I wasn’t, but go on.
‘We do that, him and me. I throw pots, he throws insults, then it’s forgotten.’ A big cat snarled as they passed its shed. ‘Quiet, Sheba!’ He paused by the ostrich pen. ‘May I walk with you a way?’
Intense grey eyes bored into hers. For a man who works all day with animals, she thought, you always manage to smell of citron and woodsmoke.
‘Why not?’
In silence they passed along a line of clipped laurels, the imminence of the storm intensifying the scent of the leaves. A flash of lightning silhouetted a rhino against the sky and a bear growled.
‘You have a farm in my homeland, I gather?’
‘Vineyards,’ she corrected. ‘Across the Tiber then half-a-day’s hard ride. Is that close to your stomping ground?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m from the coast, but like most other Etruscans you’ll meet, I was uprooted without a great deal of ceremony.’
She picked up on the sour note. ‘The Emperor’s Land Purchase Scheme strikes again, eh?’
‘Worse than that. I lived in Carrera before Augustus turned it into a marble quarry.’
‘Well, if it’s any consolation, Corbulo, you shifted for a good cause. When you do take those show beasts to Rome, you’ll see half your motherland slapped over the temples.’ The Oil Market is positively dazzling.
‘Don’t start on about the Games, Claudia,’ he said, but this time there was a jocular tone to his words. ‘I’m getting enough of an earful from Sergius. He expects bloody miracles.’
Was it the distant rumble of thunder that made the air electric? Or the proximity of the Etruscan?
‘From what I saw of the elephant, you’ve delivered bloody miracles. Is he really as ill as Taranis says?’
‘Nothing’s ever like Taranis says. I think you’ll find Sergius has miscalculated on the amount of wine an empty stomach can cope with.’
‘They say things come in threes,’ she replied carefully. ‘Fronto, then Coronis. It makes me wonder who’s next.’ The trainer’s face creased into a grin. ‘Well, stop,’ he said. ‘Accidents happen all the time.’
‘Fronto was no accident, and Macer has me pegged for a murderess, remember?’
‘Macer has straw for brains. None of us think you killed Fronto, and Sergius intends to draft a complaint to the Emperor himself when he’s feeling a bit more chipper. Now let’s turn back, those clouds look ugly.’ Claudia couldn’t decide whether the deafening noise was thunder or the thumping of her heart. It wasn’t that she was drawn to him physically-he did not, after all, have the desperate magnetism that, say for instance, Marcus Cornelius possessed by the boatload (as of course did hundreds of others whose names would no doubt come to her later)-but the intensity of those tundra eyes was incredibly flattering, and who doesn’t respond to that? Moreover, he was strong and he really wasn’t bad looking once you got past the double bump that proclaimed his heritage. Most of all, Corbulo looks the type who takes his time-and aeons had passed since Claudia Seferius had felt the slow touch of a man’s hand…
Plus which, unlike an affair with a certain security policeman, there would be no repercussions afterwards. It was certainly something to think about.
‘I’ll venture another hundred paces,’ she said, hoping the rumbles would drown the hoarseness of her voice. What did he see in Tulola-apart from the obvious? ‘Alone, if you don’t mind.’
You don’t associate Corbulo with a role in the harem. ‘I can’t leave you out here.’
He was as far removed from the likes of Timoleon as Neptune from a wood nymph.
‘I can look after myself,’ she assured him. Always have. Always will. ‘Goodnight.’
‘Very well, then.’ He reached for her hand and kissed the back of it. ‘If you insist.’
Surprisingly he did not retrace his steps, but turned to the right instead. ‘It’s you who needs help,’ she quipped. ‘The house is straight on.’
He hesitated. ‘I don’t sleep in the house,’ he called back. ‘My quarters back on to the elephant house.’ There was a moment’s silence before he added, ‘If you should ever want to call on me.’
She walked on up the hill, her thoughts chasing each other like puppies in hay. It made sense-in retrospect. She’d never seen Corbulo with Tulola, simply made an assumption. Which changed everything.
A bolt of white lightning shattered the night, its jagged veins scarring the sky. Claudia shivered. There was a primeval quality to storms without rain. Flashes of whitehot fire. Crashes of Jupiter’s thundersticks. She pulled her wrap tight and watched the night tear itself apart. In their sheds in the valley, the wild beasts roared and bucked and faced down the elements. Up here, familiar shapes contorted into sinister strangers. Mundane branches of gnarled oak became the twisted limbs of fiends. The perky stream that gave the Pictors their water turned into a menacing river of blood.
It’s getting to me, she thought. The strain is beginning to tell.
The wind began to howl through the trees. Time to turn back. She wished now she’d brought a brand to light her way. Perhaps she should follow the brook? Dammit, she’d forgotten the hedge that fenced in the gazelles. Her palla snagged on the thorns. Damn!
The path. Where was it?
A barn owl, white and silent, swooped for the safety of the canopy.
Uneasy now, Claudia stumbled through the undergrowth, tripping on a stone, stubbing her toe on a fallen branch…
Far below, the house shone in a blaze of light. It was just a question of reaching it…
A wild-eyed doe crashed through the brambles and Claudia cried out. She could taste juniper in the air, and sickly sweet manna. Bats! There’s a bat in my hair! But it was just a briar, which drew blood when she pulled free. High above, the wind conducted a malevolent orchestra. Poplars whistled, chestnuts wailed and there was a tuneless flute in the pines. Then, suddenly, the path showed clear in a flare of white.
Dear Diana. I thought I’d never find you.
Blindly she raced down the hill, heedless of rocks that trip and roots that trap, and only when she was well clear of the woods did she begin to slow down. Claudia Seferius, pull yourself together. This is foolish. She brushed away cobs of blood where the briar had scratched. Extremely foolish.
Yet the sense of evil was all-pervasive…
Ridiculous. Fancy letting yourself be frightened by a storm! Now get a grip. It won’t do, walking through the atrium with every goddamned bone rattling.
Resisting the urge to belt the rest of the way, Claudia decided to beat the demons by singing. That, and the rumpus from the menagerie, should put the wind up even the Minotaur. She was passing the monkey house and was well into the second verse of a bawdy winehouse ballad when her scalp began to prickle. Half of her, the educated half, said this is silly, slow down, you’re on edge. But the other half, the half that remembered growing up in the slums, said stand by your instincts and remember that in situations like this, only one word applies.
Runlikehell.
But she could not run fast enough.
Out of the blackness a hand lashed out and caught at her wrap. She shrugged the palla free but the hand was prepared for that. Like a striking cobra, it lunged at her flying tunic. She heard that tear, too, but the grip was solid and she was spun helplessly round. Suddenly a sack was flung over her head, blinding her, pinning her arms. Frantically she scrabbled and clawed, but with the advantage of sight, her assailant twisted and dodged, and none of the kicks found their target. The cloth muffled her screams. An arm clamped round her waist like a band round a barrel. She heard thunderclaps and bellows and terrified roars from the pens. The rhino charged its shed wall, the elephant trumpeted. Yelling and fighting, she was dragged backwards into the bushes. Another rip, as her hem caught on holly.
Rape! The bastard intended to rape her!
A second vice locked round her neck, forcing her head back. The sacking rasped against her cheek, clogged her mouth, blocked her nostrils. She could hear herself gagging on the dust. Desperately she tried to break free, but the armlock tightened and she began to choke.