'Impressive,' Claudia conceded, wiping her own eyes. But was a silver tongue wedged firmly in its own cheek the answer to her conundrum? What she needed on the case was a professional investigator. Someone who searched secrets out for a living. Knew which stones to overturn, and where.
Only one man fitted such a bill. Marcus Cornelius Orbilio. As the only patrician attached to the Security Police, Orbilio was more than familiar with society's underbelly, regardless of which particular society that might be, since the driving principles of crime are universal. He would certainly know where to ferret out the answers to her questions! The only trouble was, the reason Claudia knew exactly how efficient he was was because he was always one step behind her…
Of course, you could put that another way and argue that she was always one step ahead of the law, but, in his case, the law wasn't just tall, dark and handsome, it also took bloody long strides that were headed straight for the Senate.
She supposed that, for an ambitious young investigator with blue blood in his veins, Claudia Seferius was the perfect vessel to attach to. With the sharks circling before Gaius's body was cold, she'd lost track of the counter-tactics she'd had to resort to, although most of them, if she remembered correctly, involved forgery, fraud, tax evasion and what was that other little thing, now? Oh, yes, embezzlement. Was it any wonder Orbilio had attached himself like a barnacle to the hull of her business affairs? Except, just like birth, death and summer colds, one thing was certain. Claudia Seferius would not be his stepping stone to the Senate. Penniless exile was not in her plans.
'So I take it, madam, that I'm hired?' Hannibal murmured.
'You take no such thing,' she retorted, 'and, besides, what about the landlady?'
'Ah.' His mouth twisted sideways. 'I fear we are talking about the sort of woman who if a man pats her bottom will endeavour to turn it into a marriage contract, and I regret to say that orange blossom makes my nose run something wicked. You will be doing both my liberty and sinuses a favour if you tell me we have an agreement.'
'Very well.' In for a quadran, in for the whole damn money chest! 'On three conditions.'
'Name them.'
'Firstly, the pay is one sestertius per day, although I will provide bed and board.' Or rather Marcia will.
'That, if I may say so, madam, is a particularly dubious rate.'
'And you, if I may say so, sir, are a particularly dubious guide.'
He grunted. 'Your second condition?'
'You stop addressing me as though I'm running a brothel.'
'And the third?'
'You dispense with the dead canary.'
'This?' In a theatrical gesture of mock protection his hand covered the feathers clamped in his cloakpin. I'll have you know, madam, this is the same good-luck charm worn by the youngest tribune in the Roman army to lead a successful assault against Armenian rebels without a single loss to his men.'
'Really?' She peered closer. 'What happened to this illustrious hero?'
'Nothing, although he thanks you for asking.' Hannibal dipped his head politely. 'And whilst he accepts condition one regarding the abysmal pay, the dead canary stays and, since he is an officer and a gentleman, you will understand that it is beneath both of us to call you by a lesser title. Madam."
Just like the traffic patrol in Rome, he was round the corner before she'd stopped laughing.
Six
Whilst Marcus Cornelius Orbilio might not necessarily have been flattered at being compared to a barnacle, it was by one of life's quirks that he just so happened to be lying beneath a boat's keel at the time. Not the most comfortable of positions, but then surveillance work rarely is, and, with his well-nourished physique and an aristocratic mien that could not easily be disguised, he was never going to blend in undercover. Besides, what did he know about caulking, riveting or any of the other processes involved in building boats? So he lay beneath the tarpaulin on the floor of the boat shed, chin in hands, watching timbers being sawn and joints being planed, with the whirr of the hand drills loud in his ears and the dust tickling the insides of his nostrils as he mused on the pageant he should be attending.
Today was the day of the Trojan Games, in which two troops comprising the cream of patrician youth paraded through the streets of Rome astride the cream of Arabian horseflesh. Fully armed and in uniform, these young men would perform complex drill movements designed not so much to entertain the crowds as impress them, and Orbilio remembered the flutter of nerves in the pit of his own stomach when he had taken the reins for his first parade. He'd just turned eighteen and was poised to take up his post in the Imperial Mint as his first step on the road to the Senate. Today it was his nephew's turn, and Marcus pictured his sisters and brothers-in-law, cousins and aunts cheering the lad on from the steps of the Capitol, totally uncomprehending of why his uncle deemed lying on his belly up to his armpits in sawdust more important than supporting his family.
But just as it was vital that the complicated drills and mock combats of the Trojan Games instilled in the people of Rome that whilst commissions might be bought leadership was nevertheless in capable hands, it was equally important that someone clamped down on the bastards who peddled young flesh to perverts who in turn insisted that tiny children actually enjoyed sex.
Orbilio consulted his mental notes as the overseer made his daily inspection. The trafficking was done from this yard, that much he knew, but unless he caught the boatbuilder in the act of passing a child to a punter, the case wouldn't stand up in court. He needed proof, and proof, as he knew from experience, came only after a great deal of stiffness and aching. Boredom went with the territory in this job, but then how does one define boredom? What about the celebratory dinner, in which some stuffy general invariably drones on about a campaign in Galatia that everyone else has forgotten, moving mushrooms round the plate as his troops, while, on the other couch, empty-headed matrons bang on about whether it's fashionable to wear three-quarter-length sleeves this season and their husbands discuss the latest cure-all for baldness? No one moots the issue of seven-year-olds being snatched for some depraved bastard's pleasure, and, assuming politeness did force the question, they wouldn't give a stuff anyway.
Marcus shuffled under the keel. Goddammit, they bloody well should! A child is abducted, subjected to terror, but because it's a guttersnipe this doesn't count, so they call for their goblets to be filled, for another hazel hen cooked in honey, and for the musicians to play something a little more lively. For a family who had devoted generations to practising the law, not enforcing it, it would always be beyond them why he'd chosen to follow a path in the Security Police, which was lowly paid and lowly thought of, when he could be making a name for himself like his father.
His father, his father, always his father. What was so great about that?
True, the old man was a brilliant orator, but it never kept him awake at nights that his clients were guilty. Yet Marcus's father was hailed as a hero. This, the man who had hurtled towards an early grave on a chariot driven by lechery, gluttony and booze! No, thank you. Orbilio had tried it his father's way. He'd completed his statutory two years in the Imperial
Commission at the Mint, followed by a further two years as a tribune, serving everywhere from Pannonia to the moon. After that, it was time to follow his conscience, and if working for the Security Police cost him the respect of his family, so be it. He had long since forsaken theirs.