It was only when she reached for a comb to untangle her curls that she realized that, even in her own bedroom, she wasn’t safe. The room had been searched. Not just cleaned. Not just heated. Not just tidied. She meant searched. By an amateur at that.
She teased open the door. ‘Pssst.’
‘Who? Me?’ The red-headed slave looked round in confusion.
Claudia crooked her finger. ‘Tell me who came into my room while I was gone and this little fellow is yours.’ Her hand opened to reveal a shining silver denarius.
The girl’s heather broom clattered on to the floor, but Alis seemed not to notice as she continued to pour libations at the family shrine.
‘Um-’
Utterly transfixed by the coin, you could see the girl’s mind working out how to spend it, which, of course, was the object of the exercise. A couple of asses would have ensured Claudia had her answer, but it would not necessarily have given her an honest one. Silver would.
‘Um-’
‘Um, what? Umpteen Umbrians umpiring under umber-coloured umbrellas?’
‘Ever so sorry, m’m,’ the redhead bobbed down and picked up her brush. ‘I can’t say.’
‘Blackmail is a depressing concept,’ Claudia reminded her. ‘Let me make it quite plain that a single denarius is all that’s on offer.’
‘Oh, no, you’ve got me wrong, m’m. I mean I don’t know.’ Her eyes said goodbye to the silver coin. ‘We’ve just changed shifts, see? But I could ask around, if you like.’
Good life in Illyria, anything but that. For the time being, this remains our little secret, me and the son-of-a-bitch who’s been prying.
‘It’s not important,’ she replied airily, flipping the coin towards the servant. ‘And this should ensure I never asked the question. Now, fetch me a raw octopus, will you?’
‘A raw- Sorry, did you say octopus?’
‘Are you deaf?’
Actually, it was the only thing Claudia could think of that would reduce Drusilla’s hump to a meaningful proportion. The cat could slap it about a bit, and it would make her feel she’d gone some way towards catching the horrid slimy creature for herself.
Claudia looked again at her jewellery box. Walnut, inlaid with mother-of-pearl and with a hinged lid, it was an exquisite piece of workmanship. It contained bracelets and anklets of gold and of silver, diadems set with sapphires, pendants set with pearls.
Also, until very recently, it had contained the wing feather of a wren.
In colour wrens are very similar to walnut. You place the feather on the rim of the box and then you close the lid very, very gently to keep it in place. But no matter how carefully you open it again, that feather, that microscopic, insubstantial, practically invisible feather, becomes dislodged.
Intuition told her there was no need to unlock the box to learn nothing had been stolen, but Claudia went through the motions anyway. The key, which she kept on the webbing under her mattress, had been replaced, but the searcher had not been careful enough. The key now faced east instead of west.
Claudia tapped her lip thoughtfully. Whoever it might be, the spy was not Marcus Cornelius Orbilio.
Credit where it’s due, Supersleuth would have come and gone and probably taken the air he’d breathed with him to ensure he left no trace, so what was this person looking for?
A long soft whistle followed by two short ones came from the far side of her window.
What imbecile could possibly imagine Claudia either had something to hide or held incriminating evidence-and at the same time was foolish enough to leave it lying around? Someone who didn’t know her very well, that’s for sure.
The whistles were repeated before she realized it was her bodyguard’s signal.
‘Junius, did you know Rollo hadn’t sent any blasted message to Rome?’ Godsdamnit, she’d need to start sealing her letters.
‘Yes, madam-’
‘Don’t you turn your face away from me!’
‘But-’
‘Butt is just where I’ll kick you if you don’t look me in the eye. Now did you or didn’t you… For gods’ sake, boy, what’s the matter with you?’
Now the idiot had his hand across his forehead. Oh! Claudia bounced back from the window and grabbed her tunic off the back of the chair. It was damned hot, that cotton, because when she turned back to Junius, her cheeks were as scarlet as the tunic.
She cleared her throat. ‘Yes, that letter-’
‘I tried to tell you, madam, when I got back from Etruria-’
‘Rubbish. I’d have remembered something as vital as that. Anyway, what are you doing skipping around in this downpour?’
‘I wanted to ask you when you thought would be the best time for me to create a diversion.’
I suspected as much. You’ve been drinking. ‘What diversion, Junius?’
‘The one which enables you to slip away from here.’
‘Oh, and exactly where do you suggest I slope off to? Greece, Crete, Alexandria?’ And how long till the heat dies down? A year? Two? By then, I’ll have lost control of my wine business, I’ll be lucky to keep a roof over my head. Unfortunately I have to ride this one out.
‘No, no.’ When the young Gaul shook his head, it was like a dog shaking itself. Water sprayed everywhere. ‘I was only talking about Rome,’ he said in a small voice.
Rome! Bless him! ‘Junius, it’s a kind thought, but I can’t see that my doing a runner is going to help my case, so why don’t you-’
‘The Prefect can’t touch you in Rome, can he?’ Claudia stared at the elecampane as its leathery leaves shrugged off the raindrops. By Jupiter, the boy’s right. The same way Loverboy has no authority in the provinces, Macer holds no sway in the city.
‘Junius, come under the eaves, you’re starting to look like a water vole. That’s it.’ I don’t want my little genius catching a cold. ‘Now, one simple question. Do you want your freedom?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Come on, yes or no? Tulola wants to buy you’-it’d go to his head if she told him how badly-‘and I need to know where your loyalties lie.’
The bodyguard’s face flushed. ‘Where they always have. Madam.’ The last word came as something of an afterthought. ‘I didn’t think you’d ever need to ask.’
Dear me, his voice sounds a bit croaky, I trust he’s not going down with the fever.
‘That’s settled, then.’ He probably keeps some doxy over on the Aventine, or else he goes moonlighting, that’s why he sticks with me. ‘Now about this diversion of yours-’
*
Plans are fun. For a start they are such flexible little beggars, you can tweak them, twiddle them, you even have the luxury of abandoning, postponing or advancing them, all with the underlying reassurance that, come what may, they will repay you with the immeasurable satisfaction that can only be gained from voracious mental stimulation.
Then again, it could just be down to that indescribable, delectable, mouth-watering wait.
To a girl like Claudia, for whom anticipation was a drug, the dry throat, the increased heartbeat, the constant swallowing, was unadulterated bliss, exquisitely enhanced by the knowledge that the very earliest Junius could put his proposals into action would be tomorrow, Friday.
Which left her, she calculated, skipping up the atrium, the rest of the afternoon and all of the evening to gather as much ammunition as she could possibly muster against the residents of the Vale of Adonis. Snakes, each and every one, but among them, oh yes-among them was a viper. Would she have time to find out who?
It would not be easy defending herself far removed from the scene of the accusations, but at least in Rome there was a reservoir of lowlife willing to swear on their mothers’ graves that Claudia Seferius was with them at the time of the murders.