Marilyn Todd - Second Act

Her steward retreated one pace out of range, but no more. ‘The package you were expecting has been delivered,’ he said staunchly. ‘It’s waiting for you in the storeroom.’

‘What?’ Of all the stupid timing- ‘Moschus?’

Leonides nodded mournfully. Call it his Macedonian upbringing, but harbouring escaped jailbirds just before Saturnalia didn’t seem to be his idea of a treat and suddenly there were any number of urgent needs pressing on Claudia. She went through a quick checklist in her head. Skyles, Felix, Caspar and the others were downstairs. Flavia’s virginity could afford to stay on ice a little longer. Orbilio could be anywhere. Fine. Claudia was in just the right mood to scatter Moschus’s ribs from Naples to Messina.

*

The Spectaculars had just one evening and whatever time they could squeeze out of tomorrow to perfect their performances. Felix was pretty confident about his. To dance four different roles, three of them female, he wore a tight, white, figure-hugging costume, offsetting its neutrality with four flexible cloth masks. Each mask was painted with a different facial expression and was sown to a wig differing in both style and colour. It took exactly seven seconds to remove one mask and replace it with another, provided he had help from the wings. There could be no mistaking Venus from Helen of Troy in his mime, but he continued to practise differentiating Helen’s passionate high kicks from the goddess of love’s tranquil slides.

Renata, who took her cues from the bleached blond, rather than the other way around, was too experienced a flautist to rehearse further. Instead, she filled her time experimenting with the vast range of cosmetics in her box, ending up with a thicker mask than the dancer’s. And hers took considerably more than seven seconds to remove.

Ugly Phil was complaining that the furry leggings made him itch since they’d been washed, had someone put soda in the water, and why is it one of his horns kept going limp?

‘Don’t fret, kiddo, these things happen to every chap sooner or later,’ Doris said seriously.

‘I prefer it,’ Caspar said, flapping his hands like little fat kippers. ‘It adds greatly to the humouritiousness of the scene. Miser, can you just lead in from where you catch your Wife with the Poet? Oh, and Cupid, suppose we suspend you from a rope so you swing through the air?’

‘Isn’t the poor little sod’s voice high enough?’ Jemima said, adjusting her veil up and her decolletage down. With that amount of bosom on show, she ought to do quite nicely for her old age out of this run.

‘I don’t suppose you’ve changed your mind about dinner?’ Skyles asked Erinna under his breath, since the scene required neither Virgin, Soldier’s Mistress nor Buffoon. ‘I mean, I don’t have to wear this.’ He tapped the wooden phallus strapped to his groin. ‘Well.’ He grinned. ‘Not unless you want me to.’

Erinna couldn’t help laughing. ‘No, Skyles. I haven’t changed my mind.’ She picked up a lyre and began to strum.

‘One day a stranger

Rode into our valley,

Ravaged with scars of hard battles long past. ‘

‘You wrote that song, didn’t you?’

‘I did.’

‘And I know who you wrote it about.’

The string snapped with a twang. ‘Really?’

Skyles glanced round the Spectaculars. Made sure their collective attention was occupied. Shifted his weight on to his other foot. ‘If you don’t want to eat, there are sword swallowers in the Forum. Fire-eaters, snake charmers, dancing monkeys, even some trick where a boy climbs up a rope and disappears.’

‘No means no, Skyles.

His eyes, they were weary,

He was tired of running,

But the law was behind him and catching up fast. ’

Being a string short didn’t seem to deter her.

‘I’m persistent, Erinna.’

‘Pissed, you mean.’

‘Nowhere near enough.’ He stroked his jaw. ‘Look, if it’s the women after the shows-’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sakes, Skyles, I know they’re just conquests and don’t mean a damn thing.’

Anger flushed his craggy face. ‘Is that what you think? That I shag ’em to prove myself to the lads?’

‘What, then?’ she asked, but she was talking to herself. Stiff with anger, the Buffoon had stormed off.

*

Claudia, who had been observing the exchange from the gallery, swept down the stairs.

‘My compliments on your black eye,’ she told Caspar. ‘In fact, I think it’s the best shiner I’ve seen since my cook’s wife caught hi m in bed with her sister.’

‘My motto, dear lady, is that if one has something, one should have only the very best.’ He leaned forward and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘I also possess a magnificentious bruise on my hip bone, if only you would care to verify the matter?’

‘Thanks, but it would only get me overexcited and compromise my widowed status.’ Claudia brushed away the feather of his turban from where it was tickling her ear. ‘Is Ion back yet?’

‘Misfortunately, madam, he is,’ the little man intoned solemnly. ‘Jupiter returned two hours ago in the highest of dudgeon and the lowest of temper, and is growling like a bear with two sore heads. My advice, dear lady, is not to approach the grizzly for a while.’ He affected a mock injury. ‘Those of us who tried have been severely mauled.’

‘What’s eating the moody sod, anyway?’ Jemima asked.

‘He’th thulked before, but never like thith,’ Hermione said.

‘One can only pray he comes out of it in the next hour,’ Caspar added miserably. ‘Before our talented company launches into a full-and I might add final-dress rehearsal.’

‘He normally comes out of his sulks quickly, then?’ Claudia asked.

The company exchanged glances among each other and shrugged. ‘We’ve no idea,’ Periander said. ‘Most of us only met up in Frascati. Ion joined us then, too.’

Frascati was of no interest to Claudia. She had business waiting down in the storeroom. But as she ducked under Jupiter’s platform to Olympus, she could hear Skyles apologizing to Erinna under the stairs.

‘About those conquests,’ he said. ‘I know you’ll think I’ve spent the last ten minutes trying to come up with a better explanation-’

For the first time since she arrived in this house, Erinna’s expression hardened. ‘You don’t know one damn thing about what I think,’ she snapped.

Catching Claudia’s eye as she stomped off, Skyles winked. She thought it was probably the hardest bit of acting he’d done in his life.

*

‘Leonides.’ Claudia beckoned her steward over. ‘Post my bodyguard at both exits,’ she said, ‘and have two of the biggest, burliest slaves stand guard beside them.’

‘Now, madam?’

Claudia nodded. ‘Until further notice, no one leaves this house without my permission.’

‘But suppose you’re not here?’

‘Then, Leonides, they don’t leave at all.’

*

With so many things happening at once, there was one crucial factor that Claudia had overlooked. Captain Moschus’s personal hygiene. Dear Diana, if anything was guaranteed to turn the olive oil in the storeroom sour, it was three days in an overcrowded jail. Rancid wasn’t the word.

He was sitting on a three-legged wooden stool with his hands tied behind his back and his boots removed to ensure he couldn’t run far, even if he tried to make a break for it. Looking at his filthy feet, Claudia suspected his boots could outrun him, in any case.

‘ You?’ Moschus jumped to his feet. A hand on his shoulder from Claudia’s bodyguard reseated him firmly.

‘Really, Captain, that’s no way to greet the woman who broke you out of jail.’

‘If you’d been doing me a favour, I wouldn’t be trussed up like a bleedin’ chicken. What d’yer want?’