Marilyn Todd - Virgin Territory

‘It means the letters were intercepted.’ Orbilio cupped his hands in the fountain and briskly sluiced his face with the cold water. ‘The pieces are beginning to come together at last.’

They are? ‘It still doesn’t answer whether the woman I met was the real Sabina Collatinus or an imposter.’

‘No it doesn’t, but it’s proved one thing. You weren’t in on it.’ Orbilio let out a loud and throaty chuckle. ‘Juno’s skirts, you were after Varius all the time. You bloody came after Varius!’ This time he drank the water cupped in his hands.

‘I came for a holiday,’ Claudia replied coolly. ‘Chaperoning Sabina was all part and parcel. Who’s your money on now for her accomplice?’

‘Take your pick, anyone’s as likely-or as unlikely-as another. But one thing is without doubt. The bastard who killed Sabina and Acte is no novice. Someone, somewhere, has been butchered in the same way, I’ll lay money on it.’

The sun beat hot on his back as Melinno stumbled along the road, pushed and jostled by the throng of pedestrians and donkeys and handcarts making their way to market. Children jeered and mimicked his apelike shuffle, catcalls rang in his ears and more than once he’d been on the receiving end of a lash.

He knew what he looked like-clothes torn and ragged, hair long, beard matted. He probably stank like a hoopoe’s hole, only he’d lived with himself too long to notice. Tears streaked the grime on his face. Sulpica would be ashamed of him, it were pitiful. No longer able to walk upright, he clutched his aching chest, shuffling like a stroke victim, barely strong enough to cough up the dark phlegm in his lungs.

He were dying.

He knew it-aye, as sure as the sun rises in the east and the Trojan horse were made of maple-and it didn’t bother him none. Soon he’d be with Sulpica. Together for ever. It drove a sword in his heart that he could no longer picture the precise colour of her eyes or recall the way she spoke, but soon-very soon-he’d be able to see for himself.

But before he could go to her, he must avenge her. How could he face her otherwise? He had made his vow on her deathbed and by Janus, he would keep it. It were this oath what drove his body, lending him the strength and cunning to leap aboard the wagon of an itinerant pitch seller, a Corsican, bound for Agrigentum from Henna. The strong resinous smell of his cargo disguised the presence of the stowaway and after just three days the wagon was rumbling through the high arches of the Gela Gate.

Within minutes, almost, the Corsican were descended upon by hordes of farmers, desperate to melt his pitch into tar to preserve their timber and put in their sheep-wash, mark their corn sacks and smear on their wine corks. Unseen, Melinno slipped into the crush. Agrigentum. Half a day from the Villa Collatinus. Cough or no cough, he were within an ace of his quest. Retribution would be his.

He reached down to pat his knife. It were gone. He spun round, losing his balance. His knife, his cloak, his pack, his canteen! He’d left them on the wagon! Oblivious to the blood coursing from his knee, he hauled himself up from the gutter and pushed through the crowds, first this way, then that, until all hope of finding the Corsican was lost. He fell against the stone wall of a spice dealer, too tired, too spent to swear. Not that he’d sworn much of late. Sulpica didn’t like it, and he wanted to be more the man she loved and remembered when they met up.

‘Oi, you! Clear off!’ The spice merchant prodded him with a cattle goad. ‘You’re bad for trade.’

Melinno reeled round the corner. In his confusion, he realized now, he’d been blundering in the wrong direction, He was back at the Gela Gate, which was closing for the night. Now what? He tried begging, and received only clouts. Being neither blind nor lame nor deformed, people mistook him for a common drunk, shivering and delirious with the DTs. Turning right, where the wall fell away so many hundreds of cubits it made him dizzy, Melinno chanced upon a flight of steps cut deep into the rock. He slipped and slithered, hoping to find a roost for the night, and found instead they led to a narrow chamber, which in turn led to two great caverns lit by torches. This were a shrine, most likely Ceres judging from the offerings, but if he kept to the shadows he could pass the night here and maybe get healed a bit. There were springs in the caves, springs of sweet, fresh water which fed the basins in the little courtyard, and some of the pilgrims had left bread for the corn goddess.

At first light, before he could drink the water or eat the bread, the priests had found him and thrown him out by the scruff of his neck, splitting open the cut on his knee. Now, well clear of the city and shambling along the Sullium road, he found the local traffic had thinned and his ears picked up the sound he’d been waiting for. The sound of hooves clip-clopping along the paving blocks. Turning, his weak eyes nearly blinded by the sun, he saw he were right. Two mules, a covered wagon for long distance travel. Stepping into the middle of the road, he flagged it down.

‘I need a ride,’ he pleaded. ‘To Sullium.’

It were gentry on the wagon. A young noblewoman, tall and beautiful, surrounded by slaves and a girl with red hair.

‘It’s a matter of life and death.’ He were stuttering, only he couldn’t help it, it were the fever.

The noblewoman stood up. ‘It would be for us, you walking pestilence factory. Out of the way.’

Melinno held out the only treasure he had left. Sulpica’s betrothal ring. ‘I can pay.’

The young woman’s nose wrinkled. ‘I don’t want your trinket, you verminous little man.’

Their eyes met momentarily and hers looked away first. When she spoke, her voice was softer. ‘You can take this, if you like.’ She nodded to one of the slaves, a black man, who offered a water flask by its leather strap held at arm’s length.

Melinno’s eyes blinked his understanding. He were a fool to think gentry’d have him, and were grateful beyond words for the water. As he leaned forward to take the canteen, the mules already being chivvied, he heard a cat snarl and a soothing voice saying:

‘It’s all right, poppet, our kittens won’t catch anything nasty from him.’

*

Claudia yawned and massaged her ankle where her left foot had gone to sleep. Junius was riding on the buckboard with the driver, an extra pair of eyes to watch for bandits, leaving Claudia with the other three bodyguards in the back. Safety was not a problem. She yawned again and rubbed her eyes. Dammit, she hadn’t slept a wink all night. Not that she was jealous of Tanaquil bunking up with Orbilio. Good heavens, no. Those images of writhing limbs and sweat-soaked bodies which kept her awake were mere irritants, nothing else. Who cared what they got up to?

All the same, if Fancypants was such a hot-shot lover, how come Tanaquil had been uncharacteristically silent all day? She, who wouldn’t talk for five minutes when half an hour would do, had done nothing but hold her head in her hands since boarding the wagon. Orbilio, of course, true to his word, had set off at daybreak on Tanaquil’s horse, so Claudia got no clues from that quarter.

Her own progress, meanwhile, consisted of one delay after another. First came the legion on the march, clanking six abreast, bronze greaves dazzling in the morning sunshine and there was a slight argument in which the wagon drive put the case for pulling off at the approaching post station and Claudia put the case against, followed by a full-blown argument when Claudia put the case for skinning the wagon driver and he put the case against.

The cavalry, protecting the baggage, led the van followed by the legates and the tribunes and the prefects and the escorts, a myriad of scarlet cloaks swinging in unison. Then came the eagle bearer and the standard bearers wearing their animal skins, wolf and lion and leopard, followed by ten thousand crunching hobnail boots. Finally the doctors, the secretaries, the blacksmiths and the orderlies brought up the rear. Somewhere, too, were the musicians-horn blowers, drummers, trumpeters.