That was the trouble. Hallucinations don't laugh, they don't have dark eyes that twinkle, or crisp black hairs on the backs of their hands that disappear up their sleeve and- 'Orbilio, what the hell are you doing here?'
'Me?' He affected a look of boyish innocence. 'Well, you know how it is. Warm summer's evening. Birds singing. Butterflies on the wing. So I thought, Marcus old chap, why not stretch your legs before dinner?'
'Aren't you worried that they're too long already?'
'Would you care to take a peek?'
'I'd sooner drink bleach while rolling naked in a hornet's nest and whipping myself with a handful of nettles.'
I'll take that as a yes, then.' He held out his arm. 'Dinner, my lady?'
'Marcus! Darling!' Marcia scooped up the proffered arm with the kind of smile that would have given the cheetah an inferiority complex, had it been watching. 'How's your case coming along?' she purred, and it was interesting to note that she was completely alone. No big Basc bodyguard at her shoulder. No flurry of flunkies to bring up the rear.
'Handsomely, thank you.' Orbilio shot an amused glance at Claudia. 'The evidence is mounting nicely'
'Really?' Marcia's eyes travelled over the strong lines of his face as though searching for something, but Claudia decided that this was not, repeat not, an appropriate time to be discussing Orbilio's prospects for the Senate.
Croesus, something had to have gone badly wrong if he'd trailed her right the way out here. It wasn't tax. Heaven knows, the dodging of contributions to the imperial coffers was a serious enough offence and yes, she'd built up quite a backlog one way and another. But the outstanding balance wasn't so large as to warrant such a heavy-handed approach, and, besides, he was an investigator, not a debt collector. Snooping was what he did best.
'Tell me, Marcia.' She linked her arm with her hostess's and thought it had to be that little sneak Burto. Dammit, she should have known better than to get involved with that bastard. A few probing questions and Burto squealed like the pig that he was, dropping her in it to save his own skin, and fraud was a serious enough offence to bring the long arm of the law here to Gaul! She looked at it, draped with Marcia's scarlet linen sleeve, and wondered how much evidence it had collected and how much was bluff. 'Are those Egyptian water lilies you're growing in the pond over there,' she gushed, 'or are they the fragrant variety? And you really must tell me how you get such wonderful blooms on your heliotrope. Mine produce such weedy specimens.'
Along the line, she thought she heard a deep male laugh, but she must have been mistaken, because when she glanced behind Marcia's shoulder Orbilio was coughing into his white linen handkerchief.
'And those monkeys,' she said. 'Such darling things. Are they any use as pets, do you think?'
'Hm.' Marcia rolled her tongue under her lip. 'Qeb. Qeb, are you there?'
'Ma'am?'
Wearing a pleated linen kilt like his brother, the Egyptian stepped out from behind the ostrich pen, making everyone jump. It was impossible to tell how long he'd been there, and Claudia felt the flesh creep right the way down her backbone at Qeb's downcast expression, the slouch of his shoulders, the shine on his immaculately shaven head.
'These monkeys,' Marcia said. 'Do they make good pets?'
'No.'
That was it? No explanation, such as 'they bite', 'they pine', 'they turn blue if you keep them indoors'?
'No matter, Qeb will find you something to play with, won't you, Qeb?'
'Indeed.'
Hardly the chatty type, then.
'That's settled,' Marcia declared. 'Come. I must return to the festivities or my guests will think I've deserted them.'
'I'll catch you up,' Claudia murmured. 'I just want to… take another look at your tomb. It's so… so… '
Sadly, the store of superlatives had run dry.
'It's so perfect,' Marcia finished for her, 'and that's why you should always surround yourself with purists, darling. Excellence is these men's stock in trade. Personal pride means they will settle for nothing less than perfection. It is a rule I follow myself, in everything from business transactions to my health regime to couture.' She shook her expensively cut sleeve to prove the point. 'Compromise cannot be a virtue,' she sniffed. 'Relinquishing half what one wants is weakness and I can never respect such inadequacy. Now, Marcus, about this case of yours. Is there anyone I can put you in contact with, who might be of help to your investigation?'
Claudia watched them go. Marcia was wearing scarlet tonight, and the woman was no fool. Had she chosen that robe in the belief that red was the colour of allure? Possibly, given the way she was pressing it against Orbilio's long patrician tunic, and red has the advantage of giving its wearer maximum impact, especially in a crowd like tonight. But red is the universal warning of danger and, as the spotted toadstool and humble ladybird will testify, it's a colour designed to repulse. Once again, Claudia reflected on the absence of bodyguard and slaves and mused that red also makes for a conspicuous target…
Why had Marcia invited her to stay at the villa? What was the purpose behind tonight's banquet? And, more importantly, where did the Security Police figure in Marcia's plans?
Keeping a safe distance between them, she followed Orbilio and his hostess back to the house. But instead of continuing on into the banqueting hall after them she remained in the portico, listening to the music fluting into the warm summer air, the murmur of relaxed conversation, the laughter of gentry enjoying themselves. After several minutes, Claudia picked up her skirts and quietly turned the other way.
Behind the villa, no one noticed a flock of greenfinches twitter out of the bushes. The slaves were too busy washing and perfuming the feet of their guests, fetching wine, fetching sweetmeats, topping up goblets, running errands, and, for their part, the visitors were too busy greeting friends, snubbing enemies and cutting deals to fret about a small feathered flurry. The musicians, bless them, were already lost in their instruments, clowns and buffoons far too engrossed in entertaining their audience for the outside world to impinge, and hired acrobats practised their routines in the yard with knitted-brow concentration.
So when a blackbird then came screeching out from the undergrowth, no one was even remotely concerned.
Ten
The moon was high, the stars bright, when the second round of silver platters was being cleared away. After a prelude of music and dancing to get the guests in party mood, the banquet had formally begun with a toast to the hostess, followed by a first course of fattened dormice, larks' tongues and snails accompanied by oysters from the Carent estuary served on a bed of blanched lettuce. This had been allowed to settle while a group of Kushite acrobats turned somersaults, the idea being that with white 'bones' painted on their bodies they were turned into leaping skeletons. During this interlude, Claudia had been stuck between a tin importer and Hor, and frankly she'd found little to choose between them in terms of conversation.
Of the two, the artist had the edge, because although the tin importer was widely travelled his personal interests revolved solely around the intricacies of bee-keeping and dear Diana, did that man understand the full meaning of the word drone! With an assurance that it was so fascinating she was inspired to take bee-keeping up herself, Claudia switched her attentions to Hor. Bad move. Here was a man able to quote chapter and verse on the virtues of red ochre over haematite crystals (or was it the other way round?), but knew sod all about current affairs, either amorous or political. No first course had ever lasted so long. No skeleton had ever rattled quite so monotonously.
'That's quite a cheetah your brother's got,' she cut in, as Hor drew breath about the merits of Spanish armenium.