For, contrary to popular opinion, the archer is not as good as his arrow, he is only ever as good as his aim.
*
It was the sound of snoring, audible above the trumpeting of the elephants and the honking of the seals, that interrupted Claudia’s train of thought. Sprawled on his back on a marble seat beside the fishpond, his mouth wide open, Pallas dreamed of self-shelling lobsters and an eighteenth way to cook sucking-pig. Beneath the bench, a column of ants and a cluster of flies competed for the remnants of his lunch, but the wine seemed to have been spared and it seemed a pity to let it go to waste. She was on to her second glass before the inevitable fit of coughing woke him up.
‘Darling girl, what a pleasant surprise.’ Pallas gulped gratefully at the glass thrust in front of him.
‘Me or the wine?’
‘Both,’ he said chivalrously, heaving himself upright and straightening his tunic. ‘Although I feel slightly disadvantaged, caught in so undignified a posture. Are you recovered from last night’s shenanigans? That looks nasty.’ He pointed to the marks on her throat.
‘I’m still sore,’ she admitted, ‘but the lividity is misleading. Don’t tell Macer, though. I might need to trade on his sympathy.’
‘Now there, oh yes, there’s a man who’s sharper than he looks.’ Pallas shot her a cryptic look.
‘Sharp? If that imbecile has his way, I shall be standing before a judge in six days’ time.’
‘Ah, but have you considered the possibility our Prefect might be using you as bait? That by focusing attention on you, it leaves him free to investigate the real killer?’
Holy shit, no, it had not occurred to her. Well, well, well. But before Claudia could draw breath to follow up, the big man had launched forth again.
‘I’m just pleased our man in the crocodile pond wasn’t another of his long-lost troops. I had visions of a whole host of his ex-employees turning stiff on our doorstep, one after the other.’
‘It’s weird, don’t you think, two dead strangers in three days?’
‘This is Umbria, darling. Anything can happen around here, you only have to look at Timoleon to see that. What the f-?’
The screeching was inhuman, and it came from the far end of the courtyard.
‘Jupiter, Juno and Mars!’ Claudia blinked hard. Hands up to protect himself, feet slipping wildly, Taranis had nowhere to go, his back was already to the house wall and strong as he was, he was no match for the wild creature attacking him.
‘Bastard!’
Tulola was pummelling the Celt’s chest and shoulders with her fists, screaming like a demon, the skin on her face so tight with anger that her exposed teeth looked huge and obscene.
‘Bas-tard!’
Taranis could offer no resistance. He cringed lower and lower under the demented assault, his forearms fending most of the blows.
‘That’ll teach him to try and sneak off,’ Pallas whispered, linking his arm into Claudia’s and leading her back down the path. ‘Although, under the circumstances, one can hardly blame even that pig-ignorant hippopotamus.’
‘It tallies with my theory. Tulola likes not only to control her men, she needs to be seen to be doing it.’
Could you call that ferocious onslaught being in control? It seemed to Claudia that Tulola had fooled herself into believing she could bewitch any man she wanted and keep him in her thrall for as long as she, not he, desired, until occasionally a Taranis appeared to show her the reality. And Tulola, to judge from that little tantrum, was patently allergic to reality.
More painful still must be the realization that when you’re knocking thirty, it’s a very fine cloth that separates the uninhibited dominatrix from a rancid old slag.
‘Her husband was the first to rebel, you know.’
‘Oh?’
Pallas resumed his seat by the fishpond. ‘I’m going back six, maybe seven years, though you need the whole picture to understand. You see, their parents may have fixed the marriage, but for the young couple it was every bit a love match. Puppy love, of course. Tulola was only fourteen, but the stars were in their eyes and that was enough for them.’
He snapped his fingers to catch a slave’s attention. ‘Bring us more wine, will you, my good man? Only make sure it’s Falernian this time, I want none of that Campanian rubbish.’
‘What went wrong?’
‘The concept of young marriage is not without foundation, but as you know, what lies at the core of one’s character at fourteen remains the same at forty. Tulola, naturally, came a virgin to her wedding. Unfortunately, so did the bridegroom.’
‘Ah.’ Claudia poured the wine. ‘Your cousin began to experiment?’
‘Tarsulae was reduced to a small town by then, where gossip became a marketable commodity. It’s good stuff, this Falernian, how does it compare with your Seferius wine? What grape do you use?’
How should I know? ‘What happened when he found out?’
‘Now that, darling girl, is where it gets really interesting. Uh-oh, look who’s coming. Quick! Run!’ Faster than a jackrabbit, Pallas had grabbed the jug and was lumbering back to the house, but Claudia’s arm was caught in a vice.
‘Ah, Mistress Seferius! How enchanting you look in cinnabar.’
Macer, you slimy little salamander, how obnoxious you look in daylight.
He released her arm. ‘May I join you?’
Why don’t you crawl back under your stone and wait for the moon?
‘I am, you see, eager to hear your account of the terrible events of last night.’
Oh, Pallas. How wrong can you be.
With his handkerchief he brushed the marble before allowing his red embroidered tunic to make contact, but, alas, not before Claudia had tipped the remains of Pallas’ lunch on to the seat.
‘In case my story clashes with that of the crocodiles, Prefect?’ She tossed the plate in the shrubbery and flicked an ant from her finger. With any luck, there would be a small army of the little beggars sinking their pincers into his bottom even as she forced herself to smile at him. ‘Or out of concern for my personal safety?’
‘I fear you are making fun of me, Mistress Seferius, but murder is a serious matter.’
‘Especially when one is at the sharp end and the distinction between breathing and investigating the possibilities of an afterlife are beginning to blur.’ She leaned forward so her nose was a mere hand’s span away from his. ‘These bruises are not fake, Prefect. Last night someone tried to kill me.’
His smile was pure reptile. ‘I realize that, my dear Claudia, and one of the things I am trying to establish at the moment, apart from his identity, is a connection linking Fronto with the dead man and, ergo, with yourself.’
‘The eternal triangle, how original. We’ll see your name carved on great monuments yet.’
Actually he was more the sort who’d want a sundial for his memorial to ensure you saw his name whenever you looked.
‘Mock me all you wish, Mistress Seferius, only there is a nasty smell to this place which has less to do with the menagerie than appears on the surface.’
Do smells appear on the surface? Frankly, she was too disinterested in this little maggot to waste breath baiting him, and besides, if there was a ready answer, then he would find it as soon as he stood up. Pallas had had mullet on his plate, as well as mustard and vinegar and soft-boiled eggs.
‘So while my men delve for clues, perhaps you and I could go over a few of the facts that you have already presented to me, since there appear to be one or two anomalies in your statement.’
If you’ve only found a couple, then I’m doing better than I hoped. ‘Such as?’
‘Well, for one thing, you told me you had sent your servants on ahead by ox cart, when in fact you did nothing of the sort.’
‘Macer, you surprise me. You’re the Prefect of a legion covering a very large territory,’ which as we both know boasts a microscopic population, ‘yet you find that an anomaly?’