Marilyn Todd - Man Eater

Thorough was the word that applied to Gisco. Thorough, but alas not very bright.

‘Aha!’ It took him a while, but eventually his eyes hit upon the curtain. ‘So that’s where the craven sod’s hiding.’

The triumph in his voice was short-lived as he turned on Claudia. ‘You’d do well to steer clear of the likes of him, hiding behind a woman’s skirts. ‘Bastard!’ he shouted. ‘Come out, you lily-livered, yellow-bellied coward!’

He strode across the room and in his fury the curtain not only ripped from top to bottom, the whole mechanism came off in his hand. Intent on disentangling himself from fabric and pole, he failed to notice Cuddles’s lithe body turn on its axis. Her furled lips revealed giant white fangs. The black teardrops were compressed to obscurity.

‘Holy shit!’

Ears flat, whiskers forward, pupils down to slits, this was an animal poised and wanting to strike. Gazelles, my foot!

Swallowing a giggle, Claudia stepped into the room and spun round in a circle, the scarlet cotton flaring prettily at her ankles.

‘See for yourself, Master Compo.’ The cheetah’s tail swished angrily, but that chain was strong and the couch was solid bronze. ‘The room’s quite empty.’

‘So it is,’ the charioteer replied thickly. ‘Only-well, I could’ve sworn I saw him. Orbilio. Coming in here.’ His anger began to boil up again. ‘I’ll find him, though, make no mistake. I’ll find that spineless, gutless son-of-a-whore and then he won’t go fucking my wife!’

Oh dear. Looks like action is called for. ‘Tell me, Master Gusto, would you say I’m an attractive woman?’

Gisco checked his stride. ‘What?’

‘Am I, or am I not, physically attractive?’

‘Well, yes. Of course, you are. I don’t see what-’

‘Most men find me attractive, I’m swatting them off like flies half the time. Therefore I think you can safely say that I know from experience, Marcus has not been-how did you put it? – rutting your wife.’

‘Oh, yes he has, the horny bastard. Every bloody Tuesday and sometimes on a Friday.’

That often? It’s a wonder he ever gets any work done. ‘I assure you, Master Fatso, you are quite mistaken. That man’s interests lie elsewhere. In fact,’ she advanced closer to the charioteer, ‘I’d say you were more his type. Strong and muscular, just how he likes them.’

‘What?’ Gisco was having trouble with his eyes, they were blinking nineteen to the dozen. ‘Are you sure about that?’

‘Why should I lie?’ she asked, opening her own eyes ingenuously wide.

‘Marcus Cornelius Orbilio’s a…a fucking queen?’

‘Blame his mother,’ she said generously. ‘She raised him as a girl. In fact he was twelve years old before he learned otherwise.’

Gisco’s breath came out in a whistle. ‘Marcus Cornelius, eh?’ He shook his head in disbelief. ‘You’re absolutely certain about this?’

‘I’ll show you where he keeps his make-up, if you like.’

Gisco’s mood darkened again. ‘Faithless, bloody bitch!’ he barked. ‘Lying to me, sending me chasing after goddamned fairies while she dallies with her fancy man in Rome. Wait till I find him. I’ll have the bugger’s balls!’ His voice carried up the atrium and out of the vestibule as Claudia sucked in her cheeks. In the next room, the cheetah’s attention was back to where it had been prior to Gisco yanking the curtain off the wall.

‘Coast’s clear, Loverboy.’

Feet first, Orbilio crawled out from the far end of the couch, his hair sticking out in every direction, his face flushed and dripping with perspiration.

‘I’m not sure whether to thank you or spank you.’

‘Decide quickly,’ she said. ‘Gisco’s still within earshot.’

‘In that case, Mistress Seferius,’ he replied, going down on bended knee and holding his clenched fist to his breast, ‘I beg you to accept my heartfelt gratitude.’

‘Don’t I just love it when you beg! Now on your feet, Hotshot, I think you’ve teased that cheetah long enough.’

Tarsulae in daylight was nowhere near as tacky as Claudia had envisaged, although it took a while to convince her. When she’d passed through (was it really only six days earlier?) it was late, they were tired, it was simply a case of stabling the horses and flopping into the nearest, least verminous bed before an early-morning start in that damned fog. Today, with the sky a confection of white puffs on blue, her first proper view of the town was of a jagged line of tombs, some circular, some turreted, some simple oblong boxes, stretching down a hill so steep the mules were puffing before they were halfway to the top. Undoubtedly coloured by earlier experiences, Claudia found it difficult to shake the impression that a long, dangling tongue flanked by sharp teeth reached out to suck up and devour travellers foolish enough to pass by. She closed her eyes on the approach and pretended it was to enjoy the spring sunshine on her face.

‘We’re here, madam,’ Junius said quietly.

Claudia’s eyes snapped open. ‘What did I tell you?’

‘Not to open my mouth between here and the Capitol or you’d have my guts for gargoyles.’

‘Then do as you’re told or prepare to walk back to Rome.’

The rig was entering the Mausoleum Gate, where the grass was cropped by wild goats and robber jackdaws sought nest sites in the masonry. The face of an unnaturally mutilated blind girl lit up as she heard silver clatter into her begging bowl, and Claudia sent up a silent prayer. Merciful Apollo, please don’t let her mother drink it away. The gate itself, a splendid lofty triple arch, bore an inscription that testified how the original span had been extended to honour Augustus in his victory at Actium nineteen years earlier. Graffiti qualified how, four years later, the augur who had pronounced favourable the auspices for this glorious extension had been stoned out of town, his house sacked.

Like an ageing mistress, Tarsulae seemed resigned to the inevitable and yet there was dignity in her surrender. Shutters down side streets might rot on their hinges, but the balconies that lined the main thoroughfare were dotted with pot plants and the aired bed linen that hung over the railings reflected the townswomen’s rabid tournament for spotlessness.

The Villa Pictor was not the only estate isolated by the rugged contours of the Umbrian landscape, far from it, and whereas even at the best of times it would have been a lonely existence, with the trade route diverted round the mountains, the jewels within Tarsulae became more and more precious for her dwindling populace. A caller outside the Temple of Vulcan broadcast the evening procession of trumpets, a notice painted on the wall of the wheelwright reminded people of the race between schoolboys on Sunday morning. Big deal.

‘Not long now, poppet,’ Claudia addressed the cage in the back. ‘We change animals at Tarsulae, stock up on provisions and hey-nonny-no, it’s Narni by nightfall.’

And Rome, the fire that stokes the Empire’s furnace, where the Tiber runs yellow with sand and mud, where the streets are so narrow you can shake your neighbour’s hand from the balconies, yes, Rome will be ours by Sunday. No tame foot races there, I can tell you. Yesterday, Salian Priests in scarlet striped tunics and sacred shields would have made their elaborate leaps round the city centre and tomorrow, what a pity I’m missing it, the spring equinox will be greeted like a soldier back from the wars, with singing and dancing and feasting long into the night…

At the smell of water, the mules snorted, tossed their dejected heads and made a beeline for the trough, despite Junius’ pull on the reins. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. Imbecile. Fancy starting a fire to create a diversion! Claudia would have clipped him round his Gaulish ear, had it not been for the fact that the rig was juggling her bones and she needed a firm grip on the buckboard, but she had told him in no uncertain terms that short of finding another dead body on the wrong end of a hilt, the very last thing she needed was a second charge of arson thrown against her.