Marilyn Todd - Virgin Territory

‘I can,’ Tanaquil gulped between sobs. ‘I can see things. Only I don’t always see the right things.’

You’re telling me!

‘You remember I saw your ship and I saw danger, except I thought it was for you,’ she said to Claudia. ‘I didn’t realize it meant Sabina. Not until it was too late.’ She began to convulse again. ‘Nobody took her seriously.’

‘Can you blame them? She was completely off her onion,’ Claudia said reasonably, but, to her surprise, the fortune teller jumped to her feet.

‘Don’t say that about my friend.’ she said hotly. ‘Sabina just saw things from an unusual angle, found it hard to express herself.’

‘She called me a cat.’ Claudia’s eyes defied Orbilio to say one single word. ‘Told me I could see in the dark.’

‘Cats are graceful,’ Tanaquil explained. ‘Seeing in the dark meant intuitive-well, you are, aren’t you?’

Claudia remembered Sabina discussing these cat-like ways-the chase, the play, the pounce-and decided this wasn’t a subject she’d particularly care to pursue. ‘In Syracuse, she was babbling about fresh water in the sea.’

‘The Spring of Ciane, you mean? The one that’s hard by the Spring of Arethusa?’

Yes. Well. I knew that. She heard a sound from Orbilio, which might or might not have been a stifled laugh. You couldn’t tell, the back of his hand was covering his mouth and he was looking over his shoulder to check the hang of his tunic.

‘Sabina said drinking the water turned you white,’ Claudia said accusingly.

Tanaquil produced a cross between a sob and a giggle. ‘That silly religious cult, where the priestesses daub themselves in white clay and call themselves the Silver Nymphs of Ciane?’

Good grief! Assuming Sabina wasn’t such a fruitcake after all, had she dropped some clue to her whereabouts these past thirty years? Incredible, but it wasn’t as though it could have saved her life. Or Acte’s.

Orbilio, who had begun pacing up and down the peristyle, his face tense with thought, asked, ‘How did you get here so quickly?’

‘I borrowed a horse from Eugenius’s stables,’ she said. ‘Once I realized Utti was in danger, I rode like the wind.’

‘Then you’d better get some rest.’ Orbilio nodded towards his bedroom. ‘We’ll leave at first light, I promise you. Only for gods’ sake stop worrying about your brother.’

He’s big enough and ugly enough to look after himself, Claudia added silently.

Midnight was stalking up. Julius’s revelries showed no signs of diminishing, the racket from the banqueting hall was as raucous as ever, but this end of the peristyle remained a haven of peace and relative tranquillity. The fountains and ponds absorbed much of the heat from the oppressive night air, and the various tinkling and bubbling and gurgling sounds made it as relaxing as was possible under the circumstances. A well-built but totally naked maenad came squealing down the path, zigzagging between the laurels and the sweet-smelling myrtles, pursued by a lecherous satyr. In the parts not lit by torchlight, he tended to lose sight of his quarry until another girlish giggle gave him his bearings. He eventually brought her down on the marble bench where Tanaquil had been sitting, leapt straight on top of her and began to knead her breasts. As foreplay went, Claudia thought it was on a par with a military charge.

‘Do you mind!’ Orbilio said. ‘This is a private conversation.’

The satyr was either too drunk or too engrossed to grasp the message. ‘You can have a go next. She won’t mind.’

Probably grateful, Claudia thought. She was old enough to be their mother.

In response, Orbilio grabbed hold of the satyr’s goatskin leggings and hauled him off the seat. ‘I said this is private, now clear off.’

A kick up the goat’s tail helped the young man along the path, and the woman sobered quickly, oh-my-godding under her breath as she scuttled into the shadows, undoubtedly computing the odds of either of these people knowing her husband.

Orbilio crashed his fist into a sandstone column. ‘It’s my fault,’ he said bitterly. ‘Acte would still be alive if it wasn’t for me.’

There was no point telling him otherwise. Not yet.

‘I shouldn’t have left that bastard alone up there, I should have known he’d kill again.’ Red blood dribbled down the grooves of the column. ‘Mother of Tarquin, I’m a fool!’

‘No one could have predicted a second murder so quickly, Marcus. It’s only eight days since Sabina was killed.’ Officially the family still had one day left of mourning. Unofficially they never started.

‘I should have arrested him on the spot instead of prancing round Agrigentum in search of proof. I could have done that while he was under lock and key.’

‘You’re not still on about Diomedes?’

‘I know you rate him, Claudia, but I’ve tried tracing the references he gave Collatinus, and they’re false. Every last one of them.’

Her eyes challenged him. ‘You condemn everyone who’s forged their own past?’

‘Dammit, Claudia, why can’t you admit you’re wrong about this bloody quack?’

She smiled and dipped her handkerchief in the bubbling fountain. ‘I may have my faults, Orbilio, but believe me, being wrong isn’t one of them. Wrap this round your knuckles.’

‘Who else could it be?’ He absently bandaged his bleeding hand. ‘Who else has that precise medical knowledge?’

Claudia shrugged. ‘How do I know? Someone who’s spoken to him in the past? Another physician? An apothecary, pedlar or cutler? Could even be a lucky strike and now the killer’s found a method, he’s sticking to it.’

‘This isn’t about luck and the sooner this pervert’s executed, the better. Are you coming with us to the villa tomorrow?’

That was one very intimate ‘us’. And let’s not forget she calls you by your personal name. ‘Someone has to stop you putting the wrong man in chains,’ Claudia said.

‘Come on, who else is there?’ he asked. Orbilio picked up the battered loaf and pulled a chunk off.

‘You don’t go along with Eugenius that it might be Utti?’

‘Uh-uh,’ he mumbled, his mouth full of bread. ‘The proverbial gentle giant, him. I don’t know what game Tanaquil’s playing, but I don’t think her brother’s a party to it, which is why I’m in such a hurry to get back and knock some sense into the old man.’

There was a silence as the musicians took a well-earned break and the revellers paused for the last course of the banquet, probably fresh, sticky honeycombs. Little else would keep them so quiet.

‘Two virgins, two murders,’ he said eventually, brushing crumbs off the front of his tunic. ‘What sort of maniac is this?’

‘I hate to disabuse you, Orbilio, but there’s a problem with your arithmetic. Sabina wasn’t a virgin.’

‘Not a Vestal, I know-’

‘No, I mean she wasn’t a Vestal or a virgin. I saw her body before it had been cleaned up, remember? Bruised, battered, semen on her thighs-but no blood. Wherever Sabina had been for thirty years, she hadn’t been sticking to a vow of chastity.’

‘Croesus!’ Orbilio combed his hair with his hands and began to pace up and down again. ‘You know, one of the lines I followed up was to see whether a Sabina Collatinus had ever been called to initiation and guess what? She turned up all right, six or seven years old, but before she could be ordained, she ran away. Naturally a full-scale search was organized, but before the holy sisters could contact the family, word came back that Sabina had been killed in a traffic accident. As far as the Vestals were concerned, the matter was closed.’

‘How does that tie in with Matidia writing to her daughter, care of the Vestals in Rome?’