Conclusive proof of their collaboration, were it needed, was the involvement by the Guild of Wine Merchants. Clearly one of their members knew about the scam and passed the information on to his brothers, knowing that if penury didn’t force Claudia Seferius out of business, then exile on some scrubby island would. She really, really hoped they’d paid Butico a humungous amount of money for this. As much as she despised the moneylender, she despised the Guild even more. How sublime, that moment when they realized that they’d shelled out huge sums for nothing.
And so, for that reason, Claudia had needed more from Captain Moschus than her five thousand bronze sesterces. She’d pumped him for details of all his previous transactions with Butico and he, of course, with three goons standing over him, sang like a lark over a wheatfield.
A small matter, then, of paying Butico a visit.
*
‘The deal is straightforward,’ she told him. ‘One, you forget you’ve ever seen me. Two, you give me your solemn oath that my body won’t be found in some dark alleyway with its throat cut, because if anything nasty happens to me, there’s a box that goes straight to the Security Police containing Moschus’s confession. And three, I shall, of course, require the name of the wine merchant who hired you.’
From his considerable height, Butico stared down at her for several seconds and this time she returned his gaze quite steadily.
‘The Guild were foolish to underestimate you, my dear,’ and maybe it was the lamplight, but Claudia could have sworn she caught a slight twinkle in his cold, implacable stare. ‘As, I’m beginning to think, was I.’
Which was nothing to what Moschus was thinking. Butico had undoubtedly ridden rougher seas than these, although it was unlikely the captain would, once Butico caught up with him. His chilling words floated back to her. No one gets away from me, he had said. No one. The seas might be closed, but one ship would certainly try battling them this winter and the Artemis would have to change more than her name and the colour of her canvas this time.
‘There’s one final piece of information I need from you, Butico. The addresses of your two burly henchmen.’ Revenge on the scum from the slum was Claudia’s Saturnalia present to herself.
*
It was dark, but not late, when Orbilio wove his way through the crush and up the Esquiline to check on Deva. More than any of the others, he felt personal anguish for the young Damascan girl. Perhaps it was because the attack had happened on her seventeenth birthday, perhaps it was because he had struck up an acquaintanceship with the herbalist last summer, just when he and Deva had moved in together. Marcus didn’t know. All that mattered was that they got through this ordeal. Somehow.
Mid-December, of course, there was inevitably a bite in the air, but the drizzle had gone and although clouds still hung low over the hills, they were altogether much lighter, brighter and whiter. The kind that, one never knows, might suddenly part to admit blue skies and sunshine. The wind had gone, too. And with tomorrow being Saturnalia Eve, the whole city resounded with laughter and joy. So much holly and fir was decking the houses, it was a wonder there was any greenery left in the forest, and down on the Colonnade of the Argonauts, the Saturnalia market buzzed like a beehive as people shopped for gifts of candles and dolls, sipping spiced wine from street vendors as they browsed, munching on hot sausages and slices of wild boar hot from the spit roast.
Orbilio hadn’t eaten, and the smells from the taverns made his stomach growl, although he was unaware of the rumbles. It frustrated him that, thanks to Dymas diverting him away from the rapes to sort out that domestic killing down in the Subura and rounding up the counterfeit dole gang, he was no closer to getting this beast off the streets. His head pounded. It made him physically sick that another girl would soon be enduring the worst ordeal imaginable and that her life would be ruined because of him cocking up, and sending the wrong man to die for a crime he hadn’t committed Evil. Many times Marcus had pondered the meaning of the word. Many times he had seen it made flesh. But the Halcyon Rapist’s savage depravity brought a new dimension to the word.
A pain stabbed at him behind the eyes.
When he chose to forgo a lucrative career in law in favour of the dark underbelly of society, he’d realized it would mean shouldering a huge responsibility. Like the judiciary, he knew he wouldn’t be able to win every case, but, until now, he hadn’t realized how big a burden he would have to carry. Or that he would be shouldering it for the rest of his life…
The acrid smell of smoke prickled his nostrils. Shouts in the next street. Another fire, he thought wearily. More families with no roof over their heads, salvaging whatever possessions they could. At least up here, in the patrician quarter of the city, it would be an isolated fire. An artisan’s workshop, perhaps, or a bookseller’s premises. Down in the populous areas, such as the Subura, where he’d just come from, where families were crowded together in six-storey apartment blocks, or packed into the slums, the fire would be far more damaging.
He turned the corner, saw buckets of water being fetched in a line. His own street. Orbilio clucked his tongue in sympathy. He couldn’t help this time. Unfortunate if a neighbour had been burned out at Saturnalia, but he had promised the herbalist that Deva could stay as long as she liked and she had to have privacy. The consolation, he supposed, was that at least people around here could afford to rebuild and repair. Those poor creatures in the slums and the artisan quarters were all but ruined. Darting between two slopping leather buckets, it was at the back of his mind that he was glad there was no wind tonight to fan the flames. Why, they were so close, it could well have been his house that It was his house.
Breaking into a run, he barged through the crowd that had gathered to gawp. Mother of Tarquin, his atrium! It was blacker than Hades, and swimming with a viscous black sludge. Choking black smoke streamed out of every doorway, oily and sour, and he could hardly see his own hand in front of his face. Damping his handkerchief in what was left of the atrium pool, he covered his nose and mouth.
‘Sir? Is that you, sir?’ The voice of his steward, hoarse from the smoke, called from somewhere in front. He realized that, in his white toga, he must stand out like a barn owl.
‘What happened?’ he asked. ‘Is anyone hurt?’
Janus. Deva! How much more could the girl take? As the last of the flames were extinguished, he flung open whatever doors and windows he could to distribute the smoke into the night.
‘No, sir, no casualties.’ But the steward’s lungs were in such a state from breathing the acrid air that, when he wasn’t wheezing like a pair of rusty bellows, he was wracking his ribs with the cough. Orbilio immediately sent him outside. If he wanted to help, better that he thanked the fire chain who had rushed to their rescue. It took him a moment or two before he realized that there was someone else stumbling around in the blackness, helping to fling open the shutters.
‘You lead an interesting life,’ the herbalist said.
‘This is only Saturnalia. You should see what happens when we celebrate birthdays,’ Orbilio said. ‘How’s Deva?’
‘I think it’s no exaggeration to say the fire was a distraction.’
‘Is that why you started it?’
There was a flash of a grin from the corner. ‘Had I thought it would have worked, I’d have burned down the city, but no. I’m afraid I didn’t pay the young lady.’
‘Excuse me?’ Orbilio found a candle and lit it.