Man Eater (14 page)

‘This way.’

She led a bewildered Salvian to the top of the waterfall, passing Euphemia at the bend in the steps. For one person, at least, the sulphur pools were giving their money’s worth because, incredibly, she shot them not only a smile but one that was almost pleasant—suggestive, in fact, of Drusilla among a flock of slow-witted sparrows.

It was not that the division between classes meant that poorer people were unwelcome in the shallows. They simply didn’t feel comfortable around conversations revolving round which Senate initiatives had been taken into protocol and filed, or whose sons were shining lights in the Emperor’s Youth Movement. Not when their own sons were street porters or butchers’ boys, and babies had to be left on the middens because another mouth was too much to feed.

Besides, outings like these were far too precious to waste. Protracted holidays might be the norm for the rich, but public holidays were few and far between. Among their own, the fires were open and flames crackled and spat as fat and meat juices dripped from the spits. The bronze cauldrons might have been patched and patched again, but their thick broths of bacon and beans, salt fish and broccoli were as wholesome as they come.

Here men and women, freeborn and slave, subdivided yet further, this time by race, to gossip, to reminisce, to sing songs in the mother tongue. Big, brawny Germans, hook-nosed Parthians, they chewed on chestnut bread and pickled trotters as they trod the foaming waters, cheered themselves on absinthe and honeyed wine.

Claudia selected scallops and veal, skewered and basted with garlic and basil, the young Tribune gnawed on a shoulder of mutton, taking quite for granted the fact that his food came free. She did not think he understood why.

‘How old are you, Salvian?’

‘S-s-s—’

‘Sweet sixteen and never been kissed?’ The down on his cheeks gave off a soft sheen in the sunshine.

‘Seventeen,’ he said firmly. ‘And I’m m-married.’

‘Are you, indeed!’

A trickle of grease ran unnoticed from the corner of his mouth. ‘We wed last June, my wife’s expecting and Regina’s expecting our first child any day.’

You didn’t waste much time! ‘So this freebie peep show isn’t much interest to you?’

‘P-p-peep show?’

Claudia licked the garlic from her fingers. Bless him, he hadn’t even noticed. ‘The girls, Salvian. Transparent shifts clinging to round, ripe bosoms. Wet, linen-clad thighs. Nubile young hips.’

He buried his flaming cheeks behind a cloth and pretended to wipe his face. ‘Oh. I see. I mean, no! No, I hadn’t seen—’

Claudia pushed a bowl of warm elderberries in honey and ginger under his nose. ‘Lighten up,’ she said gently. ‘Take your uniform off and do what the others are doing.’

‘Huh?’

‘Have fun!’

‘Well, I—’

She tried another tack. ‘Salvian, let me ask you a question. Do you think I killed Fronto?’

‘My uncle says—’

‘I know what your uncle thinks. I’m asking you. Put it another way, do you think I am a dangerous criminal who’s likely to go berserk with a knife amongst these happy people?’

He gave a sheepish laugh. ‘No. Of course not.’

‘And you agree I could have stolen a horse and run away at any point this morning after I gave you the slip?’

‘I suppose so. But my orders—’

‘Oh, sod your orders.’ She stuffed a beaker of wine into his hand. ‘Let your hair down.’ She was helping him unbuckle his breastplate when familiar voices floated up. ‘Sssh!’

‘What is it?’ The bronze piece fell on to the rock with a crash.

‘Ssssh!’

Much of the exchange was drowned by the crashing torrent, but by swimming across the channel and snaking down the rocks between the wild cane plants, Claudia caught the final snatch.

‘—I don’t have to take that from you, you fat faggot.’ Timoleon’s strident tones were unmistakable.

‘Choose your words with care, dear boy.’ As were Pallas’. ‘Else I’ll think you’re soliciting.’

The gladiator turned purple. ‘How… How—’ he spluttered.

‘Much?’ Pallas asked mildly. ‘Well, I’m not willing but there’s a tender young boy in the stables who charges ten asses. Or would you prefer just the asses?’

There was an explosion as Timoleon lunged, and suddenly the Pictor party was there to restrain him. It took three of them—Barea, Corbulo and Sergius—to hold him, although Pallas, interestingly, hadn’t so much as flinched.

‘Gentlemen, gentlemen,’ Sergius chided softly. ‘Let’s be civilized, shall we?’

‘I’ll get you, you fat bastard.’ Timoleon huffed himself free and jabbed an accusing finger at Pallas. ‘Never turn your back on me—’

Pallas held up both hands. ‘Perish the thought!’

The colour flooded back into Timoleon’s face and he swung a punch that would undoubtedly have broken Pallas’ nose had Corbulo’s arm not deflected it into thin air.

‘What was all that about?’ whispered Salvian.

‘Search me.’ With the swirling torrent between them and the others, there was no need for secrecy, but Claudia sensed he was enjoying this cloak-and-dagger lark. ‘Tulola’s name cropped up a few times,’ she whispered back, ‘but as for the rest—I caught the word Macedonia, and something about marriage.’

‘I’ve got it! Timoleon has a wife in Macedonia and Pallas is threatening to unmask him as an adulterer!’

Poor Salvian. Innocent as the sky at night. ‘Could be,’ she said, just to keep him happy. ‘Now let’s move, I’m getting cramp.’

‘Wow! I didn’t realize the water was so warm,’ he said, pedalling noisily across the current, ‘or so deep.’ Reluctantly he pulled himself out, then chewed his lip for a while as though wrestling with a momentous problem. ‘If I stay up here,’ his eyes were goggling between Tulola’s painted nipples and what her hand was doing inside Taranis’ pantaloons, ‘I’m still carrying out my orders, aren’t I?’

‘Absolutely.’

People were starting to notice. They began frowning, nudging, covering their children’s eyes at Tulola’s blatant antics and although the set of her face suggested she was unaware of their reaction, the gleam in her eyes told a different tale. Instinctively Claudia knew this was the first time she had dared be so bold in such a public place, that today she was testing her boundaries—and the sad fact was she had misjudged them. Disgust had never figured in her shocking scenario. She could not recognize it, poor cow, because even when someone hissed ‘Slag!’ she laughed at what she thought was a joke. Small wonder she’d picked on Taranis, a foreigner with no preconceived notions on Roman morals, as her start point.

‘Providing you don’t leave without telling me, Macer shouldn’t mind, should he?’ asked Salvian.

‘He’d be the first to approve,’ Claudia assured him, crossing her fingers behind her back.

‘Great!’ Like a ten-year-old, he ripped off his tunic and, pinching his nose, jumped feet first into one of the deeper basins, oblivious to the fact that two elderly matrons were drenched in the process.

Down in the lower cascades, the mood was no less lively. Rope dancers had bridged Metaneira’s sluggish stream and were performing acrobatic feats before a crowd just itching for them to tumble into the mud. Bent-backed laundresses rinsed scores of white shifts and hung them in the willows to dry, maids struggled to unknot their mistresses’ hair without breaking the teeth of their combs. Enterprising urchins trawled the pools for lost property and came up with everything from brooches to buckles, fans to false teeth. The boatman, Claudia noticed, was doing a brisk trade conveying courting couples to the privacy of the lower reaches.

With a blissful sigh, she slipped into one of Thoas’ small saucers (who’d call them scallop shells?) overhung by broom. With her arms outstretched against the rim and her legs buoyed by the eddy, Claudia tipped her head back and closed her eyes. Sunshine and spray stroked her face like velvet as the gurgling force strove to heal the scabs and bruises that were the legacy of the gig turning somersaults. Slowly the fresh, salty smell of the sulphur began to prevail over the smoking, dying ovens and an occasional hiss told of tong-loads of charcoal being cooled in the torrent. A red kite hovered and mewed over the hilltops beyond.

‘Now we’ve established you have no link with Fronto, you’d better tell me who has a grudge against you.’

Funny thing about broom. It has no discernible scent and yet bees flock to it.

‘I know you’re not asleep so you might as well answer.’

She could hear them, buzzing, backwards and forwards, closer and fainter…

‘Claudia, I asked you a question.’

One eye opened and swivelled in his direction. ‘I know.’ Then the long lashes closed together once more.

Orbilio stretched out in the shallows, crossed his legs at the ankles and folded his hands behind his head. ‘This is the ticket,’ he said breezily. ‘I could lie here for hours marvelling at the way the minerals have built up over the years. Just like marble, really. Or quartz. Dozens of differing blues, greens and greys—’

‘No one.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

You heard. ‘I said no one has a grudge against me, the idea is preposterous.’

‘You mean, everybody loves you, it’s not just me?’

‘Sorry? Are you still here?’

‘Just call me Limpet.’

Marcus the Mollusc. I like that. It has a ring to it. ‘It seems to me, my little sucker, that I am what you policemen call a pasty. The wrong place at the wrong time.’ She sat up and massaged her neck. ‘Macer will twig on soon enough.’

Orbilio shielded his eyes against the dazzling sun. ‘I wouldn’t put money on it. He sees only the bright lights of Rome and a glittering career serving the Emperor. You’ll be lucky to escape with exile. And I think you mean patsy.’

Claudia slipped back into the waters. ‘You’re so full of wind, Orbilio, I suggest you try putting it up someone else. You don’t frighten me.’

‘Then you’re a fool,’ he said savagely, sitting up and swiping the hair out of his eyes. ‘Someone at the Villa Pictor hates you enough to set you up for murder. Think about that for a minute.’

Thoas’ waters seemed to run damned cold all of a sudden. Claudia waited a full half-minute before flipping on to her stomach and leaning her arms casually on the rim. ‘Tripe,’ she mumbled, more to convince herself rather than him.

Orbilio turned to lie beside her. ‘Something stinks here, Claudia, and it isn’t the sulphur. Look at them. Look carefully. They’re all down there. Are you sure—absolutely sure—you don’t recognize anyone?’

She wanted to stand up, toss her head and stalk off back to the changing cave. Only her knees wouldn’t let her. Claudia took a deep breath and concentrated.

On the riverbank, Timoleon displayed his scars to a gaggle of children, cutting the air with an imaginary trident, casting an illusory net. He was the only one she knew (if that was the word), and then only from the arena. Surely pitted against superior armour and weaponry, a retarius didn’t have the luxury of examining his audience in return?

What about Pallas, buckling his belt as he emerged from the latrines? She tried to picture him thin, and failed.

Or Sergius, playing knucklebones with his sister? Would those tight curls and saturnine good looks pass unremembered? And tall, slinky Tulola, even with a traditional Roman hairstyle, would surely have made an impact?

What of Taranis, cheering them on? The only person present today who hadn’t ventured into the water? Or Corbulo and Barea, wrestling on the rocks? Two foreigners. One Etruscan. Three strangers.

That left Alis. Yes, Alis. She was too flowery, too insipid, too middle-aged even at twenty-eight, to make a lasting impression…unless, of course, the whole thing was an act, in which case— Good grief, Claudia, pull yourself together. Where’s the poor girl’s motive? Godsdammit, where were any of the motives?

Wisely or not, Claudia told Marcus about Euphemia’s threats and his breath came out in a whistle. ‘Little peach, isn’t she?’

Watching her as Coronis fixed lapis-lazuli studs in her ear, her heavy breasts straining against the flimsy shift as she chewed the obligatory lock of hair, the fruit that came uppermost in Claudia’s mind was in fact a pear.

‘Dearly as I would love to lay the blame at Princess Sulky’s door, I doubt she has the intelligence to plan a complicated crime. Assuming,’ she added pointedly, ‘there was anything to plan.’

Orbilio rolled over and rested the back of his neck on the mottled rim to allow the spray from the waterfall to tickle his face. ‘Pulling a knife implies hot passions,’ he said. ‘This is cold. Very, very cold.’

The horror of being set up was starting to diminish. Goosepimples had flattened themselves, the hairs on her neck had also long since relaxed. ‘I hate to disappoint you, Limpet, my friend, but in my humble opinion you are as far off base as Macer—’

‘That’s another thing. Doesn’t it strike you as strange that Fronto happened to be working for him until recently?’

Macer’s on the take, I’m sure of it. The merest shadow of a plumed helmet and suddenly food and drink is thrust upon you as though it’s going out of fashion. Not to mention the whores, although Salvian’s ignorance was quite touching.