Marilyn Todd - Man Eater

‘Well, we-’ Froggy didn’t know what to say. Praise had not visited him often in his eighteen years. ‘I-’

‘And considering we all have a long ride home, what say you we share this before setting off?’ A flagon of wine appeared from the copious depths of the leather sack.

The boys licked their lips. It was a long ride back to Narni…

Three cheap cups also materialized and the Client filled each to the brim. ‘Since we are a mug short, you will perhaps pardon my manners if I sip from the jug. Do you wish to propose a toast?’

Froggy could smell the wine. It was good stuff, Campanian, or maybe even Falernian. ‘Why drink to anything special?’ he said, eager to sample that which had previously been beyond the scope of his pockets. ‘Straight down the hatch, that’s what I say!’

He did not notice the Client’s slanting smile. ‘I could not agree more. Straight down the hatch!’

As their heads tilted back, the boys were only vaguely aware of the Client lowering the jug and backing towards the door.

‘What the fuck?’ Froggy’s hand flew first to his throat, then to his dagger, but he was too slow. The coins had gone, the door was closed, he could hear two heavy bolts being shot.

‘I told you-’ began Ginger, and then the pain hit him. The searing, burning, tearing pain as the acid reached his stomach. Writhing and hissing, he gouged at the decaying wood.

‘The back way!’ cried Froggy. His eyes were on fire, and his mouth, his belly. When he gasped for breath, a stream of dark vomit shot across the room.

Pansa, convulsing violently, began to make hideous screeching noises.

Froggy thought he heard ‘Nails’, but it made no sense to him.

And looking upwards through the hole in the roof, he wondered why the sky had suddenly turned red.

After a long day in Tarsulae, Marcus Cornelius Orbilio knew how Atlas must have felt when, having lost the argument with Perseus, the gorgon-slayer turned his grisly trophy upon the giant. His bones solidified, his shoulder blades turned to granite as the weight of the heavens was thrust upon him for all eternity.

The loss of Agrippa was every bit as personal to Orbilio as the death of an uncle or a boyhood friend, and his only consolation came in the satisfaction that the great man’s works-the aqueducts, the Pantheon, even the Tiber’s anti-flood defences-would stand the test of time so that for centuries to come, Romans would know that here lived a man of vision whose love for his people showed in the bridges he built for them, the basilicas, the warehouses, the porticoes, the museums.

That Orbilio had been able to confide his sentiments to Claudia had been of great comfort to him, and had little to do with Agrippa’s death. Inside she was nowhere near as brittle as she liked to make out, and intimate moments such as this allowed him a glimpse of the small, frightened child locked in the labyrinth of this complex woman’s emotions-and they aroused every masculine trait, from the instinct of challenge to the instinct to protect. She had listened in silence while he talked (rambled?) about his personal encounters with Agrippa, asked intelligent questions as to the impact of his death. Would Augustus not have to make Tiberius his heir now? How could he, he’d countered. The young man who’d shown his military and administrative qualities in the provinces and who’d proved himself a respected and, above all, loyal general, was no blood relation. Ah, but neither was Augustus to the Divine Julius, she reminded him, and look how that turned out. Couldn’t he just put the adoption of his wife’s son to the Senate and see how they vote? The complication there, Orbilio had explained, was that Tiberius was married to Agrippa’s daughter, who just happened to be several months pregnant. No matter how strong the Emperor’s feelings, the Roman people won’t countenance lack of purple blood. Interesting, she mused, because had Tiberius been free to marry Agrippa’s flibbertigibbet widow, the Empire would be in very safe hands indeed…

Orbilio had enjoyed computing the odds with Claudia, almost as much as he’d delighted in the way her curls bounced in time with the wheels on the journey home, the way she tipped her head back when she laughed. Minerva’s magic, the sun in her hair was like a celestial forge working all the metals of the Empire, copper, brass, bronze, gold, and he’d wanted to sink his hands in that thrilling furnace, bury his head in the flames and nuzzle the sparks. Every movement she made was electric, energizing him, quickening his emotions, his wits and his loins, and now that he was parted from her, even for the short while that she soaked her bones in Sergius Pictor’s bath house, he was forced to face facts.

Life without Agrippa’s influence would be the poorer. Life without Claudia Seferius would be barren indeed.

The last thing Marcus Cornelius Orbilio desired at that particular moment was company, but a policeman investigating three cold-blooded murders cannot afford the luxury of solitude and when a man slaps you on the back and says, ‘Come and test my latest stallion’, you have very little option. Especially when he qualifies the invitation by adding, ‘Assuming you’re up to it.’

Three hours spent steering a pair of cantankerous mules on a derelict road with a cat yowling all the way puts considerable strain on the biceps, the wrists and the patience, and when it comes on top of hearing of the death of Rome’s second most beloved citizen, all underpinned by the presence of the woman you (careful, Marcus, careful!)…underpinned by Claudia Seferius, then the last thing a man fancies is a ride round the ring with a temperamental stallion. However, with a decent chunk of daylight remaining, Orbilio was in no position to refuse a challenge thrown down by a man who was still very much a suspect in the case.

‘Great!’ He’d told bigger lies in his time, though none, he reflected, with quite such conviction.

‘This is the last,’ Barea explained, stroking the horse’s nose as the groom saddled up, ‘and the best. Corbulo thinks he can teach him to dance, he’s that good. What do you think?’

After a canter then a gallop then a couple of difficult jumps, Orbilio was inclined to agree. The horse was the best he’d ever ridden. ‘The new animals arrive soon, don’t they?’

‘Who cares?’ the horse-breaker shrugged. ‘For me, it’s time to move on.’

Orbilio dismounted. ‘You’ve formed no attachments here?’

Barea wrapped his bony arm round Orbilio’s shoulders in a conspiratorial gesture. ‘You might be a high-flying policeman and I might be the son of a Lusitanian peasant, but we both work our bollocks off, and when the sun begins to sink, you and I want what men everywhere want.’

‘Marriage?’ he asked innocently.

‘Knock it off, my son.’ Barea chuckled as he scratched at his jaw. ‘Take that girl in the kitchen, the one with the dimples. She’ll give you the same as Tulola-only with her, she expects a bloke to listen to her tittle-tattle for an hour while he strokes her hair and tells her how pretty she is, and then afterwards he’s got to hang around and tell her he don’t even look at another pair of tits, not while he’s got her.’

‘You’re not exactly into heavy relationships, then?’

Barea closed the stable door behind him and tested the lock. ‘Whores’ll do me, mate, except with Tulola I even get that for free.’

‘It’ll be hard to give up those perks,’ Orbilio ventured.

‘Freedom’s my perk, mate.’ Barea wiped his hands down the length of his tunic. ‘Who is it you Romans pray to? Fortune? Well, I reckon I owe her one, because if she hadn’t stepped in, I’d be stuck in that poxy mining village watching convicts and captives slog their guts out for the same nation which put me and my people under the yoke, while our women, our beautiful, virtuous, virginal women, spread their legs for the nearest legionary.’