Marilyn Todd: Man Eater

Tulola jemmied herself free of the horse-breaker and sauntered over to join her brother and his guest. ‘Barea can’t stay. Some trouble with the gelding.’

Claudia glanced over her shoulder. Trouble was an understatement. The rope had caught and the bald man was being pulled round the ring on his stomach as the black stallion reared and bucked in a cloud of dust. Poor sod. If he didn’t get trampled, he’d probably choke to death.

The couch was set down in the middle of the courtyard and a table placed beside it. When this had been piled high with fruit and cakes, Sergius brought his arm down as a signal to start. Ears flapping, a brightly costumed elephant lumbered towards the line Corbulo had been inspecting, which, to Claudia’s astonishment, was no drawing after all, but an enormously sturdy rope. When the trainer swished his baton-up, across and back-Claudia drew in her breath. She was, she realized with a tingle of excitement, about to witness something far in excess of ordinary.

Slowly, very slowly, with the gems on his coat glittering in the afternoon sun, the elephant obeyed Corbulo’s commands. Clambering up the blocks and without so much as changing pace, he marched across the tightrope, down the blocks the other side and made for the table. Then, like the good Roman that he was, he rolled on to the couch and proceeded to help himself from the goodies spread before him. Stunned by the performance, Claudia nevertheless drew the line at petting the wrinkly lump, which Tulola and her brother had rushed to do, until gradually she became conscious of the grey eyes of the trainer concentrated upon her.

‘Impressed by my Abyssinian cow?’

Who wouldn’t be? ‘Your team is riding into history, my friend.’

‘My-? Oh, the labourers were just drafted in to help with the exhibition.’ He tossed his baton into the air and caught it as it fell. ‘I always work alone.’ The elephant was revelling in the praise, his button eyes twinkling as he demolished bun after bun. ‘Can’t stand interruptions, it interferes with the training, the concentration, mucks everything up.’

‘Then your talents will make you one very rich man, Corbulo.’

Irritation clouded his face. ‘This isn’t about money,’ he snapped, then nodded towards the surrounding sheds. ‘You know, I’ve trained monkeys to ride chariots, leopards to sleep with hares and when Barea’s finished with it, I’ll have that Spanish spitfire dancing to the flute.’

‘And is your passion purely confined to animals?’ She was only partly teasing.

‘Oh no.’ A fire lit his tundra-dark eyes. ‘Since you ask-’

The flirtation got no further. The little blonde slave girl, the one who’d screamed her bloody head off this morning, came running up. She shot Claudia a nervous glance, gave her a wide berth and ground to a halt in front of Sergius.

‘Please, sir, it’s the Prefect,’ she said breathlessly, darting another furtive glance in Claudia’s direction. ‘He’s here.’

Marcus Cornelius Orbilio was woken by the sound of hammering. In Rome, the city that never sleeps and refuses to let anyone else sleep either, hammering was not unusual, night being the only time goods traffic was permitted through the streets. In consequence, much of the Emperor’s massive restoration programme had to be undertaken by torchlight, and if you add on the constant throb of axles being whacked, wheels bumped, sacks thumped, you’re in for a fun-packed show.

This hammering, however, was altogether different. It seemed to come from within the walls of his own house. Struggling to sit up, Orbilio realized the pounding was closer than he thought. Mighty Mars! It was inside his skull.

He flopped back on the bed and groaned. His mouth was furred his eyeballs tender, and the same instinct that told him it was a long haul to daybreak scoffed at his chances of getting back to sleep. Every joint and every bone ached to the marrow, his skin was dry and his gut felt like someone had plaited his intestines. Putting tentative fingertips to pounding temples, Orbilio was forced to face facts. There was no remedy known to medical science for the condition that racked his youthful body and he cursed silently. Surely, in this golden age of peace and prosperity, a cure for hangover could not be that difficult?

A chill breath of wind brushed his cheeks and he noticed he hadn’t closed the shutters. His blurred vision could just about determine a reddish tinge to the sky and his mouth turned down. Another oaf, clumsy with his tallow and, whoosh, up goes another tenement, killing as many occupants when the building collapses as are killed in the fire itself, the poor sods trapped by the same heavy safety chains they needed for their doors in the first place. Did the landlords care? Did they hell! A few new timbers, a bit of plaster and, hey presto, here’s a brand new tenement-we can charge double the rent.

Regardless of what he professes, Augustus doesn’t give a shit. He makes the odd sop, like limiting storeys to six, but what good’s that when tenants sleep four to a bed, there’s just one toilet on the ground floor and water has to be hauled from the street? What would it take to form a fire corps, eh? Remus, a million people are crammed in this city. Fires break out four, five, six times a day. If the Emperor truly cared about his people, he’d forget lavishing the spoils of war on stone and marble and organize cohorts to man pumps and form chains Orbilio stopped short. Jupiter in heaven, this is treason!

Worse, he suddenly became aware of a figure buried under the covers beside him. He felt a trickle of sweat run down his forehead. Suppose-oh, Janus. Suppose he’d been thinking aloud? Soft snores reassured him she was sleeping deeply, before a second question formed on his lips. Who the hell was she?

He would not, he swore, touch another drop. Not one more drop. He pinched the bridge of his nose. Croesus, he thought he had his drinking under control, but there were times lately when chunks of his life disappeared without trace. Small chunks, but they were missing none the less. Like tonight…

The intensity of the blaze changed the oblong of light in the wall from red to yellow, then a splintering crash told him the army had been called in and were doing what they normally did. They grabbed long poles and tore the building down. Far quicker. Far easier. And it wasn’t their fault, was it, if families were trapped inside?

He sighed with envy. In an ideal world, it would be nice to close one’s mind to life’s less appealing aspects, but Orbilio had discovered long ago that his conscience was a shrew, nagging him like a fishwife, prodding him with her bony finger whenever he wanted to be idle. He could feel her now-prod, prod, prod-and she wouldn’t stop until she got what she wanted.

The most cursory glance assured him his bedmate wasn’t the little redhead. Even bombed, he wouldn’t be that stupid. Without doubt he’d enjoyed their brief dalliance, teaching her things she’d never dreamed of even though she was married herself, until it slipped out who her husband was.

Gisco. The charioteer. Gisco, whose jealous nature and volatile temperament were legendary. In fact, the last man who’d forced Gisco to wear the cuckold’s horns had been found in a back alley, bound and gagged, with his balls tied round his neck…

When he’d learned that, he’d bundled the redhead into her clothes and out the side door in one single motion, but for Marcus Cornelius Orbilio, twenty-five years old and so healthy he was verging on immortality, the flame of Venus burned strong.

Thus-lying beside a total stranger, as the tenement fire snuffed out a dozen lives and wrecked scores more-he was able to run his hands abstractedly through his hair and tell his conscience to piss off. He was young and single and had no dependants, why shouldn’t he sow his wild oats? Then he felt it again. Prod, prod, prod. The fishwife had picked up the word ‘single’ and was throwing it back at him.