Marilyn Todd - Man Eater

‘You never fancied joining up, then?’ He couldn’t always have been fat, and in his youth Pallas would have stood head and shoulders above the average legionary.

‘Me?’ He took a bite of black pudding and patted his ample girth. ‘You’ll not catch me with steel in my belly, better the surfeit than the sword.’

She thought long and hard about the next question. ‘And you never married?’

‘Oh, I married, I married. In fact, come to think of it,’ he grimaced theatrically, ‘I’m still married.’

Claudia’s affection for the fat man was growing stronger by the minute. ‘What went wrong?’

Pallas laughed, his chins shaking, and he wagged his pudgy finger. ‘You don’t want to know, you really, really don’t.’

With a whoop and a cheer, they overtook the plodding ox cart, resisting the urge to pull faces at Alis and Euphemia, and it was there, on the brow of the hill, that Claudia got her first glimpse of the sulphur pools. You could tell the channel that fed them by a straight line of wild cane stretching back to infinity but which terminated in a crashing, splashing waterfall the height of a cottage. Below these falls, a series of smaller cascades had been carved by the blue torrent to leave a score of shallow saucer-shaped pools, some no wider than a wine press, others the width of a bedroom, before the warm waters became lost in the river they tumbled into.

The same river where, stripped to his loincloth and plastered with grey-black mud, stood the man she most wanted to avoid. Silly cow, she told herself. Still can’t tell the difference between passion and compassion, can you? His eyes weren’t dark with lust last night, he was apologizing because he hadn’t cleared your name.

‘You made good progress.’ He rinsed the health-giving slime off his skin and bounded on to the bank.

‘I have just two words to say to you, Orbilio. One rhymes with pod, the other with toff.’

The gracious bow and twinkling eyes implied he hadn’t heard, but Claudia knew better. To her left, a small cave had been hollowed into the rock, its mouth covered by deerskins and guarded by a dragon, where freeborn women could rent bathing shifts. Claudia tipped the crone and marched inside.

‘Oi! Where d’you think you’re going?’ An aged claw snapped over Salvian’s wrist.

‘I’m ac-c-companying my prisoner.’

‘Not in ’ere, you ain’t. Not unless you’re a girlie.’ To the delight of the crowd, her hand whipped up his tunic and a raucous cackle confirmed her suspicions. ‘Nope.’ As women shrieked and men hooted, Claudia took advantage to duck round the drapes and up the steps of a tiny stone building with just two columns and a weathered old portico. Mingling with the throng, she became as anonymous as the next woman-unlike certain young men in full military uniform who stuck out like sore thumbs. Very, very sore thumbs.

The shrine, it seemed, served both Metaneira, the nymph who lived in the river, and Thoas, the sulphur god who plunged into her, and was suitably revered by men and women seeking improvements in their own love lives. And not all of them married to one another, to judge from the inscriptions on the lead sheets which had been so tenderly consigned to the sacred pool.

A pinched-nosed priestess dripping with gold filigree stood on call to aid the lovers, selling simple cyclamen at five times its value. Powder the root and he’s yours for ever, madam. Roving eye, dearie? My magic potion will cure that. Claudia sniffed the proffered flagon and detected only vervain. No wonder the old bag stooped with the weight of the gold!

Predictably the friezes were also of a suggestive nature, and you could hardly move for children sniggering and whispering as their grubby fingers traced the rudest of the paintings. Claudia kissed a coin and tossed it in the fountain for Metaneira, who, even if she possessed Tulola’s incredible stamina, must be heartily sick of Thoas’ attentions by now.

Outside, in what was now a Salvian-free zone, the place was buzzing. Theoretically, on public holidays you weren’t supposed to engage in trade or commercial activities, but try telling that to the people. Fortune-tellers predicted cures beyond the expectations of even the most optimistic of quacks and a group of lepers, fenced off from the healthy, clamoured to buy holy water for their wretched mutilations. Brown grasshoppers, as long as your little finger, bounded and chirruped and got crushed underfoot. From the pools there came squeals of delight, groans of relief, cries of encouragement as tetchy babies were coaxed into the shallows. Grown men squabbled over places in the pools, small boys held weeing contests under the waterfall.

Claudia clambered up steps hewn from the rock with the aid of a rope handrail, and inhaled. The smell of oceans and open spaces, of travel and adventure all rolled into one. Without warning the age-old feeling of restlessness welled up inside her. It was her craving for adventure that had got her into this mess and that self-same drive would probably bring about an early demise-but heaven knows it would be worth it. The thrill of the unknown! The excitement of each new, unfolding challenge!

I will always live life on the edge, she thought contentedly, gazing down on the saucers below. I cannot help it.

Here, at the top, the channel was narrow and surprisingly deep. Two portly gentlemen discussed oil prices as the blue-green waters gushed over their chests, and upstream Tulola’s Negroes laughed and joked and chased each other like elvers.

‘I’ve changed my mind about your henchman.’

‘Tulola! For gods’ sake, you nearly gave me heart failure.’

One carefully painted eyebrow rose provocatively. ‘Then I’d follow through with mouth-to-mouth.’

Dear Diana, was there no stopping this woman?

‘I’ve decided I want your delicious young Gaul after all.’

Even standard-issue shifts could not escape the Tulola treatment. She’d chosen a size too small to ensure her breasts and her hipbones stood out, leaving no one in any doubt that it wasn’t only her fingernails that had been hennaed. Her nipples looked like poppies through the thin, white cotton.

‘Despite his deficiencies?’

‘Because of them, sweetie.’ She brushed away a troublesome fly. ‘I rather like the idea of making him watch while I perform with a real man.’ A furrow appeared in her lovely brow. ‘Where is he, by the way?’

‘Around,’ Claudia replied airily, and counted to six before adding, ‘You recognized Fronto as the peeper, didn’t you?’

Tulola unleashed her throaty laugh. ‘My, my, you catch on quick, so I’ll let you into a secret.’ She lowered her voice. ‘I did recognize the face at my window but it wasn’t Fronto.’

‘Then who-’

‘Claudia! Claudia, for gods’ sake, is it true?’ Sergius came racing up the steps, wet hair plastered over his forehead. Salvian followed hot on his heels. Alis brought up the rear.

‘Is what true?’

Naked apart from a loincloth, Pictor’s physique was that of an athlete. Who could blame Alis for staying close? Far too many feminine eyelashes fluttered as he passed-and one or two masculine ones besides. Was that it? Was marriage to Alis a cover for his true orientation, good old Greek love?

‘This idiot says you’re under house arrest, he’s to watch you day and night.’

‘I have no idea what his instructions are, but I rather think following me into the changing rooms goes beyond the call of duty.’

The boy’s eyes bulged in alarm. ‘I didn’t kn-kn-know it was for w-women,’ he protested, his face once again matching his tunic. ‘Honestly Claudia.’

But when they looked round, she had vanished.

Launching herself into the cascade was one of the most exhilarating experiences of her life. The force of the torrent coupled with the utter helplessness was one of the most powerful feelings on earth. All too quickly it deposited her in a deep, warm pool that tasted faintly of mint and whose currents pummelled and massaged every inch of your skin. Breathless, she surged upwards out of the foaming waters and felt the spray dance on her face.