Marilyn Todd - Man Eater

A small nugget of understanding found its way into Orbilio’s possession. He saw a small Lusitanian town swamped by men with silver in their purses to lavish on dark-eyed girls whose menfolk were unable to compete. With resentment on that scale seething beneath the surface, no wonder Barea’s opinion of women was so low, ‘How did you break away?’ he asked.

‘Easy as a poke in the eye. Rounded up three mares and a stallion for the Praetor, broke ’em in, and then found out he was shipping nags to some posh chariot school in Rome.’

Orbilio thought of Gisco and felt several conflicting emotions caper through his body at once. ‘Not the red faction?’

‘Yeah.’ Barea vaulted the fence. ‘Now you mention it, I think it might have been. Anyway, two years later the Praetor moves on and I’m in the queue for me cap of freedom. Farewell Lusitania, hello world.’

As Orbilio climbed the fence rung by rung, the sun dropping fast and the crickets starting their evening chorus in competition with the caged beasts, he studied the thin, tanned face of the horse-breaker. Older than he looked, in all probability he’d have been a free man for five, maybe six summers. A ‘V’ of geese made their untidy way across the orange sky, and the tips of the clouds turned black. In the sheds to the north, a buzz of activity signalled the end of the day for the field workers, and the little stream that fed the Vale of Adonis gurgled contentedly.

‘You’re not going to Rome with the Pictors?’

‘Rome sounds good.’ The horse-breaker bent to pick up a stone and rolled it around in his fingers. ‘But not with Sergius.’

He aimed the pebble and lobbed it into the seal pool, receiving a disapproving honk for his pains. ‘There’s been nothing for a bloke to spend his dosh on here. I’ve got enough of a wad put by to go independent-learn more about them chariots, you know?’

It made sense. At a certain age, every man needs to anchor his career and Orbilio could picture Barea studying the racehorses, then offering his services to a leading stud farm.

‘Will you keep in touch with Tulola?’ he asked.

‘If I can’t afford tarts, who knows? But I wouldn’t mind a crack at the other one.’

‘Euphemia?’

‘Claudia. Very tasty. Got your leg over yet?’

‘It’s getting late, I think I’ll-’

‘What! Smart, intelligent aristo like you and she gave you the elbow?’

‘Time’s pressing, I need to spruce myself up for dinner-’

Barea’s laughter drowned the chatter from the monkey house. ‘Don’t take it personal, my old son, she probably prefers a bit of rough, them types do, know what I mean?’ He tapped the side of his nose knowingly.

Orbilio feigned a sudden interest in ostriches as they passed the compound.

‘In fact,’ the horse-breaker ran his bony fingers over his blue-black, slicked-back hair, ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s dancing the four-legged limbo with me before long.’ With a confident wink, he turned on his heel and marched off.

Orbilio’s mouth twisted into a grin. You can try, Barea, you can try.

He began to laugh aloud. I just pray Claudia doesn’t hurt you too badly in the process.

*

While Barea slipped round the door of Tulola’s heavily scented bedroom and Orbilio slipped beneath the steaming waters of the hot-room bath, Claudia Seferius, subject of their recent conversation, cradled a jug of mulled wine and the knowledge that, by rights, she ought at this moment to be rubbing shoulders with merchants and porters, astrologers and ferrymen in the bustling town of Narni. She should not, as she was now, be sitting alone in Sergius Pictor’s courtyard. She should be surrounded by hordes of late-night carousers gathered together on the banks of the Nera where in daylight the barges sail past, with their high sterns and curved bows, laden with everything from marble to saltfish to slaves.

But no.

Fancypants has to stick his nose where it doesn’t belong. Never mind that it was tantamount to throwing her to the wolves, duty is duty, isn’t it, Marcus? What does it matter if innocent people suffer, so long as Truth is the victor?

Irritably she got up and flounced round the topiaries. Dammit, he gets under my skin almost as badly as the dust from the journey and heaven knows, that was awful enough. Yesterday’s rain and today’s sunshine meant the gunge kicked up from those mules stuck like porridge, clogging her pores and making her queasy by the time they got back to the Vale of Adonis. It had to be that? What other explanation could there be?

Not Agrippa. His death was shocking and, yes, desperately disturbing. He was such a fit man, a genuine hero of the people-heavens above, we rely on men like him.

Who suggested the nausea was connected with Loverboy? No, no, no. With the inevitable unrest in Rome, his boss would recall him immediately, because when the Empire moved, it did so with astonishing pace, and Orbilio was an ambitious sod. He’d be off to Gaul, probably before the month was out, and that’s what she wanted, wasn’t it? Him out of her hair once and for all? Well, of course it was, what a damned silly question.

It’s that baby goat I ate at lunchtime. More milk than blood in its body, no wonder I felt queer.

Claudia inhaled the steaming vapours from her goblet-honey, saffron, cinnamon and, oh, was that a hint of pepper in there? Before she could identify the other ingredients, Pallas burst out of the south wing in a stream of light.

‘There you are, there you are!’

Good old Pallas, nearly wetting himself to tell her that when a certain fire broke out this morning, Macer’s finger of suspicion pointed directly her way-only someone, Pallas added gleefully, his brows lifting just as high as they could go, had given her an alibi.

‘Who?’ He spread his hands apologetically. ‘Darling girl, how should I know that, I’m simply repeating what I heard.’

Reading the message emblazoned in his eyebrows, Claudia pressed further. ‘But you could, no doubt, hazard a small guess?’

‘We-ell,’ he began, then, as he glanced over her shoulder, his tone changed abruptly. ‘Of course, it was difficult to keep track of anyone today.’

Claudia spun round. Perhaps it was merely a trick of the light that suggested a door to the north wing had swung shut?

‘Because of Macer,’ Pallas qualified.

A born bureaucrat, it appeared the temper of his Imperial Majesty’s illustrious Prefect had not been mitigated when he learned the grease patch on his scarlet tunic would not come out and that the acid used to remove it had, dear oh dear, burned a nasty hole in the wool. Therefore, Pallas related cheerfully, it was in good old civilian white that Macer had his minions pacing the distance between kitchen and bedroom, footpath and palisade, crocodiles and bedroom, measuring this, measuring that, heights, depths, breadths, then he’d made them do it again to double check. Disrupting just about every schedule on the estate, he’d taken statements, querying, quantifying, qualifying and generally making a balls-up wherever he poked his skinny pink nose. ‘As a consequence,’ the big man added casually, ‘no one was where they should have been this afternoon, no one at all.’

As he disappeared through the door of the east wing, Claudia was left with a distinct feeling that Pallas had been trying to tell her something, although for the life of her she didn’t know what. However, there was one thing she could be sure of. If Pallas knew she was off the premises, it would be common knowledge among the rest of the family. Luckily, such would be the impact of Agrippa’s death that Macer would have no time to divert his energies into proving his preposterous case against Claudia Seferius.