‘But she’s here.’
A sandal remained poised in Claudia’s hand. ‘Say that again?’
‘That’s right, this is my second encounter with a-’ He let his voice trail off. Perhaps this wasn’t the time to mention words like spitting, snarling, hissing-or, indeed, cat. ‘Outside,’ he said instead. ‘About an hour ago.’
‘Are you sure it was Drusilla?’
He rolled up his sleeve and showed her the claw marks.
Men! Who needs ’em? One keeps you here under false pretences. One rates the shine on his breastplate higher than justice. One sells your secrets and one… One turns up when you least want to see him and then he doesn’t even have the decency to end your misery over images of small furry carcases ravaged by jackals. Claudia pushed hard against Orbilio’s chest.
‘Hey!’
It was, she decided, a thoroughly gratifying yelp that rang to the rafters. Before the splash drowned it out.
*
Say, twenty-four hours earlier, a friend or colleague had asked Marcus Cornelius Orbilio to define the word dignity, he would have had no problem. His answer would have mingled breeding with demeanour, propriety with self-possession, solemnity with honour. In short, he would have said, it is nobility of bearing-and said friend or colleague would have taken one look at Marcus Cornelius Orbilio and understood implicitly.
Then came the incident with Gisco the charioteer, calling at his house in the dead of night and (he imagined) flashing a short, sharp gelding knife into the bargain. As a result, half his ride along the Via Flaminia was preoccupied with the question of how dignified was it, a patrician of rank and seniority, legging it out of his own bedroom window like a common thief. He had reached Narni, where the Bridge of Augustus strides east across the valley and leaves the old road behind, before he felt close to redeeming himself. This, he told himself as his stallion’s hoofs crunched the weeds underfoot, is an emergency. It would not have helped Claudia’s cause, had he stayed to reason it out with Gisco. Thus it was, sporting a full set of dignities, that Orbilio had arrived at the Villa Pictor.
With great personal regret he observed the same thing could not be said at the moment.
And even now, when he thought decorum had reached its lowest ebb at the point where Sergius lent a sceptic arm to pull a waterlogged stranger out of his atrium pool, Orbilio discovered he had miscalculated.
His boot slipped on the sodden, sunken cushion and he crashed back into the water.
Taking his host in with him.
Oddly, it was not the loss of his dignity that concerned him, rather the emancipation of an almost illegal sense of jubilation. Orbilio had physically to force himself to stop grinning like a lunatic before Sergius mistook him for one and ejected him from the premises, while at the same time the flood of elation that swept through every artery was so great, he was in danger of paying tax on it.
So she hasn’t found someone else, then? She still feels the same.
Admittedly it would be difficult to explain to an outsider that being shoved backwards into a pool of cold water was Claudia’s way of showing affection, but Orbilio had no man to account to except himself.
And himself was more than satisfied with progress.
*
To the uninitiated, it might not be immediately obvious how a sleeping cat can bristle with indignation, but bristling Drusilla most certainly was.
The turned back, the stiff spiky coat, the refusal to open a single eyelid, those signs were plain enough, but the disdain with which she treated Claudia’s bolster, still bearing the impression of her head-now that was the clincher.
‘Think you can treat me like this, do you?’ the embattled form blazed. ‘Throw me down hillsides, pelt me with stones, disguise the trail with rhino and tiger dung, then expect me to hunt for my suppers? Well, fine. Fine. Just don’t expect portable pillows from me as well.’ Emphasizing her point, Drusilla butted even tighter against the foot of her bed, curling herself inwards like a dormouse and pointedly anchored her tail with her paw. The drawbridge was up.
Claudia focused on the ceiling. For a moment it was as though yesterday’s fog had swept back in to blind her, and when she tried to speak Drusilla’s name, a frog slipped out instead. In the far corner, paint from a cherub’s cheek was beginning to crack, twisting an innocent grin into a leer. Of course, the cat’s tantrum might have carried more weight, she reflected, had the dish of veal and flatfish not been licked spotless.
Behind her, in the atrium, a commotion started up and one ear flicked backwards.
‘Nothing to concern you, poppet.’ Claudia patted Drusilla’s crenellated backbone and felt a certain give in the spikes. ‘You stay there and unwind. I’ll let you know if there’s anything worth waking up for.’
She prised her bedroom door open and peeped through the crack. Not only Marcus, Sergius was also soaked to the skin-and as Orbilio confirmed his identity courtesy of his personal ring-seal, Euphemia was wringing the hem of Sergius’ tunic as though it was the neck of a chicken. The only other person in the atrium was Tulola.
‘Tell me, policeman,’ she drawled. ‘Do you like-’ She paused to run her index finger down Orbilio’s breastbone. ‘Cuddles?’
Orbilio was goggling. ‘I…beg your pardon?’ Tulola’s eyes flashed like the sunlight on the atrium pool. ‘My pet, sweetie. She’s called Cuddles.’
I should have guessed, thought Claudia, as the cheetah fixed Orbilio with the sort of stare it probably bestowed on the average gazelle. Drusilla’s nose suddenly twitched and her ears pricked forward as she caught the scent of her spotted cousin and Claudia clicked the door quietly to. Satisfied there was no threat of invasion, Drusilla settled back down and Claudia left her to drift back into her pretend slumber. Clearly finding yourself navigationally dysfunctional kicks a real dent in a cat’s pride.
Leaning her back against the flat of the door, Claudia considered her impending trial. In eight days’ time, Macer intended to bring her before a specially convened court consisting of one judge and some seventy-five professional jurists. Since women were strictly forbidden to plead in court, even for their own case, she would have to hire an advocate who was skilled in both rhetoric and law, yet who wouldn’t be above turning a blind eye to the succession of witnesses for the defence she intended to bribe in her favour. A local man was out of the question, she’d need one from Rome-and that gave her precious little time to recruit him. Damn you, Macer. Damn you to hell. It’ll be virtually impossible to keep this quiet now.
She wondered whether he could be right about Fronto being the mysterious arsonist. Surely, she mused as she paced the floor, no self-respecting arsonist would trek half a day north. Why contend with the swirling Tiber, which is in full spate at the moment, when you have literally thousands of vines on your doorstep? Good grief, Falcon Mountain’s just up the road and that’s smothered with grapes. No, Macer had to be wrong about Fronto, just as he was wrong about everything else. If there’s one thing a firebug takes pleasure in, it’s admiring his craftsmanship at close quarters.
With a subdued squeak, Drusilla curled tight into a ball, covering her eyes with her paw.
‘Admit it, you’re just blinded by this tarty tunic.’
A faint purr was offered in lieu of a handy olive branch.
Claudia leaned over the bed and tickled the cat under its unresisting chin. ‘Think this is bad? Wait till you meet the owner.’ Talk about loud taste.
‘Prrr.’ Drusilla allowed herself to be stroked into a deep and sprawling sleep, which somehow contrived with her being nestled in a lovely deep dent in the bolster which smelled of her mistress’s hair.
‘In her clothes, in her men, even her personal habits.’
‘Ffffff.’
Strangely enough, it was difficult to fathom exactly where sex fitted in. Sure, it was rammed at you from all angles, but judging from Tulola’s calm reaction when Claudia interrupted her frolics with Timoleon, the enjoyment was entirely on the gladiator’s part. No puffing, no panting, not even a telltale blush on cheek or neck or bosom from Tulola, and even the moans were not genuine. Why, Claudia wondered, peeling off the flame-coloured tunic, would Tulola fake it? She held the garment at arm’s length. Orange and blue, what a ghastly combination. Yet Tulola was the one person who could carry it off.