Marilyn Todd - Second Act

‘You think you can kill me, but I will never die,’ it said through the hole in its temple. ‘I will never die.’

Flesh fell away from the hand as it pulled off the mask, but there was a second mask underneath that, and a third. But when the corpse pulled off the grotesque grin of the comic, it was the face of the Digger that stared out from the decay.

And the body laughed. ‘See?’ it said. ‘You cannot escape me.’

And the leaves fell from the trees, and it was winter again. It is perpetually midwinter for killers.

‘You know the best thing about December?’ Claudia asked Drusilla, as they both stretched languorously in her bed. ‘Festivities virtually every day of the month.’

Some, like the Festival of the Lambs, were sombre occasions, while others, like Faunus earlier in the month, were exactly the opposite. Indeed, if anything, Faunus verged a little too much on the rumbustious, with all that rough wine and ungainly clomping the rustics called dance. But it was good fun, this country festival. A mix of goat roasts, boar hunts and blessings-of-the-motherland, basically an excuse for the locals to get drunk.

‘Where would our advertisements for the Spectaculars be without these festivities?’ Claudia murmured through a yawn.

‘Mrrr.’ Drusilla was less than impressed. Coming from Egypt, she hadn’t taken to these cold, damp, miserable winters. No amount of gaiety could turn the streets of Rome into sun-baked oases of hot mice and crispy spiders.

‘Fortune is smiling on us, poppet.’

The first commercial for the Halcyon Spectaculars took advantage of the Festival of the Lambs, the second capitalized on the Festival of the Seven Hills and now today, and without so much as a day off when people might forget, the gods had given Claudia yet a third chance to advertise her sponsorship.

‘Not necessarily the finest,’ she admitted, stroking Drusilla underneath blankets scented with chamomile. ‘But beggars can’t be choosers, and the masses do tend to flock to the Festival of Ceres.’

More pious than most of the other winter festivities, and nowhere near on the scale of the goddess’s bigger festival which took up such a large chunk of April with its theatres and games, this was still a day of happiness and rejoicing. Of giving back to this bountiful earth goddess some of the fruits of her labours, and the festival involved ceremonies and rituals in which even the lowliest plebeians and slaves could participate.

‘Hrrow,’ Drusilla growled, hearing the first excited shrieks from the kitchens below.

She had never quite forgiven her mistress for encouraging the children of the household slaves to make cakes of spelt and salt to sacrifice to Ceres today. Already the horrible little sods were squealing in delight as podgy hands mangled dough into bread snails and bread mice to be laid at the altar of the gentle goddess. Nor was Drusilla alone in her tingles of alarm. Since Claudia always laid on outdoor feasts of sticky honeycombs afterwards, the cooks and the flowerbeds also feared for their sanity. Someone’s child, somewhere, would always throw up.

Wisely, Drusilla retreated beneath the covers and dreamed of hot sands and cold vermin in a land where it only rained moths. Claudia, dressed in white, the traditional colour for honouring Ceres, found her own escape from the bedlam was not quite as easy.

Erinna was sprawled across the stairs tacking up the seams of the tunic Ion would later rip off at the Temple, singing softly to herself.

The ballad wasn’t one Claudia recognized from any of the plays.

Erinna hadn’t bothered pinning her hair into a bun, and today it hung down her back, a glorious cloak of glistening chestnut. No doubt about it. With her clear skin, big eyes and hauntingly beautiful voice, she was one of Caspar’s finest assets.

‘Sorry, I didn’t see you there.’

She shuffled over to let Claudia past, and Claudia didn’t say that she’d been there some time, wondering what it was about Erinna’s voice that turned a few mediocre lines into something that made eyes prickle with tears.

Erinna bit off the thread with her teeth. ‘If you want to make a real impact outside the Temple, all three of us girls could wear tacked costumes if you like?’

‘No, no,’ Claudia said hastily. ‘That won’t be necessary.’

There was more than enough flesh on display with Erinna. Three volumptuous beauties would blind the crowd for a week.

And in any case, there was a quality in Erinna that brought a special dimension to the farce. For a show based entirely around smut, the word sophisticated might sound paradoxical, yet there was a stylishness about her which was lacking in the other girls. Not that they lacked sex appeal. Far from it. Jemima in particular had it in spades. Proud of her outsize assets, Jemima was the type who’d tumble men at the drop of a hat and leave them laughing afterwards. But even Adah and Renata had that special appeal that comes from the sure and certain knowledge that they were both desirable and desired-and so what, there were girls out there who were prettier, more shapely, more intelligent? Caspar had chosen his volumptuous beauties with care. The girls in his troupe were alive. Vivacious, vibrant, independent and self-assured, they lived for the day and milked life for everything that it sent them and through the medium of farce, they were able to project this to the world. If that isn’t sexy, what is?

What set Erinna apart was her couldn’t-care-less attitude. It emitted a different kind of sensuality, an effect that was all the more pronounced because Erinna was unaware of it. But none of this would have touched Claudia’s consciousness, had it not been for Skyles.

Maybe, she thought, slipping into the thick, warm, woollen mantle Leonides held out at the foot of the stairs, she was mistaken about what she had seen…

Maybe she was reading too much into it…

The litter bearers dropped her outside Ceres’s temple, just off the Cattle Market on the Aventine, in perfect timing for the start of the sacrifice. Adjacent to the shrine, in a great warehouse flanked by winches and cranes, stood the largest corn store in the city, and it was outside the Great Granary that the third, and final, advertisement for the Spectaculars was due to take place. Everyone, whether male or female, rich or poor, free or enslaved, wore white for the ceremony. Allowing Caspar’s rainbow troupe to steal even greater attention.

A large crowd had accumulated and fragrant incense wafted on the breeze. Apart from the farmers, whose patron Ceres was, many slaves had also gathered. Should they ever need it, the temple gave them right of sanctuary-and only a fool would wait until the moment was upon them before propitiating the one goddess who was prepared to shelter them.

Not an obvious choice of audience to advertise the Spectaculars, you might think. But you’d be wrong.

‘Make way,’ one of the temple acolytes shouted. ‘Make way for the penitent! Make way for Meno the Coppersmith.’

Meno the Coppersmith had unwisely attacked a tribune over a long-standing grievance about rights of way past his premises, and the penalty for assaulting the elected representatives of the people was harsh. Meno was immediately stripped of his assets, which were sold off and now the proceeds of that humiliating public auction were being assigned to the Temple of Ceres. Penitent, indeed. One foolish punch had wiped out a lifetime of work.