Second Act (35 page)

‘No?’ Cotta sighed. ‘That is a pity, Erinna. A real pity.’

At first, Claudia felt nothing but the heat from the flame. Then an excruciating pain shot up her neck and she heard someone screaming. There was an acrid smell in her nostrils. A combination of burned linen and charred skin, and she thought she was going to be sick.

‘For gods’ sake, woman, do you think this gives me pleasure?’ Cotta rasped. ‘Erinna, I am going to get my formula in the end, so I beg you, the quicker you tell me, the easier it will be for her.’

In front of her, Erinna opened her mouth to speak.

‘The only thing you will tell him,’ Claudia said, amazed that there was no sign of fear in her voice, ‘is to go to hell. Understood?’

Tearful and terrified, Erinna didn’t know what to do. Claudia skewered her with her eyes. Finally, Erinna nodded. Turned her face up to Cotta. ‘No matter what you do, I will not give you the secret,’ she said sadly.

‘No?’ The Arch-Hawk wasn’t convinced. One burn was merely a start. There were the hands, yet, the soles of the feet, the breasts, the face, ah yes, the face. When Erinna saw Claudia’s pretty features melt like beeswax, she would talk.

He applied the candle to another part of her shoulder, and was surprised at how hard he had to grip the girl to keep her upright. Poor bitch, she didn’t deserve this. Too much pain for just one woman’s stubbornness. But his heart was hardened. One girl suffers, but millions of people gain. All the same. Cotta swallowed. It did not have to be like this—

‘For heaven’s sake, Erinna, have you no pity?’

The only reply was an animal whimper from deep in Erinna’s throat.

With her skin on fire, Claudia prayed. She didn’t know who to pray to in times like this, so she prayed to them all. To Diana the huntress, that she would strike Cotta dead with her arrows. To armoured, striding, strident Minerva, that she would smite him with her dagger to avenge her sisters. And, in desperation, to Lua, who wards off calamity.

‘Don’t make me do this, Erinna,’ Cotta growled, but there was no shake to the candle flame as he held it high to show her Claudia’s burns.

That was his mistake. In lifting the tallow, he revealed what Erinna had not been able to see before. That he was holding them prisoner on the upper floor of a warehouse. In the circle of light cast by the yellow flame, she saw the brown stone walls, an array of pulleys, winches, cogs and handles, hooks and ropes. More importantly she could see the edge of the platform on which the fleeces were stacked. Dropping away into nothingness—

Claudia watched the change on her face. Erinna’s beauty became suffused with a peace and radiance she had not seen before and in that terrible, heart-stopping instant, she realized what Erinna was planning.

*

By jumping, Erinna could not hope to save Claudia’s life, but she could save her from prolonged and hideous torment, and the Assembly and the Emperor would be safe. Death was the one thing Erinna did not fear. Every night and every day, she relived the moment when she rolled the bloodied corpse into its unmarked shallow grave. Now, with one final lurch, she could find the release that she craved.

Her expression was calm, her lips almost smiling, as she turned glistening eyes upon Claudia. She mouthed one word. ‘Sorry.’ Then launched herself over the side.

*

‘NO-O-O-O-O-O
!’

The scream which followed was primal and shocking. Visceral in its intensity, deafening in its volume, the sound chilled Claudia to her marrow. It filled the warehouse, reverberated its wooden floorboards, jerked the winches into motion. She had never known a sound so animal, so gut-wrenching in its agony, that it could move machinery, but beside her, the rope was definitely swinging.

‘No-o-o-o-o-o-o!’

But screams can’t turn cogs, however primitive they might be. The only way machinery moves is when someone operates it, and Claudia’s second surprise was that the scream wasn’t coming from Cotta’s throat.

When Erinna threw herself off the edge, he had raced to the side of the platform and he, too, had been disorientated by the echoing yells. The Hades effect, Claudia realized. Just as she had expected the sound to have come from him, furious at having his plans thwarted, so Cotta had interpreted the scream to have been Erinna’s soul being wrenched from her body. In that moment of shock, he hadn’t understood that the reverberations were footsteps. That the pulleys were being operated by two strong hands.

That the scream was only the start of one man’s outpourings of grief.

Kneeling on the edge of the platform peering into the dark, he didn’t hear the swing of the winch. Only when he heard a hiss and a whoosh did the Arch-Hawk look round. Too late. The giant hook caught him square on the jaw. His neck snapped like a twig.

Claudia blinked. It had happened in seconds. Literally.
Seconds.
She couldn’t believe it.

One minute, Erinna was alive. The next—

And Cotta. A heartbeat ago he was burning her flesh with a flame. Now his handsome, blond head lay at an angle hideously out of line with the rest of his body.

How quickly human life could be extinguished. How precious that which had been spared…

Above, the hook ceased to swing.

Creak, creak, creak. Slowly the cranking of the machinery died away. Then finally, nothing.

Nothing, save a primeval howl.

Skyles. No one else would mourn Erinna like that.

Shaking uncontrollably, Claudia fell back against the fleeces, her face wet with tears. She was safe now. No more pain. It was finished. Over. Her life was spared. She could go home. Why, then, lying on this soft, fluffy cloud, did she feel no relief? Oh my god. She sat up.

‘Skyles! Skyles, quick.’

‘I’m coming,’ he sniffed. ‘Give me a minute.’

‘Not me, you big oaf. Erinna!’

For heaven’s sake, this was a wool warehouse. Up here was where the fleeces were stacked. Which meant downstairs was where they stored the wool. No wonder Cotta hadn’t roared with frustration. No wonder he had simply knelt at the edge of the platform, peering into the darkness below. He was the Arch-Hawk, the Arch-Tactician of military campaigns, for heaven’s sake. He would have planned for
every
contingency.

As if to confirm it, a low moan filtered up from below.

Skyles’ scream was no less loud than before. But this time it was a yelp of pure joy.

Thirty-Seven

‘It occurs to me,’ a melodious baritone murmured, ‘that you should forget all about theatrical productions and turn this place into a hospital.’

Claudia opened her eyes. She expected to be torn apart by the pain. Instead she felt only a lightness, as though she was floating outside of her body.

‘What happened?’ she asked. This was her own room. Her own bed. Even her own cat stood on the table, tail bushy, hackles raised, growling at everyone and everything, but refusing point blank to leave.

‘Ah—’ Skyles began.

‘You passed out,’ a face with receding red hair cut in cheerfully.

This was the herbalist, Claudia presumed, noting that his left hand bore four bright-red parallel scratch marks. Good old Drusilla. Orbilio she could (just about) tolerate in the house. But a
stranger
in her mistress’s room?

‘Skyles carried you home,’ the baritone said, and Claudia thought she caught a note of pique in Orbilio’s voice. He looked ghastly. His skin was a hideous grey colour, and he was leaning against a chair for support. A thick wad padded out the left side of his tunic, and he smelled of balsam and mouldy bread.

‘What about Erinna?’ she asked. Strange, but she’d grown kind of used to the sandalwood. And that hint of rosemary, where his clothes had been rinsed.

‘She’s fine,’ Skyles said. ‘Really. Her pride was hurt far more than her body. The fall was cushioned by a huge pile of blankets.’

Cotta would have put them there, of course. Just in case. The only contingency he couldn’t have predicted was Skyles. Skyles who was so deeply in love with Erinna that he had found a way out of the house and followed her, just to be near her. Skyles who was so deeply in love with Erinna that he was scared to let his emotions show. Hence the lack of expression he had schooled himself to wear whenever he looked at her. Hence his asking her out in secret. In a company where everything was shared openly, Erinna was so precious, so dear to him, that he wanted her all to himself. Secrets, secrets, so many secrets, she thought.

One day a stranger

Rode into our valley,

Ravaged with scars of hard battles long past.

His eyes, they were weary,

He was tired of running,

But the law was behind him and catching up fast.

Instinctively, perhaps runaway to runaway, Erinna had read Skyles’ past in his face and had even written the song about him. He recognized himself and tackled her about it, but even then he could not see the truth staring him back in the face.

I know not what befell him,

I hope he found freedom,

But I’ll always bear him a love that is true.

Erinna, too, had fallen. So deeply, so violently, that she dare not give in to it. She was a killer, she deserved the pain she was suffering and deserved the end she planned for herself, and she could not afford to let Skyles into her heart.

How many times had Claudia felt like clashing their thick heads together?

Skyles was on the run, which is why he’d changed his name, shaved his head. Who can connect a runaway slave, who had more than likely killed the master who had inflicted those vicious beatings, with a laughing, clowning, bald-headed Buffoon? That was why Claudia needed to find out who he was from her agent. To protect him. She had seen the way his face scanned the crowds with such intensity. Had anyone recognized him, he was wondering. Were they making their way through the crowds towards him out of adulation—or to take him back to face summary execution? Act, act, act. Pretend, pretend, pretend. How exhausting such a role must be on a man, how draining. With Erinna, though, he could dispense with all that weighty pretence. With Erinna, Skyles could just be himself.

For her part, Erinna believed Skyles went with the women after the shows to maintain his macho persona and impress his peers. Far from it, Claudia thought. He accepted their favours because he was lonely. For a few minutes he could escape to yet another fantasy world. A world of rich tapestries and rare woods, vintage wines and fine foods, where damask sheets perpetually covered the beds and chandeliers hung from tall, vaulted ceilings. Another role to immerse himself in, and in those few moments, Skyles was wanted. Genuinely wanted. The weight of his burden was lifted. Loneliness, he discovered, like many men before him, could be assauged with hot sex.

Yet all he wanted was just one woman. His soulmate.

Don’t we all, Claudia thought.

‘You rest,’ the herbalist said, patting her head like a child. ‘I’m going to see how Deva’s coming along, and I’ll return later to check up on my patient.’

Claudia waited until he was gone before swinging her legs out of bed.

‘Whoa! Where do you think you’re going?’ Skyles asked.

‘It’s Saturnalia Eve,’ she reminded him. Incredibly, her only sensation was that of walking on air. ‘In a few hours’ time, twenty guests will troop in to watch a troupe of twenty.’

She could easily disguise the gauze bandage round her neck and she’d picked up enough acting techniques to know that, by the time her personal performance was done, no one would have noticed a thing.

‘That’s ridiculous,’ he protested.

‘No, that’s Claudia,’ Orbilio laughed. ‘You might just as well try turning the tide, Skyles. Incidentally, how did you get that wound in your side?’

‘It’s not a wound, it’s a cracked rib,’ Skyles said, adding with a low chuckle, ‘Probably two, after lugging her ladyship home.’

‘You didn’t answer my question,’ Marcus said.

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, will you two stop gossiping like fishwives? Skyles, go and give Caspar a hand, we’re running late enough as it is.’

Secrets, secrets, so many secrets, and the last thing Claudia wanted bandied abroad was how he got that wretched rib cracked. Oh, Flavia, Flavia, what a nasty spoiled child you are underneath! Skyles would have gone to that tavern at the Capena Gate, but you don’t let a girl like Flavia down gently. Not one so entrenched in having her way.
What?
A lowborn, common actor spurning her virginity?
Her?
The child of a wealthy wine merchant, the stepdaughter of Claudia Seferius, the foster child of Marcellus, the architect! Claudia could almost hear the clatter as the stool splintered against his ribcage. Followed immediately by violent sobs of contrition. Silly cow. Let her stew in her misery for a couple of days.
Then
see who they could field as a husband…

‘Will they be able to perform tonight?’ Orbilio asked, his knuckles white from gripping the chair.

Claudia wondered how deep the knife had gone in.

Wondered, too, who had done it, and why, and whether he had caught Dymas in time, and most of all, why the thought of his injury should make her feel sick. He was only a policeman, for heaven’s sake. This was his job.

‘With all the walking wounded, you mean?’ She smiled. ‘That lot would have to be dead before they cancelled a show.’

‘Caspar has a stunning black eye and quite a bad limp. I don’t suppose you know how he got that?’