Marilyn Todd - I, Claudia

‘Life is wonderful, don’t you think so, Galla?’

Sulky cow.

At long last the shimmering haze became solid walls, which in turn became roofs and streets and columns and arches. The lifeless road turned into a clamour of men and women, children and oxen, beggars and pedlars. There were shopkeepers shouting, dogs snapping, slaves yapping, porters rumbling amphorae over the cobbles. The smell of hard-earned sweat mingled with charcoal, animal ordure and dusky, musky scents. Graffiti on the walls, sacred fires outside the temples, deep shadows cast by the mighty aqueducts which straddled all Rome. You could practically smell the steam from the baths as the cart joggled past, hear the babble of gossip echo through the vaulted chambers.

Claudia thought of Gaius, of the weight that had fallen away, of the breathing problems that had been plaguing him of late. Almost overnight he’d become an old man. She was slumped into her cushions, chewing her thumbnail and calculating how long before Gaius Seferius left a grieving widow, when the wagon finally drew to a halt outside the house. There was a song on her lips as she lifted the flap of Drusilla’s cage.

‘Home, poppet. Home with a vengeance.’

Gaius’s banquet had been rearranged for this coming Thursday, with Melissa sorting out all the tedious chores. Acrobats, dancers, you name it, she’ll have them lined up, and Verres would have had his dainties worked out ages ago. The Wine Festival starts on Saturday, but let me see, today’s only Tuesday. What’s on tomorrow? Isn’t there a hearing in the Senate House she could toddle along to?

Leonides, the household steward, was hovering in the atrium beside the bust of Gaius’s father.

‘I wonder if I might-’

‘Not now.’

‘It’s rather important, madam.’

Claudia twisted her lip. ‘Leonides, if you wish to keep your ears attached to your neck-and I fully understand that you might not, because they don’t seem to serve you particularly well-but should you want to keep them, I suggest you listen more closely. When I said not now, I meant not now .’

The lanky Macedonian coloured, nodded and retreated hurriedly. Her eyes scanning unsuccessfully for Melissa, Claudia dismissed Galla with a wave and marched towards the garden. She could catch up on the banquet details later. Right now a glass of wine among the roses and lilies was just what the doctor ordered.

‘Gaius? I thought you’d be working.’

‘I’m entertaining a house guest.’

Not another of those boring colleagues of yours, I can’t stand it.

‘Splendid. Have I met him?’

‘Indeed you have…cousin.’ Orbilio’s curly mop peered round a laurel shrub. His face had a schoolboy grin plastered all over it.

‘Gaius…!’

‘Calm down, my sweet, let me-’

‘Calm down?’ She grabbed hold of her husband’s arm, jerked him to his feet and dragged him aside. ‘Gaius, that monster tried to rape me!’

Fat fingers patted her shoulder. ‘He’s explained that.’ She shot a glance in Orbilio’s direction. The bastard was watching a butterfly flitting round the lavender as though this was no concern of his.

‘Said he had no idea re-enacting those childhood wrestling matches might be misconstrued, so make up with your cousin, Claudia. Tell him you’re sorry.’

I am not sorry, Gaius. I am incandescent. In-can-bloody-descent!

‘Marcus! What can I say?’ There was more honey on her tongue than in those twenty beehives up at the villa. ‘What a silly, silly goose you must think me!’

Orbilio covered his mouth with the back of his hand to stifle what might have been a cough.

‘Oh, boys will be boys.’

‘Ha, ha. Absolutely.’ Her mouth was beginning to ache. ‘And why did you say you were here? I think I missed that.’

‘His house burned down.’ Gaius brushed specks of dandruff from his shoulder.

Claudia turned to Orbilio. ‘Tragic, Cousin Markie. Absolutely tragic!’

‘Weren’t it just?’

A second, smaller head popped up. It looked better nourished than on previous occasions.

‘Oh no! Don’t tell me that filthy little arab is staying here as well?’

She shot Orbilio a look which said, What the hell are you trying to do to me? but he pretended he hadn’t noticed. The next look told him she’d flay him alive for this, and he pretended not to notice that, either.

‘Try to be charitable, my sweet. Marcus plucked this poor child from the gutter, we owe him our support, what?’

‘Like hell.’

‘Ah…well… I daresay it’ll only be for a week or two, eh, Marcus?’ Gaius ruffled the urchin’s hair. ‘Come along, Rufus.’

Claudia felt the colour drain from her face to her toes. ‘You’re not…you’re not going out?’

The boy’s face lit up. ‘Yep. Master Seferius has promised to show me his warehouse.’

He glanced up at Gaius, then signalled to Claudia by drawing one finger across his lips and winking that it was all right, he wouldn’t say a word about that day in the Forum. Claudia rubbed her forehead. There must be something she could do to stop them.

‘I’ll take him out,’ she said.

‘You?’ It was a joint male chorus.

‘Yes, me. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Rufus?’

‘Nope. I wanna go with the gaffer.’

‘Then I’ll come with you.’

Gaius frowned. ‘Claudia, you ought to stay here and keep Marcus company.’

Rufus repeated his I-promise-to-keep-my-mouth-shut gesture, but she ignored it. ‘Let’s all go.’

Orbilio shrugged. ‘Suits me,’ he said, but Gaius aimed a mock punch to the child’s chin.

‘Ah, we’ll keep it the two of us, eh, lad? Have fun, you two.’

Wonderful! Absolutely bloody wonderful! Claudia slumped on to the bench while Orbilio leaned back, draping his elbow over the ridge of the seat with the air of a man expecting to be crucified but who’d got away with a tongue-lashing instead. She poured herself a full glass of wine and swallowed it without stopping for breath.

‘I won’t ask why,’ she said wearily. ‘I’ll just ask when.’

‘When did I arrive? Yesterday.’

‘I see. And how long do you estimate before your house will be…habitable again?’

‘As long as it takes, Claudia,’ he said so quietly she almost missed it.

It felt as though snow had suddenly fallen.

She pursed her lips. ‘Is it better than sex, prying and spying in other people’s underwear?’

‘Claudia-’

‘I’m serious, Orbilio, I want to know. Do you get off on this lark?’

‘For pity’s sake, woman, can’t you get it through your thick skull, I’ve got a job to do? Four men have been butchered, their eyes chiselled out of their sockets, and it would be naive in the extreme to imagine the carnage has stopped-’

‘Stop right there.’ Claudia held up a hand. ‘Let me ask another question. Do you suspect me of killing them?’

‘Don’t be daft.’

‘So what’s stopping you from packing up this very minute? And spare me that hogwash about your roof still smouldering. You’ve poked and prodded in every little corner, what’s keeping-’

‘You’re wrong.’

She gave a half-laugh. ‘Still a few nooks and crannies left, are there? I do so admire a man who’s thorough.’ Orbilio rubbed his chin as though checking for stubble. His eyelids, she noticed, were blinking rapidly and he was avoiding her gaze. So this pondscum had a conscience, did he? Or was it pure embarrassment, finding a collection of whips and manacles in her bedroom? If challenged, she’d say it was strictly between her and Gaius what they got up to, and if he drew a comparison between her paraphernalia and Crassus, so what? Her client list-their names and proclivities-she kept in her head, he couldn’t prove a damned thing. No, it wasn’t that which troubled her. It was the fact that someone had violated her privacy by systematically rifling through her personal belongings. That the man who had laid her soul bare happened to be Marcus Cornelius Orbilio was neither here nor there, she told herself. Neither here nor there.