Unfortunately, surveillance work didn't allow much free time to follow other trails and he was still none the wiser about what Claudia was up to in Santonum! According to one source, she was tracing a man who had passed through some years before, but Marcus very much doubted that. Claudia Seferius was not the type of woman to look to the past. Only the future.
He listened to the slap of the water against the bank, to bats squeaking on the wing. Clouds had moved in to cover the moon, but the night was still warm and, all around him, crickets rasped out their lonely refrain. Refolding his arms, he wriggled his back against the masthead, because there was no reason to suggest the child peddlers would act tonight. In fact, he was resigned to this being one of many long waits and, behind the clouds, the constellations of Pegasus and Hercules moved round the heavens.
Ah, but suppose she was trying to trace a lost lover? Orbilio jerked up straight. Could that be why she rejected him? Because there was someone in her past who still had her affections? Had she set out to find the one man she'd truly loved? The churning in his stomach subsided. Whatever had happened in Claudia's past, she hadn't just buried, she'd cremated and scattered the ashes. Quite frankly, the idea of Claudia trailing after a man who'd walked out on her was simply risible. All the same… A black demon stirred in the darkness, as his thoughts drifted to her bodyguard. The same bodyguard who always stuck close to his mistress. Just how close, he wondered? And what kind of mistress?
Wouldn't you like to know what goes on between those two when they're alone? the demon asked — not for the first time.
Something wrenched under Orbilio's ribcage as he thought of the blue eyes that never left Claudia, not for a minute. What had those sullen eyes seen? And what did she see when she looked back? Youth, strength, rippling muscles, lean, tanned torso — and you had to remember that she was young, too.
Too young to remain celibate, whispered the demon. Too young to have her womanly needs go unsatisfied.
Marcus pursed his lips until they were white. He pictured those hands, those rough, bodyguard's hands, exploring parts that he could only dream about The creaking of oars pulled him up short. Craning his neck, he heard the dull clunk of wood as the boat nudged the bank, followed by a muffled whimper. Picturing the child, restrained by heavy hands under a stinking blanket, Orbilio's gorge rose. Of all the dirty jobs in the Security Police, living with the knowledge that he was sacrificing this child's innocence was the worst. But the only way to break this abomination once and for all was to follow the chain, because sure he could have had legionaries stationed around the boatyard. The child would be spared, the gang would be captured, but what of the mastermind who would remain free to set up his monstrous traffic elsewhere?
The little mite began to sniffle and Orbilio's gut clenched. He forced himself to blot out the sound, because what was important was to identify the child's abductors. Peering into the blackness, he recognized the carpentry foreman and one of the riveters.
'Oi!' The nightwatchman's sleep had not been as deep as
Orbilio had thought. 'What d'you lot think yer doing? Get outta-'
The gurgling sound make Orbilio's blood run cold. He recognized it instinctively from both the battlefield and his stint with the Security Police. The all too distinctive rattle a throat makes when its windpipe's been severed. That unmistakable mix of blood, air… and sheer terror.
As the poor man fought frantically for a life that was already over, Orbilio thought of the wife, the children, the mother, the brothers whose lives would also be wrecked. A splash testified to the disposal of the nightwatchman's body, and a more callous act he could not imagine. To the Gauls, burial of the corpse meant eternal peace through the soul's reincarnation. Trussed inside the blanket slung over the foreman's shoulder, the child began to sob and anger boiled up inside him. Reaching for his dagger, Orbilio withdrew it silently from its scabbard and crept round the timber pile. Too late he heard a sound behind him. Saw the flash of bright steel as the moon came out behind the cloud. Caught a whiff of a woman's perfume.
Then the heavens exploded in a million white stars.
Twelve
Claudia was well aware that there were many risks a girl could take in this life, but walking round the backstreets of a strange town with a chap you didn't know and twenty-two gold pieces weighing you down was surely up there with the best of them.
'Eez not far now,' her guide muttered sullenly.
'I should bloody well hope not,' she retorted, because that was another thing. In Rome, you snap your fingers and a litter comes trotting. In this part of Santonum, litter meant discarded pies, slimy cabbage stalks, broken pots, slops, and let's not even mention the piles of steaming manure left by the hordes of draught beasts! Shuddering, she picked her way behind the young tribesman and wondered if Hannibal hadn't been right all along.
'I implore you, madam, do not go with this fellow. I distrust his motives with every fibre of my well-travelled body. The man is a scoundrel, I can smell it.'
Turning into the Gaulish quarters, Claudia was beginning to believe him. At the time, it seemed the right thing to do, leaving Hannibal and her bodyguard in the Forum and coming alone, as the young Santon insisted. Given that robbing a Roman citizen was punishable by being sold into slavery and that the taking of Roman life was discouraged by crucifixion — a deterrent, incidentally, that was fiercely effective, since a strapping, fit warrior could take two days to die on the cross, sometimes three if his torturers were proficient — it was obvious to Claudia that Hannibal's informant was after secrecy, not acting with criminal intent. I mean, what man in his right mind is going to sell out his comrades in public? she thought. But that was half an hour ago, in streets full of Romans, where people spoke a language she understood…
Thatched houses gave way to the wooden shacks of one of the poorer potters' quarters. Frowning earnestly over their wheels and sweating from the heat of the kilns, some applied glaze, others drew intricate patterns, while over here they painted faces on drinking mugs, over there they stacked vases for export, and everywhere young boys scurried about fetching baskets of charcoal, buckets of water, running errands left, right and centre. The guide led her on through the twisting labyrinth, turning left, cutting right, and at every corner assuring her that it wasn't far now. Claudia thought of the thin blade strapped to her calf and took a modicum of comfort from it.
'Eere.' The youth finally stopped outside a jumble of scaffolding, platforms and ramps. 'Ze man says to meet you eere.'
Bastard! He'd led her through all those stinking backstreets when he could have brought her here in a third of the time! All the same …
'Are you sure?'
Claudia shouted to make herself heard above the din of hammering and the cranking of the giant crane, but when she turned round, her surly guide was nowhere in sight. Double bastard! But before she could ask one of the carpenters sawing over their trestles which was the best way back to town, or attract the attention of one of the million bricklayers beavering away with hods and trowels as sweating apprentices mixed piles of wet concrete, a horn blew. As one, the workers dropped tools and scurried down the ladders.
'What's happening?' she asked a stonemason who'd stopped to brush the dust out of his eyebrows.
'Midday, m'lady.'
He gave his stomach a fond pat as he trotted off after the others, and she couldn't believe how, in less than a minute, the site was transformed from industrious ants' nest to deserted ghost town, where only the gentle swing of a rope and the odd settlement creak of a plank testified that a labour force had even been here. And suddenly she understood why Hannibal's informant had chosen this place for a meeting. Far enough out of the main crush to render it impressive, yet not so far that people wouldn't make the effort to come and worship, right now the Temple of Augustus was nothing more than an empty, roofless shell. Where better than a deserted building site to sell out your nearest and dearest?