Jail Bait (14 page)

Unless what? Claudia slumped back against Tuder’s memorial and watched a family of jackdaws in the triple arch gateway. I need more than a wild supposition to worm my way into the army’s good books. I need something I believe they call proof…

‘Mead,’ a voice bellowed. ‘Nectar of Olympus!’

Well, well, well. We may have an opening…

‘Drink this, sir, for Jupiter’s virility and the stamina of Mars. Madam, after just two glassfuls, you’ll possess the beauty of Venus herself as well as the wisdom of Minerva. Mead! Nectar of the gods! Who’s next?’

‘Dorcan,’ Claudia slipped her arm through the giant’s, ‘I’d like a quiet word with you.’

She felt his muscles stiffen. ‘I meant no harm,’ he protested. ‘The pay was good—’

Talk about a guilty conscience. ‘Actually, I want to ask you about Spesium. There’s something distinctly odd about this town.’

‘Odd?’ he asked, handing out goblets filled not so much with divine liquor as honey mixed with milk and cinnamon.

‘Don’t pretend with me, Dorcan. There’s an almost manic quality about the way they’ve thrown themselves into this festival, and yesterday, market day, there was a dogged, one might say obsessive, air about the way they conducted business, and that is eccentric by any standards.’

‘When you’ve been run out of as many towns as I have, nothing strikes you as odd any more,’ the giant replied, but the laugh in his voice was forced.

‘Dorcan, the townspeople are interacting like strangers, rather than—’

‘Look.’ The charlatan swung round and led her under the shade of a lotus tree. ‘It’s the plague,’ he said gruffly. ‘Makes people act kind of funny, knowing death’s just down the road and that anyone might bring it in any moment. This—’ his arm embraced the Forum—‘is their way of coping.’

‘Right. And next they’ll put up six-foot-high fences to stop the pigs flying off.’

‘Hey,’ the giant called after her flouncing back. ‘You will be staying in Atlantis a while longer, won’t you?’

Claudia pulled up short and carefully masked the unease which fluttered inside her. ‘Of course,’ she said steadily. ‘Why?’ At least one issue was solved. The big man who had been keeping tabs on her by the lakeshore last night…

‘No reason.’ Dorcan shrugged, shuffling the glasses on his tray. ‘Just curious. That’s all.’

*

Pushing open the doors which led to the Athens Canal, Claudia could see now why it was famous. What a place. Open to the sky, it nevertheless formed a tranquil and private retreat, surrounded on all four sides by a colonnade of caryatids. Caryatids! What a masterstroke! In place of straight, fluted columns, sculptured water nymphs supported the entablature—and who had Pylades named his spring after? None other than Carya herself! Self-serving moneygrubber or not, you had to hand it to the stocky architect. Pylades knew what he was doing when he created Atlantis!

Out on the water, swans arched graceful necks and puffed their wings like clouds as water from the jugs of half a dozen marble nymphs cascaded into the clear blue basin.

‘Spring lamb not to your taste?’ a familiar voice asked, and Claudia spun round.

‘You’re an evil old witch, you know that, Lavinia?’

Blue eyes twinkled as brightly as the water in the pool. ‘I wish my hex would work on the two ugly sisters,’ she said. ‘Faced with the choice of sharing luxury with Fab and Sab or austerity at home, I’m starting to hanker after my old sagging mattress and a bedside lamp which perpetually splutters. Still,’ she made a moue with her mouth, ‘he means well, my lad.’

Does he? Or was the price small, compared with being rid of his wife and her echoing sister?

Claudia dragged a basketweave chair into the shade beside the wheeled daybed. ‘Is there a jinx on this place?’ she asked, frowning at a spot on the hem of her harebell-blue gown.

‘You’ve been talking to that skelly-eyed hawker, haven’t you?’ the old woman chuckled. ‘I bought a bone needle off him and before he’d even counted out my change, he was all gloom and doom about death and failed marriages, bankruptcy and so on.’ She tapped her temple with her forefinger. ‘Decent carver, but…’ Lavinia left the sentence hanging.

‘He knew about the pregnant mother who died in the night.’

‘The fight she put up, everyone from Atlantis to Alexandria heard what happened to that poor cow. But,’ Lavinia’s thin shoulders shrugged, ‘what can you expect of a charlatan who doesn’t know a hernia from a heart attack? Like I told the pedlar, whenever you put men and women together under a roof, the one in loin cloths, the other in skimpy gowns, the two sets of garments are bound to end up on the same floor. It’s only natural. The same way that when sick people bunch together morbidity’s higher than average, but only because the statistics are out of proportion. You’d best help me eat these dates, before Fabella force-feeds me the bloody things!’

‘Only if you share that jug of wine.’

Slowly the pile of date stones grew higher and higher, and the level in the jar grew lower and lower, and as the swans and the nymphs cast white reflections in the water, the only sounds in the Athens Canal were the creaks of the basketweave chair when Claudia shifted position and the hypnotic gurgle of fountains.

‘Too many idle hours,’ Lavinia said out of nowhere, ‘are passed by individuals with narrow lives and with minds narrower still. Atlantis is like that game of Gaulish Whispers, where you say a few words to one child, they repeat what they think you said to another and by the time it’s gone down the chain, the meaning is totally changed.’

Slowly Claudia laid down her glass. ‘But there’s substance behind the stories, is that what you’re saying?’

‘Lavinia’s a crippled old olive grower with time on her hands, she likes to gossip,’ she cackled. ‘That is a very striking gown, if I may say so.’

‘I’m glad you approve. You were saying?’

‘I always approve the understated,’ Lavinia flashed back. ‘Is there something wrong with the hem, you keep rubbing it? Oh, Ruth. I told you to take the day off, enjoy the Agonalia.’

The young Judaean girl rolled her eyes to heaven. ‘There’s no pleasing the old bat,’ she laughed to Claudia. ‘One minute she’s desperate for company, the next she can’t wait to be rid of me. Here.’ She thrust a small copper beaker towards her mistress. ‘You forgot to take your medicine.’

‘Forget didn’t come into it,’ snapped Lavinia. ‘It stinks like death and is as bitter as bile. Now get to town, girl, before the ox that they’re roasting’s nothing but bones.’ She shooed her away with her hand. ‘And don’t come home before the stars are high, either.’

‘I don’t mind staying,’ Ruth offered. ‘Honestly.’

‘Tch. Think Lavinia can’t manage on her own for a couple of hours? Go and find Lalo, have a good time. Besides.’ One blue eye winked wickedly. ‘I’m gossiping.’

‘Not again.’ Ruth’s mouth twisted as she turned to Claudia. ‘Pay no attention,’ she said. ‘Half the time the old crow makes it up and the rest she embroiders—’

‘—as elaborately as a seamstress with gold thread,’ Lavinia finished. ‘You’re repeating yourself, Ruth, it’s a sign of old age.’

‘So’s
forgetting
your medicine.’ She thrust the beaker in the old woman’s wrinkled hand. ‘Don’t believe,’ Ruth told Claudia, ‘a word about the woman who kept cats.’

‘Nonsense, that was scandalous.’ Lavinia set the goblet down and leaned across to Claudia. ‘Just as well the poor woman’s heart gave out when it did, heaven knows what her reaction would have been when she found out her husband had all twelve moggies strangled.’

‘See what I mean?’ laughed Ruth, stuffing the beaker back into her mistress’s hands. ‘Makes it up as she goes along. Now will you drink this, you stubborn old bag, or do I have to pinch your nose?’

‘That—’ Lavinia threw the liquid over an undeserving fern ‘—solves both our dilemmas, so why don’t you join the Agonalia and leave me to tell Claudia about the silversmith?’

‘Lavinia, please! I insist you stop this tittletattle at once,’ Ruth wailed. ‘He was in tremendous pain, poor man, there was a canker eating at his belly from the inside, he could have gone at any time, and the same, I’m sure, was true of the woman who wore red, so don’t you bring that up, either.’

Lavinia pulled a face and said, ‘You wouldn’t think she was my servant, would you? Very well, Ruth, you win. I give you my solemn promise to stick to politics this afternoon and before you nag, no wine, either, you have my word. Now do stop fussing, child, and run along.’

She watched the girl out of sight before reaching behind a pillar to drag out another full jug. ‘Terrible thing about that little orphan boy,’ she chirruped, pouring the thick, vintage wine. ‘Ten years of age and he was killed in a hunting accident right—’ she pointed to the woods up on the hill ‘—there. Fortuitous for the kid’s cousin, mind. Inheriting his fortune.’

‘Are you suggesting—?’

‘Lavinia simply repeats what she’s heard, and she heard it was an accident, same as the woman in red that Ruth mentioned. Died in her honeymoon bed, poor cow, two doors along from me, as a matter of fact, and ho, did the tongues wag over that. Just because she was thirty years older than her man and had a few bob stashed by. But then they said the same about your young man, when his first wife died.’

‘Excuse me?’ Claudia rubbed at her temple. She must have drunk too much wine. ‘I don’t—’

‘Think I haven’t seen the two of you together?’ Lavinia shot her a shrewd look. ‘Noticed the way those dark eyes follow you around? Are you sure there’s nothing wrong with the hem of your robe?’

‘Lavinia,’ Claudia said carefully, ‘are we talking about Tarraco, by any chance?’

‘Married or not, that boy is keen on you, and I’m—’

‘Whoa.’ Claudia tried to hang on to Lavinia’s thread. ‘You did say
married
?’

Lavinia’s chuckle bordered on evil. ‘Forgot to mention his wife, eh? Well, Lais isn’t the first middle-aged woman he married, only let’s hope this doesn’t end in tragedy like his previous union.’

Lais?

Tarraco?

Suddenly it made sense. The slave who rose to riches…

‘Don’t tell me,’ Claudia said slowly. ‘Tuder bought a Spanish slave at auction, Lais was smitten—?’ She rose unsteadily to her feet and began to pace the colonnade. Wrong. Lais wasn’t smitten. Lais had been seduced in a cold and calculating campaign. Then when Tuder died, Tarraco had made his move—
and now look who’s master of the island.

Hang on. ‘Did you say second wife? What do you mean, the first marriage ended in tragedy?’

But the effort of so much gossip on top of too much wine had exhausted the old woman. Slumped on her daybed, Lavinia snored softly beneath her coiffured wig, her wrinkled face turned up towards the sun and with an indigestible ball inside her stomach (the dates, what else?) Claudia retreated indoors.

No wonder Tarraco knew so much about women. Their sizes, their tastes, what gifts would make the most impact. Tarraco was not an artist at all.

Tarraco was a bloody gigolo.

His first wife was dead, Tuder was dead, and considerable wealth was involved. She recalled him strutting round the island. Marble come from high Pyrenees, cedar only from Lebanon. This bust? Pff, is nothing, wait till you see the colossus. What she had taken as pride in his possessions was nothing more than pompous boasting and the ball of dates (what else?) solidified further. In her bedchamber, Claudia jerked off the harebell gown and hurled it into a corner.

‘Bastard!’

He hadn’t got the robe made up, the bloody thing belonged to Lais. It wasn’t even clean, there were spots around the hem.

‘Dirty, double-dealing dago.’

With a fruit knife, Claudia hacked at the cotton until it hung in shreds, the sweat pouring down her forehead and leaving dark drips on the pale harebell blue. No wonder he’d dismissed the servants. With him still married to the master’s wife, he daren’t risk the scandal of adultery.

‘Bastard, bastard, bastard!’

Wait. Claudia leaned back on her knees and tapped her finger against her lower lip. Where exactly was Lais while all this was going on? With the plague in Rome, she’d hardly have headed for the capital. Claudia straightened up and stared across the shimmering lake, her face puckered in thought. For the question of Lais had raised another, more deadly, issue.

Because, if Claudia had rowed the Spaniard’s boat
out
to the island, Tarraco must have been ashore in Atlantis.

The afternoon Cal had been killed.

XV

Ankles puffed up in heat as merciless as it was unrelenting, bones felt like lead and hair hung in damp ropes. In Rome, the chaos was worsening as more and more roads became clogged with locked spokes or carts tipping over in the rush to exit the capital. The military were working round the clock, but as verges piled higher and higher with everything from crockpots to copper, saltfish to spoons, the smell of oxen and asses attracted bluebottles by the billion, and the dispirited legionaries likened their task to that of Hercules tackling the Augean stables. They ferried in water, beans and bread, they dug makeshift latrines and erected temporary awnings for the trapped stew of humanity, but, when a man’s livelihood rots by the roadside and his children are in danger from dirt and disease, the soldiers were on a hiding to nowhere.

Morale hit rock bottom.

And while the army battled with the congestion, a dark shape formed in the void, and the name of the dark shape was Anarchy.