Skyles and Ion both held up innocent hands. Doris pretended to get cross that rehearsals weren’t going according to plan. The crowd began tossing coppers.
‘O Janus,’ the priest intoned solemnly, ‘god of beginnings, porter of heaven, guardian of the gates, may your powers be great from this offering.’
No one heard him. No one heard the poor ram bleat as it tugged on its lead. No one noticed that the temple doors, kept permanently shut during peacetime, had been opened by a pair of sombre, white-robed acolytes so that Janus might watch the sacrifice in his honour.
‘Don’t you accuse me of buggering up rehearsals,’ Jemima told Doris, hands planted on her ample hips. ‘It’s them two fat ugly cows.’ She jerked her head at Adah and Erinna. ‘Distracting people from the ceremony, you want to keep ’em indoors, out the way.’
‘Me fat?’ Erinna shrieked. ‘You’re the one whose favourite food is seconds!’
‘At least I haven’t reached the point where food’s a substitute for sex,’ Adah sneered.
‘No?’ Jemima shot back. ‘Then why’s there a mirror above yer bleeding dinner table?’
Copper coins became bronze.
The priest raised his voice. He had long ago given up any hope of silence during the sacrifice, his best hope now lay in incense. Choking grey clouds tried to draw the attention of the masses, but fat remained triumphant. Only a pious young widow and a rotund individual dressed like a kingfisher strained to listen to the prayers as the young ram was purified with holy water. Adah lunged at Jemima, Erinna tried to pull Jemima off, handsome Ion leapt off the steps to rush to Erinna’s aid and whoops! Erinna’s tunic came off in his hands.
Uproarious cheers.
Silver showers.
The ram went to its doom unmourned.
‘You dirty devil,’ Erinna gasped, torn between slapping Ion round the ear and covering her embarrassment. ‘You know damn well I don’t wear underclothes!’
Ion, in his Jupiter-chasing-the-nymphs mode, managed to convey to the crowd that, no, he hadn’t actually forgotten that aspect of Erinna’s attire… In the background, Doris searched the script for something he’d missed. Jemima and Adah clung like virgins in a brothel, in case their own clothes came under assault. The audience were agog. Then, just when they thought it couldn’t get any better, Skyles whipped off his yellow woollen tunic to protect Erinna’s modesty, but in doing so, exposed his own form for inspection. Bulging muscles, rippling pecs, with just a tiny loincloth to cover the essentials. Claudia could see what attracted the ladies. (And one or two of the men, she couldn’t help noticing.) The crowd went wild.
The priest had finished. With the longest face this side of the Tiber, he had flayed the sacrifice, passed its liver to the haruspex for inspection, and was now sprinkling the flesh with holy salt before roasting it in strips over the fire. Oh, Caspar, what magnificent timing your people have! No wonder you call them Spectaculars. And now it was her turn. Wrenching herself away from the sole mn ceremony, the young widow was mortified to discover that her house guests had been causing chaos alongside the basilica.
‘I am so sorry,’ she told the crowd. ‘This is all my fault. They were rehearsing for the show I’m putting on at my house-’
She didn’t get a chance to finish. ‘When?’ ‘Where?’ ‘How much?’ ‘Can we get seats?’ bellowed from every direction. Oh, yes. And this was only the start. Tomorrow, to celebrate the Festival of the Seven Hills, there was chariot racing in the Circus Maximus. Word would have spread, there’d be even more spectators at tomorrow afternoon’s performance.
A total of fifty thousand potential sales.
*
‘That went well,’ Ion said to Doris, wiping the sweat from his face beneath his mask.
‘Fat jokes always do,’ Doris retorted, comically mopping the outside of his tragedy mask. ‘They unite both sexes and bridge every generation. Well. Them, and Gaulish virgin jokes. Did you hear about the one who sat in the chair right through her wedding night?’
‘Go on, tell me,’ Ion groaned.
‘Her mother told her it would be the best night of her life, so she stayed up so as not to miss it.’
*
‘That went well,’ Skyles told Erinna, belting up his spare tunic.
It was the first time he had seen Erinna at such close quarters, and he’d rather liked the view. Unblemished olive skin, full firm breasts, hips that he could grip when he… If he…
He cleared his throat. ‘Don’t you think?’ he finished hoarsely.
*
‘That went well.’ Leaning against a pillar in the portico, Adah adjusted the strap of her sandal, which had come loose.
‘Bleeding did an’ all.’ Jemima combed her red hair with her fingers, replaced her veil and shook out the hem of her tunic. ‘Got meself another admirer out of it.’
‘Don’t tell me. You’re meeting him down the side of an alley?’
‘Behind the temple, if you must know. But that’s one more gold piece to put away for me old age, Adah, which is one more than you’ll have.’
*
‘That went well,’ said Claudia, relieving Caspar of the takings.
‘And with extreme rapidity,’ Caspar commented dryly, watching them disappear into the depths of her cloak. ‘But you were quite right, dear lady. A better advertisement for the Halcyons I could not have envisaged, and should you wish to reconsider my proposal of marriage, you will find my betrothal ring on your pillow within the hour.’
‘Sorry to disappoint you, Caspar, but if my future husband can’t respond faster than that, then he’s of no interest.’ The bejewelled turban was still bobbing with merriment as it led its little masked snake home to continue work on the genuine Spectaculars.
*
‘That went well,’ a baritone murmured in Claudia’s ear. She caught the faint hint of sandalwood before she turned.
There it was again, the unmistakable scent of the hunter.
‘Any chance of a box?’ he asked mildly.
‘I presume you’re not raising my hopes by asking for a coffin?’
‘My health is perfectly sound,’ Orbilio replied. ‘But your concern is most touching. I was referring to a ringside seat at the show.’
‘What a shame we’re fully booked.’
Bowing reverently backwards from the open temple doors, white-robed acolytes passed round platters piled high with strips of chargrilled sacrificial lamb. Inside the tiny sanctuary, the bronze statue of two-faced Janus gleamed from the reflection of the firelight. Both profiles were positioned so that they could watch across the city’s gates and doorways, and around the statue stood twelve minute altars, one for each month of the year. December’s was hung with shiny, aromatic, dark green myrtle, symbolizing the love and peace appropriate for Saturnalia, and sprigs of the shrub lay wreathed at Janus’s feet. The god of new beginnings, Claudia reflected, selecting a sliver of crispy lamb. The god who, because he could see the past, watched for the future. She wondered what he was looking at when he saw her with the Security Police.
‘I thought you might be interested to know we’re holding a man prisoner,’ Orbilio said. ‘A sea captain called Moschus. Ring any bells?’
Funny how, even inside a fur cloak and squirrel-lined boots, she still felt the tramontana’s icy bite. ‘Moxer, you say?’
‘Moschus.’
‘Sorry, Orbilio, don’t know any Mushers.’
In front of her, the bronze-clad doors ground shut. They would stay closed until the next Festival of the Lambs came round in January. By which time, of course, Claudia’s own future would be assured. One way or another.
‘The good captain’s keeping his counsel at the moment, but the fascinating thing about this case is that Moschus isn’t a Roman name.’
‘My, my, you Security Police are a mine of information,’ she trilled. ‘But if you want my advice, Orbilio?’
‘Yes?’
‘Eat your lamb before it gets cold.’
‘The thing about non-Romans,’ he continued, ‘is that the same rules of interrogation don’t apply. Unlike citizens, they can be put to the torture to extract information.’