She realized her mistake almost at once. Not only were the thugs keeping pace as she ducked and dived round the alleys, Claudia was being sucked deeper and deeper into the slums. Between the tall tenements, the last of the twilight was obliterated. Moans and wails unfurled from every window. A gagging stench permeated the air, a combination of rotting meat, dog piss, sewage and despair. Many of the cobbles were missing, making every step a hazard which threatened to trip her or turn an ankle, leaving her helpless and stranded. On she ran, feeling her way with her hands. She heard screams from open windows. Fists connecting with flesh. Babies bawling, dogs baying, but loudest of all were the footsteps behind her.
Desperate now, she flung her purse on the ground, scattering the coins noisily over the stones to bring out the slum dwellers and impede her pursuers. Too late. A hand spun her round. Sent her crashing against the tenement wall, knocking the breath from her lungs. In the blackness, she saw the oaf grinning, and this time the grin didn’t fade.
‘Well, well, well! Thought you could lose us, didya?’
The second set of footsteps drew up alongside. Both men laughed. The laugh made Claudia’s blood turn to ice. ‘Touch me again and I’ll cry rape, you fat bastards.’
One smelled of garlic, the other of straw. They both stank of sweat.
‘She did say rape, didn’t she?’
Oh god, they meant it. She could see the gleam in their eyes, felt their arousal through her thick furs. Even if she screamed, who would come? One lonely scream among hundreds. One more lost soul among thousands. Unseen hands could be heard, scrabbling in the blackness for her coins, but they would not come to her aid. Within seconds, they would disappear back inside the crumbling death traps, unconcerned where the coins came from, only where they were going. Six storeys of hopelessness pressed down upon her as hands clawed at her flesh, fingers probed without subtlety.
‘Enough!’
Butico’s implacable tones cut through the howls of the slums like a scythe. The mauling stopped.
‘One thing you need to be aware of, my dear,’ he said quietly. His hand cupped her jaw. ‘No one gets away from Butico.’
He glanced up at the crumbling plaster, wrinkled his nose at the stench.
‘Now, before you so rudely walked out of our meeting, I believe we were discussing the eight thousand sesterces you owe me.’
‘I don’t have eight-’
His hand turned into a vice, crushing her cheeks. ‘Plus interest.’ He leaned over, his cold eyes level with hers. ‘You see, me, I like the good things in life. Greek sculpture. Gourmet foods. Vintage wines. You get my drift?’
She nodded as far as his grip would permit.
‘But my boys, here.’ When he smiled, Claudia felt a chill to her marrow. ‘Well, the fine arts, I’m afraid, pass right over their heads, though they still appreciate pretty things. Don’t you, lads?’
‘Sure do, boss.’ A paw clamped over Claudia’s breast and squeezed to prove the point.
‘My rate of interest,’ Butico said, releasing his grip on her jaw, ‘is thirty-two per cent.’
‘ Thirty-two?’ Terrified as she was, that was still an outrageous amount.
‘Effective the day I handed over the cash,’ he continued smoothly. ‘Which, as I recall, was exactly one month ago, bringing the outstanding balance to-’
‘Yes, yes, I can do the maths, thank you very much.’ She couldn’t. Was in no position to think, much less calculate. She just needed to claw back her dignity, regain some kind of control. Pointedly she swatted the paw off her breast, thankful her trembling hand could not be seen in the dark. She felt sick.
‘Then we understand one another,’ he said.
‘We do indeed. I pay you back, with interest, or you throw me to your dogs as a bone.’
‘No, no, no.’ Butico tutted gently, and the sound made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up on end. ‘Either way, I get my money back, Claudia. Whether my boys get to play with you is dependent entirely upon yourself.’
He brushed bits of crumbling plaster from his cloak. ‘Fair’s fair, after all.’
He smiled.
‘Fuck with me and they fuck you.’
Three
Crossing the Forum, her beaver fur drawn tight around her chin, Claudia hoped to Juno that her pinched, white face and chattering teeth would be attributed to the cold. What a mess. What an absolutely bloody awful mess. Oblivious to the fire-eaters that had drawn a crowd over by the Vulcanal, or the crush of hot-pie vendors pressing in around her, the captain’s words echoed in her ears.
You can trust old Moschus, missus.
Couldn’t you! You could trust the bastard to go straight to the Temple of Castor and Pollux after leaving her, so that by the time she arrived, it was to find the depository locked up for the night and the records showing all too clearly the sea dog’s mark where he’d redeemed five tokens for a thousand sesterces each. Claudia’s fists clenched. When I catch up with you, Moschus, those will be your ribs scattered over Neptune’s sandy soil from Naples to Messina. So help me, I shall personally break them off and drop them in the ocean one by one-and you can bloody watch me!
Meanwhile, there was Butico. Eight thousand plus thirty-two per cent interest? Her stomach churned, her limbs felt like jelly and her hands couldn’t stop shaking, so she exchanged a silver bracelet for a flagon of warm wine spiced with cinnamon, and pretty soon her teeth ceased to chatter. The Rostra, the splendid new orators’ platform at the end of the Forum, was eighty feet long, forty feet deep and forested with an assortment of marble, bronze and gilded heroes. Sheltered from the biting wind by the Record Office behind, Claudia leaned her back against the bronze grille of the balustrade and dangled her feet over the edge. Far below, a cosmopolitan sea swirled around the temples and basilicas, the fountains and the arches-revellers, hawkers, bankers and astrologers, dogs, mules, fortune-tellers and jugglers, even a string of roped ostriches.
No point in trying to negotiate with Butico, asking him if he’d accept wine in lieu of cash. She’d already made her bed by double-crossing him, she had to lie in it and the main thing now was to ensure she didn’t end up sharing it with two hulking great thugs. For the life of her, she couldn’t understand why she didn’t just sell this wretched business and be done with. It was why she’d married Gaius in the first place, wasn’t it? For the money?
Slowly, the scroll that was her past unravelled.
It revealed a young girl taking elocution lessons-and the identity of a noblewoman who’d died in the plague. Of that same girl exchanging marriage vows with a man nearly three times her own age. Signed, sealed and delivered, what more could a girl from the slums ask for? Son of a humble road builder and a self-made man himself, Gaius hadn’t noticed any shortfall in the social niceties. All that concerned him was that he had a beautiful, witty young wife to parade and, had Claudia died before him, no doubt he would have had her stuffed and mounted on his office wall. But of course she hadn’t. Instead, and with unaccustomed expedience, it was Gaius who’d whistled up the Ferryman to take that long ride across the River Styx. That had been fifteen months ago, shortly before the sixth anniversary of his wedding, and, to the horror of his blood relatives, he bequeathed his trophy widow the lot. Large house in Rome. Vineyards in Tuscany. Investments in housing, in shops, in numerous commercial enterprises.