Marilyn Todd - Man Eater

It would, she reflected bitterly, have been better to let him take his chances on Thursday with Gisco and that famous gelding knife. Was it really only three days ago? A lifetime had passed since then.

Head buried in her hands as she knelt on the rough wooden floor, Claudia was denied even the luxury of self-pity. The crate, like everything else, had been planned in the most meticulous detail. It was a transport cage. It was on wheels. And Corbulo had not been inspecting the box, he’d been harnessing it.

The ceremony, whatever it might be, was about to begin.

He paused to staunch the blood from his chest by dipping his handkerchief in a barrel of drinking water and pressing it hard against the wound. As the red ochre drizzled away with the blood, Claudia could see the Etruscan’s neck, unlined and unmarked. Now she knew what had happened that night in the hay store. It was Corbulo who had stolen the yellow tunic, Corbulo who had flitted so furtively round his own territory. The bastard had timed it to perfection-the gurgles, the drumming of his feet against the door. Croesus, he’d even painted the purple marks on his neck, because who’d check for treachery in the heat of cutting him down? He’d have balanced himself on a hay bale, judging his jump to the second they burst through the door.

And Salvian, young, innocent Salvian, had realized this. Macer told him about the robbery which was no robbery, and Salvian connected it with the hanging which was no hanging. Corbulo wore a scarf to the Springs…maybe it blew away a fraction for Salvian to notice the lack of evidence, maybe Timoleon’s jibes set a train of thought in motion, or maybe, just maybe, Salvian was smarter than anyone had given him credit for. She could imagine the scene, the junior tribune marching up to arrest the trainer and, tragic as the outcome was, Claudia smiled through her tears at the young man’s confidence. Had he lived, he would have been a man to be reckoned with. As it is, his wife and unborn child still had every right to be proud of him.

The cage was cramped, she could sit, kneel or crouch, but it was impossible to stand upright. Claudia scanned the compounds for other signs of life. The slaves would be well into their stride by now, the family would be up, the field workers breaking their fast for the day. But Corbulo worked alone. He was famous for it. What would bring someone here? Claudia did not believe in lucky flukes, but prayed for one anyway.

The cage began to roll forward, rumbling past bears and lions and camels. She could hear the mules whinny and snicker, and then she was bumping faster and faster. She saw the stiff neck of the giraffe, saw its silly, gormless face watching her. Did Corbulo realize the road block was still in place? Surely Macer, if no one else, would still be looking for her? Or had Corbulo taken care of that, as well? The elephant swung his trunk through the gap in his wall. The elephant? Sweet Juno, they weren’t going down the hill, they were going up! Forget the Via Flaminia, he was using an old Umbrian path that went straight over the hill. Where was he taking her?

‘Is this some Etruscan sacrifice you’re planning?’

Not that they made human sacrifices, the gentle Etruscans, but with Corbulo’s mind unhinged as it was, you could never tell. They began to bump downhill, the mules galloping at the crack of the whip. Wildly Claudia clung to the bars, her knees clattering painfully on the wooden boards.

‘I’ve tried, Claudia,’ he yelled back at her. ‘The gods know I’ve tried to make you pay for all that you’ve done to us, but each time, you’ve escaped by the luck of the gods, you and that tosser policeman. Did he really think he could outwit me?’

No, but I did. And it’s because of me he lies crippled. Faster and faster the mules and the cage clattered down the hill. Leaves whipped the sides, weeds and grasses caught in the woodwork. Claudia’s hands were bleeding from the splinters in the bars.

‘This wasn’t how I’d planned it.’ He was shouting. ‘I’d hoped to make you pay while I sat back and watched.’ She heard a hollow laugh. ‘Instead we’ll have to go together, but at least I die a true Etruscan.’ Claudia pulled at the bars. They were too thick to snap. What is it, this obsession with Etruria?

‘Well, if you’re so damned patriotic,’ she snapped, ‘why don’t you kill yourself on Etruscan soil?’

There was a sharp pull on the reins. ‘You arrogant bitch,’ he snarled, jumping down to the ground. ‘To think I lowered myself to begging, as well.’

Lowered himself? It’s virtually impossible to rationalize the thoughts of a madman, but when you’re trapped inside a cage with a painted warrior brandishing a dagger on the other side of the bars, it wouldn’t hurt to try.

‘Begging?’

‘At Tulola’s banquet. Remus, you don’t think I was drunk, do you?’ He rattled the blade along the sides of the bars and Claudia cowered at the back of the crate. ‘I had to pretend, or you’d never have swallowed the rest of the play-but!’ A hand lashed in and grabbed the neck of Claudia’s rough, woollen tunic. ‘I asked you for a job, I asked you to go into partnership with me.’

He jerked her towards him so hard, her cheek bruised against the wood.

‘And you laughed at me. You patronized me, and then you fucking laughed at me!’

He had misunderstood her, even then. He had not recognized in her the affection she had felt, the gratitude that here was a man offering his life savings to bale her out. But how could he? As a Nubian cannot comprehend snow, how could Corbulo recognize what he did not have within him in the first place?

‘What was the next phase, Corbulo? Was I supposed to marry you, only for the poor bride to suffer an accident like little Coronis?’

As he let go the tunic, his hand lashed upwards, sending her reeling into the side of the cage. ‘You think I’d marry a tramp like you?’

Claudia could feel slivers of wood in her hair, and a large bump forming on the back of her head.

‘Think I don’t know what’s going on?’ he sneered. ‘First it was your bodyguard, then the policeman. What was it like, fucking the schoolboy? Did you learn much?’

Junius? Orbilio? Salvian? Mother of Hades, this man’s from a different galaxy! ‘More than I would from fucking a murderer,’ she said evenly.

Quick as a bolt of white lightning, Corbulo’s fist closed round her throat, whamming Claudia’s face into the bars. ‘I wouldn’t waste my seed.’

As he sprang back to take the reins, Claudia pitched forward on to the floor. Blood drizzled from her nose, she could hear it, drip, drip, drip, on to the boards as the crate rumbled on down the hillside. It clattered across the valley and she could hear the mules straining with the steepness of the next hill. There was a roaring sound in her ear, from where he’d banged her head. Croesus, where was he taking her?

‘Where does Fronto fit in?’ she asked, wiping her face with the hem of the ploughman’s tunic.

If she could only piece together the reason behind Corbulo’s madness (and there had to be a reason, however tenuous), she had ammunition. At the moment she was not only physically helpless, she was spitting into a wind which was rapidly becoming gale force.

‘Him!’ The derision in his voice was harsh, even through the boom inside her skull. ‘Now there was a sap! Do you know, he actually believed I’d take him into partnership with me? My own land, and he thought I’d give him half. I mean,’ Corbulo began to laugh, ‘can you seriously believe that?’

Claudia called on the spirits of the Umbrian woodlands to trip the mares, derail the crate, make her arms grow another cubit so she could undo the bolt. In stories and the epics, Corbulo would be unseated by an overhanging branch…