Marilyn Todd - Second Act

Outside, Periander was singing about Paris’s dilemma. Which of the three should receive the apple engraved ‘To the Fairest’?

‘I told her I couldn’t go to the hotel. I explained about the script conference and the rewrites that were necessary after rehearsals and thought, hell, that would be that. “But you have to sleep some time,” she said. “And it doesn’t matter what time, day or night, you come to me, I’ll be waiting.” Oh.’ He flashed her a grin. ‘I think she called me “darling” as well.’

Outside, Paris had made his judgment. He’d awarded the apple to Venus and now, in angelic soprano, Periander sang of the irony of that decision. How Venus would m a ke Helen of Troy fall in love with him, starting the war to end all wars…

Claudia waited.

‘In the end, I realized I had no choice. I had to go to the tavern and tell the poor kid the truth.’

‘What is the truth, Skyles?’

‘That she’s too young. Obviously.’

‘Yes, and she’s too fat, and she’s spotty, and awkward, and silly, but Flavia will grow into herself, and her age isn’t the reason you didn’t sleep with her.’

‘Hey, I don’t go around deflowering virgins-’

‘I know. You go for married women with no strings attached, you shallow bastard.’ She leaned forward into his face. ‘You’ll take sex, provided it comes without emotion.’

‘What I do is my business.’

‘Not where my stepdaughter’s concerned.’

The last haunting notes of Renata’s flute died away.

‘I have to go,’ Skyles said.

He covered the room in three strides, a blur of imperial purple, and as he did, other images flashed through Claudia’s mind. A bald Buffoon chasing the kitchen girls, riding make-believe horses round the garden to amuse the children, slapping his head like an ape, tripping over imaginary ropes, caressing Erinna’s shadow, mimicking Leonides, the cook and anyone else. Act, act, act. Pretend, pretend, pretend. But running through this round-the-clock performance ran the constant thread of the entertainer. A man who wants to make people like him. Tell me, are those the actions of a man who is shallow?

‘One more thing. That wound on your side.’

‘Cramp.’

Yes, and I’m Pegasus and I can fly. ‘How did you get it?’

The intensity of his eyes burned through to the back of her skull. ‘That’s also my business,’ he rasped.

The draught from the slamming of the door was reminiscent of the draught from the front door in the early hours. Skyles might have sneaked out this morning, Claudia thought. But Juno be praised, neither he, nor anyone else, would be sneaking out for a while. Her bodyguards had the house sealed.

Dammit, Orbilio, where the hell are you? I can’t cope with this by myself.

*

In a gr im little room in an overcrowded hostelry close to the Capena Gate, Flavia snivelled into her pillow. Unlike the pillows at home, it wasn’t stuffed with soft swansdown, it was lumpy and dirty and she could swear she’d seen something move. She hated this horrible place. She hated Skyles, and her aunt, and her uncle, she hated them all.

No, she didn’t. She loved Skyles.

No, she didn’t. She hated him. It was spiteful and cruel to lead her on, pretend he’d fallen in love with her.

No, he hadn’t. He hadn’t said or done anything. It was her.

No, it wasn’t. It was Julia, the frigid old cow. She never let Flavia out of her sight. Never let her have any fun. Only Claudia understood how she felt. She’d sent her blessing for the marriage with Skyles.

No, she hadn’t. Bitch. It was sarcasm, that’s what it was. She didn’t mean a bloody word. That was Claudia being horrid, as usual.

No, she wasn’t. Claudia didn’t sit at home, like other women, dependent on men. She stuck two fingers up to convention, forged her own path through life, and stuff anyone else.

Flavia turned the soggy pillow over and sobbed some more. She couldn’t go home for the shame, and she couldn’t stay here, and it was Saturnalia Eve tomorrow, and she hadn’t bought any presents.

And that was something black, wriggling around under the bolster.

*

Having confronted the brutal truth, that she had been violated and abused and that it was for real, Deva’s body collapsed as quickly as her mind had done, when it had tried to block the attack out. The herbalist’s tears had triggered a series of cold sweats and uncontrollable shaking, a reaction her man had strangely pronounced to Orbilio to be a good sign.

‘These are symptoms I can treat,’ he said confidently.

Between them, they carried her to the remaining habitable guest room, where the herbalist covered her with blankets and raised her feet. ‘And no poppy juice,’ he told Marcus firmly, adding that he felt bad that it had taken an arsonist to bring Deva out of her trance.

‘A small price to pay,’ Orbilio told him, and meant it.

Aired, warmed and scented with lavender, you wouldn’t know there had been a fire in this room. The gilded stucco on the ceiling glittered in the light of the flickering lamp stand, and the frescoes on the wall might have been painted last week. On the bronze couch, under a pile of soft blankets and with a pale green damascene coverlet on top, Deva looked twelve years old. The herbalist ran the back of his finger lovingly down her cheek. His own face and his clothes were still black with soot and he left a dark smudge on her skin.

Marcus watched the rapid rise and fall of the covers. Stared at the white, waxy face on the pillow. The fringe plastered to her forehead with sweat. And thought of the cordon around Claudia’s house.

‘If you need me, my steward knows where to find me,’ he said, but that only led to another problem.

‘Oh, no!’ The steward buried his head in his hands when his master passed on the instructions. ‘With the fire, I completely forgot, sir. Mistress Seferius.’

‘What about her?’ Orbilio asked.

‘She sent word that you were to go to her house immediately. She had urgent news about the Halcyon Rapist.’

Shit. ‘When was this?’

The steward stared at his sludge-sodden boots. ‘Four hours ago,’ he said dully.

*

Orbilio didn’t have time to change. He didn’t have a clean toga to change into, even if he’d wanted. His clothes chests were ruined, the contents contaminated, in the end he’d had to scrounge a cloak from the porter. Nor did he care that his face was streaked black or that his hair was thick with soot as he sliced his way through the crowds of Saturnalia revellers. He wondered what she’d found that was so urgent. What she would think, another girl he’d let down He was barely two hundred yards from his house when a small figure darted out of the shadows.

‘How dare you be unfaithful.’ Angelina hissed. ‘You belong with me, no one else.’

Two strigils short of a bathhouse, the herbalist had pronounced. That had to be the understatement of the decade. The girl was nuts. Pistachio, pine, hazel and walnut, every kind you could imagine. He drew a deep breath and turned to face her.

‘It does me no credit to admit this, Angelina.’ He drew her by the elbow into the doorway of a shuttered silversmith’s shop, out of the main thoroughfare. ‘The only reason I approached you after that dinner party was because I was drunk and thought it might lead to sex, and that, I’m afraid, is the truth.’

‘Who cares how relationships start-’

‘Angelina, listen to me. I’m really sorry, but you have to accept the fact, even if you hadn’t drugged me, it would never have been more than a one-night stand.’

How could he ever have thought of this demented vixen as a pixie?

‘Just because I’m lowborn and you’re an aristocrat doesn’t mean we can’t see each other, Marcus. I don’t expect you to marry me, darling-’