Jail Bait (9 page)

‘Don’t give me that,’ Claudia scoffed. ‘What about the military?’

‘You see any hammered breastplates here? Any feathered helmets?’

‘There’s a barracks, I passed it on the way in yesterday.’

‘Sssh.’ The charlatan held up a cautionary finger as a goldsmith approached the booth, his apron sparkling with precious dust. ‘Colic, sir? I have the very remedy.’ He passed across a brew of myrtleberries crushed in white wine. ‘Drink this with every meal and in two days you’ll be fine.’

Around them, the Forum buzzed like any other town on market day, with the squeal of fretful children, the protesting bleat of goats, the aromas of pepper, cumin and nutmeg in the air. Surveyors with their rods and lines pushed through the crowd, wagoners and carters spilled out of taverns, clapping one another on the back. How could it be possible, in a society run by an army which prized itself on discipline, that a civilian such as Pul could control a lively commercial centre?

A distant echo rumbled inside Claudia’s head. Cal, laughing in the alder thicket.
Remember the golden rule,
he said. Whoever possesses the gold, rules.

‘You haven’t explained why Walruschops makes the law and not Pylades,’ she said.

‘Did I give you that impression? No, no, no.’ Again, Dorcan seemed intent on rearranging his relics. ‘I just meant Pul’s not a man to be crossed.’ His eyes alighted on the temple steps where Pul had been—but was no longer standing. ‘That was all.’

The hell it was. But Claudia sensed she’d got all she could out of the big man this morning and, purchasing an alabaster pot containing a cream which he swore was the selfsame recipe used by Cleopatra to maintain her own flawless complexion, she set off back to Atlantis.

Down on the lakeshore, a group of fowlers wearing wide-brimmed hats against the sun strode towards the town across the grass, the sacks on their backs bulging with the morning’s endeavours, their dogs splashing in the shallows, but siesta time held Atlantis in its thrall. The ramp was all but deserted when, from the bath house, Ruth emerged, her skin red and glowing from either fluster or the sweatroom, with a pile of towels in her arms. She was halfway up the red marble steps when Mosul came barrelling down, his face like thunder, knocking her to the ground. This time his head was no longer covered in ritual, and Claudia could see he was bald, apart from a horseshoe of grizzled grey hair. She watched as one by one Ruth picked up the towels, shook and refolded them, but her eyes, Claudia noticed, never left the priest’s back. The expression in them was of undiluted hatred.

Pausing to pluck a sprig of lavender, Claudia considered the curious events unfolding around her. Lavinia. Could she walk or not? Why were Lalo’s knuckles fighting raw? How come Dorcan had suddenly popped up in Spesium? Individually these things were minor, meant nothing. But collectively…
?
Engulfed by the coolness and tranquillity of the Great Hall, Claudia questioned whether she was overreacting. So what if Pul threw his weight around this brand-new town? Damn, it was like a haunted villa. Once you hear there’s ghosts around, you start to jump at shadows. And without doubt, she’d been spooked by Tullus and the fact that he’d brought the army breathing down her neck!

Hell, you met Cal, she thought, sweeping down the corridor towards her bedchamber. In the end he probably seduced one wife too many and a bitter husband took his revenge. It is not, Claudia told herself, your problem.

Oh, but it is, a little voice answered. I made a promise.

You were tired and emotional and stressed to the eyeballs, she barked back, now forget it.

A dip in the plunge pool followed by a long massage with spicy oil of basil will soon put matters in perspective. So whilst her spirits might not actually have been brushing the ceiling, they were far from earthbound as she flung wide the door. They did not remain airborne for long. Claudia Seferius was about to discover there were yet more surprises in store in Atlantis.

Sprawled on his back across the wide double couch lay a man, arms outstretched in sleep. He was in desperate need of a shave and looked as though he’d ridden to Hades and back to judge from the lines etched deep in his cheeks, but other than that, she decided, for a Security Policeman he looked fit and healthy enough.

She remained in the doorway until her heartbeat was back on an even keel, watching the rise and fall of his chest as she took in the long, patrician tunic and trademark high boots, the dark shadows underneath his eyes and the darker curls of his hair on the counterpane. Despite a layer of brown dust which clung to his clothes, Claudia picked up a strong hint of sandalwood, and possibly rosemary too.

Stroking her chin, she considered her next move, but really, when it came down to it, the answer was staring her right in the face.

Atlantis was on a lake, for gods’ sake.

XI

Marcus Cornelius gasped as the tidal wave swept over him. One minute he’d been sitting on the edge of the couch with the dust from the road still sour in his mouth. The next he was caught in a flash flood. What happened? His thoughts tumbled like the water which engulfed him. Barbia’s whip-cracking demands…the hundred-mile ride…him collapsing with exhaustion… Through the whirlpool, he heard a female voice warning him he had until the count of ten to get out of her room or she’d have him bodily evicted.

‘Claudia,’ he spluttered, ‘you don’t understand—’

‘Nine.’

‘Hell, woman, at least give me a chance to explain.’

‘You think I accepted this holiday without first checking that the goodies had been paid for?’ A brittle laugh rang round the room. ‘Wouldn’t you know it was no long-lost friend of my late husband who reserved this haven of luxury, but a patrician, name of Marcus Makes Me Quite Bilious. Eight.’

The smile which had the temerity to flit across his face dived for cover when it came into contact with Claudia’s glare. ‘It’s not what you think,’ he protested.

‘Men always say that,’ she smiled, and the smile could have concertinaed steel, ‘when the girl doesn’t swoon at the sight of their wide double couch. Seven.’

Orbilio lifted his shoulders off the soggy bedspread and leaned back on his elbows. ‘That,’ he grinned at the woman with strands of molten metal in her hair and a leather bucket in her hands, ‘is because girls never learn that if they want to see a chap again, they shouldn’t sleep with him. Six?’

Had looks been earthquakes, Claudia’s would have flattened Byzantium. Marcus simply squelched off the bed and proceeded to wring out his tunic. ‘Would you have come here, if you’d known the letter was from me?’

The bucket ricocheted off the wall, chipping the plaster.
‘
Five!’

‘Exactly.’ A muddy puddle began to spread across the dolphin mosaic. ‘So for once in his life, your hero stopped to think things through—’

‘Pity he forgot to start again. Four.’

The feathers in the mattress were sagging from the weight of the water. He couldn’t know about Tullus. Of course not. How could he? That couldn’t be why he was here.

‘Claudia, why do we fight every time we get together?’

‘Because you refuse to agree to my terms. Three.’

‘And a half,’ he said quickly. ‘What terms?’

‘Unconditional surrender. Two.’

‘And three-quarters. Surrender to what?’

‘Getting lost once and for all. Time’s up, I’m calling the bouncers.’

‘All right.’ He held up a placatory hand and squelched his way to the door. ‘I haven’t picked the best time to set out my stall, I admit that—’

‘Hey.’ Claudia’s hands clamped upon her hips. ‘Just where the hell do you think you’re sloping off to?’

‘To get myself a much-needed drink.’

‘Listen, if anyone here’s communing with the wine jug, that person’s me,’ she said. At least when you have a relationship with alcohol, you’re both clear about the objectives. You know you won’t come home and find a jug of wine lying unshaven on the bed, and, whatever else its faults, a jug of wine will never tell you lies. ‘You made this mess, Orbilio—’

‘Me?’

‘—you can bloody well clear it up.’

No way could he know her connection with Tullus. It was a serious offence she was involved in, but not so bad it warranted the attentions of the Security Police. No, no, no. Arrogant son-of-a-bitch simply booked a room—a double room—then lures her here for a spot of hanky-panky.

‘I suppose this is your idea of foreplay,’ she steamed, ‘lying spreadeagled on my bed with the words “take me now, you know you can’t resist me” all but plastered over your chest.’

‘Why change a technique which works?’ He ducked as an inkwell whizzed past his ear. ‘Claudia.’ Suddenly there was a serious frown on his face. ‘It pains me to mention it, but we have to talk.’

‘The only pain around here is from you. In the neck.’

‘We have to discuss official business sometime,’ he said quietly, and she felt sure he heard the thump of her stomach flipping over, ‘but maybe this is not the time. Er, before you go.’ He paused, and when he spoke his voice was barely a whisper. ‘You don’t really think I’m a pain in the neck, do you?’

Caught offguard, the breath lodged in Claudia’s throat. She paused by the window, fixing her eye on the distant blue shore, listening to the rasp of the crickets and the drip, drip, drip of the mattress. Deep in the shade of the laurels, Drusilla washed her back paw and just to the left of Claudia’s breastbone, something heavy began to swell up. Him? A pain in the neck?

‘No, Marcus,’ she said sweetly, ‘my opinion is lower than that.’

*

In his town house on the Quirinal Hill, close to the gate on the north-western slope, Sabbio Tullus sat in the shade of his peristyle and watched a bluebottle settle on his lunch. Bugger’s laying its eggs, he thought. I’ll bet it’s laying its mucking eggs on that piece of cheese! He pushed his plate to one side and concentrated on hacking off a lump of mutton from the bone as the fountain made music in the corner. He’d have expected to lose weight, if anything, with this wretched cloud hanging over him, yet he could hardly stop stuffing. No sooner had he finished one meal, he was planning the next, not to mention the candied sweets and titbits in between.

His wife would undoubtedly put a stop to that, but his wife was in Frascati, where his bloody neighbour would be sweet-talking her and winning her over with lilies from his garden while his men were out shifting the boundary stones. Well, he’d not get away with it. Tullus would measure up when he went down there, the bastard tried it twice before, he’d try again, but by Croesus, he’d not get away with it this time, either.

At the thought of his wife, Tullus groaned. So young, so pretty, he hated being absent from her, missed hearing her laugh in the mornings, the softness of her skin in the night. Never mind; they should be reunited shortly, and as he speared a hard-boiled egg on his knife, he debated whether he ought to tell her about this business with his nephew. His wife, he knew, had never taken to the boy, said even as a child he was cold and self-obsessed. Tullus had put it down to resentment (his wife had never taken to his plump pigeon of a sister, either), but as the years rolled by, especially more recent years, he, too, began to feel an uneasiness whenever he breathed the same air as his sister’s son. Perhaps those expressionless eyes? The monotone voice? Either way, these days the boy gave him the creeps and to confide to his wife that he’d been duped by his own kith and kin would only induce a smug ‘told you so’.

Besides, why worry her? There were better things to do when they got together, making more babies for a start, and checking on his neighbour—and before he left for Frascati he intended to have a word with that bloody architect and find out what the mucking hell he was playing at, not checking the mortar work on the depository. Munching on a bun, Tullus called for his secretary.

‘Any news on the Seferius chit?’ he asked through a spray of yellow crumbs.

‘Not a whisper, sir. Wherever she’s gone, she’s taken no servants and left no forwarding address.’

‘What about word from our agents?’

The secretary spread apologetic hands and Tullus grunted. Bloody saffron buns, bloody heavy-handed cook, he’d got bloody indigestion. He rubbed at the ache in his chest. ‘Heartburn,’ he mumbled. ‘Bloody heartburn from those bloody cakes.’

Reaching for a second bun, he ordered the clerk to make an urgent appointment to meet with the architect who built that strongroom and also to send a letter to his wife, informing her he’d be down by Tuesday next.

After all, Claudia Seferius can’t be that hard to track down, now can she?

*

Across the other side of Rome, in the warehouse district on the Aventine, the object of Tullus’ revulsion held a sprig of chamomile to his nostrils to counteract the putrid stench rising from the river and studied the flab around his visitor’s jowls, the overlap of his huge belly. He certainly didn’t look like the best, but then, as he knew himself, looks could be very deceptive.

‘Your wine, sir.’ An unctuous dwarf arrived to set a silver tray down on the desk and poured two glasses of the tepid wine, one for his master and one for the fat man who stank of cardamom.

‘Is he trustworthy?’ the fat man asked, crinkling his nose at the attendant.

Tullus’ nephew sniffed at the chamomile. With the plague ravaging the city, servants were thin on the ground, thanks to jittery slave traders who refused to come within twenty miles of the Forum. The opportunity to snap up a free man with impeccable references as well as a flair for discretion was not to be sneezed at. In fact, the young man decided smugly, the dwarf was proving something of a bargain.