“I am not leaving you alone and that’s final.”
Jupiter, Juno, and Mars, that’s all I need. The only slave left on the entire premises turns out to be as stubborn as a stable full of mules! She looked at the rigid line to his mouth, the square set to his chin, and resisted the urge to punch him on it. Remind me of the position again?
A storm threatens to wipe out this year’s harvest.
The offering to propitiate the god who threatens that storm isn’t coming.
There’s no one available to go and fetch it.
And the only person who could help is throwing tantrums.
In short, if she wanted a courier, Claudia would have to trek out in this ghastly, fly-blown, disease-ridden heat and hire one herself, a role her bodyguard would be very happy for her to undertake, because at least he could be on hand when robbers, thieves, and rapists set upon them.
Was there, she wondered, anything else which that bitch Fortune could throw in her path today?
The goddess’s reply came almost at once.
She delivered it in the form of a bloodcurdling scream.
Which came from Claudia’s very own garden.
With its stately marble statues and rearing bronze horses, Claudia’s garden was a testament to her late husband’s wealth and social status. A red-tiled portico provided shade and offered shelter from the rain, the water from its terra cotta gutters collected in oak butts to irrigate the vast array of herbs and flowers, whose scent in turn fragranced the air throughout the year. Paved paths crisscrossed through clipped lavender and rosemary, while topiaried laurels and standard bay trees gave the garden depth and height. In the centre, a pool half covered by the thick, white, waxy blooms of water lilies reflected sunshine, clouds, or stars, according to the weather. And all around, fountains splashed and chattered, making prisms as they danced, as well as an attractive proposition for birds in need of something more refreshing than a dust bath.
That such a place of beauty and tranquillity could be shattered by such a scream was nothing short of outrage.
The instant they had heard it, Claudia and her bodyguard went flying down the atrium. From then, it was as though the sequence of events had been frozen. Time slowed. She might have been watching them unfold by following their progress on a carved relief.
The screech came from a young man scrambling down the fig tree which grew against the wall. Unlike her villa in the country — indeed, unlike everybody’s villa in the country — this house didn’t have the room to follow the traditional pattern of four single-storey wings around a central courtyard. For a start, it had two upper galleries for bedchambers and linen storage, each accessed by separate staircases, and a cellar which was accessed by steps outside the kitchens. The only possible site for a garden was behind the house and adjacent to its neighbour’s. With one million people crammed into the city, space was at a premium and houses, even those of the wealthy, invariably butted up against each other. Claudia’s was no exception. To the right, she adjoined the house of a Syrian glass merchant, while her garden at the rear adjoined a general’s. Paulus Salvius Volso, to be precise. Admittedly a loud-mouthed, drunken bully of a man, but all the same it was from his premises that the youth was making his rather hurried exit.
What he’d been up to in the general’s house was clear from the array of golden goblets and silver platters which bulged out of the sack slung over his left shoulder. The contents nearly blinded her when the sunlight caught them. He was halfway down the fig when he let loose a second shriek.
It took a moment before Claudia realised that they were not screams of alarm, but squeals of wild abandon. The grin on his face as he jumped down was as wide as a barn.
“Hey!” Junius called out. “Hey, you! Stop right there!”
The boy spun round in surprise, but didn’t falter as he bolted towards the wicker gate on the far side of the garden.
“Stop!” This was a different voice. A soldier’s bark. “Stop, or I’ll shoot!”
Junius was already racing down the path to try and cut the thief off, so he didn’t bother looking round to see who was shouting from the top of her neighbour’s wall. Claudia did. It was Labeo, one of the general’s henchmen and a retired captain of archers. The thief had used a ladder to make good his escape. His mistake lay in not kicking it away. Labeo had shinned up it like a monkey.
The boy shot a quick glance at the bodyguard charging down the path towards him. Halfway to the gate, he knew he could outsprint him. Claudia knew it, too, and so did Labeo. On a public holiday, the street outside would be heaving. One more thief lost in a crowd.
“Last chance,” Labeo boomed. “Or I’ll fire.”
Claudia saw the grin drop from the boy’s face. Realised that he hadn’t actually seen Labeo until now. Thought it was a bluff being called by someone from inside Claudia’s house, not from the top of the wall.
He turned. Saw the archer. Dropped the sack.
“All right, all right,” he yelled. “Have it!”
Gold, bronze, copper, and silver spilled over the pinks and the lilies. Ivory figurines knocked the heads off the roses.
What happened next would stay with Claudia for the rest of her life.
Watching the cascade of precious artifacts, she first saw its reflection in the pool. An arc of white, flying left to right.
Heard a soft hiss.
Looked up.
The arrow hit the boy in the centre of his back. She heard the splinter of bone. The soft yelp that sprang from his lips.
For three paces he didn’t stop running. Then his arms splayed. His legs buckled. Red froth burst from his mouth. Still he kept going. It was only when he reached the gate and tried to unbar it that he realised he couldn’t make it. Junius had caught up by now. Was cradling the boy in his lap. Claudia could hear him whispering words of comfort as she flew to his side.
“Shh, lad.” Junius wiped the fringe from the boy’s face and patted his cheek. “It’s all right. There’s a physician on his way now.”
His expression was haunted as it met Claudia’s unvoiced question.
“You d-don’t understand.” The boy’s head rolled wildly and his breath bubbled red. “N-not s-supposed to b-be like this.” Terrified eyes bored into Claudia’s. She could see that they were brown. Brown as an otter. “I’m n-not going to d-die, am I?” he asked.
“Of course not,” she said, only there was something wrong with her eyes, because her vision was misty. “It’s just a wound, like Junius says.” Her voice was cracked, too. “You’ll be back on your feet in a week.”
But that wasn’t quite true.
The otter was already swimming the Styx.
For his part, Labeo had no sympathy for what he termed a dead piece of scum. Indeed, he would have pulled the arrow out of the boy’s back to see how the head had compacted upon impact, had he not been prevented by Mistress Snooty from next-door here, slapping his hand away. What a bitch, he thought. Shooting me glares which would poleaxe a lesser man. What did she expect me to do? Let the thieving toe-rag go?
“The general’s instructions was to shoot all intruders, whether they be on the premises or in the process of escaping,” he informed her. “And it don’t matter to me whether this piece of filth were carrying a dagger or not,” he added coldly when taken to task about killing an unarmed, defenceless fifteen-year-old boy. “He were guilty, and the proof, if it’s necessary, lies all over your flower beds. Ma’am.”
He weren’t accountable to her anyway. The bitch.
But dammit, the sulky cow just would not let it rest. On and on she went, about how young the boy was, and hadn’t anyone considered what had driven the poor lad to resort to stealing, because you could see he wasn’t used to it, no one in their right mind would run off up a busy street with a sack stuffed full of golden objects and not have the army after them, and anyway what seasoned professional would go round leaving ladders against walls to make life easy for his pursuers?