Marilyn Todd - Wolf Whistle

‘Clog off.’

‘Clogs,’ replied Marcus, sucking in his cheeks, ‘are two shops down, on the left. Come. I’ll walk you home.’

‘You will not.’ Claudia flounced out of the shop. ‘I kept my side of the bargain, now we’re even.’

‘There’s something I want to talk over.’ Orbilio let her scan the dripping shopfronts for a whole minute before informing her that he had taken the liberty of dismissing her bodyguard.

‘And he went?’ She’d have that young Gaul’s giblets! ‘Just like that?’

‘Junius and I have an understanding.’

‘Then I hope you’ll both be very happy,’ Claudia replied, sweeping down the street, her skirts swishing with the speed of her stride.

Orbilio’s laughter made the vellum-maker scratch his calfskin. ‘You can come to the wedding,’ he said, catching her by the elbow and spinning her round. ‘Providing you live long enough.’

He pushed her into the shelter of a shopfront. Dammit, it was the slipper-maker whose sales pitch she’d pretended to listen to earlier.

‘For gods’ sake, you need protection,’ Orbilio was saying.

‘From what? Fleas? Mice? Measles? And you!’ Claudia turned to the slipper-maker. ‘If you don’t shut up about your goddammed guild, I’ll make you eat your bloody leatherwork, and no, for the umpteenth time, the lady does not want to feel the softness.’

‘Which roughly translated,’ Marcus told the shopkeeper evenly, ‘means the lady has no feelings. Ouch!’ He half-limped, half-hopped up the street after her. ‘Claudia, this is serious.’

‘I only stepped on your toes.’

He forced himself to be solemn. ‘I’m talking about this.’

From his soggy linen tunic, he pulled out an equally bedraggled document. Once it had been a crisp, clean oblong of paper. Then someone had written on it. Then it had been rolled and sealed. Finally, it had been crumpled and pushed into a charcoal oven. Claudia felt a chill descend in the air. She did not need to see the seal to know it was a cobra. Legend had it, the Orbilio clan traced itself back to Apollo. Claudia wouldn’t mind betting that somewhere along the line, bloodhounds had been bred into it.

‘Where did you get hold of that?’ It’s not easy to talk when your teeth are gnashing together like quern-stones, but she managed.

This time it was a bookshop he’d shoved her into, and the owner was happy for the customers to browse.

‘You realize the man who writes these letters is clinically insane, don’t you? He’s obsessed to the point of delusion, talking about, what was it-’ Orbilio’s finger traced the lines ‘- our destiny together. And, look, this bit here, united for all eternity. These are death threats, Claudia.’

‘He thinks they’re love letters.’

‘Love letters?’ Orbilio almost choked. ‘Threats and pornography?’ The things this joker wanted to do were not only disgusting, degrading and debauched, they were downright illegal.

Claudia found she was shaking. She usually did when she read one of these letters. ‘He’s sick,’ she admitted, ‘but I don’t think he’s dangerous. Had he meant harm, he’d have tried it by now.’

Orbilio’s eyes narrowed. ‘How long has this sicko been writing to you?’

She tried to make light of it. ‘I’m young, I’m rich and I’m single. Cranks write all the time. Mostly I send a polite, but firm reply, it does the trick.’

‘So you’ve written to him?’

‘Possibly.’ She heard him swear under his breath. Across the room, the shopkeeper was growing curious. ‘He’ll take this,’ she said, picking up the nearest book and indicating Marcus.

Outside, Orbilio shook his head in disbelief. ‘ Weapons Drill Vol. IV?’

‘It was a snip, I thought, at three sesterces.’

‘You missed the nought at the end.’ He forced himself back to the matter in hand. ‘This tide of filth.’ He paused, looking at the charred edge where the bottom had burned away. ‘I presume it’s anonymous.’

After what had transpired in the alleyway, Claudia was too weary to lie. ‘Sort of,’ she said. ‘He signs them “Magic”.’

‘I’ll arrange for a legionary to stand shifts,’ Orbilio said swiftly-but not swiftly enough.

‘Oh no, you won’t.’

They were entering the Forum now, where advocates argued over law, customers argued over prices and philosophers argued over a load of abstract rubbish. Barbers set chairs upon the pavement in the hope the weather might improve, tavern keepers brought theirs indoors, because it wasn’t going to. Furriers were busy, goldsmiths were not, florists had packed up and gone home. Under an awning attached to the gem cutter’s, infant voices parrot-called the twenty-four letters that comprised the Latin alphabet, and further up the Via Sacra, a snake charmer played his flute to an audience of nil.

‘Claudia, your life is in danger! An armed guard outside the door will scare this maniac away.’

Or turn his attentions elsewhere. In front rose the Rostra, the public speaking platform which stood twice as high as herself and was overlooked by bronze knights on snow-white marble columns. ‘I don’t want protection.’ Her voice was as cold as the metal prows from the captured warships which studded the front of the Rostra.

‘Why not?’ Orbilio stepped forward to block her path. ‘For gods’ sake, woman. Tell me why not.’

Claudia considered him. He meant well, this patrician turning from red to purple as the bruises took their course. He was ambitious, and he took his job seriously. But… Pulling out her drawstring purse and keeping her eye fixed on a topknotted Sygambian in flowing scarlet robes, she fumbled around until her finger found the phial it was seeking. Then Claudia Seferius smiled a smile displaying her entire stock of ingenuity.

‘Very well, Marcus Cornelius. All shall be revealed, but first you buy me lunch.’

Caught offguard, naked suspicion danced across his face, but being first and foremost a gentleman, he led the way past the prison where Nerva’s thugs bemoaned their fate in chains and up the hill towards a tavern favoured by the gentry. Ordinarily it would be thronging to the rafters, but since the senate was in recess, it was quiet.

‘If you must know, it’s the aunts,’ she explained, when they had settled at the table and given their orders. ‘The old crabs plan to disinherit me.’

‘Your husband’s will was perfectly legal.’ Orbilio knew, because he’d once had to try and disprove it. ‘What’s the problem?’

Claudia pulled a face. ‘They believe they can prove me unfit, as a woman, to manage the inheritance. They want me to marry Porsenna.’

Orbilio buried a laugh in his handkerchief. They had more chance of building a snowman in summertime. ‘Who,’ he asked, keeping his kerchief close to hand, ‘is Porsenna?’ Outside, two small boys chased a piglet up the street.

‘Their puppet,’ she explained, sinking her teeth into a piping hot scallop dripping with garlic. ‘The mouse man.’

A squid ring fell off Orbilio’s knife. ‘The what?’

‘Porsenna breeds dormice for the banquets of the rich and famous.’ Young, dull, pliable-what more could Larentia ask? Rumour had it, he spent most of his waking hours writing recipes for cooking his precious fattened profitmakers. ‘So what I don’t need,’ she said, crunching on a stick of celery, ‘is a soldier clumping about in armour to draw attention to myself.’

Orbilio laid down his chicken bone. ‘Come on. Even your mother-in-law couldn’t blame you for wanting protection against a madman.’

Claudia sipped at her wine. It was good. Better than Seferius wine, in fact. ‘The problem with Magic is that somewhere along the line, he’s started to believe it’s reciprocal.’ She speared a mushroom and waved it at Marcus. ‘That’s right. This creep actually thinks we’re in a two-way relationship.’