The Mammoth Book of Roman Whodunnits (20 page)

“You do know the rumours about his late wife?”

Again, Claudia breathed out. “Rumours? Good grief, Orbilio, the woman committed suicide nine months ago. That’s hardly a secret.”

No one throws themselves off the Tarpeian Rock without the whole of Rome knowing, much less a rich merchant’s wife. After all, if you want privacy when you die, you don’t leap from the Capitol Hill, right in the heart of the city.

“She jumped at night,” Orbilio reminded her. “There were no witnesses to the suicide.”

“So?”

“So she wasn’t a pauper,” he said dryly. “She brought considerable capital to her marriage, and she had no heirs to claim on the estate. Arlon inherited the lot.”

Claudia reached up and plucked a rosebud from the truss. “You have my undivided disinterest, Orbilio.”

One eyebrow rose in scepticism, but he did not presume to
contradict her. Instead he said, “Just humour me, and tell me how exactly you and Arlon got together. How soon it was, after Saturnalia, that he started to court you?”

A weight lifted from Claudia’s stomach. She felt light. Free. Free as the birds in the dovecot.

“Arlon court me?” She tossed the rosebud into his lap and danced off down the path. “My dear Marcus, for an investigator, you really do have a long way to go.”

“Excuse me?” He was alert now. Tense and poised.

“Maybe you should follow the family tradition and become a lawyer instead.”

“I don’t understand.” He was on his feet now. Frowning.

“I’m the one who pursued Arlon,” she trilled over her shoulder. “Like a terrier, if you must know.”

He caught up with her after the betrothal feast, after most of the guests had gone home. Claudia wasn’t surprised to see Orbilio at the banquet. Being an aristocrat himself, his own house was a mere stone’s throw from Arlon’s superlative mansion and he’d probably have been on the invitation list as a matter of course. Neighbour to neighbour, and all that. But Claudia knew that he would have inveigled an invitation anyhow. It was his nature.

As the last guest stumbled out on distinctly unsteady legs and a bawdy song on his lips, she stared around the banqueting hall. Crab claws, lobster shells, cherry pips and meat bones littered the floor between the couches, and a couple of kitchen cats were probing the debris with delicate paws in search of tasty titbits. The sun was sinking fast, casting a vermilion glow over the dining hall and turning the bronze couches to the colour of molten gold. It had been a memorable feast, Claudia reflected with satisfaction. The affianced couple linking arms as they drank a loving cup between courses. Musicians. Poets. Performing apes. Plus a
tightrope walker who walked backwards as well as forwards whilst entertaining the gawping diners with ballads. The food had been exquisite. Sucking pig, honeyed dormice, venison and boar, served with asparagus, milk-fed snails and white truffles which had been fetched from the Istrian peninsula. From time to time during the meal, rose petals showered the guests with their fragrance from a mechanical contraption overhead, and iced wine flowed down a river into a pool from which female slaves dressed as water sprites filled the jugs.

Now Claudia watched as, with a snarl and a hiss and with thrashing wide tails, the tabby and the tortoiseshell squared up to one another over a prawn. Too late. The porter’s rangy mongrel strolled in through the open windows, scattering felines to the four winds as it proceeded to snaffle up everything in sight, shells and all.

“That dog needs worming,” Orbilio said.

“And you need a bell on your collar.”

He leaned against the side of a couch, one hand resting lightly on the carved antelope armrest. “That,” he said looking round, “was a very good show.”

“I thought the snake charmer rather went a bit off-key, but the fire-eater was pretty impressive.”

“I’m talking about you,” he said. “If you ever fancy a career in the theatre . . .” He let his voice trail off. Then: “What’s behind this chicanery, Claudia?”

She scooped up a handful of petals and tossed them in the air, watching as they floated down like pale pink snowflakes. “You’re just worried that, once I’m married to Arlon, I’ll set your career back a year.”

Know your enemy. It was a good rule to live by. And Claudia Seferius knew that this fiercely ambitious young investigator only kept such close tabs on her, because she sailed so close to the wind. She was his fast track to the
Senate. The more results he clocked up, the closer his seat in the Assembly. Why else would he dog her every step?

“Or is it merely a question of dented pride?” she added. “That your hundred percent success record will be broken, if I wriggle off your investigative hook?”

Orbilio sucked in his cheeks. “Whatever you do, Claudia Seferius, and wherever you go, it will always involve some degree of illegality. Believe me, my career is not in jeopardy here.”

She stared at the bowl in her hand. He was probably right. She was destined to live life on the edge, pushing herself to the limits, because danger was as vital to Claudia’s constitution as oxygen. Without testing yourself, how can you be truly alive?

Outside, the sun had sunk below the rooftops and the sky was the colour of blood. Cicadas buzzed like blunt saws, the heat pulsed, and bats darted round the eaves of the building. Soon, slaves would come to light the oil lamps, but for now the twilight and Claudia were one.

An age passed before he pushed himself away from the couch. She could not make out his expression in the dusk, but she knew without looking that the dancing light in his eyes had died.

“He’s a sleaze ball, Claudia.”

Something changed inside her, too. “What do you know about Arlon?” she sneered.

She saw his fists clench. “I know that no one gets that rich, that fast, without being a ruthless, callous, grade-A bastard – and Arlon’s all that, in spades.”

“Strangely enough, Marcus, I’m inclined to agree with you.” Claudia scooped her bronze begging bowl into the wine pool. The ice had long melted, making the wine warm, but not unpleasant. “And bloody sexy it makes him, too.”

Orbilio frowned. Spiked his hands through his fringe.
“Claudia, if this truly
is
about you needing to find a husband before the State imposes –”

“Why? Are you offering?”

He cleared his throat. Stared at his feet. Shuffled. “You could do worse.”

Now who’s talking about careers in the theatre? Him, an aristocrat with a lineage going back to Apollo, marry a girl from the slums who’d adopted the identity of a woman who died in the plague in order to hook a wealthy, if ancient, wine merchant? Hades would take day-trippers first. Welcome to my atrium, said the spider to the fly. Oh, really, Marcus Cornelius. Do I
look
like I have wings?

“You don’t get it, do you?” she said over the rim of her bowl. “I love Arlon.”

“Bullshit. And don’t give me that crap about him loving you, either. Arlon wants to get his hands on your assets, Claudia. Nothing more.”

Did he really think she hadn’t done her homework? Her agents had dug and dug until they hit bedrock and one of the first things that Claudia discovered was that, like herself, Arlon had also married for money the first time around. His wife’s fortune had enabled him to buy a marble quarry in Euboea, then another in Alexandria, then another on the island of Chios, until one way and another he’d acquired quite a collection. When the Emperor was hell bent on turning Rome into a city of marble monuments, from temples to baths, statues to fountains, Arlon’s quarries worked round the clock to meet the demand. This income in turn funded a string of stud farms round Apulia and Lucania, which, wouldn’t you know it, simply couldn’t stop turning out winners. At the age of thirty-three, Arlon was rich beyond his wildest dreams. Good grief, by the time he hit forty, he’d have amassed so much wealth, even Midas would turn green with envy!

But that wasn’t the issue here.

Claudia cleared her throat. Turned to face the ardent patrician.

“Trust me, Orbilio, there’s only one thing Arlon wants to get his hands on,” she said pointedly. “And I’ve promised him that as a betrothal gift.”

Even in the twilight, she could see the colour drain from Orbilio’s face. “You aren’t serious?”

Her heart was drumming. Her mouth was dry. “Never more so,” she assured him.

“For gods’ sake!” He spun her round to face him. “Claudia, you
can’t
sleep with that bastard. He’s a monster. A fiend. He killed his wife, for Croesussakes.”

She shook off his hands, turned away, but could still smell the sandalwood in her nostrils, taste his minty sweet breath in the back of her throat. And where he had touched her, two handprints burned a hole in her gown.

“He was dining with friends the night his wife committed suicide,” she said levelly.

But then, as an investigator, he must surely know that.

“Claudia, please, anything but that. I couldn’t bear –”

Enough
. “I’m not asking you to bare anything, Orbilio. Now, the betrothal party is over. The music’s ended, it’s late, the wine’s warm, and you’re the last guest left, so I’d be obliged if you’d kindly leave me and my husband-to-be in peace.”

“Don’t go to his bed, Claudia.” His voice was ragged with an emotion she couldn’t place.

A bad oyster. It must be. She felt nauseous. Faint. Her legs wouldn’t support her. But they had to. By all that was holy,
they had to
. . .

“What I do or don’t do is none of your goddamned business,” she snapped, and there was no quaver in her voice, none at all. Attagirl. “Now get out, before I have the guards throw you out.”

She put a hand on the couch to steady herself. Please, Marcus. Please. Go. Go now –

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said, and his voice was a rasp. “Unless you come with me.”

The room swayed. I can’t, Marcus. Don’t you understand? I can’t walk away. I have to go through with this.
Have
to. Something wet trickled down her cheek.

“What?” she sneered. “Sneak off with some uptight, prissy law-enforcer on a penny-pinching salary, when I’ve got all this?”

Now will you bloody well go?

He prised the begging bowl out of her grasp and threw it onto the floor, where it clattered and bounced under a couch. “For gods’ sake, you’ve proved your point.” He grabbed both her wrists. “You don’t have to go through with this –”

The skin burned, she pulled away so fast. “Oh, but I do,” she said dully.

As the moon started to rise, its light picked out the burnished metal among the crab claws and chop bones. Scooping it up, Claudia spat on the bowl, polished it on the hem of her gown. Saw the full face of the midsummer moon reflected in the bronze.

“Believe me, Marcus,” talking to herself as much as him, “I do have to go through with this.”

“So that’s where you’re hiding!”

Laughing, Arlon stepped through the open double windows from the garden. In the moonlight, his fair hair shone like silk, and corded muscles bulged out the sleeves of his tunic. There was wine on his breath. Perhaps one goblet too many.

“What in Jupiter’s name are you doing in the banqueting hall at this hour on your own?”

So then. He hadn’t yet noticed that she wasn’t alone. From
the corner of her eye, Claudia watched Orbilio step backwards into the shadows, as silently as a fox.

“Sorry, darling, I lost all track of time re-living the banquet,” she said, turning her back on the shadows. “Arlon, it was an absolutely wonderful party. Thank you.”

“Mmm.” His attention was no longer on the betrothal feast. “You know, you’ve showered me with everything from rugs to rubies to Arabian resins, but –” One bronzed hand slid round her waist and pulled her close as the other brushed a strand of hair from her eyes. “There’s one gift you still haven’t given me.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” she laughed, releasing a curl from its ivory hair pin. “I’m banking on you enjoying more than one, if you don’t mind!”

“Then let me unwrap it,” he said thickly. “Right here, and right now.”

With a backwards sweep of his hand, the plates and bowls went flying off the low table. At home, everything would have smashed to smithereens, but being Arlon, of course, the metal merely clanged, rolled and bounced.

“I’ve been celibate for two years,” Claudia said huskily, arching her back as his hand travelled slowly, expertly, down her backbone. “I don’t intend to rush this. Quite the reverse, in fact, darling. I intend to savour every delicious moment, both in the comfort of a soft bed and –” she walked her fingertips lightly down his chest “– all night.”

“That’s cheating,” he laughed. “You know damn well this is the shortest night of the year.”

“Then we mustn’t waste another minute,” Claudia said, and felt something burning into her back from the shadows.

“Absolutely,” Arlon agreed, releasing the rest of her hair from its pins.

Slowly, his lips closed on hers, and the kiss was deep and unyielding. In the inescapable light of the moon, Claudia
could not control the shudder that rippled over her body when his hand moved to her breast. As his passion intensified, she squeezed her eyes shut and surrendered to Arlon’s embrace.

Therefore, she did not see Orbilio slip out of the shadows.

Or the mist that clouded his vision.

The windows in Arlon’s bedroom had not been shuttered and, high in the heavens, the moon flooded the room with its silvery blue light. Standing in the limbo land of doorway between bedroom and peristyle, Claudia inhaled the scent of the night stocks and listened to the soft tune played by the fountain. From here, she could see clearly the bench beneath the sycamore tree where she had been run to ground by an investigator in whose veins ambition coursed as fast as his blue blood. For a second, she thought she caught a movement in the bay tree to the left. But she was mistaken. He would be long gone.

“Come to bed,” Arlon whispered.

“Soon,” she promised.

“My family think you’re after my money,” he chuckled.

“Not true,” she assured him.

“I know that, but all the same, you’re a complex woman, Claudia Seferius. You tell me that stupid bowl in your hand is a good luck charm, that you refuse to be parted from it, yet I’ve never see the bloody thing before in my life.”