Anyone, that is, except his boss! Unlikely, the trumped-up little jackass had grudgingly conceded, when he had finally bothered to call round late this morning. Though in his view that did not let Orbilio off the hook, and if he was covering up for someone, he said, may Jupiter help them both, because he bloody wouldn't, and get that bitch out of here, he knew about the Widow Seferius and her activities were not always legal! So much as another toenail across this fancy carved threshold and never mind house arrest, he'd lock her up for conspiracy.
The cat poured herself over Claudia's shoulder, purring into her ear.
'That man, Drusilla, is an imbecile.'
Unfortunately, though, his logic was a hill fortress which could not be stormed. Fact, he said. The house had been in
Orbilio's family for three generations. That rather cut the possibilities. Fact. It was impossible to date the remains, sufficient to say they weren't recent, but then Orbilio had lived there for eight years, was it? Oh, nine… he'd forgotten how young aristocrats are when they marry! Fact. There were no records of work to the storeroom, but then a murderer would hardly keep any, and none of the current household had been there for more than three years. The previous incumbents sold lock, stock and barrel one sunny morning down by the Tiber by Orbilio's wife, he believed, who had then absconded with the money she'd raised and, dear me, yes, the contents of Orbilio's money box, as well. Fact. Divorce followed soon after, did it not? Oh, and by the way. Where was his ex-wife these days?
Claudia had been ushered out of the door at that point, with Doodlebug squirming under her arm and Flea manacled once more to her wrist, and the last thing she'd heard was Orbilio calmly reminding his boss that his wife had eloped with a Lusitanian sea captain and was currently living the life of a lotus eater and also, as a point of order, she hadn't taken one damned coin from his money box. She'd sold the slaves instead.
Drusilla's purring stopped abruptly, giving way to a low growl. Hackles began to rise. Out in the courtyard, with the sun opaque and watery as it began to sink below the heavy, honeyed clouds, Doodlebug spotted the demon and proved again that he was perhaps not as fully house-trained as Claudia had led Marcus to believe.
Animal expletives filled the air. Quite an unusual sight, she thought, a cat treeing a dog. But no sooner had Doodlebug recovered from the biggest leap of his eight short weeks, he was off again, having learned that demons are also capable of reaching the flat surfaces of sundials. Round and round the monster chased him — through the roses, past the purslane, tearing up the chives and oregano, until… splash! Doodlebug found the one place where he was safe. Slap, bang in the middle of the goldfish pond.
'There you go, tiger.' Claudia waded in to rescue the soggy bundle and thought, I'll wring Flavia's neck the way I'm wringing out this poor puppy. I'll wring it so she turns midnight blue and squeaks! 'And as for you, you should be ashamed of yourself, you contemptible Egyptian feline-' Egypt! Claudia dumped Doodlebug into the arms of a passing gardener. Egypt. Why, for instance, would Flavia choose the dress of an Egyptian? Her hem making tiny puddles on her office floor, Claudia spread out a second sheet of parchment.
On the left, she wrote 'Why Egyptian?' and on the right, wrote 'Dreadlocks.' A plaited wig would disguise Flavia's hair as kohl would alter the shape of her eyes, and the dynamic costume would draw eyes away from the face. No greater significance than that. Pity.
She shook the spare ink off her nib. 'Why the need for money?' Was Flavia planning a trip? Say, to Egypt? For gods' sake, forget Egypt. It was only a bloody disguise.
The quill hovered above the inkwell like a hawk poised to strike. 'Westerners.'
Was Flavia planning to move west? To Ostia? To Sardinia? (Heaven forbid, to Iberia!) What scrambled logic went on inside that seething teenage brain? And who the hell, she scratched on the parchment, were these wretched 'Brothers of whores'? A giant blob of ink deposited itself on the parchment and slowly spread itself outwards.
Claudia allowed her mind to radiate outwards with it. Something Julia had said, right at the beginning. Her fingers drummed the desk. Not the Serving Women re-enactment, something else. Connected with music… Apollo. That was it. Flavia's preoccupation with Apollo. Typical teenage crush, of course, this yearning for the long-haired son of Jupiter, who plays a mean tune on the lyre. Show me a girl who hasn't fallen for a balladeer at some stage in her life and I'll show you a heart made of granite! But Apollo. God of music, poetry and healing. Apollo. Who drives his fiery chariot across the sky. Apollo, the sun god, worshipped by the Egyptians as Ra- Egyptians! In a swirl of pale-blue linen, Claudia raced across the peacock mosaic to the atrium, to the great Nile fresco which covered the wall. Egyptians! To whom the land where the sun sets, the land to the west, represents the dark realm of death. The underworld. Goddammit, the land of the Westerners.
Her eyes scanned upwards. Beyond the yawning hippos and the thrashing crocodiles. Beyond elegant papyrus plants, date palms and soaring pyramids. Higher, even, than the disc which represented Ra himself. Because there, in the top right-hand corner, was what she was looking for. Stylised symbols of birds, of human body parts, of animals proliferated in meaningless, vertical blocks, but there, nestling between the owl and the foot, was the hieroglyph Claudia had sought. The eye. The painted eye of the falcon god, Horus, the sacred emblem of the Pharaoh.
Not brothers of whores, you clot. No wonder it made no bloody sense — Flea had misheard.
Flavia had talked about that self-styled mystical cult who called themselves 'The Brothers of Horus'.
There was an Egyptian connection, after all.
Chapter Sixteen
The cult's headquarters comprised two rooms on the top floor of an apartment block in the artisan quarter of the Viminal, right on the corner where Pear Street meets the herbalist's. To advertise its presence, a stylised kohl-rimmed eye — the Eye of Horus — complete with trademark 'teardrop' was painted on the outside a full cubit high. Claudia paused in the alleyway where, thanks to towering six-storey buildings, the sun never penetrated and cricked her neck upwards. The lines were strong, the colours fresh on the giant almond eye which stared out across the city with such haughty indifference and, as she pressed her way up the stairs through the breakfast bustle, Claudia dredged up what few snippets she'd gleaned about this mystical religious body.
An Egyptian called Mentu, in an imagined belief that his claim to the royal throne had been usurped, had set up his own court sixty or so miles north-west of Rome. Here, styling himself Pharaoh Mentu I, he rigidly practised all things Egyptian, from civil law to agriculture, religion to apparel and Rome — ever tolerant of free speech and foreign religions — laughed its pixie boots off.
'Silly bugger,' they hooted. 'Hasn't he heard Egypt joined the Empire? The province has been ours these eighteen years!'
And far from putting a stop to Mentu's practices, Rome set him up as a laughing stock, the butt of a million jokes in which he was derided as a harmless, gormless fool. And that was pretty well the limit of Claudia's knowledge. From time to time, she'd seen his followers shaking sistrums and spreading what they called 'The Word of Ra' and had dismissed them as mindless automatons. They might style themselves the Brothers of Horus; Claudia preferred the term Pyramidiots!
This being the school holidays, the stairs of the apartment block rang with the clump of eager little feet, with bouncing balls and rolling hoops, a dropped marble here, a toy soldier there, women bustling home with loaves hot from the baker's, jugs of wine from the taverns. Men in stained work tunics blew hurried kisses to their wives and ruffled the heads of their children as they skidded down the corridor, their satchels slung over their shoulders, scurrying off to work. On the top floor, Claudia leaned against the rail to get her breath back. It was quieter up here, the only traffic being a rheumy-eyed crone in black widow's weeds setting off with her market basket in the crook of her elbow, and an old greying mongrel nibbling at his flea bites. Advancing towards the Brothers' door, the appetising aromas of fried sausages and fresh bread which had accompanied her up the stairwell were beaten back by the smoke of incense resin.