal while you went off barefoot to fetch help?’

Don’t be ridiculous. I always carry a spare pair. ‘The man’s arm was broken, the chances are he’d have passed out long before he’d climbed the slope. I don’t see where this is leading.’

Macer ignored the edge to her voice. ‘I am simply curious as to why a woman of substance should choose to travel an abandoned road with no servants and no luggage, and why she should pick my home town for her overnight stop.’

It is not your home town, though, is it? You’d no sooner live in Tarsulae than I would. Claudia delved into her wardrobe of smiles and came up with a particularly dazzling model. ‘It’s very simple,’ she said. ‘Why follow the Via Flaminia on its newer, but longer route, when you can take the old road, then cross country on a local path?’

She’d reckoned without the fog, though, and she’d reckoned without the hooligans, but most of all Claudia had reckoned without the resilience of the locals. They had none. Like rats on the proverbial sinking ship, they’d left in their droves. Once-thriving settlements were reduced to ghost towns, their shops crumbling to dust, their inns providing hospitality only to vermin and spiders. Even the private huts which dotted the roadside-cabins where patricians and their friends would hole up for the night-were dilapidated, with what doors that remained swinging in the wind on ungreased hinges. Which explained why a group of drunken oiks could indulge in their antics and get away with it. (Or thought they could.)

‘Tarsulae was simply a question of expediency and, as for servants, I’d sent them ahead by ox cart.’

‘What exactly was the reason for your urgency? Family illness, perhaps? Or maybe-’ he paused-‘problems with an arsonist?’

‘Good heavens, is there one on the loose?’ How the hell did he know about that?

‘Might that have been what your bailiff, Rollo, meant by urgent?’

‘I’ve no idea.’ None that I’m telling you, anyway.

‘Prefect, unless this is relevant,’ Pallas said lazily, ‘I think we all have better things to do.’

Thank you, Pallas. Thank you, thank you, thank you. ‘Yes, indeed.’ Sergius threw his two quadrans’ worth into the ring. ‘My wife is distressed enough as it is.’ Two bright spots of colour had appeared in Alis’ cheeks, but how long they’d been there, Claudia couldn’t tell.

‘Well, she would be, wouldn’t she?’ Euphemia cut in suddenly. ‘Isodorus was another one who met with sudden death under this roof.’

The Prefect looked baffled. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘My first brother-in-law.’ The way she stressed the word ‘first’ was singularly unattractive. ‘His name was Isodorus.’

‘Euphemia, please-’ There was a quaver in Alis’ voice.

‘My wife was a widow,’ Sergius explained, giving her shoulder a reassuring pat. ‘And Isodorus was a sick man.’

‘He was only twenty-two when he died.’

‘Euphemia, that’s enough,’ Sergius snapped. Alis pleated her gown between her fingers. ‘Prefect, could I ask you to deal with this a little faster so my wife can have a lie-down? She’s feeling faint.’

‘Really, Sergius.’ Alis’ embarrassment was painful to watch. ‘There’s nothing wrong with me.’ Her eyes remained riveted on the folds in her hands. ‘I’m fine.’

Macer burnished his chestplate with the inside of his wrist. ‘Mistress Pictor, I am proceeding with all haste.’ She might not have spoken. ‘Bear with me a few moments longer. Mistress Seferius.’ He smiled ingratiatingly. ‘Claudia. Am I right in believing you are negotiating to purchase a parcel of land adjacent to your vineyard?’ Claudia felt a shot of liquid fire hurtle through her veins. He was up to something. This fussy, pompous, humourless so-and-so was up to something.

‘You are indeed,’ she replied silkily, with no attempt to elaborate. If he has dice hidden up his sleeve, he’ll have to bloody well play them.

‘Well, correct me if I’m wrong,’ Macer smiled a reptilian smile, ‘but wasn’t some of the land you are after recently targeted by an arsonist?’

You slimy bastard. Claudia took a good, long, deep breath before answering. ‘The operative word there, Prefect, is “some”.’ She would give him no quarter.