Wolf Whistle (14 page)

She stormed off to her room, leaving Claudia fanning the warmth which had rushed to her cheeks. On the whole, though, Claudia felt she had argued her case rather well, considering the business was foundering and she was deeply in debt. And, whilst Jovi might not be her child, if Larentia actually dug deep enough, she’d have cause to throw Claudia Seferius out on the street at least two dozen times.

*

In a house of a very different shape, in a room of very different furnishings, a weapon lay swaddled in cotton. The cotton was maroon, to match the cornelians in the knife’s handle, for this was no common kitchen knife, no carpenter’s companion, no genteel dining implement. Once it had been an illustrious heirloom, handed down from father to son upon each boy’s coming of age, but that had been during the time of the Republic. Since then, civil wars had ravaged three generations, taking its toll just as heavily on the nobility as on the plebeians and the knife had suffered a similarly chequered career.

Stolen by a trusted secretary upon the death of its owner and sold for a mere fraction of its value, it first passed to a legate, who bequeathed it to his grandson, who in turn was captured by buccaneers off Gaul and held for ransom. For a while the knife did sterling service, changing hands in a series of fierce piratical raids until it was requisitioned in the name of the Empire by the captain of a warship who bequeathed it to his only child, a daughter. She, having no use for such an artefact, bejewelled or otherwise, sold it for enough to buy a small house in Frascati to keep her handsome Cretan lover safe from the prying eyes of her fat and ageing husband. Then again, it could have been because she had learned that, way back in its bloody history, the weapon had been given a name.

Nemesis.

But whatever her reasons for selling, the knife was back where it belonged. With a fond and loving owner, one who would cherish its sinister beauty and keep the blade sharper than any barber’s razor.

Had the weapon ears, it would have heard, as the Day of Luna faded, the flurry of activity which accompanies any household as it settles for the night. The splash of washbasins being emptied with iron ladles. The clatter of shutters opening and closing, as hopeful eyes once more wondered if the weather wasn’t changing for the better. Instead, the sumptuous weapon was left to reminisce, inside its wine-dark cotton shroud, on its fortunes and adventures. How its worth had varied from owner to owner, and how its owners, too, had varied—male to female, noble to criminal, light of touch to downright light-fingered. And yet, with the exception of the naval captain’s daughter, every owner from the date of its first and splendid forging had used the weapon to kill and to maim. Sometimes in anger, maybe in defence, all too often in war, that same thin blade had slipped between ribs or sliced through a windpipe, leaving scars and widows in its wake.

The household slid into a silence broken only by the occasional coo of a pigeon in the roofspace or the creak of a mattress as its occupant turned. When the air began to chill, the knife was removed from its hiding place and laid upon a bed, the cotton drawn back, fold by tender fold, until the cornelians glinted in the single flickering flame of a candle and the blade shone blue in the shadows.

‘Tomorrow the sun moves into Aries,’ a voice whispered as a finger traced the line of the blade. ‘Tomorrow, the temple of the goddess they call Fortune will be purified, and you know who worships Fortune, don’t you? Women.’

A cloth began to buff the blood-red gems.

‘Not rich bitches—that lot pray to Venus. We’re talking slaves and whores, Nemesis, which means…’

Warm breath misted the steel, prior to the blade being burnished.

‘We don’t have to wait until market day for our special girlies to be out.’

XIII

Fortune’s Day, and about time, too. I thought the night would never end! Tumbling out of bed, Claudia flung wide the shutters, to be greeted by another damp and misty morn, which barely dispelled the grisly images which had torn at her dreams, jolting her awake over and over again to lie, trembling in the darkness, as she re-lived the terror of twenty-seven savage cuts. What hatred, she wondered, peeling off her nightshift and trickling water from the jar into the washbasin, inspired a man not only to inflict immense pain upon a fellow human being, but deprive them of their dignity in the process? The mind that could abandon them, bound and naked, in a lake of congealed blood amid rotting turnips and spokeless wheels as though they, too, were the detritus of society, transcended comprehension.

Claudia drew deep breaths and waited for her stomach to stop churning. Thank Jupiter, her involvement in this wretched murder was finished. Slowly she reached for the pumice. She’d done her bit by helping to pinpoint the timing and by encouraging Supersleuth to air his worries in the tavern and, since he’d posted a soldier in the Argiletum, no doubt there’d be a clutch of reliable witnesses lined up already. One might even be able to identify the killer. She blotted her face with a towel. No, that chapter in her life (and the tall dark patrician that went with it) was well and truly closed. The Runaway Success saw to that. Right now, she was more concerned about Kaeso.

From the moment she knocked on Tucca’s door, he’d been playing with her. Why? Because she needed him more than he needed her? Who knows, but one thing was sure. The meeting in that mellow room of curios had ended in a stand-off. For a fraction of a second, as she rubbed the moisturing sap of aloes into her cheeks, Claudia thought she saw reflected in the washbasin the outline of the wolf man. The sharp grey eyes. The tawny mane. The loping tread. Thrusting a fist into the water, Kaeso disappeared in a thousand angry ripples.

Dammit, she’d asked him to kill the maniac who stalked her and his sole reaction was to arch one eyebrow slowly. Without so much as a word, he’d stacked more wood on the fire before coiling himself in the chair directly opposite. Throwing an arm casually over the back, he’d tipped his head to one side and said, ‘That’s a very unusual request.’

The fire leapt as the flames caught at the logs, billowing out waves of scented applewood, yet all she had smelled was Kaeso’s clove-like unguent.

‘But then,’ he had added, ‘you’re a very unusual woman.’

It was the roaring fire, surely, which turned her cheeks crimson. ‘But you will kill Magic?’ she asked.

Kaeso had an object, which he was rippling back and forth between his fingers. Not a coin, it was too well rounded, more like…Claudia’s hand flew to her earlobe. How the hell…?

‘
That’s
magic,’ he laughed, tossing back her missing stud.

Claudia snatched it out of the air and fixed it back in place. The man was starting to annoy her with his piercing gaze and lazy, powerful frame. She wondered when he’d slipped her earring off. She didn’t remember him leaning so close, and yet—He was dangerous, this Kaeso. And danger is intoxicating… Well, she would not ask again. Let him make a move. She knew he would. And until then she’d called his bluff by studying his strange collection of animals and athletes, frozen by the carver whether in ivory or marble, pottery or bronze.

‘When I am asked to extinguish a light,’ Kaeso said eventually, rising to his feet. ‘I deem that light of sufficient importance to make my decision with care. Call back tomorrow, and I’ll give you my answer.’ There had been no time to protest as Kaeso hurriedly covered the width of the room. ‘Tomorrow,’ he stressed, over his shoulder, and by the time Claudia had reached the polished cypress door, the garden and peristyle were deserted. She ran towards the gate and tugged it open, but Kaeso was nowhere in sight and when she looked back to the house, Tucca was standing by the yew tree with her fat hands on her hips, grinning horribly.

But that was yesterday. Today, a new beginning!

Claudia stepped out on to her red-painted balcony, and peered down on the street below. Reassuringly noisy, a small boy dangled a duck by its twisted, broken neck and made his sister cry. Sellers of mushrooms and willow, acorns and rueberries funnelled out of the mist towards the Forum. A match-man with his packs of yellow sulphur jostled asses bent beneath herbs and hides and harnesses, and a basket seller balanced his wares on his head with professional ease. Unfortunately for Claudia, the price for wanting Magic off her back was to return to that awful House of Silence, but in the meantime, there was much to cram in. Below, professional mourners beat ash-covered breasts at the head of a funeral procession, probably that of the old Persian tin merchant, he’d been looking grim for ages. In the whole of Rome, she thought, that poor old sod must be the only citizen unaffected by what was arguably the busiest day of the year.

With so many events converging, Claudia had been hard pressed to decide which to choose for the aunts. Resting her elbows on the rail as funereal drumbeats filled the air, she watched the procession pass down the street. Country dwellers mostly, the old boilers were well aware that disease could strike sprouting crops any time and they’d appreciate rites where peasants and landowners, wholesalers and farmers were eager, if not desperate, to placate Venus, the goddess who presided over the month. Then again, Claudia could take them to the Forum, where the Vestal Virgins were out and about on active duty, or to the Capitol, to rituals sacred to Juno, whose holy day this was.

Claudia leaned down and inspected her pot plants. The irises were doing nicely, the blue Attic variety looked terrific beside the yellow Damascans. Of course, being Fortune’s Day she could take the Aunts down to the cattle market, that was always good for a laugh. On this one day of the year, middle-aged matrons were suddenly beset by an urge to see for themselves the stockmen beside their beasts and haymen selling their bales—then, my, my, what a coincidence, I’m right outside the Temple of Fortune. You know, I never realized it was here! Such a tiny temple, must have missed it in the past, and what a lot of girls with yellow hair.
Working
girls you say? You mean it’s true? Fortune really
does
protect the harlots? What’s that? Oh, every woman’s sex life? Ha, ha, ha, how quaint. And having scoffed at all the rituals—the washing of the statue, the strewing of the petals—off they’d trot, these women, railing against the scourge of prostitution and the scandal that painted trollops were allowed to roam around in daylight, yet each would wander off a trinket short. Which would have miraculously made its way to Fortune’s tiny altar!

In the end, though, Claudia opted for the Blemish Rites. The aunts wouldn’t have seen anything like it, and would go away soaked with its memory. She moved on along her tubs and planters. The narcissi were looking good, almost as though they thrived in this wretched mist and drizzle, their scent remained quite unaffected. She picked eight snow white and four bright yellow, then added a couple of irises.

‘Drusilla.’ She crooked a finger. ‘Drusilla, come here, please.’

The cat unfurled herself from the foot of Claudia’s couch and trotted over, her tail in the shape of a question mark.

‘I’ve told you before, you little toad, not to use these pots as a litter tray.’

‘Mrrrow.’ Small wonder my white rock rose isn’t flowering. ‘Don’t you dare rub round my ankles while I’m talking. Sit.’

‘Prrr.’ Drusilla leapt up on to the balcony rail, then completed her journey to her mistress’s shoulder. ‘Prrrrr.’

‘Yes. Well.’ Claudia patted the vibrating pelt. ‘Let that be a lesson to you. Oh, there you are, Cypassis, where on earth have you been? The morning’s half over.’

‘It’s little Jovi, madam.’ The Thessalian girl laid out a fine robe of apricot linen. ‘He’s so clingy.’

‘Not for much longer.’ Claudia sank back in her chair and let her maid make sense of her curls. ‘In fact, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if his mother doesn’t claim him this morning.’

‘Because prostitutes worship Fortune?’ Cypassis asked. ‘You think she’ll take time off to collect him?’

‘Good grief, no. This woman’s holding out for a reward.’ If that’s what was needed, so be it. Claudia had offered a hefty sum to lure Jovi’s mother out—although if the greedy bitch expected to collect, she had another think coming. Trying to make capital out of a five-year-old’s misfortune!

‘Now then, Cypassis, is everything on schedule for today? I mean, the musicians and acrobats do know it’s tonight? I don’t want them saying they thought they were playing tomorrow or Monday, and you’ll remember to put food out for Drusilla?’

The tortoiseshell comb cut the air like a conductor’s baton. ‘Yes, yes, I hope so, and…’ She bit her lip and frowned. ‘Was there another question?’

After the Blemish Rites it’s on to the Field of Mars for the Bull Dance then a concert, and back here this evening for a farewell banquet. With emphasis on the FAREWELL.

‘I’ll need flowers strewn right across the floor, plus garlands for each of the old…of my dear husband’s relatives.’ What better display of wealth and extravagance? But there’s a snag. Flowers on that scale are prohibitively expensive. ‘You’ll have to send some of the slaves out, I’m afraid, to pick from the wild.’

‘Wonderful, madam! They love a day in the country.’

Was she serious? Knee deep in bugs and weeds? Surrounded by nothingness? What about the cowpats and the pongs? ‘I want corn cockles and honesty, periwinkles, speedwells, fritillaries.’ Claudia counted them off on her fingers. ‘Crown daisies, alkanet and violets. Have you got that?’

‘Most of it,’ Cypassis said doubtfully.