Second Act (6 page)

‘Taking it slowly, huh?’

In the early morning light, her face was beautiful. A small, round, pixie face flushed pink with sleep, surrounded by a halo of frothy honey curls. Any man would feel it a privilege to wake up next to such an enchanting creature. Any man except Orbilio. How the blazes had he got here? Why couldn’t he remember?

‘Slow is fine by me,’ she whispered, running her tongue inside his ear.

‘I have to be on duty early.’ Despite himself, a shiver of desire rippled through his loins. ‘Today’s the day the new tribunes assume elected office.’

Being the sole member of the aristocracy attached to the Security Police, this meant Orbilio was the only person his boss could call on for assistance with the protocols of the governing classes. Another resentment Callisunus could then add to his list, since, being equestrian class himself, he bitterly begrudged having to rely on a patrician for advice on social matters. A subordinate, at that. By way of retaliation, and as though it was Orbilio’s fault that he was born to the nobility, Callisunus would proceed to toss him every rotten assignment that he could. But today the Head of the Security Police needed his patrician subordinate at his shoulder when the tribunes were sworn in. Just in case of gaffes.

‘You don’t have to go,’ the pixie wheedled. ‘You could send a message saying something’s come up.’ She giggled again. ‘After all, it’s the truth.’

‘I’d love to stay, darling,’ he lied, ‘but this is a big day.’

‘It certainly is,’ she giggled.

He groaned. ‘No, really. I have to go.’

Croesus, she was lovely. Sexy, too, with her slim white hips and soft white skin. Her legs went on for ever. But he didn’t know the woman. Couldn’t even remember her name, for heaven’s sake—and whatever rapport the drink had established between them last night, it did not constitute a relationship in the true sense of the word. Therefore, it followed that, if he consummated the urges his body was telling him to, he was reducing the pixie to the level of a whore and himself to— To what? What worm was lower than the man too drunk to know—or care—who gave him satisfaction?

Images of another woman burned his brain. A woman with flashing eyes and dark, tumbling curls, and although he had as much chance of taming Claudia Seferius as he had of throwing a harness round the wind, when he made love, he wanted to experience all the passion, all the redhot anguish, pain and pleasure that the act entailed. His gut wrenched as he imagined himself burying his face in those dark curls. Inhaling the scent of her intense Judaean perfume. Running his tongue round that little dip in her collarbone. To submit to copulation for its own sake in the cold, clear light of sobriety was not the same and whilst he supposed a man could argue that succumbing to his sexual urges when he’d hit rock bottom didn’t make a scrap of difference at this stage—just be stronger next time, Marcus, and
try
not to end up naked in a bed with any more attractive nymphomaniacs—he wasn’t fooling anyone, much less himself.

‘I’m already late,’ he told the pixie, swinging out of her exquisite nibbling clutches and narrowly missing the edge of the stove.

‘You’ll call round tonight, won’t you?’ Moist pink lips formed a half-open pout through which he could see her tongue. ‘After work?’

‘Of course I will,’ he promised, taking extra care as he buckled his belt to avoid meeting her gaze.

‘Miss you.’ She planted a kiss on her fingers and blew it across to where his hand was already closing round the door handle.

‘You, too, darling.’

As an afterthought, Marcus winked. He had a feeling women liked that sort of thing.

*

The play was going well.

Considering it hadn’t actually been written.

Caspar, however, felt he knew enough about musical farce to rush ahead, confident of shoring up any shortfalls at the end. Improvisation was his middle name, he declared grandly. And since he was the Narrator from whom the actors took their cue, Claudia suspected that more than one previous production had owed more to frantic ad-libbing than a script.

She was also beginning to understand what had prompted several members of the previous cast to break away and form their own company last October.

But credit where it’s due, the whole troupe was pulling together on this. Leonides reported—sourly, it must be said, since it involved much burning of coals through the night and no consideration whatsoever as to the number of oil lamps that were lit—that few of the company had been to bed last night, scratching away on rolls of parchment in a bid to get the dialogue down and start rehearsals as soon as possible.

‘Teamwork wins the day, dear boy,’ Caspar had told him with a firm clap on the back. Before requesting bread and cheese for eight, even though the hour was after three.

Far from showing the strain, however, the portly impresario’s face glowed and his little dark eyes shone. Unmistakably, a man in the grip of ecstasy.

‘These,’ he had announced, sweeping out of Claudia’s office with a sheaf of rustling parchments, ‘shall be billed as the
Halcyon Spectaculars
and our play—your play—I have called
The Cuckold
.’ He planted a loud kiss on the back of her hand and failed to notice that his hostess was shielding her eyes against his narcissus-yellow robe, lime-green bejewelled turban and turquoise belt. ‘Alas, I can’t stop to brief you on it now, dear lady, I must get started on the scenery, but rest assured you will be given progress within the hour.’

With that, the little tornado scurried off in a flurry of rosewater scent and Claudia felt quite breathless as she settled down for breakfast. Hardly an original title,
Halcyon Spectaculars,
but appropriate enough—and catchy. She tucked her feet underneath her on the couch and sipped the spiced apple juice Leonides had warmed up in advance. Halcyon reflected perfectly the fourteen days that bridged the winter solstice, the time when the sea is calm enough for the fabled halcyon bird to lay her eggs upon the waves. Idly, Claudia wondered what else might be about to hatch.

She was slicing off a wedge of pecorino cheese, her favourite, when Chiselled Cheekbones, he who had been watching her so intently yesterday, minced comically into the room, tossed back his fringe and perched cross-legged on top of the chest containing the silver.

‘I’m Doris,’ he announced. His voice was soft and slightly husky. ‘The name means bountiful, you know.’

‘Wasn’t Doris the nymph who married a sea god who could change his shape at will?’

‘And your point?’ The young man tilted his head to one side as he grinned. ‘Be a love, would you, and toss me a roll. Caspar said to brief you on the Spectacular, but he never said to do it on an empty stomach.’

‘I thought actors perform best when they’re hungry.’ Claudia threw across a hot roll peppered with poppy seeds, which he caught with one hand.

‘Not this thesp, kiddo,’ he said, catching the chunk of spicy sausage that came winging after it. ‘Right then,’ he said through a mouthful of dough. ‘The programme’s as follows.’

Claudia wasn’t interested in the programme, only the schedule. ‘Just tell me, yes or no, will the show be ready for the eighteenth?’

That was the day after Saturnalia, traditionally a day of anticlimax following the exchanging of gifts, the Great Sacrifice outside the temple in the Forum, the games and feasting throughout the day before. It would not impress jaded merchants much if the play wasn’t ready.

‘If you can trust the great lord’s propaganda, I’ll be in Miser’s costume by this afternoon,’ Doris said. ‘I play First Lead, which means I’m the cuckold of the title, wouldn’t you believe. Listen, are you sure you aren’t even a tinksy bit curious about what twenty strangers will be doing in your house? It’s more than putting on just the one play, you know.’ Eyelashes like a giraffe, Claudia thought. Thin, feminine hands. And, of course, those fine chiselled cheekbones.

Doris took her silence as a cue. ‘The Spectaculars open with Felix doing his dance solo. This time he’s enacting the Judgement of Paris accompanied, as usual, by Periander our castrato and the delectable Renata on the flute.’

The likelihood of one bleached blond miming Paris, two goddesses plus Helen of Troy without Claudia’s atrium walls ending up splattered with fruit was a slim one. She could only pray that Periander had a voice like an angel or that Renata fluted so loudly it distracted the audience from everything else.

‘Then Skyles and I perform this wicked little domestic scene between the Emperor and his lady wife—in which yours truly naturally plays Livia.’

‘Skyles?’ Claudia queried, selecting a date.

‘Big butch bitch who shaves his head, but put a wig on him and, dear me, that boy’s a ringer for Augustus.’ Claudia remembered Skyles now. The Buffoon with his monkey walk, who tripped over invisible obstacles and who, this morning, had chased the kitchen maids with a feather duster. But acting, acting, all the time acting. She wondered whether Leonides wasn’t wise to send for padlocks for the silver.

‘If I wasn’t the very
soul
of discretion,’ Doris said, ‘I could name you twenty aristocratic wives who have not so much surrendered their virtue to that boy as lobbed it at him.’

‘I hope Skyles is gentleman enough to refuse?’

‘Charity begins at home,’ Chiselled Cheekbones trilled, rattling the bangles round his wrist. ‘Just look at the little knick-knacks my admirers have given
me.
As I said. The name means bountiful.’

‘Don’t confuse admirers with groupies, Doris. Tell me what you know about Skyles.’

He assumed a pose of mock indignation. ‘Honestly, do I
look
like someone who dishes dirt like an ostler dishes oats? Don’t answer that. Anyway, after Skyles and I have finished, the girls launch into their song-and-dance routines and then—ta-da! One “splendiferous” musical farce as the great lord would call it.’

‘With nudity.’

Doris hopped down from the chest. ‘When it comes to the exposure of female flesh, kiddo, the audience likes their arena filled.’

Well, they’d certainly get that with Caspar’s girls. If not overflowing.

‘Me,’ Doris said, pulling a gold pendant out from his tunic. ‘I go for subtlety. Get the jewels in first, I say.
Then
show ’em what you’ve got.’

*

The swearing in of tribunes was a solemn business. These, remember, were the justices elected by the people to defend their rights. A heavy weight of responsibility hung on them. These men now held the power of veto over elections, laws, edicts by the Senate, hell, they could even overrule the decisions of the all-powerful magistrates if they felt so inclined. Charged with the protection of the lives and property of the working classes, and with their own legislative body, the newly elected tribunes were today accorded privileges akin to senators and cuirasses special to legates in honour of their role.

Orbilio stifled his yawn.

Too much toga posturing for him. Subtly, he shifted his weight and tried to ignore the throbbing behind his eyes. No one doubted that the ten men currently swearing to uphold their tribuneship were genuine in their intentions. It was everybody else, he thought. How broad a purple stripe you had on your toga. Whether your shorter, military tunic was more impressive than your magisterial neighbour’s long one. Who cared?

In front of him, and a whole head and shoulders shorter, the Head of the Security Police oiled his way through the ceremony in a way that only a man with a narrow purple stripe hoping to get a wider one can do. But then Callisunus would sell his mother into harlotry and throw in his sisters for good luck if it secured him a promotion.

Orbilio made a mental calculation. Another two mind-numbing hours, if he was lucky. The way things were going, though, it might be three.

On his face, his patrician breeding showed nothing but encouragement and interest, the expression of a man stimulated by long-winded procedures, as he reviewed his current case notes in his head.

December being a particularly active month for criminals, there was quite a pot on the boil. Too many festivals combined with too many layers of thick clothing equals too many purses snatched and secreted, but that wasn’t the concern of the Security Police. Nor was the fact that, because people went to bed earlier to save lamp oil and thus unwittingly improved working conditions for burglars, incidents of rape and murder went up in proportion, often as a result of those burglaries going horribly wrong. What did concern the Security Police was that, with the courts closed from the beginning of November, jails were overcrowded through lack of trials, while the crime rate continued to soar.

Perfect conditions for anarchy to breed and Rome was positively rife with plots to bring down the Emperor. Small wonder Augustus had installed the Praetorian Guard.

But apart from conspiracies requiring sharp nips in their buds, he had a killing down in the Subura to deal with. A domestic, which the husband tried to pass off as the work of an intruder, but Orbilio was gathering witnesses and evidence. No challenge there, he’d have the man in irons by tomorrow. And then there was that forgery ring operating out of an old warehouse on the edge of town. Small-scale stuff, just the duplication of dole tablets, and that wouldn’t take long to wrap up. Orbilio had the place under twenty-four-hour surveillance and the next time the mastermind dropped in—a swarthy, low-ranking civil servant from the Water Department—that was that.