Marilyn Todd - Virgin Territory

A crackle of twigs on the far side of the rocks interrupted her thoughts. It was probably a snake, sluggish and sleepy, heading back to its hole, but-

‘Hello? Who’s there?’

Not even a leaf rustled in the heat and the stillness, and Acte’s ears strained for sounds.

‘Hello?’

It’s all that talk of ghosts and haunting. And the thought of facing the Master. She sighed. Diomedes would have finished the massage, the Master would be asking for her.

Yes, the Master had done much for her over the years, far more than just teaching her the arts and fine manners, and Acte’s obligations rested lightly on her. Until the Master’s eyesight had began to fail. She never let on, but from time to time slipped into Diomedes’s room to syphon off small quantities of drops without the doctor being any the wiser. Neither was the family. With her help and connivance, Eugenius pretended to read the letters and study the reckonings, and to compensate for his shortcomings he’d make unannounced spot checks, to keep them on their toes.

Then when those other pains began, the pains that doubled him up and which he likened to a red-hot claw tearing out his liver, her loyalty was pushed to its limit. The Master had made her promise not to tell a soul, not even Diomedes-and that was the hardest promise she’d ever had to make. It was Acte who had talked the Master into hiring a proper physician, which was well overdue, but in spite of Diomedes’s skill in massage and so on, the Master still wouldn’t allow him to know about the pains. It wrenched her apart to watch him writhing in agony, knowing she was helpless. But the Master was adamant. He wanted to retain all his faculties, he said. Didn’t want to be drugged to the eyeballs, wanted to be in charge and coherent right to the end.

Which they both knew would not be that far away. The Master would not see the spring.

Acte wiped a tear from her eye. She loved the Master. With all her heart she loved him, and when, this morning, he told her it was time he took care of her, she had no inkling of what he meant.

‘I’m talking about marriage, Acte. You and me.’

The suddenness of it all, the sheer unexpectedness, had taken her breath away. She’d had to sit down.

‘You won’t get much money,’ he said, ‘and the business will pass to my son, but it’ll give you a decent status after I’ve gone. You’ll nab a good husband as my widow.’

‘I–I can’t!’ she had stammered, but he was adamant.

‘I’m not asking, I’m telling you,’ he said. ‘And anyway…he slid his hand up the inside of her thigh and tickled his finger between her legs, ‘I want to do what I can while I can,’ he’d added with a chuckle.

Acte Collatinus! Matidia’s…oh dear, Matidia’s mother-in-law!

Acte Collatinus, virgin no more. Eugenius (she’d have to learn to call him Eugenius now!), he couldn’t make love to her as a proper man could, but he’d promised her all manner of delights. And the end to her virginity was one of them.

The snap of a branch made her spin round. This was no mouse, no reptile. She saw a flutter of leaves as they fell to the ground. Saw a flash of white. Acte felt her mouth go dry. It was true then, the stories. The haunting. A band tightened round her chest. Trembling, she climbed to her feet. A man she could fight. But a ghost? Her throat was gripped in ice. Then…

‘Oh, it’s you!’ she said.

Her knees went weak with relief and she leaned her hand against the broad span of the charcoal-oak to let her legs regain their strength. She felt silly. Ghosts, indeed! When all the time, it was only-

She didn’t see the blade until it was too late.

There was no pain. No time to cry out. No chance to struggle. In an instant she’d lost control. Could feel nothing. Could move nothing.

She knew from the angle of the trees that she’d been caught as she fell. Knew she was laid on a limestone slab. She saw him toss her tunic aside. Then her breast band. Then her thong.

She knew, because his mouth was moving, that he was shouting at her, calling her names. Filthy names. Undeserved names. But she couldn’t hear him. Her ears were filled with a fearful hammering.

The sheer helplessness of it overwhelmed her. Never again would she feel the warmth of the sunshine, the bite of the frost-the softness of the babies she would undoubtedly have birthed from a second marriage.

Panic cut in. She was dying. She was being murdered. There was nothing she could do. Couldn’t fight, couldn’t scream, couldn’t leave clues. He was killing her, and he was getting away with it.

She tried to pray, but couldn’t.

She knew, from the way he was pounding, pumping, ramming, that he was inside her. That at last, and in the most foul manner imaginable, she was losing her precious virginity.

She saw him laughing.

But it was the last thing Acte did see, before a red mist flooded her eyes.

She heard a roar, an explosion.

Before the silence.

‘For gods’ sake, man, I could have harnessed snails to this bloody car and got more speed up.’

The driver negotiated a tight turn before replying. There was sweat on his brow and on his upper lip. ‘This is a built-up area, milady. Someone might get hurt.’

‘You, unless you crack that bloody whip.’

‘We practically overturned back there, when you jerked on the reins.’ He was wondering how his wife would take to widowhood and decided she’d probably love it, the hypocritical old cow. ‘To go fast, we’d have to leave the city.’

‘Which is the nearest gate?’

The driver grinned. He had a feeling the day might not turn out so badly after all. ‘Gela.’

Claudia unpinned her hair. ‘Then let’s put a bit of froth round this nag’s mouth.’

An hour at full pelt was quite sufficient for Claudia’s head to clear. Whatever was she thinking of, letting scum like Varius needle her? Claudia Seferius wasn’t going to be displaced. No way. And certainly not by that verminous object.

‘What’s your name?’ she asked the driver.

‘Theocles, milady.’

‘Well, Theocles, I’ve got what I came for. Let’s head for the coast. And for heavens’ sake, drop that milady business, it makes me sound like an arthritic old matron.’ Unfortunately it was such a grubby, scrubby coastline that Claudia had no desire to linger. What next? The mule was too tired to gallop, and in any case she’d done that once. It was time to find fresh flowers to pick. Theocles was apologetic. He was used to driving men, he had no idea what to suggest to a lady seeking excitement. A man, now…

‘Where would you take him?’

‘For a wager, you mean?’ He still only half-believed her. ‘The fight, I suppose.’

Even as they drew up outside the village, he hadn’t really expected her to dismount, but Claudia bounded down and elbowed her way through the crowd towards a clearing sprinkled with sand. It was purely a local bout, nothing on the scale of the matches staged in Agrigentum, but Claudia’s experienced eye weighed the men up and realized immediately that this was a grudge match.

‘Put ten sesterces on him,’ she instructed Theocles. ‘The one with his hands on his hips.’

‘Alypius? I’d go for the other one, me. Look at his face, you can see how many battles he’s won.’

Yes, Meno’s face was pitted from studmarks, his nose squashed to a pulp and both ears had bits missing and yes, he made Utti look positively handsome-but the other man, this Alypius, looked dangerous. Whereas his opponent had worked himself into a blazing temper, puce in the face as he stomped up and down shouting abuse and shaking his fist, Alypius stood stock still, his mouth a thin white line. The clincher, for Claudia, was the red puckered scar which ran from ear to mouth. It was that disfigurement which had probably given him his temperament-and men who contain their anger are men to be reckoned with.