He paused. Cracked his knuckles. Spiked his hands through his hair in frustration.
“Therefore, Volso could not have killed his wife.”
Dawn was painting the sky a dusky heather pink when Claudia finally stood up. The first blackbird had started to sing from the cherry tree, mice made last-minute searches for beetles, and frogs began to croak from the margins of the lily pond. She shook the creases from her pale blue linen gown, smoothed pleats which had wilted in the heat, and forced half a dozen wayward ringlets back into their ivory comb.
The first of the slaves had begun to trickle home three hours ago. Gradually, the rest had staggered in, singing, belching, giggling under their breath, their footsteps and their voices restoring order to the silent house. Without their presence, it was as though the bricks and mortar had been in hibernation. Now it was a home again, for them as well as Claudia, the rafters resonating with their drunken squabbles and their laughter, the clang of a kicked pan here, the spluttered expletive from a banged shin there, the bawling of too many overtired children.
For most of the night, she and Orbilio had sat in silence in the moonlight, trying to figure out how Volso could have done it. Twice Marcus got up to fill the wine jar and fetch cheese, dates, and small cakes made from candied fruit, spices, and honey to help mop it up, but now, as dawn poked her head above the covers of the eastern horizon, the security policeman admitted defeat.
“He’s got away with it, hasn’t he?” he said, yawning. There was a shadow of stubble around his chin, she noticed. And lines round his eyes which didn’t come from lack of sleep. “The cold, conniving bastard is going to walk.”
Claudia stretched. Massaged the back of her neck. And smiled.
“You fetch the army and arrest him,” she said. “I’ll give you the proof.”
She glanced across at the garden wall, then back at her own house. Gotcha, you son of a bitch.
It started in the garden, it was fitting that it should end there, she supposed. By the time half a dozen legionaries came clunking in, their greaves and breastplates shining in the sun, Claudia had changed into a gown of the palest turquoise blue and was seated in the shade of the portico beside the fountain, taking breakfast. In her hand was a letter from her bailiff and the news was good. The spots were not contagious, he had written. According to the estate’s horse doctor, they were the result of eating tunnyfish. The grapes for Jupiter were on their way.
She should bloody well hope so, too. Caught up in the tragedy of yesterday, she had quite forgotten about sending a courier to fetch them, and maybe she’d call in at Fortune’s temple in the Cattle Market later to drop off a trinket or two. Fickle bitch, but not so bad when you boiled it down.
“You’ll pay for this!” Volso thundered as the soldiers dragged him down the path. “By Hades, I’ll have you in court for slander, Claudia Seferius, and I’ll take every penny that you own in damages. This house. The vineyards. I’ll have the bloody lot. You’ll be so poor, you won’t be able to afford the sewage from my gutter.”
“Save it for the lions, Volso.” She bit into a peach, and the juice dribbled down her chin. “You planned Callista’s murder like a military campaign and thought you’d get away with it.” She mopped the juice up with a cloth. “Only there were three people you underestimated.”
“Come on,” he taunted, his square face dark with rage. “Let’s hear this crackpot theory, you bitch, because believe me, it will make for interesting evidence at your slander trial.”
Behind the group, she watched Marcus Cornelius let the bronze statue of a horse absorb his weight. He hadn’t had time to change his tunic, yet she swore that, above the smell of soldiers’ sweat, the leathery scent emanating from Volso, and the pungent perfumes of the herbs in the flower beds — basil, thyme, and marjoram — she could detect a hint of sandalwood. An expression had settled on his face as he watched her which with anyone else, she would have interpreted as pride.
“Firstly, Volso, you underestimated the boy. He was young, keen, gullible, vulnerable, in fact, all the things you’d wanted him to be, and that was the problem. He was too young, too keen, too gullible.”
He ought to have picked someone who was greedy, not needy. The screams gave it away. Yes, he’d yelled as he’d been instructed. But the shrieks he’d let out were wild and exuberant. Whoops of pure joy. I’ve done it, they’d said. I’ve got away with the stash, the accomplice is outside, I am going to be RICH! She remembered the grin as wide as a barn. The dancing light of triumph in his eyes. That was not the expression of a thief who’d just strangled a woman in a burglary that had gone horribly wrong.
“Secondly, you underestimated my steward.”
Volso might run a tight ship next door, checking up for specks of dust and fingerprints on statues, taking the whip to his wife and his slaves if he found so much as one thing out of order. What he’d overlooked is that not everyone gets off on that level of control. It might work on the battlefield, but Claudia’s slaves wouldn’t know what a whip looked like, for gods’ sake, and Leonides wasn’t the type of steward to have his crew running around doing unnecessary tasks. The cellar was cleaned thoroughly, but only twice a year, and that was twice as often as any public temple.
She turned to Orbilio. “Did you find any of the substances I listed?”
“Oh yes. We found traces of them on his boots and tunic from where he’d bumbled around your cellar in the dark while he counted out the timing. Flour from the grinding wheel, cinnamon where it had spilled out from the sack, a vinegar stain, a smear of pitch, the corporal has the full list.”
“You planted that, you bastard,” Volso snarled.
“We didn’t plant your boot prints in the dust,” Marcus retorted. “The impression from a shoe is almost nonexistent unless there’s a body inside to make tracks.”
But the general wasn’t going down without a fight. “The fact that I was in the cellar proves nothing. In fact, I remember now. Two or three days ago, I called round to borrow some charcoals, ours had run out.”
Even the legionaries couldn’t stop sniggering. Paulus Salvius Volso running next-door to borrow some coals? Jupiter would turn celibate first!
Volso turned back to Claudia. “And the third person I’m supposed to have underestimated? That’s you, I imagine?”
“Good heavens, no.” Claudia shot him a radiant smile. “My dear Volso, that was your wife.”
Apart from the fact that frogs would grow wings before Volso came back early to check on his wife who had not been feeling well, had he not left Callista’s body sprawled on the bedroom floor, he might still have talked his way out of it. But what devoted husband wouldn’t have lifted the remains of his beloved onto the bed? Only a callous bastard of the highest order could think of leaving her in an ignominious and distorted heap for people to gawp at.
In death, Callista had had the last word after all.
The legionaries were gone, their prisoner with them. The tranquillity of the garden had returned, and there was no indication among the rose arbours and herbiaries of the tragedy that had taken place here. Not just one death, either, but three. Callista’s. The boy’s. And Volso’s to come in the arena.