'Oh, dear.' She frowned. "That looks nasty.' Actually, she couldn't see the wound through the thick wodge of linen.
Geb. Keeper of the Central Store, in charge of the smooth domestic running of the commune. Geb. A kind of godfather figure. The hairy godfather, who might well have allocated chores to Flavia.
'Less serious than it looks,' said the second man. His skin was dark, verging on swarthy and there was a blue stubble line round his jaw. 'Light scalding, no more.'
'Light?' growled Geb. 'That lousy bitch tipped half a ruddy pan of sauce over me.'
'An accident, I'm sure,' and now the second man held a warning in his voice, except this time the warning was for Geb. He glanced up at Claudia and she noticed his clothes were damp at the back from the rain. 'You're new here, aren't you?'
She wondered how he could tell. 'Yes,' she gushed. 'Praise be to Ra.'
'Praise be to Ra,' they both echoed back, but the enthusiasm was dim.
'Put your finger there,' the bandager instructed his patient.
'I can't reach.' Geb winced as he twisted, and Claudia stepped in to fill the breach.
'Allow me,' she said cheerfully, holding the linen while the knot was tied off. Neither man smelled of anything except the regulation commune unguent — cloves and myrrh.
Neither man offered his thanks, either! The first concentrated on checking his new fabric skin, the second on rolling up the remaining bandage and stuffing it, plus a pot of creamy yellow unguent, back inside his satchel. 'I'm Shabak,' he grunted. 'Doctor, dentist, apothecary. Any problems, see me.' And with that he was off, striding down the corridor, his blue jaw shiny in the lamplight.
'Want something, do you?' Geb refused her offer to help him back in to his shirt.
'My puppy,' she said. The search for Doodlebug would take her to places where Flavia might be skivvying. 'I expect he's in the-'
'No brother is permitted personal possessions.'
'I know that and you know that,' Claudia trilled, 'but unfortunately Doodlebug is too young to read the rule book. He'll be pining for me.'
'I dare say,' Geb said dryly. 'But he won't be doing it in my jurisdiction. Only animals allowed inside my kitchens are dead ones.'
And just in case she didn't get the message, Geb, the hairy godfather, the Keeper of the Central Store, stood with his broad hands on his hips, blocking her way.
On the other side of the wall, a fifteen-year-old girl who hated the name she'd been allocated, sobbed into her greasy, splattered tunic. It was an accident, surely Master Geb could see that? She'd turned round, struggling with the heavy pan and with the burning heat which was coming through to her fingers, despite the cloth around them, and she'd cannoned into him.
It was an accident.
Around her, pans and skillets clattered and scraped, iron upon iron, bronze upon bronze. Steam and smoke bubbled up from the ovens and cauldrons and washbowls, obscuring the overhead hanging bunches of herbs, the smell of frying fish and baked bread, roast goat and garlic vying for attention. Now that the main hall had been fed, it was time to serve the Pharaoh and his Holy Council, and they didn't settle for poxy beans and onions and a chunk of braised pork!
The reminder of the cooked pig made her snivel louder. So much for equality. Flavia sniffed. Tasks are allocated according to contribution, and hers had been a few trinkets. Bastard! Not for the first time, she cursed her foster father for diddling her out of the ransom. Stingy, rotten, skinflint bastard. Thanks to him, she was scrubbing dishes and… and tipping anchovy sauce over the Keeper of the Store!
With a wail, she ran out of the kitchens, tears of self-pity streaming down her cheeks as she hunkered behind the charcoal shed.
'I didn't mean it! I didn't mean to scald him!'
She gulped back the sobs. They said he had a fearful temper, Master Geb. Not the type who beats you then forgets it. Geb liked to simmer for a while and then devise the punishment.
She blew her nose hard.
She wished she'd never come here.
She wished she'd never heard of the Brothers of Horus.
She wished someone would come to rescue her.
She wished she could get out. Go back home.
But in her heart, she knew that she couldn't. That, somehow — she couldn't say why — but somehow Flavia knew she was destined to stay in this valley for ever.
Claudia had tried sailing with the current. It had not found her Flavia and goddammit, the sand in Junius' hourglass was running perilously low. She looked at Geb, standing four-square in front of the doorway to the kitchens, his damp hair sticking to his forehead and decided to sail upstream.
'My puppy is only eight weeks old.' Oops. Her elbow accidentally nudged Geb's bandaged body as she swept past. 'I'll check the kitchens anyway!'
Perhaps flinching slowed him down. Perhaps Geb was the type to note a grudge and retaliate later. Perhaps he truly didn't care. Either way, Claudia swept unchallenged into the hustle and the bustle, the clouds and the condensation and, using her search for Doodlebug as cover, checked out the kitchen staff. Patently unused to charcoal ovens and iron griddles, to spits and spatulas and strainers, nevertheless they were having a whale of a time. Gales of laughter mingled with chopping, pounding, pouring, whisking, while controversy over which way up the gridiron went combined with tastings and testings and estimates on quantity.
'Where's that clumsy bitch sloped off to?'
Geb had either forgotten Claudia, or his priorities lay elsewhere. He was intent on finding the girl who'd mistaken him for a herring and dressed him with anchovy sauce.
'When I get my hands on her, I'll stripe her hide, she'll think she's a bloody zebra for a week! Have you finished yet?' He turned his bellowing on Claudia. 'I told you, before, you won't find a live animal inside my kitchens.' He swiped his damp fringe out of his eyes. 'Now you're in the way and I've a fucking schedule to adhere to.'
No Doodlebug. No Flavia!
Since kohl around the eyes wouldn't last a minute in this vaporous atmosphere, faces were scrubbed and clean and clothes were comfy tunics. Claudia would have picked Flavia out at once.
If she 'd been here.
Big cats keep quiet at night. The night is for listening. For waiting, for sleeping, for hiding. The night is for keeping your own counsel and your own silence. The night means not giving yourself away.
Different codes applied to those caged up inside the dark caverns under the arena. They had not been fed for a week and they were mad with starvation, with anger, with fear and with loathing. They did not know when they would eat, indeed, if they would eat. They roared their resentment at the whole human race, and few in Rome failed to hear it.
For those humans chained in underground chambers nearby, the echoing rage was especially bloodcurdling.
In his shackles, the Armenian who'd been brought in earlier sat in a pool of filthy sludge which showed no signs of draining away and listened to the angry beasts roaring their hatred into the hot summer night. He had no fear of death, not after the cruelty his master had put him through these past seven years, and was merely glad that, in killing him, he had spared others a similar ordeal.
Aye, he thought, flexing his stiffening muscles. It's a strange thing, life. Never how you plan it. Subservient by nature, the Armenian had only ever wanted to serve others. Finally, in his last act on earth, it looked as though he had. But in a manner more intricate than he could have imagined.
He was not afraid of death, or what lay beyond it. Once Saturday was over, the real adventure would begin.
So while the prisoners around him cursed and prayed and sobbed and raged, the Armenian closed his ears to the big cats' savage growls and plaintive roars which echoed into these subterranean chambers and set his mind to wondering what crime the prisoner who'd occupied these chains before him had committed.