Marilyn Todd: Man Eater

‘You’ve got a nice place, Bill, and don’t think I don’t appreciate the offers but this here’s my home. Was my father’s before me, and his father’s before that.’

Balbilla sighed. Four generations had slogged to build up the business and a whim of the Emperor’s knocked it flat. Just like that.

Not that Fronto let the matter rest. ‘What’ll it look like, Billi, my wife working in a dump like that? Jupiter alone knows where half those rags have come from, and you know what tongues are round here. Look at Fronto, they’ll say. Can’t keep his young wife satisfied.’

Balbilla giggled. ‘Well, I know better, don’t I!’

The age gap never bothered her, even with him being nearly as old as her Dad. The only thing that made her self-conscious was him having a position and all. She paused at the gate. Even if she weren’t quite sure what that position was… All the same, she thought, hurrying on, this was her father they were talking about.

‘I can’t leave him in the lurch.’

‘Of course you can, you soft dollop.’ Whenever Fronto scooped her into his arms, she felt six years old, loved and protected. ‘I’ve worked my balls off to give you the best, Billi. Tell him to sling his bloody hook.’

How could she, though? She’d stood by while his family, his town, his business and now finally his health had trickled away. She owed her father that much.

Dad’s right, though, Balbilla thought, stepping into the cool of the colonnade. It is a nice house. Grander than anything I ever expected, but then Fronto was in the army twenty years, he was bound to have a stash put by, stands to reason. Each time she looked around she felt the same tingle of excitement. A garden of her own! Servants, fancy linens, rings for every finger. Even a wet-nurse for the twins! And you wouldn’t have thought it of Fronto, not to look at him.

Yet for all the gilded stucco and pretty mosaics, the house was nothing without her husband. Balbilla swallowed hard. It was dead important, too, what she had to tell him. She searched around for a rough edge of her nibbled nails to chew. He’s never gone off without saying nothing before. Idolizes them babies, he does, always tucks them up when he can-or at least said so when he can’t. She thought back to yesterday. What was it he’d said? There was work a bit north, that’s right. Nothing much, and he’d be back by supper time. She remembered that last bit. Back by supper time. Because he liked his food, did Fronto, and she always tried to give him a good meal to go to bed on.

When he was home, that is. Since the army he didn’t really have a job-not what Dad called a proper job, any road. Private commissions Fronto calls them. Nothing regular, but he always treats his Billikins to a new tunic or a silver bangle when he comes home, and adds a bit to the house-a bust or a frieze or something-so it pays handsome. Whatever it is.

Well, I suppose I’ll have to wait before giving him me message. Balbilla shrugged her shoulders, kissed her sleeping infants then trudged back up the hill towards her father’s shop. I expect he’s got held up, she thought as she passed the flushed face of the advocate’s secretary sneaking back into the law courts, and we’ll have a good old laugh when I tell him how worried I was.

‘You daft pudden,’ he’ll say. ‘You know I gets called out all hours.’

Oh, he was a popular man was her Fronto. She just wished she knew why he hadn’t come home last night.

*

Watched pots never boil, this is a fact. They simmer gently for hours and hours, then the instant you turn your back, over they go, leaving a godawful mess for some poor sod to mop up. So staring into space with your fingers crossed is unlikely to improve a cat’s navigational facilities. Neither, Claudia acknowledged ruefully, is self-imposed starvation. While the midday meal had come and gone, who knows, there might be scraps in the dining room?

Well, there was a scrap. Of sorts. On the couch beneath the window a knot of squirming limbs and tangled linen writhed like serpents, and a man’s doughy buttocks rose and fell in the grip of long, hennaed talons. Claudia spun on her heel, but a woman’s voice restrained her.

‘Don’t rush off, sweetie. I’ve been meaning to catch you.’

Claudia’s fingers remained gripped round the door latch as she considered Tulola’s definition of the verb ‘catch’. ‘Gooseberries were never my favourite fruit,’ she said to the woodwork. ‘You can join me in the garden when you’re not quite so…busy.’

‘Who’s busy?’ Tulola disentangled herself and stretched sensuously. The Egyptian hairstyle was quite unruffled apart from the fringe. ‘You recognize Timoleon, don’t you?’

‘Not from that angle.’

Claudia studied the frescos as the hunk adjusted his tunic and then, to her surprise, he began swaggering, as though he was waiting for something. God knows what. Did he expect her to go all-of-a-flutter at his magnificent physique, his jewels, his finery? Because, if so, he was in for something of a shock. Far from handsome, his face was battle-scarred, his body musclebound and while, yes, the clothes and gewgaws were expensive, they were ostentatious and gaudy. In fact, the air he gave off was of a man going rapidly to seed, and for a chap on the good side of thirty, it did not bode well.

Tulola ran her finger down his cheek. ‘You’ll know him best as Scrap Iron.’

Now she recognized him. It was the hair that fooled her, he’d grown it long and dyed it yellow, and in the year since the gladiator had retired, he’d laid down more fat than was good for him. ‘A true son of Rome.’

Immune to sarcasm, the cocky sod puffed up even further. ‘That’s me right enough. Fifty-seven crowns in me eight years. Show me another bugger who’s done that!’

‘An impressive record.’ Claudia felt a pang of conscience. For all his trumpery, you couldn’t fault his talents in the arena and it wasn’t Timoleon’s fault she was about to be handed over to the army. Then she remembered his reputation. He was an arrogant son of a bitch, a trouble-maker on and off the sand.

‘Cold steel and no quarter, that’s my motto.’

I know, Timoleon, I know. You earned your laurels by sparing no one. Which included the life of a fighter who’d once spared you at the point of his sword.

‘Did you see me pitched against Strongarm?’ He jumped up and began to demonstrate. ‘Billed as the best in the business, he was.’

‘Oh, you’re the best, sweetie,’ purred Tulola, but the gladiator was back in the arena.

‘Typical sodding Samnite, hiding behind that great shield of his and trying to whack me with just that one arm exposed. Strongarm, geddit? But I’m quick, me. Nips behind-’

Claudia had switched off long ago, intrigued with the harem’s relationship with one another. Talk about claustrophobic. Did they know they were in competition? Was it the competition that kept it hot? Or had, as Tulola’s remark intimated, each one been led to believe he was special?

‘-cuts his leg straps and spears him where he lay. Strongarm, my arse! Tripped by his own leg greaves, silly sod.’

‘Fascinating.’

‘Then there was that time I-’

‘Time?’ Claudia jumped on the word. ‘Glad you reminded me, I’m meeting-’ think, think ‘-Sergius.’

Who? Claudia, can’t you, for once, think before you open your stupid mouth?

‘Lord, yes. I’d forgotten all about the show, as well.’ Show? What show? Tulola had finally detached herself from the gladiator. ‘We’ll lead the way, it’s quite difficult otherwise.’

What is?

‘Huh. You won’t catch Scrap Iron ankle-deep in elk shit.’ Timoleon seemed to think he’d made a joke and bellowed with laughter. ‘But hurry back, we’ve got unfinished business.’ He emphasized his point with a lewd gesture, which somehow managed to encompass Claudia in the motion.