Marilyn Todd - Second Act

‘Taking it slowly, huh?’

In the early morning light, her face was beautiful. A small, round, pixie face flushed pink with sleep, surrounded by a halo of frothy honey curls. Any man would feel it a privilege to wake up next to such an enchanting creature. Any man except Orbilio. How the blazes had he got here? Why couldn’t he remember?

‘Slow is fine by me,’ she whispered, running her tongue inside his ear.

‘I have to be on duty early.’ Despite himself, a shiver of desire rippled through his loins. ‘Today’s the day the new tribunes assume elected office.’

Being the sole member of the aristocracy attached to the Security Police, this meant Orbilio was the only person his boss could call on for assistance with the protocols of the governing classes. Another resentment Callisunus could then add to his list, since, being equestrian class himself, he bitterly begrudged having to rely on a patrician for advice on social matters. A subordinate, at that. By way of retaliation, and as though it was Orbilio’s fault that he was born to the nobility, Callisunus would proceed to toss him every rotten assignment that he could. But today the Head of the Security Police needed his patrician subordinate at his shoulder when the tribunes were sworn in. Just in case of gaffes.

‘You don’t have to go,’ the pixie wheedled. ‘You could send a message saying something’s come up.’ She giggled again. ‘After all, it’s the truth.’

‘I’d love to stay, darling,’ he lied, ‘but this is a big day.’

‘It certainly is,’ she giggled.

He groaned. ‘No, really. I have to go.’

Croesus, she was lovely. Sexy, too, with her slim white hips and soft white skin. Her legs went on for ever. But he didn’t know the woman. Couldn’t even remember her name, for heaven’s sake-and whatever rapport the drink had established between them last night, it did not constitute a relationship in the true sense of the word. Therefore, it followed that, if he consummated the urges his body was telling him to, he was reducing the pixie to the level of a whore and himself toTo what? What worm was lower than the man too drunk to know-or care-who gave him satisfaction?

Images of another woman burned his brain. A woman with flashing eyes and dark, tumbling curls, and although he had as much chance of taming Claudia Seferius as he had of throwing a harness round the wind, when he made love, he wanted to experience all the passion, all the redhot anguish, pain and pleasure that the act entailed. His gut wrenched as he imagined himself burying his face in those dark curls. Inhaling the scent of her intense Judaean perfume. Running his tongue round that little dip in her collarbone. To submit to copulation for its own sake in the cold, clear light of sobriety was not the same and whilst he supposed a man could argue that succumbing to his sexual urges when he’d hit rock bottom didn’t make a scrap of difference at this stage-just be stronger next time, Marcus, and try not to end up naked in a bed with any more attractive nymphomaniacs-he wasn’t fooling anyone, much less himself.

‘I’m already late,’ he told the pixie, swinging out of her exquisite nibbling clutches and narrowly missing the edge of the stove.

‘You’ll call round tonight, won’t you?’ Moist pink lips formed a half-open pout through which he could see her tongue. ‘After work?’

‘Of course I will,’ he promised, taking extra care as he buckled his belt to avoid meeting her gaze.

‘Miss you.’ She planted a kiss on her fingers and blew it across to where his hand was already closing round the door handle.

‘You, too, darling.’

As an afterthought, Marcus winked. He had a feeling women liked that sort of thing.

*

The play was going well.

Considering it hadn’t actually been written.

Caspar, however, felt he knew enough about musical farce to rush ahead, confident of shoring up any shortfalls at the end. Improvisation was his middle name, he declared grandly. And since he was the Narrator from whom the actors took their cue, Claudia suspected that more than one previous production had owed more to frantic ad-libbing than a script.

She was also beginning to understand what had prompted several members of the previous cast to break away and form their own company last October.

But credit where it’s due, the whole troupe was pulling together on this. Leonides reported-sourly, it must be said, since it involved much burning of coals through the night and no consideration whatsoever as to the number of oil lamps that were lit-that few of the company had been to bed last night, scratching away on rolls of parchment in a bid to get the dialogue down and start rehearsals as soon as possible.

‘Teamwork wins the day, dear boy,’ Caspar had told him with a firm clap on the back. Before requesting bread and cheese for eight, even though the hour was after three.

Far from showing the strain, however, the portly impresario’s face glowed and his little dark eyes shone. Unmistakably, a man in the grip of ecstasy.

‘These,’ he had announced, sweeping out of Claudia’s office with a sheaf of rustling parchments, ‘shall be billed as the Halcyon Spectaculars and our play-your play-I have called The Cuckold.’ He planted a loud kiss on the back of her hand and failed to notice that his hostess was shielding her eyes against his narcissus-yellow robe, lime-green bejewelled turban and turquoise belt. ‘Alas, I can’t stop to brief you on it now, dear lady, I must get started on the scenery, but rest assured you will be given progress within the hour.’

With that, the little tornado scurried off in a flurry of rosewater scent and Claudia felt quite breathless as she settled down for breakfast. Hardly an original title, Halcyon Spectaculars, but appropriate enough-and catchy. She tucked her feet underneath her on the couch and sipped the spiced apple juice Leonides had warmed up in advance. Halcyon reflected perfectly the fourteen days that bridged the winter solstice, the time when the sea is calm enough for the fabled halcyon bird to lay her eggs upon the waves. Idly, Claudia wondered what else might be about to hatch.

She was slicing off a wedge of pecorino cheese, her favourite, when Chiselled Cheekbones, he who had been watching her so intently yesterday, minced comically into the room, tossed back his fringe and perched cross-legged on top of the chest containing the silver.

‘I’m Doris,’ he announced. His voice was soft and slightly husky. ‘The name means bountiful, you know.’

‘Wasn’t Doris the nymph who married a sea god who could change his shape at will?’

‘And your point?’ The young man tilted his head to one side as he grinned. ‘Be a love, would you, and toss me a roll. Caspar said to brief you on the Spectacular, but he never said to do it on an empty stomach.’

‘I thought actors perform best when they’re hungry.’ Claudia threw across a hot roll peppered with poppy seeds, which he caught with one hand.

‘Not this thesp, kiddo,’ he said, catching the chunk of spicy sausage that came winging after it. ‘Right then,’ he said through a mouthful of dough. ‘The programme’s as follows.’

Claudia wasn’t interested in the programme, only the schedule. ‘Just tell me, yes or no, will the show be ready for the eighteenth?’

That was the day after Saturnalia, traditionally a day of anticlimax following the exchanging of gifts, the Great Sacrifice outside the temple in the Forum, the games and feasting throughout the day before. It would not impress jaded merchants much if the play wasn’t ready.

‘If you can trust the great lord’s propaganda, I’ll be in Miser’s costume by this afternoon,’ Doris said. ‘I play First Lead, which means I’m the cuckold of the title, wouldn’t you believe. Listen, are you sure you aren’t even a tinksy bit curious about what twenty strangers will be doing in your house? It’s more than putting on just the one play, you know.’ Eyelashes like a giraffe, Claudia thought. Thin, feminine hands. And, of course, those fine chiselled cheekbones.