Marilyn Todd - I, Claudia

‘Claudia…’ He linked his arm through hers to draw her away from the prying ears of the kitchen. ‘Claudia, I would very much like us to be friends.’

And more, Claudia. Much, much more. You don’t know how I ache for you, long to hold you in my arms, lay you on my wolfskin cloak and kiss your lips, your hair, your breasts. To make love to you in the lapping waters of the ocean…

‘Friends?’ She shook her arm free. ‘As Cleopatra might have said, kiss my asp.’

‘I understand why you’re so tetchy about the boy-’

‘You know nothing.’

You think not? ‘Rufus is all right, he’s as streetwise as they come and won’t have let anything slip.’

Dammit, she wasn’t listening to a word he was saying! That Gaulish boy of hers had come limping into the atrium, and although he hadn’t said a word or moved so much as one splendid muscle, Orbilio sensed communication between them. He felt his stomach churn. Mother of Tarquin, no! Not Claudia and him ! Professional eyes swept over the slave. Tall, rugged, strong. Not exactly drop-dead good looks, but for a non-Roman he had That Certain Something, Orbilio conceded, bristling at the way the boy’s eyes smouldered at Claudia. And it would pay you to remember Junius isn’t a boy, Marcus, my lad. He’ll never see twenty again, that was for sure.

So they wanted to talk, did they?

Orbilio excused himself and headed up the stairs, whistling under his breath. Claudia, he noticed, drifted nonchalantly towards the peristyle and although Junius turned his back and walked off towards the kitchen, Orbilio wasn’t in the least surprised that a convoluted route just happened to bring the young Gaul into the garden. By this time, however, Orbilio had staged himself behind the household shrine. He mightn’t be able to see, but he could hear.

‘How are the ribs now?’

As her perfume, rich, exotic and spicy, drifted over, Orbilio closed his eyes and inhaled.

‘So-so, thank you, but I wanted to warn you. That investigator, the one who pretends he’s your cousin, he’s been questioning the servants.’ Junius lowered his voice. ‘That fat slob Verres has a loose tongue, and some of the women, too. Orbilio’s very generous, though. Gave me a whole denarius.’ The sun was beginning to set, throwing a rich cloak of molten fire over the garden.

‘In exchange for what?’

‘Nothing. I told him nothing!’

Orbilio heard the boy spit, then he heard Claudia’s laughter ring out.

‘Did you catch that, Cousin Markie?’

Bugger. Well, there was no point in pretending he’d been pouring a libation at the shrine or tying his laces…

‘Most of it,’ he said casually, wondering whether his face was as red as it felt. It was difficult to decide whether he’d been seen, which might have influenced the conversation, or whether it was an out-and-out set-up. He wouldn’t put it past her.

‘I heard about your part in the riot,’ he said to Junius. The official version was that he’d stepped in to save her from harm. ‘Very commendable, I must say.’ Rufus’s story, on the other hand, contained a few marked differences.

Claudia and the Gaul exchanged glances.

‘You may go,’ she told him, and Orbilio was surprised at the speed with which the boy took off, limp or no limp.

‘Shouldn’t you be out catching killers, or don’t you work of an evening?’ She looked Orbilio over long and hard.

He was tempted to say I am working, but held his tongue.

‘I suppose you’re going to tell me you have skivvies running all over this city, lifting up stones and delving into slime, why dirty your own hands?’

That was true, as well. ‘Can’t a man have a night off occasionally?’

‘Supposing… Now what the hell is that?’

The garden, normally a peaceful refuge, was suddenly invaded by a knot of people pressing forward. Leonides, skipping backwards with his hands outstretched, was telling someone they couldn’t just barge in here like that, whilst at the same time trying to suppress the intrusion by using a guard of male slaves.

Both Claudia and Orbilio were on their feet in seconds. ‘Claudie! Claudie, it’s me, Ligarius. They wouldn’t let me through the front door, I had to push my way in.’ Despite the slaves’ manful efforts to restrain him, the giant was shaking them off like raindrops. The liquor on his breath would have felled an elephant.

Leonides cast a pained expression at Claudia. ‘That’s one of the things I was trying to tell you,’ he said in between struggles. ‘This man’s been shouting your name outside the door for three nights running.’

‘Claudie, you said we could talk. You promised, Claudie, you-Unk!’

There was a crash as he fell headlong on to the floor. ‘I hope I didn’t hit him too hard.’ As Orbilio inspected the chair for damage, a leg dropped on to the floor with a clatter.

She looked as white as his best toga. ‘This lunatic’s been muddling me up with somebody else. Last time my brother-in-law sorted him out.’

‘Not well enough, it seems.’

Orbilio turned to the goggling slaves. ‘Toss him into the street, he can sleep it off outside.’ He brushed his hands together. ‘Not that I’d fancy his headache when he wakes up!’

They grabbed hold of the bearded giant and staggered off with the lifeless body, cursing and grunting under the weight.

‘Thank you.’ He noticed she didn’t actually look him in the eye when she said it.

‘All in a day’s work-’

‘Ahem!’

That was Leonides. He seemed to be indicating towards the corner. Orbilio looked round to see a soldier with a rather sheepish expression hovering patiently. He recognized him as Timarchides, also employed by Callisunus.

‘You’ve a message for me?’ he asked.

‘If you’re Marcus Cornelius Orbilio, then, yes, sir, I have.’

Neither Claudia nor Leonides made an effort to draw away, and for Orbilio to request privacy in another person’s house was too disrespectful to contemplate. He waited to the point of rudeness before saying, ‘Well, spit it out, man.’

Affronted, Timarchides stepped stiffly forward and stood to attention, fixing his eye on a point somewhere over Orbilio’s left shoulder.

‘That matter of the missing slave, sir. Reporting to say-’

‘What missing slave, Timarchides?’

His mind was still coming to grips with the intrusion of the big, ugly lug he’d just brained with the chair leg, but before the soldier could refresh his memory, Claudia had inserted herself between them.

‘This is not a police station, Orbilio, or an army barracks. If you wish to chase runaways, kindly go elsewhere to conduct your enquiries, because I will not tolerate this house being used as a garrison night and day.’

‘Oh no, madam. This is part of the murder inquiry.’ The earnest expression on Timarchides’ seasoned features inspired her to raise an encouraging eyebrow.

‘The girl was caught red-handed hocking the victim’s property-’

Orbilio silenced him with a look and the soldier’s complexion darkened. ‘You’ve got her, then?’

Timarchides made a great show of fluffing up the plume on his helmet. ‘In a manner of speaking,’ he said, his eyes riveted on the bronze cheekpiece. He didn’t much care for the impatient clucking sound in his superior officer’s throat, it made a trickle of sweat run down his nose, nor did he like the way Orbilio snapped, ‘Explain!’ but there was no alternative. He’d have to tell the truth and hope to Hermes the blame wouldn’t land on him.

‘I wasn’t there, of course’ (that was clever of you, lad, clear yourself right at the outset), ‘but it seems the silversmith recognized the piece she was trying to sell, sent for the police and in the confusion of the gathering crowd somehow the little bitch gave them the slip.’