'Alms,' she squawked, shuffling closer. 'Arms for a blind widder woman.'
'What? Oh. Here. Take this.' One of them tossed her a pie. 'Now should that be spelled with a 9 or a 9?'
'Phi or psi! Haven't a clue.' His companion frowned, and Claudia realised they were genuinely having trouble translating their Latin into Greek. The grief of the caulker could not possibly be an act, the man was distraught, and most of the other visitors to this quiet grove were drifting away as new ones arrived to take their place. But that's what it was, the Camensis. A crossroads, a place for passing through. Linger for a moment, take a minute to relax, then on with whatever business you were concerned with. Had Junius seen something? Someone he recognised?
'Shit!'
She'd never thought to check behind the statue! Suppose the ransom had been collected shortly after being placed in position? Junius might already be hot on their trail! Shambling sideways up the steps like a crab, the old woman's good eye scanned the park. No one seemed interested. No one was watching the beggars.
'You gonna eat this?' Flea waved the scribe's pie in front of Claudia's nose.
'No, but the sparrows — what on earth are you doing?' The girl was stuffing it inside her tunic!
'In my line, you never know where yer next meal's coming from,' Flea explained. 'It'll keep all right down here.'
Claudia thought of the mountain of food her steward reported the girl had packed away, eating like there was no tomorrow. How unfair that Flea remained as thin as a reed!
The shrine to the nymphs who presided over this gentle and inviting grove was circular and built of anio, a dull-brown building stone, which had the distinction of being durable and solid, but was ugly in the extreme. Clearly, though, the sprites had taken no offence. Perhaps they'd been mollified by the green marble flooring, the waist-high criss-cross fence which ran round the grove, or the fact that their likenesses had been captured in dazzling bronze. Or maybe they simply appreciated the fact that the shrine had been left open to the elements with no roof to cage them in and revelled in the freedom that it gave them. Whatever the reason, it worked. Finches twittered in the branches of the oaks, birches and almonds. Dog roses and yellow honeysuckle scrambled over trellises and pillars, much to the delight of droning bees. In winter, yellow aconites and hellebores flourished round the edges of the watercourse, but today, in high summer, dark purple helmets of monkshoods nodded alongside angelica, hedge hyssop and the great golden globes of the trollius.
Claudia glanced at the scribes, still unable to tell their deltas from their kappas, and thought at least we know where their pi has gone. Inside Flea's ragged frock! Finally, the two young men decided they couldn't give an iota for their alphas and, with a demonstrative snap of hinged notebooks, took themselves off to the baths. Even the caulker, his face blotchy, his eyes red and puffy, appeared to be over the worst and was now staggering off down the path — Claudia suspected to make a vigil over his dead child. Little else reduced a man to such despair.
She and Flea were alone in the shrine.
Slipping behind the right-hand statue, Claudia was surprised to see the chest still in place. Perhaps, though, they'd emptied the contents? A tiny key appeared from the depths of her rags and in seconds the padlock sprung open.
'Holy moly, look at that!' Flea's eyes jumped out of their sockets and bounced off the green-veined marble floor.
Golden coins winked in the sunlight like fish in the ocean. Quickly Claudia snapped the lid shut. Damn. She locked the chest. What the hell was Junius playing at? Why wasn't he here, watching the drop? She pulled off the eyepatch — a piece of pigskin marked with streaks of red dye to resemble stitches — and rubbed at her eyelid where the resin had held it in place. There was no reason, at least none she could think of, why her bodyguard weren't here, all four of them, watching and waiting and keeping close tabs. Junius knew where to come, for gods' sake. He'd put the wretched ransom chest in place! What had happened? What possible occurrence could have lured four big, strong lads away from their surveillance?
'How much is in there?' Flea's jaw was hitting her knees.
'Come along.' The old crone pulled her veil over her forehead and, patting the central nymph for good luck, limped off down the steps. They'd lingered long enough, she thought. Any longer will only draw attention, the gang might be watching covertly, who knows.
'It's gotta be a million.'
Leaning heavily on her granddaughter and scratching at her itchy woollen rags, the old woman shambled over to the spring. Bright Aegean blue to reflect the summer sky, bubbles coiled their way to the surface, making ripples like raindrops on a dewpond. She positioned herself on a log in the shade, resting on her stick, but only two young children approached the wretched shrine, and then only to poke fun at the statue with a patch over one eye.
'I've never seen so much flaming money,' Flea was saying. 'I can't hardly believe it. All that gold!'
Claudia continued to ignore her.
The afternoon wore on.
Come on, Junius. What's keeping you? I should have arrived earlier, she told herself. I shouldn't have placed the onus on him. Dammit, Flea, this is your fault! If you hadn't escaped and run me halfway round Rome, I wouldn't have been behind schedule in the first place. Claudia's thoughts turned to the ransom demand. Two thousand gold pieces indeed! Where the hell did the kidnappers imagine Julia and Marcellus were going to lay their hands on a sum like that at short notice? For that matter, how was she? It had taken some doing, filling that ransom chest!
Come on, come on, where the hell are you? Time flipped back a couple of hours to Junius, standing in her atrium resplendent in a toga, his fingers dripping rings and his hair oiled slick. The sight of him had made her feel as though the floor had been ripped from under her. Time had become suspended.
'Borrow my husband's stuff,' she had said. 'Help yourself, it's still in the cellar,' and he had.
So much so that, when she saw him, just for an instant, it could have been Gaius standing in the hallway… Something had pricked inside her, misting up her eyes. Overweight and overbearing, Gaius had taken Claudia as the ultimate status symbol, a trophy to be wheeled out at important functions, look-at-me-I'm-not-just-rich-I'm-lucky. She, in turn, had married him for money. They'd each struck a deal, no more than that, and throughout the four years of the marriage, both had stuck fast to their bargain. (All right, if you're going to be pernickety, maybe Claudia had stretched the rules from time to time, but who the hell counts gambling, adultery and debt?) The point was, it had worked. Then one day he was gone. Snap. As fast as that. Alive one minute, laid out upon his bier the next.
But Junius was no ageing lardball and the moment quickly passed. Time — and its urgency — slammed her back to the present and she'd dispatched him to the Camensis, after which she'd changed into these smelly rags and rubbed some resin on to the pigskin patch before positioning it over her eye. When yells from the bath room indicated the battle against grime had resulted in a home win, she'd grabbed the newly scrubbed parasite and made her way to the Camensis. Later than she would have wished, but with four big burly fellows keeping watch, that shouldn't have been a problem.
The smell of rodents began to tickle in her nostrils. Claudia had already suspected that Flea was a pawn in a very deadly game, and now it looked as though Junius had been lured away, as well. But the young Gaul was no fool. He'd be on his guard.
Dammit, the run-around is an integral part of every kidnapper's pattern, a reminder of just who's in charge here. More often than not, this was every bit as important as the money. Was it more important? Supposing they'd brought Flavia along to Camensis as bait? Would Junius have rushed over? Tried to free her? Claudia's imagination ran riot.