Man Eater (16 page)

‘You wanted me, master?’ The secretary, red-faced and stinking of cheap wine, rolled through the doorway with his pen and parchment.

‘Write!’ he ordered.

But the secretary misheard. He thought his boss said ‘right’, and he had to pinch the man’s belly twice before the idiot had sobered up sufficiently to pay attention.

‘Get this down,’ he barked. ‘To Marcus Cornelius Orbilio, at the Villa Pictor in the Vale of Adonis— What? Yes, of course, I bloody want a messenger going off with it this afternoon! Yes, of course, I know it’s a public fucking holiday, now quit yapping and write.’

The letter, when he eventually read it over, was concise and to the point. He liked that.

It would also make one cocky young aristocrat very hot under the collar and he liked that even more.

*

Dusk, swamping the Vale of Adonis with its sepia tints, had been thwarted by a hundred flickering torches, but the darkness inside Orbilio’s head refused to go away. His mouth was dry, he needed a drink, and the need brought him out in a sweat. Dammit, he should have spoken to the slave girl earlier. Frustration tightened an invisible band beneath his ribcage. Again and again he saw the coronet of blond hair swirling in the cloudy current and again and again he asked himself, could he have saved her? When Orbilio ran his hands over his face, to his shame he realized they were shaking.

With the basins at the sulphur pools worn so shiny and smooth, it was relatively simple to pass the girl’s death off as an accident, a tragic end to an otherwise perfect day, thereby allowing the killer to think they’d got away with it. Because, for the moment, there was nothing to be gained from showing his hand. Cynically Orbilio had wondered how many other murderers had ‘got away with it’ over the years, their inconvenient spouses slipping and, oh dear, breaking their necks? Uncomfortable with the answer, he’d concentrated on his search of the girl’s meagre quarters.

‘How can you be sure it
wasn’t
an accident?’ Claudia had asked, and his answer flowed without need for concentration.

‘I’m willing to put my job on the line that our Coronis was paid to take that early morning walk,’ he’d replied, ‘and that the bowl she carried was a prop.’ The subsequent discovery of two shiny gold pieces sewn inside the girl’s moth-eaten bolster sealed the matter.

The murderer needed a witness.

With hindsight, it explained Coronis’ nervousness, which was in the face of interrogation, rather than authority—not to mention her inability to look Claudia in the eye. Her best friend, a fat girl with rabbit’s teeth, swore black was white through gulping sobs that Coronis couldn’t—wouldn’t—have taken money to lie, that she was a hard and honest worker who wouldn’t say boo to a goose, but her final statement brought everything into focus. All she ever wanted, the friend had said, was to go home to Greece. While two gold pieces wasn’t enough to buy Coronis her freedom, Orbilio reflected as he made his way towards the fodder store, it was one hell of a good start.

So many times he had witnessed violent death—on the battlefield, on the streets, it was part of his job—yet he could not recall one single instance when the sight of the corpse had not moved him. Relentlessly and without fail, death diminished every last one. They were smaller, slighter. Even Fronto, whom he hadn’t even known. Diminished and cheapened. Perhaps that’s what happens when the soul departs? The shell is simply devalued?

Inside the fodder store, Coronis rested on a rude, wooden handcart, one stiffening arm over the side where it had fallen unchecked, small bronze coins for her eyes.

Not for Coronis oak wreaths or laurels, sacred myrrh or cinnamon. She would be burned on a pyre at night—this night—her unmarked, unmourned ashes buried in a field. No feasts, no mourning, no elaborate purification ceremony. Marcus Cornelius Orbilio slipped a silver denarius under her tongue to speed the oars of the ferryman and hasten her soul to Hades. There was no other way to tell her how sorry he was, how ashamed.

He heard the steward strike the gong for dinner and bowed reverently in the dusty barn.

On the other hand, he told her ghost, it was still within his powers to avenge her.

*

The deep reverberations of the dinner gong had not yet died in the air before Timoleon was out of his room and striding towards the dining hall, rubbing his hands together and whistling. Claudia watched him through the hole in her bedroom door that she’d made by wheedling a knot out of the woodwork, and when she was sure the atrium was empty she flitted across to his room.

Praise be to Juno and to hell with the cost, he’d left three good-sized lamps burning, the place was lit like a carnival. When she’d searched Barea’s quarters, all she’d had was one measly candle to work by and sustained broken two nails in the process. Here, it was a different problem. You could hardly find the bed for clutter, but the most striking aspect of the room was the portrait of the great man himself, a recent one to judge by the yellow hair, set against a backdrop of Corinth. Claudia supposed that was to remind him as much as anyone else of his supposed antecedents.

But where Barea had almost nothing—no personal possessions, no keepsakes, no mementoes to speak of—Timoleon more than made up for it. A set of silver cutlery with the initials ‘S.I.’ (Scrap Iron?) engraved on it. Combs of ivory, knives with bone handles carved in the likenesses of ducks’ heads, Mercury the messenger, snakes and seahorses. He had tunics of every damned colour of the rainbow, ranging from complex twills to embroidered cottons, one even woven with a fine gold thread. There were travelling cloaks with hoods and travelling cloaks without them, boots, shoes, sandals. She wondered, as she rifled through his five sets of underclothes, whether Barea felt envious of his colleague’s comprehensive wardrobe and decided probably not. He was an easy-going soul, Barea, who travelled light both physically and spiritually. Three serviceable tunics, one heavy cloak and his well-earned Cap of Freedom, proudly hung on a hook above the bed, that was all he had need for.

Not that the horse-trainer couldn’t afford more. In a small wooden chest under his bed he had a fair pile of coins stashed away, as well as a promissory note from Sergius for payment at the end of his contract. Interestingly, the casket also contained a sprig of what looked like dried heather, a small silver bell—the sort tied round the neck of a sacrificial lamb—and a ring set with a stone of green glass. For a man with few possessions, these few trinkets must be treasures indeed. But of what?

Whereas Barea’s chest had been locked (a minor complication for Claudia’s hairpin), Timoleon felt no need for secrecy. Had he been able, she suspected he’d have slapped his finery over the walls to show off, and from the crumpled appearance of most of the clothing, it seemed they were often taken out and admired. She moved on to the untidy row of onyx, glass and alabaster pots which contained a variety of precious oils. Poo! What’s
that
? Claudia sniffed again and chuckled. Dates mixed with castor oil mixed with carobs meant just one thing. Poor old Scrap Iron’s got piles!

She was replacing the lid and turning to his jewellery box when she heard voices outside. One deep, masculine and heavily accented. The other, unfortunately, pitched too low to identify.

‘I tell you again, is not necessary.’

She daren’t risk opening the shutter. With so many lanterns, even the smallest crack would light up the yard and Claudia had a feeling this was a conversation that was meant to be secret. Why else hold it outside what should have been an empty room on the wing opposite the dining hall? Cocking her ear to the embrasure, she strained for the reply and heard only an indistinct muttering which could have been male or female, young or old. Claudia wished they’d move closer to the building.

‘Has been enough trouble as it is. Suppose someone see you?’

Mumble, mumble, mumble. Dammit, I wish I could see you! Just a shadow, a silhouette, to show me who you are.

‘Look, is late. Dinner already under way, people start to wonder. We talk later, yes?’ Taranis put a bit more coaxing into his voice. ‘Yes?’ Which obviously paid off. ‘Good.’

Claudia realized she had two choices. She could either abandon her search of the gladiator’s room, knowing it was unlikely she’d get a better chance. Or she could finish her task and risk Taranis’ suspicions.

The decision had to be made fast if she was to beat the Celt to the dining couch…

Zigzagging between the chests of finery, she paused. Either way, she thought, meeting the painted eyes of the portrait on the wall, she had a horrid feeling she had been watched.

XII

In the opulence of Sergius Pictor’s dining room, where vivid paintings of Ganymede, cup-bearer to the gods, covered the walls and Bacchanalian revels patterned the floor, the death of one slave girl, Marcus Cornelius Orbilio reflected sadly, had left no appreciable impact on the diners. Only Claudia, he noticed, avoided his—and indeed anyone else’s—eye, picking at her baked eggs and slipping a partridge into her napkin when she thought nobody was looking. The others, predictably hyped up from the outing, were drinking heavily and laughing loudly. Except one.

‘For pity’s sake,’ Tulola chided. ‘Cheer up.’

‘What’s up, sunshine?’ asked Timoleon. ‘You’ve got a face as long as an elephant’s dongler.’

‘A yellow one,’ put in Taranis, without bothering to empty his mouth.

Sergius’ petulant expression deepened. ‘The Megalesian Games kick off in a fortnight, what’s to be cheerful about?’

‘Uh-oh.’ Corbulo took a deep draught of wine. ‘I feel a nag coming on.’

‘Hands off,’ mocked Barea. ‘Horses are my job.’ Everyone laughed, the slaves topped up the glasses and even Sergius was tempted to smile.

‘I hear the Emperor’s most trusted general, his closest friend, his dearest ally has come home sick.’ Provocatively Tulola licked mustard sauce from a spear of asparagus. ‘Isn’t that right, policeman?’

‘The prognosis does not look good, I’m afraid.’ Orbilio was relieved the conversation had moved to more general topics. ‘He bypassed Rome and headed straight for his house in Campania. That tells you how serious it is.’

‘If I’d spent all winter freezing my bollocks off,’ Timoleon snapped, ‘I’d want to defrost them, too.’

‘Oh? Where he been, then?’ Taranis wiped his nose with the back of his hand.

Tulola ruffled his shaggy mophead. ‘That’s what I like about you, my little barbarian. You’re so blissfully, utterly ignorant.’

Taranis stiffened. ‘I am foreigner. I no understand Roman politics.’

‘Pannonia.’ Orbilio was too weary to sit through Tulola’s explanation and the indignation that would inevitably follow. ‘The Danube campaign’s not fully resolved, and—’

‘You don’t understand!’ Sergius thumped the table and the glassware rattled. ‘The Megalesian Games are without parallel.’

‘Give it a rest, old son,’ Barea interjected, but Sergius was unstoppable.

‘There’s a full week of spectacles I’ve missed, and two days after they wind up, the Ceres Games kick off. That’s
another
eight days I could be exhibiting.’

Corbulo assumed a mock-serious expression. ‘It takes time to—’

‘Bollocks! You’ve had six months and more to knock those beasts into shape.’

This time the trainer’s solemnity was not forced. ‘Your Syrian lions had been caged for three months by the time they reached me,’ he said, his eyes narrowing. ‘They weren’t very amenable to being asked to play parlour games. Not with half their fur rubbed off on the bars.’

‘I’ve told you it won’t happen again, but there’s no reason why the elephants and the leopards—’

‘—and the bears and the giraffe and the horses. What about them?’ When the Etruscan thumped the table, not only the glasses but the plates and the pots and the serving trays danced. ‘Or the camels, the warthogs and the rhino? And let’s not forget the ostriches and the seals and the monkeys, either. Janus, man, what do you think I do all bloody day? Play hoops and throw javelins?’

‘You’ve done well, Corbulo, but surely—’

The trainer hurled a silver platter across the room. ‘If you don’t fucking like what I’ve done, then fucking sack me!’

‘Sit down,’ pleaded Alis. ‘Sergius doesn’t mean it, he’s tired—’

‘He’s drunk.’ Pallas, as usual, took the shortcut. ‘So I suggest the rest of us catch up. All right by you, my friend?’

Corbulo shrugged irritably but settled back down on the couch nevertheless.

‘I’m not bloody drunk,’ Sergius protested.

‘Well, you look like shit,’ said Euphemia, ‘and if you’re going to throw up, you want to do it outside.’

‘Euphemia!’ Alis had about as much control over her sister as Salvian had over his prisoner.

‘I do feel groggy,’ Sergius admitted. ‘Maybe I’ll just—’ His knees buckled as he tried to stand.

‘Bedtime,’ Timoleon intoned musically, slinging his yellow-faced host over his shoulder as though he were a roll of cloth. ‘But no rumpy-pumpy for you tonight, Alis!’ He guffawed at the high spots of colour that appeared in her cheeks. ‘He’s too far gone.’

‘She doesn’t get it, no matter what state he’s in,’ Euphemia said spitefully. ‘What is it you practise, sister? The Emperor’s strategy?’ She turned to Orbilio. ‘You know what that is, don’t you?’