Marilyn Todd - Man Eater

He heard the rip of wool as she tore at his costume, felt the cold of plaster against the heat of his flesh. In a single wave, linen cascaded to the floor and he could see the faience necklace shimmering against her skin in the dark.

He did not know who moaned, him or her, when he reached out and ran his hands down the curves of her body. With a frightening intensity, she trembled under his touch, her kisses more and more frantic as her breastband unknotted in his palm. Eager nipples were thrusting against his tongue and he could feel her shuddering as his fingers explored the wetness of her thong.

Together they spun along the wall, tearing at each other in hungry fury, a ferocious explosion of lust, love, passion. A trickle of hot blood ran down his back where her nails raked, and when he blinked away the sweat which dripped into his eye, he tasted the salt from her body, felt the furnace of her fingers on his chest. He groaned at the searing pain in his loins as her hands moved lower and lower, up and down, round and round, until he could take it no more.

He cried out. She cried out. And then they were crying out together, thrashing, throbbing, drowning in each other’s furious ecstasy. When it was over, when-panting and running with sweat and with the flat of his hands supporting, the weight of his body against the wall-Orbilio marvelled how this was nothing like he’d ever imagined. Far from spent, every muscle still twitched, his skin was aflame and his vision, even in the dark, remained clouded.

‘Claudia,’ he croaked, his throat almost closed. ‘Oh, Claudia.’

The huskiness of the laugh jolted him backwards. ‘I think you’ve made a mistake, sweetie.’ The pendant clattered to the floor as Tulola’s long, low stride took her across to the doorway. ‘Be a love and return this, will you?’

In the oblong of light shining from the hall as she sailed out of his bedroom, a mass of dark ringlets skimmed through the air to land at his feet. And now he knew why Tulola Pictor was so desperately keen to play forfeits.

The goddess Aurora still had one or two snores in hand before duty bade her rise and push away the night skies, and Claudia, flanked by her vigilant bodyguard, was taking the opportunity to walk off the sweetmeats when she noticed so disgusting a spectacle propped against the lion shed that she couldn’t resist the urge to examine it.

‘Good grief, Orbilio, last time I saw something that gruesome, it lay belly up in a drainage ditch.’

A muscle twitched at the side of his mouth. ‘Flattery will get you nowhere.’

She peered closer. ‘Dodgy oyster, was it?’

‘Let’s just say it left a nasty taste. What’s wrong with the party? Not over already?’

No, but the prospect of watching a flabby has-been wrestling an unwashed, hairy Celt, both of them buck naked, was simply too horrible to contemplate and she told him so, nodding her head at the same time to dismiss her bodyguard.

Orbilio waited until the Gaul had disappeared round the monkey shed before prising himself off the wall. ‘Forget what I said earlier,’ he whispered urgently. ‘Pack your things and go.’

Claudia held up her hands in mock horror. ‘Marcus Cornelius! You, of all people, incite an honest citizen to break the law? Shame on you!’

‘Bugger the law, bugger Macer, this place is evil, Claudia. Evil.’

‘Too much milk,’ she said to the moon, ‘makes a man light-headed.’

‘Claudia, I’m serious. Get out of here.’

I see. Or at least, I’m beginning to. ‘I suppose this wouldn’t have any connection with your returning to Rome at the same time, would it?’

That’s torn it! Now he’d know she’d been rifling his papers. When she’d slipped inside his room ten minutes earlier, Claudia’s initial reaction had been shock. Something had clearly taken place here-tables tipped over, chairs upended, it was a right bloody mess-but the signs pointed away from some desperate search. A fight? The mosaic was slippery with oil of bay, as though someone had tried to disguise a rotten smell, so no, not a fight. Also, and even more telling, the inside of Orbilio’s maplewood chest was still in immaculate order. His clothes, his comb, his purse, everything rested neatly in its allotted place. It had not been intentional, her search-at some stage this evening she’d dropped her faience necklace, and rumour said Orbilio had found it-but when faced with a couple of scrolls bearing the seal of the Head of the Security Police, who wouldn’t have been curious? The first informed her that Orbilio had not confined his extra-marital activities to charioteers (apparently an ex-tribune, ex-prefect, ex-consul was also after his valuables), and the second, even by his boss’s silvery-tongued standards, was terse: ‘Get your fat arse back to Rome. Right now.’ Behind the lion shed, Claudia braced herself for the onslaught…which never came.

‘I’m going nowhere,’ he growled, ‘until this case is solved. Go-tonight-and leave me to cover for you.’

‘I don’t need a man to hide behind, thank you.’

‘I’m not suggesting you do.’ He was rivalling the big cat for snarls. ‘This is something I need to sort out myself, that’s all.’

How interesting. The Empire is in crisis, yet here we have a dedicated and professional aristocrat suddenly telling us he’s turning his back on duty and ambition and a shot at the Senate for the sake of… Of what, exactly, Marcus? A widow of lower rank and dubious past? Pleasant scenery? An obligation to see this non-crime through to its non-existent finish? Somewhere along the line, young Master Supersnoop, the arithmetic does not quite satisfy the tallyman.

‘Well, you’re not the only one with unfinished business,’ she said airily. Adding in reply to the half-raised eyebrow, ‘The day will soon dawn when the merest mention of my name will bring Macer out in warts. I want to be here when the bumps rise.’

‘You’ll have a bloody long wait,’ he barked, ‘because whoever’s behind this-’

My, my, we are in a bad mood. ‘There is no deadly deed, Orbilio, trust me on this.’

She might as well have saved her breath.

‘-the Prefect will come out smelling of lavender. His type always do.’

‘Like your boss, you mean?’

‘Even if this turns out to be a conspiracy with Quintilian at its heart, Macer is a supporting pillar of this dwindling community-’

‘Did you say pillar or pillock?’

‘For gods’ sake, can’t you take this seriously?’

‘Take what seriously?’ She pulled her wrap tighter and wasn’t sure it was purely down to the chill, predawn breeze. ‘Two men tried a scam and it failed. Happens twice a day in Rome…that’s what pays your salary.’

‘Aren’t you forgetting the arson attacks?’

Claudia shrugged. ‘There’ll be a hundred Frontos the length and breadth of Umbria. No doubt one’s torching a vineyard even as we speak.’

‘Your estate’s in Etruria.’

‘Don’t split hairs, Orbilio, you’re in no condition for skilled work.’

Suddenly he punched his fist into the timber shed, sending the lion into a paroxysm of roars. ‘The bitch drugged my sherbet.’

‘The what dragged your shirt out?’ Claudia had to shout.

‘Forget it.’ The big cat stopped snarling and Orbilio wiped his face with his hands. They seemed to be shaking.

If that’s what comes of being on the wagon, thought Claudia, I can make an excellent case for staying pickled.

The lion staged another small protest before settling down. Two sheds along, a bear considered growling out in sympathy, then decided against it. It was the fact that it arrived at its decision mid-growl that made Claudia and Orbilio exchange glances.