As Pylades began to quote a few lines of Virgil, appropriate to the occasion, Claudia noticed the hint of fluff on Leon’s upper lip and sympathized with Mosul. Already the lad’s concentration had veered towards a shapely ankle protruding from the long, white tunic of a flautist, although from this angle, Claudia could not tell w nether the joint belonged to a youth or a girl.
Mosul completed his purification procedure and resumed his place next to Kamar. Pylades, keen to give Cal a good send-off, was now quoting Sappho and Claudia glanced round the crowd. Strange. Not a military uniform in sight. Not that she minded, of course! The greater the distance between the army and Mistress Seferius the better at the moment, but all the same, it struck her as odd, no official attendance at a funeral. The Oriental, she noticed, had melted away as invisibly as he had appeared, but right at the back, Lavinia’s tall field hand had appeared, his ebony skin shining in the sunlight. At his shoulder, the young Jewish girl appeared to be pleading with him, and Lalo spread his weathered outdoor hands in silent pacification, as though to say ‘not now’, and Claudia made a mental note to find out how long Ruth had been with Lavinia and where she had come from before. Her Latin was perfect, barely a hint of a Judaean accent, but it was strange she hadn’t adapted to Roman attire, and equally strange that Lavinia didn’t object. If only to spare her servant from Mosul’s cold and contemptuous stare.
Observing the nimbleness of Lalo’s olive-picking fingers and the raw, damaged knuckles, Claudia decided that it wouldn’t hurt to enquire how long he’d been in the old woman’s employ, either. What exactly was his role within her smallholding? For a field hand, he was exceptionally familiar with his mistress, even to sleeping in her bed. Did he bully her? That seemed unlikely, but why should he be here today? Had Lavinia sent him to watch and report back? Or was he paying his own last respects?
As Pylades wound up his oration, the pre-paid sobbing took over and branches of cypress were solemnly laid over Cal’s body, covering for ever that mop of corn-coloured hair. With a lump in her throat, Claudia inched through the crowd. Lecher or not, the Greek ought to know his efforts in ensuring Cal didn’t journey alone on this tragic morning were appreciated. When she saw him turn to Kamar and mutter, ‘I can’t take much more of this,’ under his breath, Claudia froze.
‘Be patient,’ the physician replied. ‘It’ll be over soon enough.’
Pylades snorted. ‘That’s fine for you to say,’ he flashed back, ‘you’re a doctor, but me! I have a business to run!’
The hiss of the flames sweeping over the pyre drowned the rest of the interchange, but in any case Claudia could stomach no more. Sickened by the callousness, she reeled away from the congregation, to be swallowed up amongst the basketweavers and the moneychangers, the fishmongers and the wheelwrights.
Did no one care? A boy dies, and nobody here gives a damn?
Forget Kamar. He’d pronounced death by falling and nothing would sway him from that conclusion, and in any case who’s to call him a liar? The evidence was literally going up in smoke, and as to a few bloodstains on the rock, why, you’re overwrought, my dear, those could be anything-fishguts, a cracked shin, in fact are you sure that it’s blood? It looks very like paint, you know… Turtleface’s stock would probably soar as a result of the calm and professional way he dealt with another neurotic attention seeker!
By the basilica, she pulled close to the wall to let past a bloodied carcass of beef. Bluebottles swarmed over the meat and a mongrel trotted behind, pausing to lick the odd drip of blood.
If the priest with the shiny black eyes won’t let even his own acolyte near the spring, he’d not wish to become embroiled in a scandal which might cast a cloud over his nymph.
Leon was too clumsy, too obsessed with galloping hormones to care, which only left Pylades-and far from being the high-minded deliverer of Lake Plasimene, bringer of trade and prosperity and cures for the sick, Pylades turned out to be just another shallow, self-seeking money-grubber, concerned more with his daily schedule than the boy who had died!
When it came to matters of conscience, it was clearly a case of the bland leading the bland.
‘You wish to steal my boat again, yes?’
The voice in her ear made her jump, causing Claudia to stub her toe on the kerbstone. What else could account for the colour flooding her face? ‘Ah.’ The grey rowboat. ‘Um-’
He was leaning against the side of a barber’s shop, the sole of one foot flat against the stonework as he carved a small piece of wood with a knife. Today his long hair was tied back at the nape, though there was no change in the depth of the accent. ‘Is “ah-um” Latin for yes or for no?’ the Spaniard enquired and despite his dark, dark eyes being hidden in the shadows, Claudia knew they were laughing.
‘I assumed the boat was the property of Atlantis,’ she said stiffly. Dammit, he had no right to creep up on her like that! ‘However, I wish to thank you for saving my life yesterday.’
‘No need,’ he replied, flashing a sharp glance. ‘The bear, also, was trespassing.’
Also?
‘You know, this man Tuder-’ he shrugged expressively ‘-for a banker, he have very good taste. Maybe I show you around? The villa, the grounds. You wish to see, yes?’
Above the hum of conversation from the barber’s came the sound of iron scissors snipping at hair, bronze knives being stropped, the sizzle of curling tongs heated in charcoals and whetstones being lubricated by spitting.
‘I wish to see, no.’
The Spaniard grunted, and the grunt could have meant anything.
Funny, but despite the lane reeking with the wolf’s grease used to cure baldness, with steam and the dust from the scrape of their stools, Claudia could smell only a subtle blend of woodshavings and pine…
‘I come anyway,’ he insisted. ‘Three hours from now. I wait by the jetty and-’ he cut short her protest with a flash of white teeth ‘-I let you row, if you want.’
Claudia willed her feet to start walking, because the Spaniard made no effort to prise himself away from the wall.
‘You know,’ he was addressing her retreating back-so she might have misheard, what with the babble of gossip from inside the barber’s and a chariot rattling past but it sounded for all the world as though he said, ‘you look just as good with your clothes on.’
Accompanied, perhaps, by a chuckle.
*
Who was he? Her mind whirling like a mill-race, Claudia elbowed her way down the street, careless of a packmule loaded with grain. The owner cursed roundly as he bent to scoop up the trail of spilled corn, but Claudia didn’t hear. Who the hell was the stranger who, with the utmost calm and composure, circled a blood-crazed bear with a spear in its eye? The same man who issues veiled warnings against trespassers on the island, yet conversely offers to show her around? Who mocks her state of near nudity without enquiring as to her health after so narrow an escape?
Who was the stranger who, let’s be honest, had strip-searched her soul yesterday?
A picture flashed into her mind. Of him standing at the edge of the clearing, one shoulder bare as he leaned on his lance. Today he wore a tunic of watercress green and the gold had not been restricted to the hem, but was embroidered into oak leaves and acorns. What job, she wondered, swerving past a pedlar, what job on Tuder’s estate would befit a man of twenty-five, twenty-six with broad shoulders and strong, corded muscles? She exchanged five sesterces for an ostrich-feather fan from the pedlar. Tuder had a wife, had he not? Lais, someone said her name was. Closer to sixty than fifty they said. Would Lais have need of a slave with smouldering good looks? To explain the gold thread in his cloth?