Marilyn Todd - I, Claudia

‘It didn’t seem…decent to ransack the place in your absence.’

The wine spilled over the table, forming a dark red pool which she made no effort to mop up. ‘Are you seriously expecting me to believe you’ve spent two days under my roof without making a search?’

Rivulets of wine trickled across the wood to drip noisily on to the tiles below. He puckered his lips. ‘Believe what you like,’ he said. ‘You asked and I answered.’

The snow melted, the sun came out, birds began to sing.

‘Oi!’ She clapped her hands. ‘Clear up this mess,’ she commanded the slave who came running. ‘Fetch another jug-and be quick about it.’

Orbilio brushed a fly away from the sticky puddle. ‘You ought to know, however, that I do intend to search this house. Ideally with your permission and you can be present, by all means, but if I have to get written authority from Callisunus, so be it.’

Claudia filled both glasses from the new flagon. ‘Why this house?’

‘I’ve got a hunch,’ he said simply.

‘Never mind, dear.’ She patted his knee. ‘There’s a way of hanging the toga that’ll disguise it completely.’

What the hell? Let him search the bloody place! She’d have ample time to move her knick-knacks in the course of his ferreting.

The corners of his mouth twitched. ‘You can be a real pain in the backside at times, Claudia Seferius.’

‘I simply take the shortest route to your brain, Cousin Markie.’

His eyes twinkled as he topped up his glass. ‘We could go out together this evening, just the two of us.’

‘We could, yes. Alternatively you could go to hell all by yourself,’ she replied companionably, ‘and I know which I’d prefer.’

Orbilio laughed aloud and for several minutes they sat in silence in the garden, sipping wine and listening to nothing but the drone of bumblebees heavy with pollen and the hiss of water, foaming white as it hit the marble fountain.

‘There’s one thing I discovered,’ he said at last. ‘You and Gaius have separate bedrooms.’

‘He snores.’

‘Come off it, Claudia. He’s on the opposite side of the house. In fact, it’s a separate bloody staircase.’

She shot him a look out of the corner of her eye. ‘Don’t tell me, let me guess. You just happen to be installed in a bedroom on my side, right?’

‘Wishful thinking, I’m afraid. If you want me, you’ll have to tiptoe past your husband’s door.’

She smiled. ‘You couldn’t afford me, Orbilio.’

‘Wanna bet?’

Any time, lover boy. ‘One million sesterces.’

‘What is?’

‘My price. One million sesterces.’

His breath came out in a whistle. ‘A million?’

‘A million.’

‘Then I suppose there’s little point in leaving my door unlocked tonight?’

‘You suppose right, Orbilio. However, while we’re on the subject of accommodation, I have something to say and I’ll make it plain. I don’t want you in my house. You’ve wormed your way round Gaius, so it looks like I’m lumbered, but the oik goes.’

‘That’s unreasonable, he’s-’

‘I’m an unreasonable person, Orbilio. Get rid of him. Tonight.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Tonight!’

‘Claudia, this lad’s got the chance of a decent, healthy life. Schooling, a trade. What am I supposed to do, throw him back to starve in some alleyway? Is that what you want? Have him die of the flux, like half the other guttersnipes in Rome?’

Claudia ran her finger round the rim of her glass until it produced a high-pitched humming sound. ‘What you do with him, Orbilio, is your concern, not mine. But take my word for it, that boy leaves this house tonight. Either you tell him or I do, it makes no odds to me.’

‘For pity’s sake, woman, he’s only seven years old!’

‘Try eleven.’ She flashed him a glance. Life on the streets stunts your growth. Believe me.

He hurled his glass across the garden. ‘You’re a hardhearted bitch.’

Claudia smiled a brittle smile. ‘I take it, then, that you’ll be telling him yourself?’ She stood up and shook her tunic into its folds. ‘Oh, don’t trouble yourself with the splinters, I’ll send a flunky to clear up.’

Orbilio ran so fast to catch up with her that he skidded, lost his footing and collided with a pillar. Why was it called the funny bone, he wondered, when it hurt like hell? Not that she’d got very far. That poor beanpole of a steward was the one taking the brunt of her anger this time.

‘I will not tolerate you hovering in the shadows, Leonides…’

‘I need to speak to you-’

‘You are not paid to hover. The best thing to be said in your favour is that for most of the time you are blissfully invisible.’

‘It’s a matter of some urgency, madam.’

‘Unless you wish to seek other employment within the hour I strongly suggest you melt into the background immediately.’

‘But-’

‘Butts are for billy goats, Leonides. Shoo!’

Standing by the kitchen, rubbing his elbow, Orbilio thought he had never seen her looking so lovely. When she was angry, her eyes flashed like water in the sunshine. She’d stick her chin out, as if to say ‘just you try it’, and curls would tumble loose. Thick, springy curls, with terracotta tints that made a man want to bury his face and hands in them. He couldn’t begin to describe the sensations that consumed him once he discovered Gaius didn’t sleep with his wife. Verres the cook had proved most garrulous when it came to domestic gossip and he was quite adamant on that score. Seferius never touched her, never went into her room. Probably not allowed to, he’d joked, digging Orbilio in the ribs-a gesture he’d never dare make sober-but privately Orbilio disagreed. As strong as Claudia was, in matters of policy Gaius Seferius’s word was law.

Lying awake at night afterwards, his arms folded behind his head as he stared at the ceiling, Orbilio had gone back over the times he’d seen them together and decided Verres had the situation sussed correctly. There was no visible sexual chemistry between husband and wife, which in itself isn’t unusual, but in Seferius’s case he seemed to treat Claudia more like a daughter than a lover. A blind man could see Gaius was proud of his wife, but it was eating away at Orbilio why this wealthy wine merchant should pick such a magnificent, hot-blooded woman…and not make love to her. It wasn’t natural. Was it size? Orbilio knew of bigger men than Seferius who were at it like rabbits. Children, then? So desperate was the Empire to breed strong, healthy citizens that Augustus was paying families to have babies. But Gaius had fathered four and Claudia was supposed to have had three. (Would you credit it? A figure like that, after three kids!) Perhaps they’d both had enough? Cupid’s darts, there were simpler ways to prevent pregnancies than abstinence! What, then? Impotence?

As Leonides sloped away, ruefully shaking his head, Orbilio stepped in front of her.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Sorry enough to pack up and leave?’

He gritted his teeth and pressed on. ‘You’re entitled to have who you like in your house. I had no right to foist Rufus on you.’

‘Yet you have no qualms about foisting yourself on me?’

Chance would be a fine thing. ‘That’s different. That’s business.’

He’d had to tell Callisunus his reasons for infiltrating the Seferius household as a last-ditch attempt before being taken off the case. Callisunus was becoming increasingly exasperated with Orbilio’s dead-end leads, especially since it was his personal belief the killer was a maniac who selected his victims at random. Confiding his hunch was a risk Orbilio had taken very, very reluctantly, but on the strength of it Callisunus had granted him a week’s extension. Seven days but no more, he said, and Orbilio was no fool. He knew an ultimatum when he heard it.