Marilyn Todd - Man Eater

Moreover, his brother was one of the two dozen carefully selected priests who would make the third and final Salian War Dance in the afternoon. Unfortunately, although they were twins, his brother was a baboon, and sure as eggs were eggs, he’d cock up. It had cost a small fortune to wangle his brother into this elite band, and almost half as much again to teach the twit his steps. Jupiter’s balls, it wasn’t choreography, for gods’ sake. All he had to do was beat his fucking shield with his fucking sword and leap about a bit at set points along the way, but could he do it? Could he hell! Twice already the Salian Priests had peformed their ritual dance, and twice the silly bugger had fucked up. If he dropped his sacred shield just one more time, he’d wring his fucking neck.

With the sweat pouring down his neck, he called for his litter.

‘Where to, sir?’

‘Home,’ he barked.

The whole fucking city’s out revelling, even my fucking wife, and I’m stuck indoors writing fucking letters! He threw off his toga and called for his secretary.

‘I’m sorry, sir,’ his steward explained. ‘It’s a public holiday, your secretary’s out celebrating.’

‘I know it’s a public holiday, you arsehole. Just fetch him.’

What is it with Orbilio? I’m dumped with a fraud case, where thousands of sesterces of public money have gone missing with none of the suspects living the life of riley, which means someone’s salting it away, and I’m at a particularly crucial stage of the investigation when what happens? My undercover man buggers off to Umbria! Well, I don’t have too much choice about that. His family has clout in this city, the name means something, and if the Emperor doesn’t mind him following some tart round the country, why should I bother?

‘Assign the case to someone else,’ Augustus had said mildly, when he made his weekly Security report. ‘I’ve heard interesting stories about the Seferius woman, and young Marcus has potential, don’t you think? So unless there’s an emergency, why don’t we give him his head?’ Because it’s set the fraud back several weeks, you silly arse, and when the suspect buggers off with a trunk full of public money, it’s my balls you’re going to fry, that’s why!

‘Umbria’s out of his jurisdiction, sir.’

‘I’m sure he knows that.’ The Emperor never invited his subordinate to sit. ‘It’ll be another learning experience for the boy.’

‘As you wish, then.’

‘I do. I do wish,’ Augustus had replied. ‘But I still want a result on this fraud, and fast. If word gets round that one man steals from the Empire, others will jump on the bandwagon. Do I make myself plain? I want this bastard nailed quickly, and if you aren’t up to the task, others are.’

Great. The Emperor takes away my best man, leaving me with a god-almighty chasm and, when I try spanning it, he promptly burns every bridge! He already knew the Emperor didn’t like him, but until then he didn’t realize how deep it went. However, there was more than one way to skin a coney, and rumour had it Augustus was thinking about reintroducing the old post of Priest of Jupiter after a gap of some seventy-five years. Now if he could just get his twin brother ordained…

‘Where the fuck’s my secretary?’ Everything hinged on how well his twin performed tomorrow afternoon.

‘We’re still trying to locate him,’ replied the steward. ‘Shouldn’t be long now.’

‘It’s been too bloody long already,’ he snarled. ‘Put a bit of steam under it, will you? No bugger drowns in his own sweat!’

Least of all you, thought the steward, backing silently out of the door.

The Head of the Security Police cleared the top of his desk with the sweep of his hand. Stuff it. He’d put Metellus on the fraud, and if the case went down, Metellus could bloody go with it. He paused, to kick a scroll into touch. Naturally if the money was recovered-well, he’d deliver it personally to the Emperor up on the Palatine. His toe was playing with the upended inkwell when the door burst open.

‘You wanted me, master?’ The secretary, red-faced and stinking of cheap wine, rolled through the doorway with his pen and parchment.

‘Write!’ he ordered.

But the secretary misheard. He thought his boss said ‘right’, and he had to pinch the man’s belly twice before the idiot had sobered up sufficiently to pay attention.

‘Get this down,’ he barked. ‘To Marcus Cornelius Orbilio, at the Villa Pictor in the Vale of Adonis- What? Yes, of course, I bloody want a messenger going off with it this afternoon! Yes, of course, I know it’s a public fucking holiday, now quit yapping and write.’

The letter, when he eventually read it over, was concise and to the point. He liked that.

It would also make one cocky young aristocrat very hot under the collar and he liked that even more.

*

Dusk, swamping the Vale of Adonis with its sepia tints, had been thwarted by a hundred flickering torches, but the darkness inside Orbilio’s head refused to go away. His mouth was dry, he needed a drink, and the need brought him out in a sweat. Dammit, he should have spoken to the slave girl earlier. Frustration tightened an invisible band beneath his ribcage. Again and again he saw the coronet of blond hair swirling in the cloudy current and again and again he asked himself, could he have saved her? When Orbilio ran his hands over his face, to his shame he realized they were shaking.

With the basins at the sulphur pools worn so shiny and smooth, it was relatively simple to pass the girl’s death off as an accident, a tragic end to an otherwise perfect day, thereby allowing the killer to think they’d got away with it. Because, for the moment, there was nothing to be gained from showing his hand. Cynically Orbilio had wondered how many other murderers had ‘got away with it’ over the years, their inconvenient spouses slipping and, oh dear, breaking their necks? Uncomfortable with the answer, he’d concentrated on his search of the girl’s meagre quarters.

‘How can you be sure it wasn’t an accident?’ Claudia had asked, and his answer flowed without need for concentration.

‘I’m willing to put my job on the line that our Coronis was paid to take that early morning walk,’ he’d replied, ‘and that the bowl she carried was a prop.’ The subsequent discovery of two shiny gold pieces sewn inside the girl’s moth-eaten bolster sealed the matter.

The murderer needed a witness.

With hindsight, it explained Coronis’ nervousness, which was in the face of interrogation, rather than authority-not to mention her inability to look Claudia in the eye. Her best friend, a fat girl with rabbit’s teeth, swore black was white through gulping sobs that Coronis couldn’t-wouldn’t-have taken money to lie, that she was a hard and honest worker who wouldn’t say boo to a goose, but her final statement brought everything into focus. All she ever wanted, the friend had said, was to go home to Greece. While two gold pieces wasn’t enough to buy Coronis her freedom, Orbilio reflected as he made his way towards the fodder store, it was one hell of a good start.

So many times he had witnessed violent death-on the battlefield, on the streets, it was part of his job-yet he could not recall one single instance when the sight of the corpse had not moved him. Relentlessly and without fail, death diminished every last one. They were smaller, slighter. Even Fronto, whom he hadn’t even known. Diminished and cheapened. Perhaps that’s what happens when the soul departs? The shell is simply devalued?

Inside the fodder store, Coronis rested on a rude, wooden handcart, one stiffening arm over the side where it had fallen unchecked, small bronze coins for her eyes.

Not for Coronis oak wreaths or laurels, sacred myrrh or cinnamon. She would be burned on a pyre at night-this night-her unmarked, unmourned ashes buried in a field. No feasts, no mourning, no elaborate purification ceremony. Marcus Cornelius Orbilio slipped a silver denarius under her tongue to speed the oars of the ferryman and hasten her soul to Hades. There was no other way to tell her how sorry he was, how ashamed.