Second Act (3 page)

No point in trying to negotiate with Butico, asking him if he’d accept wine in lieu of cash. She’d already made her bed by double-crossing him, she had to lie in it and the main thing now was to ensure she didn’t end up sharing it with two hulking great thugs. For the life of her, she couldn’t understand why she didn’t just sell this wretched business and be done with. It was why she’d married Gaius in the first place, wasn’t it? For the money?

Slowly, the scroll that was her past unravelled.

It revealed a young girl taking elocution lessons—and the identity of a noblewoman who’d died in the plague. Of that same girl exchanging marriage vows with a man nearly three times her own age. Signed, sealed and delivered, what more could a girl from the slums ask for? Son of a humble road builder and a self-made man himself, Gaius hadn’t noticed any shortfall in the social niceties. All that concerned him was that he had a beautiful, witty young wife to parade and, had Claudia died before him, no doubt he would have had her stuffed and mounted on his office wall. But of course she hadn’t. Instead, and with unaccustomed expedience, it was Gaius who’d whistled up the Ferryman to take that long ride across the River Styx. That had been fifteen months ago, shortly before the sixth anniversary of his wedding, and, to the horror of his blood relatives, he bequeathed his trophy widow the lot. Large house in Rome. Vineyards in Tuscany. Investments in housing, in shops, in numerous commercial enterprises.

Happy ending? Dream on.

Before his ashes were cool, the Guild of Wine Merchants were muscling in to take over his patch. They tried everything. Buying her out, bullying her out, cajoling, seducing, flattering, beseeching, and all to no avail. At first Claudia hung on out of stubbornness. Gaius might have been bald and fat and in the grip of terminal halitosis, but dammit, he’d worked his whole life to build up his network of trade. Those vultures should not be allowed to simply move in and pick the bones clean.
She
would be the one who decided what and when to sell. Gradually, though, she saw how profitable the wine business was. By hanging on to it, not only could she continue to live in the style to which she’d grown accustomed without dipping into her capital, it would be one in the eye for the Guild of Ghouls.

Only it wasn’t that simple. Normally fiercely competitive in the marketplace, the bastards put their differences aside and united. Anything to force Claudia Seferius out of business.

Over her dead body!

On the platform behind her, a living statue painted head to foot in white lime was posing motionless in imitation of the genuine articles lined up on their plinths. Small children tried lobbing pellets and stones to distract him, but the statue remained a study in muscular rigidity.

It wasn’t that Claudia was felonious by nature. She drained the last of the warm, spicy wine. Hand on her heart, she would not have ripped Butico off had her hand not been forced. To survive the cut-throat world that she’d inherited, she was having to meet dirty trick with dirty trick and her current strategy was to undercut the Guild with prices so low that buyers simply couldn’t say no. Seferius wine was synonymous with quality, so why not get the punters hooked, then gradually increase the price to market levels? So far, so good, and Claudia had a stack of purchasers lined up for the next vintage. Unfortunately, she was selling at such a thumping great loss that resources were currently stretched to breaking point. And now, of course, it was Saturnalia.

Below her dangling squirrel-lined boots, a cart delivering bricks locked wheels with another delivering cotton in the tight space in front of the sacred lotus tree. Within no time, fists and bales, insults and cobs were flying over the Forum as both drivers claimed right of way. Mules bucked in the harness. The donkey with the cotton cart brayed and kicked anyone who tried to intercede. Claudia lifted her gaze to the Palatine.

Saturnalia, when it was customary (compulsory) for merchants to cross the palms of their clients with silver. Five to six pounds in weight, to be exact.
Apiece!
Dear god, how was she supposed to find that kind of money with Butico’s shadow looming over her? Silver was the yardstick against which clients measured success, and if she didn’t deliver, they would smell a rat and default. The business would sink without trace.

The stench of conspiracy was all over this scam, but by heaven, she would not let the Guild win this battle—

‘It’s funny,’ a melodious baritone murmured in her ear, ‘how nothing travels through the universe faster than a rumour.’

Claudia turned in time to see a pair of red patrician boots easing themselves over the grille, followed by a long patrician tunic encased in spotless white patrician toga. Terrific. That’s all I need. The Security Police.

‘I tend to think of rumours as fires,’ she said. ‘Ignore them and they fizzle out.’

‘Then I must have been a blacksmith in a previous life,’ he replied. ‘Or maybe a bathhouse stoker.’

He smelled of sandalwood, with just the faintest hint of the rosemary in which his clothes had been rinsed. The unmistakable scent of the hunter—

‘What do you want, Orbilio?’

‘Who said I wanted anything?’

‘Then why are you attaching yourself to me like a rash?’

‘You could always try rubbing ointment all over me and see whether I vanish.’

The eyes might be twinkling, but make no
mi
stake. Petting a starved lion in the arena carried less risk.

‘Isn’t there a law against the harassment of grieving young widows?’ she asked, as he made himself comfortable on the stonework beside her.

‘Edict five-eight-three, sub-section twenty-two, paragraph six and a half,’ he said happily.
‘Provided the widows are grieving.’

‘Very funny.’

‘I thought so.’

Ah, yes. The more urbane, the more dangerous…

From the corner of her eye, she watched him comb his mop of dark, wavy hair with casual hands. Noted the crisp, dark hairs on the back of his forearm. And contrasted them with fifteen years of penniless exile.

‘So then.’ He folded his arms over his chest and leaned his back against the metal grille. His legs were long enough for his feet to rest on one of the gleaming bronze prows set in the wall of the Rostra, trophies from ships captured in Rome’s naval victory at Antium. ‘How’s business?’

Claudia’s gaze swung to the tall, gabled building to the east of the Rostra, with the letters SPQR over the door. Ambitious as he was cultured, determined as he was handsome, Marcus Cornelius Orbilio had his sights set on a seat in that building some day. The question was, how soon was that day? The more results he chalked up, the closer his maiden speech in the Senate—and let’s face it, a nice juicy fraud would close the distance considerably.

‘Senators Please Queue Respectfully.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘The letters,’ she said. ‘I was wondering what they stood for. “Small Profits, Quick Returns”? “Sleeping Politicians’ Quiet Recess”?’

‘I always thought it was “Sharks, Pimps, Quacks and Rogues”.’

‘Yes, but you’re biased. Half your family sits there.’

‘That’s slander,’ he protested. ‘My kinsmen are far too busy rogering their popsies to waste time on trivia like laws and foreign policy. Anyway.’ He brushed an imaginary speck from his toga. ‘You never did tell me how you’re coping, a lone woman in a pit of hungry tigers.’

‘If you mean the Guild, you’ve read them wrong. Underneath the stripes, they’re just a load of pussy cats. Did you know, they’ve invited me to join them?’

‘Can you smell something?’ he asked, twisting his head to look over his shoulder. ‘Only I thought I smelled a bull on the Rostra. One that hasn’t been house trained.’

‘Good heavens.’ Claudia pointed towards the sacred lotus tree lit by torches. ‘I do believe I see my best friend Antonia down there. Must dash, Marcus, so lovely to see you again.’ Skipping nimbly over the balustrade, Claudia ran across the platform and skipped down the steps without a backward glance. Strangely though, despite the shouts of the hawkers, the cries of the alms-seekers, the cracks of the bullwhips and the creaking of carts, the only sound she could hear was the echo of Orbilio’s words inside her head.

‘One day, Claudia Seferius.’ He hadn’t even bothered to unfold his arms or uncross his ankles from where they were resting on the bronze prow. ‘One day, you’ll realize that I’m the best friend you have.’

Come into my parlour, said the spider to the fly.

Pausing to let a chariot pass, Claudia laughed. Honestly, Marcus Cornelius. Do I look like I have wings?

Four

For a woman on her own, the Forum after nightfall was safe enough. Reeds burning in sconces on every plinth and wall illuminated the place like a midsummer noon, and the greatest risk to Claudia’s person came not from pickpockets or muggers, but from a hobnailed boot crushing her toes or a poke in the ribs from an elbow. Which was not to say the same philosophy applied to the streets leading off! The further from the Forum, the greater the danger, and not just from pickpockets, either. There had been talk of Augustus setting up a corps of
vigiles.
Servants of the State who could police the dark alleyways and backstreets and protect travellers from the gangs of roaming thieves and footpads who valued silver more than human life. But so far only a few vague political promises had materialized, and Claudia decided to invest another bangle in a litter to take her home. There was a stand near the prison, on the corner of Silversmith’s Rise, and it was here she set out for.

It wasn’t coincidence, the Security Police turning up this afternoon. Somehow, Orbilio knew the
Artemis
hadn’t sunk in any storm. She edged her way round a knot of kilted Syrian archers and past a Gaulish merchant selling silky deer-skin tunics. He’d know exactly whose mythical cargo she’d been carrying and was most likely on his way to Butico’s right this minute, with a view to getting him to testify against her. Wasted journey, chum. Butico wasn’t the type who’d write off his investment in the name of justice. Butico would want his money back, plus interest.
Then
he’d testify against her.

On the steps of the Senate, a bearded Arab with bangles round his wrist was selling bottled lizards’ tongues mixed with seal rennet and yellow spiders as a cure for obesity and pots of sticky purple cream, guaranteed to restore hair, while a boy of no more than nine made dogs with ribbons round their collars dance through hoops.

For the first time this afternoon, Claudia felt a faint stirring of hope. Strange as it might seem, Butico’s procrastination might actually work in her favour. Defrauding merchants was undoubtedly a crime, but quite how far the Security Police were prepared to push the matter was moot. Give him a good old-fashioned conspiracy and you wouldn’t see Marcus Cornelius for dust, and this was Rome, after all. Plots hatched faster than lice, all she had to do was hold on to her nerve.

She was approaching the corner by the prison on Silversmith’s Rise when a rainbow exploded from a tavern.

‘Get out and stay out,’ the landlord was bellowing. ‘All of you!’

‘Good sir, I must protest,’ the smallest and most portly element of the rainbow complained, as it picked itself up from the flagstones. ‘These dear ladies—’

‘Them ain’t ladies, and them ain’t expensive, neither. Set one foot within ten yards of this establishment, you
or
yer cheap tarts, and I’ll set the dogs on yer.’

‘Go to hell,’ one of the ladies in question retorted, and the shortest and most portly component of the rainbow groaned.

‘Such sentiments, dear Jemima, aid our cause not.’

To prove his point, a volley of trunks, packs and cases came hurtling through the hostelry door, much to the delight of the crowd which was starting to gather. Far from being embarrassed by the concourse, his little fat face brightened.

‘An audience,’ he breathed, and when he bowed, the feather in his bright blue turban swept the ground. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to acquaint you with “Caspar’s Spectaculars”. Pantomime, opera, tragedy—’

‘Ham!’ someone shouted.

‘—comedy, drama, political satire—’

‘Your actors are so wooden,’ another wag called, ‘I’ve seen better performances from oak trees.’

The crowd quickly warmed to the theme. ‘Oak-smoked hams!‘

‘With lots of stuffing,’ someone added, indicating Caspar’s rotund belly.

Then a wagon delivering jars of olive oil to an address up the hill came rumbling round the corner to spoil the fun and, with one last rattle of good-natured insults, the audience dispersed into the night. Claudia would have gone, too, only she was stuck between the cart and the tavern wall.

There were about twenty members in Caspar’s patchwork troupe, she counted. Mostly male, but the group also included half a dozen well-upholstered girls.

‘Madam. I am utterly charmed to make your acquaintance.’

This time Caspar swept off his turban when he bowed, revealing a gleaming bald head encircled by tight black shiny curls. A better arena for staging a performance Claudia hadn’t seen, even in the Theatre of Marcellus. He replaced the turban and brushed the dust off his rose-red embroidered tunic.

‘I trust this ugly contretemps will not deter you from coming along to enjoy one of Caspar’s Spectaculars whilst the company is in Rome?’ He flicked a piece of stale pie crust off his elbow. ‘Mention my name at the door, dear lady, and you are assured of the best seat in the house.’