Marilyn Todd - Virgin Territory

‘Claudia!’

His eyes-seducer’s eyes if ever she saw them-roved over her and not for the first time did Claudia find herself responding to the frankness of his stare. She hadn’t had a satisfactory sexual relationship since…since…oh for gods’ sake, did it matter?

‘Going back to the villa?’

No.

‘Yes.’ To hell with Matidia. ‘As a matter of fact, I am.’

‘May I walk with you?’

‘Walk? Did you say walk?’ Claudia cocked her head on one side and grinned. ‘Diomedes, if it ever gets back to Rome that Claudia Seferius walked anywhere, so help me, I’ll sue.’

‘Then I’ll show you a short-cut.’

She fell into step, conscious of his raw masculinity. Unlike most Greeks, Diomedes was clean shaven and his hair lacked the curls for which his compatriots were famous. As a result, when he shook his head, every hair fell straight back into place as though it had been combed, an action which was having a distinctly hypnotic effect-

His quarters were adjacent to, but completely separate from, the household. No one would see them.

Diomedes was explaining how there was little he could do for Eugenius, but Claudia remembered Matidia gushing about this man’s healing powers. Why, he had been here only a week when she was taken ill herself, very ill indeed, and my word, wasn’t that man a marvel? Had her cured within a matter of days, she’d have you know, and nothing to show she’d even been poorly.

Claudia, who until now had been of the opinion that the roles of physician and undertaker were more or less interchangeable, had a quick rethink. This was a man worth falling sick for!

‘What brings you from Greece?’

He shrugged the sort of shrug that breaks hearts. ‘I don’t know, Claudia. I wanted to travel, get away from home, the usual things.’

‘I heard you trained at Alexandria. Wasn’t that exotic enough?’

‘Not really.’ His accent was thick (deliciously thick!) in contrast to his Latin grammar and vocabulary, which were virtually perfect. ‘The more you see, the more you want to see, I just went where the wind blew me. I moved around, selling my services to wealthy families from Smyrna to the Narbonensis until, after four years, I found peace here.’

‘Peace?’

They had reached a small plateau and he paused to watch a butterfly, a swallowtail, faded after the long, hot summer, sunning its wings on the stony path.

‘It got to the stage where in sunsets, I could see only blood, in the emperor’s purple, I could see only the colour of viscera.’ He smiled a sad, drop-dead handsome smile. ‘Does that make any kind of sense to you?’

Claudia was about to put some conviction into the words ‘I suppose so’ when she noticed the faraway look in his eyes had changed to something instantly more recognizable. He moved closer, placing the flat of his hand against her cheek. A shiver of anticipation ran through her body, she could smell the sweetness of his breath. His hair, that devastatingly obedient hair, fell tantalizingly into place, but as he leaned forward to kiss her, his eyes dark with passion, the image of another man filled her mind. Tall, with a mop of dark, curly hair and a boyish grin he was forever trying to hide behind his hand.

‘Good heavens, is that the time?’ She glanced up at the position of the sun. ‘I’m late.’

He ran to catch up with her, but the moment had passed. She was cheerfully recounting a story about a senator in Rome and the public meeting between his wife and mistress as the path zigzagged its way down the hill. Stretched out ahead, the African Sea shimmered under a blazing October sun, the pines behind the sand packed as tight as thatch. The white walls of the Collatinus villa were dazzling, the heat haze over the red tiles as thick as steam. As they rounded the bend, Claudia was on to another risqué tale when she noticed Sabina stretched out on the grass, hands at her side, staring up at the sky. Her heart sank. When it came to party-poopers, this woman was in a league of her own.

Diomedes checked his pace. He glanced at her, then began to run. Her heart firmly in her mouth, Claudia raced after him.

Sabina was lying down all right, but she was neither daydreaming nor sunbathing. Her hands and arms anchored her tunic, which had been arranged neatly on top of her naked body. Her eyes stared skywards not in a dream-world, but in death. A pool of blood had seeped into the parched yellow grass, staining it scarlet, but when Diomedes turned the body over, it was clear Sabina Collatinus had not died from this wound.

Sabina Collatinus had had her spinal cord severed at the base of the neck, which had caused paralysis and ultimately death from asphyxiation.

Worse, from the dark bruises and wheals on her body and the stickiness on the inside of her thighs, it was evident the poor cow had been raped as she lay dying and helpless.

Beside her, smashed into a dozen fragments, lay the tiny blue flagon which Sabina Collatinus believed had contained her soul.

Damn, damn, and double damn. So much for keeping a low profile. Claudia reached for the jug of wine at her bedside. As breakfasts go, it wasn’t ideal, bread or pancakes would have been more sensible, but who on earth wants to be sensible?

‘Cypassis, is that you?’

Good grief, where was she? Sleeping late, lazy hussy. Probably with some callow household slave. How that child has the energy is beyond me. Work her to the bone and she still finds time to seduce pimply youths. Claudia swallowed half a glass of wine in one gulp. Jealousy, my girl. Just because you can’t remember what an orgasm is, no need to deny Cypassis her own pleasures.

Certainly anyone who’d noticed a muscular young Gaul slipping into Claudia’s room in the early hours would have jumped to the wrong conclusion. Since the bizarre manner of Sabina’s death was likely to generate gossip right across the island, the chances of the name Seferius not cropping up were parchment thin. So much for ‘early days’ and ‘no hurry’. Now she had to eliminate the threat and skedaddle. Fast.

Not that she wasn’t shocked and sorry about Sabina, she was. Goddammit, she was. But from the moment she’d realized the woman was an imposter, Claudia had been expecting trouble. In fact, she had covered every contingency…bar one.

Life was a bitch and, as irritating as she was, Sabina didn’t deserve this. Wherever she went, she had clutched that stupid, empty flagon, slept with it, even, reminding Claudia of a child with her favourite doll.

Yesterday there had been a tang of salt and cypress in the air, pines and wild celery, that made you forget winter was sneaking up on the backroads. The blue of the sea spoke of summer picnics and sleeveless tunics, the suck of waves against sand whispered peace and tranquillity. Neither of them so much as hinted at bloodshed.

Had it been a hot killing, like for instance gladiatorial combats which were bloody in the extreme, that would have put a different complexion on it. Or a crime of passion, where one man drives a knife into another in a fit of jealousy or revenge…

And yet passion there was.

Of a sort.

Except the cold brutality of the act was chilling. As was the dangerous and calculating mind behind it.

It was creepy, too, the reaction of the poor woman’s family, the callous manner they totally disregarded the violence of the crime yet threw themselves vigorously into the funeral arrangements. In a way it reinforced Claudia’s impression that they, too, had believed this strange, ethereal creature could not be one of them and had found a convenient way of covering it up. But why? Why not speak out? Were they all party to the conspiracy? Or was it just one of them, sowing seeds of doubt amongst the others? Questions, questions, questions. Claudia had barely slept for questions.