Second Act (30 page)

No, she didn’t. She loved Skyles.

No, she didn’t. She hated him. It was spiteful and cruel to lead her on, pretend he’d fallen in love with her.

No, he hadn’t. He hadn’t said or done anything. It was her.

No, it wasn’t. It was Julia, the frigid old cow. She never let Flavia out of her sight. Never let her have any fun. Only Claudia understood how she felt. She’d sent her blessing for the marriage with Skyles.

No, she hadn’t. Bitch. It was sarcasm, that’s what it was. She didn’t mean a bloody word. That was Claudia being horrid, as usual.

No, she wasn’t. Claudia didn’t sit at home, like other women, dependent on men. She stuck two fingers up to convention, forged her own path through life, and stuff anyone else.

Flavia turned the soggy pillow over and sobbed some more. She couldn’t go home for the shame, and she couldn’t stay here, and it was Saturnalia Eve tomorrow, and she hadn’t bought any presents.

And that
was
something black, wriggling around under the bolster.

*

Having confronted the brutal truth, that she had been violated and abused and that it was for real, Deva’s body collapsed as quickly as her mind had done, when it had tried to block the attack out. The herbalist’s tears had triggered a series of cold sweats and uncontrollable shaking, a reaction her man had strangely pronounced to Orbilio to be a good sign.

‘These are symptoms I can treat,’ he said confidently.

Between them, they carried her to the remaining habitable guest room, where the herbalist covered her with blankets and raised her feet. ‘And no poppy juice,’ he told Marcus firmly, adding that he felt bad that it had taken an arsonist to bring Deva out of her trance.

‘A small price to pay,’ Orbilio told him, and meant it.

Aired, warmed and scented with lavender, you wouldn’t know there had been a fire in this room. The gilded stucco on the ceiling glittered in the light of the flickering lamp stand, and the frescoes on the wall might have been painted last week. On the bronze couch, under a pile of soft blankets and with a pale green damascene coverlet on top, Deva looked twelve years old. The herbalist ran the back of his finger lovingly down her cheek. His own face and his clothes were still black with soot and he left a dark smudge on her skin.

Marcus watched the rapid rise and fall of the covers. Stared at the white, waxy face on the pillow. The fringe plastered to her forehead with sweat. And thought of the cordon around Claudia’s house.

‘If you need me, my steward knows where to find me,’ he said, but that only led to another problem.

‘Oh, no!’ The steward buried his head in his hands when his master passed on the instructions. ‘With the fire, I completely forgot, sir. Mistress Seferius.’

‘What about her?’ Orbilio asked.

‘She sent word that you were to go to her house immediately. She had urgent news about the Halcyon Rapist.’

Shit. ‘When was this?’

The steward stared at his sludge-sodden boots. ‘Four hours ago,’ he said dully.

*

Orbilio didn’t have time to change. He didn’t have a clean toga to change into, even if he’d wanted. His clothes chests were ruined, the contents contaminated, in the end he’d had to scrounge a cloak from the porter. Nor did he care that his face was streaked black or that his hair was thick with soot as he sliced his way through the crowds of Saturnalia revellers. He wondered what she’d found that was so urgent. What she would think, another girl he’d let down—

He was barely two hundred yards from his house when a small figure darted out of the shadows.

‘How dare you be unfaithful.’ Angelina hissed. ‘You belong with
me,
no one else.’

Two strigils short of a bathhouse, the herbalist had pronounced. That had to be the understatement of the decade. The girl was nuts. Pistachio, pine, hazel and walnut, every kind you could imagine. He drew a deep breath and turned to face her.

‘It does me no credit to admit this, Angelina.’ He drew her by the elbow into the doorway of a shuttered silversmith’s shop, out of the main thoroughfare. ‘The only reason I approached you after that dinner party was because I was drunk and thought it might lead to sex, and that, I’m afraid, is the truth.’

‘Who cares how relationships start—’

‘Angelina, listen to me. I’m really sorry, but you have to accept the fact, even if you hadn’t drugged me, it would never have been more than a one-night stand.’

How could he ever have thought of this demented vixen as a pixie?

‘Just because I’m lowborn and you’re an aristocrat doesn’t mean we can’t see each other, Marcus. I don’t expect you to marry me, darling—’

‘
Marry
you? Angelina, I don’t know you, I don’t like you, I don’t want anything to do with you. How much clearer can I make this?’

‘But you will, Marcus. Given time, I know you’ll fall in love with me!’

‘Mother of Tarquin, woman, you burn my house down, endanger the lives of a lot of good people and then expect me to fall in love with you? Exactly which part of the word “no” don’t you understand?’

As he spun round to leave, he saw a flash of bright steel in her hand. It was something he hadn’t expected. Hadn’t been prepared for. Although it was, he realized too late, inevitable.

The only way she can protect herself from a complete mental breakdown is to eradicate the source of the fantasy. Once it no longer exists, it is as though it never happened.

What a fool. What an absolute fool. Orbilio was the fantasy. Not the house.

Even as he understood, he felt the blade plunge into his flesh. Heard a strange ripping sound. Felt a burning pain shoot down his side.

‘Angelina—’

As he slipped down on to the cobbles, his vision started to blur. His hands were covered in something hot and sticky and he thought, Croesus. Now my boss really
will
think I’m the Halcyon Rapist. I’ve got the bloody knife wound to prove it.

As the blackness finally swallowed him up, it occurred to Marcus Cornelius that he knew who the rapist was. What a ridiculous time to find out.

*

For a farce that hadn’t been born a week before, Caspar had created a tour de force with
The Cuckold.
True, it was a patchwork of old scripts and ancient gags set to a backdrop of familiar songs and set pieces, but there was a freshness about the way the play had been cobbled together that gave it a vitality all of its own.

Doris made a surprisingly good Miser. Thin and sinuous, he was perfect for all that agonized hand-wringing and coin counting, and his throwing in the odd feminine gesture when the Soldier came on only added to the humour.

Ugly Phil hadn’t been warned that his cloven hoofs had been greased to make him slip, but the thick wad of furry padding broke his fall. The only injuries there, Claudia thought, would come from tomorrow’s audience splitting their sides.

Caspar’s eye patch glittered in fierce competition with his dazzling kaftan and bejewelled feathered turban, and no one could ever accuse the Narrator of blending in with the background. Half his lines he made up as he went along, a complete switch from last night’s performance, but the cast fitted in with his ad-libbing, their confusion only adding to the hilarity.

Whether Ion remained in a foul mood or not, Claudia couldn’t tell. Ever the professional, he put personal issues aside and boomed out his Jupiter to comic perfection, looking handsome and god-like and every inch the show’s heartthrob.

He wasn’t, of course. The bald-headed Buffoon stole every scene as well as every heart.

The girls were terrific. Jemima, that arch-exhibitionist, decided to lift her robe to examine the m
a
rk where Cupid’s arrow had hit her bottom and Adah, despite her whingeing, made a lasting impression on the audience, being the first nude of the show. She wasn’t the last. Fenja performed a statuesque striptease for the man she believed was the Poet, but who turned out to be the Satyr wearing a mask, and the point in the play where it fell off was one of the funniest, especially since he had one limp horn.

Not that Claudia could concentrate. She’d staged the Spectaculars to suck up to buyers and steal a march on the Guild. How petty and irrelevant that all seemed now. Yet tomorrow, the first of many potential clients would be taking their seats in this hall and she must smile and laugh and be witty, she must look ravishing and desirable, the perfect hostess, and they must leave thrilled, sated and won over.

Never before had she had so much respect for actors for whom the show, above everything, must go on…

Eventually, though, the confusion about the identical twins was resolved. Cupid’s arrows hit their targets, albeit wrong ones, and Periander even threw in an ad-lib himself by firing one at the Narrator. Happy endings all round, clap, clap, clap. The Wife had run off with her Lover and got to keep all the money. The Miser fell in love with himself. The Virgin remained virginal. Jupiter duly went back up to Olympus, removing Hermione’s clothes as the platform was winched up.

Claudia shook her head. Impossible that any member of this troupe could be a monster. Quite impossible.

*

In a gesture reminiscent of the incident in the Alban Hills, the Digger mopped up the sweat with a cloth. Everyone was laughing, the Digger included. The rush of adrenaline after a show, especially when it went well, was amazing. Indescribable. The feeling of unity among the company closer than family ties.

The Digger knew this euphoria could not last.

That this feeling of contentment was a mirage.

Soon, there would be more blood spilled. Very soon.

The Digger prayed to Hercules for the strength to put off the inevitability for as long as humanly possible.

Thirty-Three

Butico’s two henchmen, Balven and Armenius, lodged in adjoining rooms over a tavern in what could only be described as a rough part of town. Stabbings in this dock-side quarter were routine. For money, for vengeance, for fun, who the hell knows? Bodies regularly rolled into the Tiber, no questions asked.

The tavern itself was long overdue demolition, the air round it rancid with river smells, rotting refuse, stale urine, vomit and smoke. Raddled whores lifted their skirts against the wall for no more than a goblet of cheap wine while, inside, the stench of long-unwashed bodies mingled with the smell of the greasy grey stew that bubbled away in the cauldron, and drunken laughter rattled the beams.

Claudia’s revenge on the scum from the slum had been easy and quick to arrange, requiring just one call on her old friend, Lulu. Sweeter still was the speed with which her plan was able to swing into effect.

‘Hello?’ The door to the rowdy tavern opened tentatively, and a pouting youth wearing rouge on his cheeks and kohl round his eyes popped his head through. ‘Is Armenius here?’ He was not, of course. Claudia had had Butico call his henchman away as part of the deal.

‘No?’ The boy put one long finger to unnaturally red lips. ‘Oh.’ He minced into a room which had fallen silent in shock and pouted some more. ‘Well, look. When he comes back, can you give him a message? Tell him I won’t be able to meet him at Lulu’s tonight after all.’

Lulu was a six-foot-two retired gladiator, famous for his double thrust and parries in the arena, and for running a string of pretty rent boys near the Forum. He also ran an infamous male brothel off Tuscan Street that specialized in sadomasochism.

‘I’ve got to visit my auntie, she’s sick,’ he said, adding brightly, ‘But you can tell him I’ll be there tomorrow, as usual.’

He blew a kiss to his astonished audience and departed, chucking a burly stevedore under the chin as he passed. Another time and they’d have had a field day with the lad. Tonight they couldn’t believe it.

‘
Armenius
?’

‘It’s a wind-up,’ someone with a scar said. ‘Innit?’

They weren’t sure. Hadn’t Armenius come home nursing a head wound the other day, and refused to say how he got it?

‘Nah.’ After an hour’s discussion, they dismissed it. A wind-up. Someone having a joke.

But the next stranger was neither effeminate nor pretty, and he had to duck to get under the lintel. ‘Where is he, the fat bastard?’ He strode across to the stairs. ‘Oi, Balven! You up there?’

He grabbed the tavern keeper by his tunic and glowered into his face. In a world where might is undeniably right, a lot of drinkers noticed how easily he lifted the tavern keeper off the ground and decided to make themselves scarce. If they wanted trouble, they made it themselves.

Besides, his face looked kind of familiar…

‘Where’s Balven, you little shit?’

‘Out.’

‘Yeah?’ The giant shook the tavern keeper like a doll. ‘Where?’

‘I d-don’t know. He doesn’t t-tell me where he goes.’

The giant dropped his charge.

‘Well, tell him when he comes back, he owes me money.’ He pulled a shining scimitar out of its sheath and held it against the tavern keeper’s throat. ‘And you can remind him what happens when Lulu doesn’t get paid.’

Lulu! The gladiator with the string of pretty rent boys who runs the bawdy house off Tuscan Street!

‘You c-can rely on me,’ the tavern keeper croaked. ‘G-gods’ honour.’

‘Good.’ Lulu sheathed his scimitar. ‘Oh, yeah. One other thing.’