Marilyn Todd - Virgin Territory

Aha! Yes, Utti would also be a hero. Claudia began to see Tanaquil’s angle. Cunning little bitch, she’d been planning this all along. Those powers of hers, off-key and infrequent as they were, had served her well here, because when Utti walked free, everyone on the island would want to watch him wrestle. Coins would change hands, his fame would spread, they would move to Rome, where greater denominations would change hands. Claudia took her hat off to the redhead. She did know how to make a packet out of the Collatinuses-and without them coughing up one single copper quadran of their own. She looked at Tanaquil out of the corner of her eye, face hidden behind a white, linen blob. A white, patrician, linen blob.

She had taken so long in answering Linus that he was guiding his horse on a vociferous celebratory canter round the wagon, much to the driver’s annoyance. It was getting his mules’ rag up and, as we all know, when it comes to mules, rags don’t have very far to travel.

‘You’re talking about Utti, I presume?’

Linus seemed to have lost interest in Claudia and was asking Marcus whether he fancied coming to the pothouse tonight. Orbilio, she noticed, was trying to speak with his eyes to Claudia while answering with his mouth to Linus. Neither communication seemed to be getting through.

‘Giddy-up,’ she told the driver, squeezing herself between him and Junius, ‘let’s get these nags some hay.’ Linus was whistling, at least she presumed that’s what it was meant to be, as he wheeled his horse round. ‘Race you back, Marcus.’

Orbilio hadn’t moved. His gaze was directed straight at her now. Claudia felt a blast of cold, intuitive air. It wasn’t Utti at all. Holy Mars, they’d collared Diomedes! You bastard, she thought. You cold-blooded, calculating bastard. False imprisonment for a physician would ruin his career, he’d be begging on the streets within a year. Eugenius would turn him out, innocent or not, because mud sticks, even when you spread it yourself. And Supersnoop had let him do it. Correction, Supersnoop had actively encouraged it.

His gaze didn’t waver, neither did hers. An innocent man arrested for murder, because you see the doors of the Senate House opening in front of you. An innocent man ruined, because you can’t see beyond your own filthy ambitions.

As Linus galloped off, Claudia’s eyes ground into Orbilio’s. Well, if you can’t do your damned job, then I’ll bloody well do it for you. I’ll catch this pervert, Marcus Cornelius, and I’ll do it the only way I know how. I’ll set myself up as bait. I’ll have you looking so small, they’ll have to pick you up with tweezers. He inched his horse forward. ‘I’m sorry-’ he began.

By rights, ice should have formed on his eyelashes, snow should have fallen on his brow. Claudia’s glacial expression didn’t waver. This man didn’t know what sorry was. Yet!

His face was lined and drawn, his mouth pursed. The twinkle in his eye was reduced to a glint of pain. A stone mallet thudded into Claudia’s stomach. Oh no. Oh no, please, no…

‘What have you done to Diomedes?’ she asked stiffly.

His expression flickered. ‘Who?’

‘What?’ She was puzzled, too. ‘I’m asking what’s happened to Diomedes.’

Orbilio’s expression changed several times then hardened. He squared his shoulders before speaking. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, in a voice generally reserved for superior officers and inferior lowlife. ‘I thought you were interested in Utti.’

‘Utti?’ Tanaquil darted over and placed a hand on his knee. There was, Claudia noticed, no tunic covering that particular area of knee. ‘What about him?’

Orbilio covered her hand with his own, and Claudia felt a pang of something she couldn’t identify.

‘They’ve arrested him, haven’t they?’ Tanaquil made to run off, but Orbilio leaned down from his horse and held her back.

‘It’s worse than that,’ he said gently. ‘I am so sorry, Tanaquil.’ His face was twisted with pain. ‘Collatinus has impaled him.’

Claudia did not know where to direct her anger.

From a hundred miles away she heard Tanaquil ask, ‘When?’ and Orbilio reply, ‘Yesterday, at dusk,’ then the sickening reality set in.

Utti. Impaled on a stake. A big man, a tough man, a fighter. Utti, who for those very reasons would have taken hours and hours to die. She imagined the scene, scores of slaves crowding round. Is he dead yet? Is he dead yet ? Utti, the wrestler, with his great ham fists and his flattened nose and his cauliflower ears. Utti, the children’s favourite. Utti, impaled on a stake, roaring like a wounded bear, crying like the baby he really was. Alone. Frightened. Unable to comprehend.

Orbilio had dismounted and was doing his best to comfort Tanaquil, who stood as stiff and motionless as a statue. Junius, Kleon, the driver-everyone was open-mouthed and silent.

Claudia leaned against the great wheel of the wagon and was quietly, tidily, efficiently sick. Then, when the shaking subsided, the anger began to grow, intensifying, magnifying, getting hotter and hotter with each passing second until the volcano could contain it no longer.

She wanted to slap Tanaquil, tell her this was her fault, her stupid scams, her stupid brother, couldn’t she see where it would lead?

She wanted to pound her fists into Orbilio, tell him this was his fault, if he’d done his job properly, Utti would be alive and well and so what if it meant living in poverty, at least he’d be alive.

She wanted to shake Eugenius until his eyes rattled, tell him this was his fault, he should have consulted the magistrates, followed proper legal procedures instead of jumping to half-baked conclusions.

She wanted to scream at Aulus, Fabius, Linus, Portius, tell them this was their fault, why didn’t they challenge the old man for once, stuff the law which demands a father’s orders be obeyed, even at the expense of an innocent man.

But most of all, Claudia wanted to claw her fingernails down her arms and draw blood, to watch it drip into the dusty soil and turn brown and harden. This was not her fault, yet she could not rid herself of the guilt.

Before she even realized it, she was slithering down the slope towards the villa. Somewhere in the area-maybe in Fintium, maybe in Sullium-lived a man. A man who killed defenceless women, raping them while they lay paralysed, their lungs unable to supply the air they needed to breathe. A slow, agonizing death. The same man who now thought he had got away with it.

Well, he hadn’t. Not by a long chalk.

There was only the porter at the front gate, and Cerberus who came loping up, wagging his tail, straining on his chain to greet her. Claudia paused to rub his ears and pat his neck. It was sufficient time for Junius to catch up.

‘I didn’t realize you’d gone, madam.’ The words came out stilted because he was out of breath. Sweat poured down his forehead.

Claudia couldn’t speak, even if she wanted to. She wondered whether her face was as pale and pinched as his.

‘May I make a suggestion?’ Junius? Making a suggestion? Well, why not? ‘That you wait a bit before tackling Master Eugenius?’

She gave him a look that told him it was none of his business, but the young Gaul stared so earnestly that it clicked her brain back into action. And Claudia Seferius knew better than most that to succeed in this life, you follow the head, not the heart. And that sometimes it was hard.

She laid her hand on his arm and squeezed gently and didn’t speak. He was right. She had to separate grief from outrage and, to be in any way effective, to channel her anger in the right direction. Towards the man responsible for murdering Acte and Sabina.