Marilyn Todd - Wolf Whistle

Lots of girls get bullied, Annia. They don’t all slice up their tormentors for revenge. Then, as though the sun had broken through a fog, Claudia understood.

Wasn’t ‘touched’ the word Daphne had used to describe Penelope? Claudia glanced at Annia, and something revolved in her stomach as she wished now she’d paid more attention to Marcus’ story. Who better placed, she realized, than a mother to recognize the disturbance inside her own child? Small boys being unable to differentiate between ages, Marcus would have seen nothing odd in a girl singing and dancing and playing with dolls-that’s what girls did-but the duped husband knew straightaway. Small wonder he volunteered for active service, he wanted as much distance between himself and his batty wife as possible, and too late Claudia understood that Penelope’s promiscuity was not about grief. His death merely upped the dangerous stakes-and Daphne Lovernius understood, too. Understood, and repressed it, and Claudia felt a sharp pang of compassion for the old dame. She bit deep into her lower lip. If she’d only listened to the story objectively, and not through the grieving eyes of a seven-year-old. Then she would have seen that any mother worth her salt would have defied Daphne and retrieved the infant Annia straight away. But such was the disturbance inside her head Penelope had gone to Old Man Tiber, instead of Arbil. A tough and proud old bird, what torment must Daphne have suffered all these years, from the moment her daughter came home heavy with child? She would have known, as Claudia knew, how mental illness was often hereditary and now, sweet Jupiter, her worst nightmare had become terrifying reality.

Claudia looked at Marcus, momentarily silenced from his struggles, and saw that he was-at long last-grieving. Not for Annia, not even for Penelope. Marcus Cornelius Orbilio was grieving for himself and for eighteen wasted years. Years in which cover-ups and silence caused untold harm and damaged everyone who came within their sphere. When, she wondered, would families ever learn? You only have to see how Arbil handled the situation with Shannu to see how problems perpetuate.

Claudia was jerked out of her reverie when-incredibly-Annia laid Nemesis flat upon the desk. His cornelians glinted proudly in the sunshine, like the fresh dark drops of blood which would soon run over them. In the atrium, Orbilio’s tunic was soaked through with sweat, his wrists raw from the unyielding iron handcuffs. Do something, Claudia. You have to do something! You can’t just let her slice you to ribbons! Marcus, too, had seen the change in Annia.

Perhaps if she could get inside her mind. Show how she truly sympathized when, aware of the circumstances of her birth and in a place where every other child had known rejection, the girls had shown no mercy in their torment, she might reach a part of Annia that was human and compassionate?

Assuming such a place existed.

Stepping back, Annia stripped off her tunic.

‘Why twenty-seven cuts?’ Nemesis was just an arm’s length out of reach…

Flushed and breathless, Annia crossed the floor. Truly, she was beautiful. Straight-backed, sinuous and graceful, her pale body shimmered as she moved, her tight, young breasts untouched by time or childbirth.

‘That was Nemesis’ decision, I’m afraid, not mine.’ Shit. She picked up the knife and kissed the deadly blade. ‘I wanted those sadistic bitches to feel my vengeance through a thousand gaping wounds. Unfortunately.’ She ran the cold, blue blade across her thigh. ‘There was no room for more than twenty-seven on the first, so we retained that number for them all. It will be the same for you, Claudia, where do you suggest we start?’

Claudia dared not take her eye off Nemesis. Her mouth was dry, her heart thumping like a thunderclap against her ribs. Behind the chair, her fingernails dug deep into her palms. From the hall, she heard a strangled cry and silently commended Orbilio’s steely self-control about not speaking unless Annia commanded it. Neither he or Claudia doubted she would carry out her threat.

It happened without warning.

She saw the sunlight on the steel and for maybe one whole second Claudia did not realize the knife had actually made contact. Like the earlier nick, she had not felt it break her skin. Wide-eyed, she watched hot scarlet droplets form splash patterns on the pale peach cotton tunic in her lap. And then she knew.

The ordeal had begun.

‘Do you know what power is?’

Annia cocked her head on one side to admire her handiwork. The slash, being purely superficial, had been intended as a shock. A taster of what was yet to come. When muscles would be disabled, tendons cut. She watched the river she’d created find its course.

‘Power is the ability to bring an empire to its knees and I have done that, Claudia. Imagine! Little Annia brings down the might of Rome.’

Claudia knew there was no blood left in her cheeks. It was gushing down her breast into her lap.

‘Picture it as a building, a tall six-storey tenement. On the top floor, there’s Agrippa, taken by the great god Marduk to create a smokescreen under which Nemesis and I could operate in peace. Next floor down, we have the Holy Catamite no less, the great and mighty Augustus about to be toppled from his perch by uprisings and seditions.’

Annia paused to stretch out a finger and dip it in Claudia’s blood. She examined the fingertip for several seconds, before licking it clean as though it was a drip of honey or a dab of parsley sauce.

‘On the third floor, we have the whole machinery of Rome thrown into terror and confusion. Don’t you think it was clever of me to pick a market day to kill the girls, Claudia? Hundreds upon hundreds of women scared to venture out alone?’ She laughed. ‘I created that. Me.’ She hushed her voice to a whisper. ‘The Market Day Murderer…’

The sprite clapped at her own ingenuity, and Claudia asked Jupiter to make the bitch choke on her own smugness. Jupiter wasn’t listening.

‘On the second floor of my apartment block, you’ll see Arbil, squatting like a spider in his web. By the time I disappear, I’ll have left so large a cloud hanging over Arbil that his business will collapse before the autumn.’

The pumping blood was easing to a trickle as Claudia’s natural defences began to heal. The musical farce would not yet have reached the intermission.

‘Moving to the first floor, we have Daphne wetting herself once word gets out there’s a killer in the family.’ She twisted her head to address Marcus over her shoulder. ‘That would have cut your Senate career short, even if I hadn’t.’ She turned back to Claudia. ‘Finally, on the ground floor, we have the girls themselves.’ Annia sighed with satisfaction. ‘So you see, I wield power on every single storey.’

The bleeding was down to a gentle, rhythmic ooze. The puddle in her lap felt clammy on her thigh, the smell was wretched, but providing Annia could be diverted, Claudia was safe from Nemesis.

‘Except for Zygia.’

Blue eyes narrowed to slits. ‘I worshipped that bitch,’ Annia spat. ‘Because of her I put up with years of being treated like a dog, then she shacked up with empty-headed Severina. I told her, my skin’s as pale as hers, my eyes as blue-Croesus. I even grew my hair like Sever-bloody-rina, but still that spiteful dyke spurned my affections. Can you understand that, Claudia? I mean, can you really get your head around her logic?’

Easily. ‘Why wait so long before killing the first girl?’

Annia ran her hands across her hips. ‘Marcus knows the answer to that, I expect that’s how he cottoned on to me. You know, Claudia, that was my one mistake. Telling him I’d been serving the temple warden’s wife for two full years, when in fact Arbil kept me as a trainer until four months back. But then, how was I to know Marcus would send a present to the stupid warden’s wedding? I shan’t make that mistake next time-’