'This?' Hannibal looked down, then gasped. 'Good heavens, I've been robbed!'
She smiled dutifully at the clowning, whilst remembering how he'd slipped away from the Forum while she'd gone to meet his informant.
'The stripes.' She was damned if she'd let him change the subject. 'I'm curious.'
The rules of class were simple. You're an aristocrat? Then you sew wide purple stripes on your tunic that can be seen a mile off, and, just in case the viewer's sight is fading, you wear a long tunic and red boots so there's no mistaking you for any old oik. But aristocrats were a minority. Most citizens were simply freeborn, but in between there existed a sizeable class of merchants, bankers, landowners and senior civil servants known as equestrians. Claudia's husband had been an equestrian and he, too, had been entitled to wear narrow purple stripes on his tunic. Most inherited their rank, but some — again, like Claudia's husband — could be promoted to the order provided they were of free birth for two generations and had assets totalling half a million in sesterces. Hannibal was struggling to hang on to half a sestertius, never mind half a million, and whilst being born into the order explained his education and manners, it didn't explain the tribune bit, when only patricians qualified for the role.
'Curiosity does terrible things to cats,' he rumbled, reaching for a chunk of smoked ham, 'but if you must know, I am the son of a senator. Not necessarily the legitimate heir, but flesh and blood all the same.'
'Were you close to your father?'
'Let me see. Are you meaning close as in the number of times my mother and I stood outside the Senate House hoping for a quick glimpse — her, not me? Or are you referring to the number of visits he made to the house and dandled me upon his knee? Because if it is the latter, madam, you can count those on the fingers of a man with no hands.'
'Yet he bought you a commission in the army?'
'He also paid that I might have a good education. Athens University, no less. Ah, dear Papa! Taught me so many things.'
'Like how steadfast men can be?'
'You, young lady, will cut yourself with your own tongue one of these days.'
Never mind that. 'Did you just say Athens?’ All this time she'd been working out ways to translate Orbilio's case notes from Greek, and now the gods had thrown her a man who had been to university in Athens!
Hannibal reached for the chicken and nodded. 'Wonderful city, magnificent architecture, shame about the drains. In fact, it was while I was studying there — could you pass the bread, please? — that I discovered my true vocation in life. Frankly, I am not sure what my father would have made of my purveying pitch at the shipyards, because I never had contact with the dear fellow, but since my mother was already in her grave-'
'She died young, then?'
'I'd call thirty-six young, wouldn't you?' He demolished the rest of the oysters. 'Tumour,' he explained. 'And do you know, that woman died with his name on her lips. Can you believe that?' He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. 'Hadn't seen the man for twenty years yet loved him to the end. Now, I ask you.' He tossed back the last of his wine in one swallow. 'How bloody stupid is that?'
Dawn cast her soft pink veil across the landscape of rolling hills and gentle woodlands, bringing verdant fields to life with birdsong and the scent of wild herbs and giving warmth to the early autumn air. Along the water meadows, dragonflies dried their wings. Horses, cows and sheep lumbered to their feet, stretched the stiffness from their limbs and began to graze on grass made moist and succulent with the dew.
Inside the villa, the slaves' quarters were already bustling, as furnaces were stoked to heat the Mistress's water, wood chopped, bread baked, floors swept, chairs polished.
In a den of leaves lined with soft moss deep in the forest, the Watcher gazed upon unqualified perfection. With streaming hair and streamlined hips, and without mark or blemish to stain her flawless skin, she waited for the sun to rise over her loveliness.
In breathless wonder, the Watcher stared, mesmerized by the spectacle of so much youth, vibrancy and beauty. Dare one? Dare one touch such embodiment of purity without polluting its very innocence in the process? Tentatively, one hand reached down towards her perfect cheek. Her eyes did not flicker when the shaking finger stroked her skin, nor did she flinch as trembling lips were laid on hers.
Her lips were cold. Icy cold.
The Watched waited for the sun to rise and warm them.
Seventeen
Claudia was dreaming. In her dreams, the fertile fields that swept down to the Carent were being ploughed by oxen lowing softly in the endless sunshine. Behind them, lines of singing workers planted vines, and among the bent-backed labourers was a woman with dyed blonde hair and pointed, painted features, whose beauty had long faded.
I wish I'd thought of vineyards, Marcia sang. We wish, we wish, we wish, the chorus followed. It's such a respectable way to grow rich. Grow rich, grow rich, grow rich, the chorus added.
The stems in their hands were thick and black with age, the leaves free of mildew, and, as Marcia tipped amphorae of vintage Falernian red over the vines, bunches of dark, purple grapes brushed the ground, the yield was so heavy. Claudia ticked the hours of endless sunshine off on her tally-stones, and with each click of the stones gold coins showered from the heavens. Then she lost track of the count, because hounds baying in the distance distracted her tally. Louder and louder it grew, as the dogs came closer and closer, until she realized she was no longer dreaming.
'Hrrrowwl.'
On the counterpane beside her, Drusilla was standing with her back arched and ears flat, her hackles so sharp they could cut stone.
' Hrrrrrowwwww.'
Leaning out of the window, Claudia counted a dozen dogs in the courtyard straining on the leashes of their handlers. Turning circles on their leads, squirming, jostling, twitchy and tense, the dogs were eager to go, and Claudia pulled the wooden shutters closed, which blotted out much of the sound, although that wasn't her motive.
'You can't take them all on,' she told Drusilla. 'You're staying in until I get back.'
Vicious hooks clawed at the shutters, but they were no match for a strong metal bar.
'Mrrrrp?'
'Cute won't work, either,' she told Drusilla, who'd taken to posing prettily on the pillow. 'You're grounded.'
'Frrr?'
'Yes, I'm afraid I will be gone some time. I need to go into Santonum.'
'Hrroww.'
'Sorry, poppet, Hannibal left me no choice.'
She remembered how he'd stood up, his shadow consigning the delphiniums to deep shade, when she'd told him she had a favour to ask.
'Is it about your father?'
She'd felt a mule kick inside when her gaze locked with his. 'No.'
'What a strange species you fair sex are,' he had drawled. 'You hire me at a measly one sestertius a day to find the man who abandoned you, yet you are prepared to pay thirty gold pieces to a rogue for information, but before you even meet with the scoundrel, you order me to drop my enquiries and follow up on the Scarecrow instead!' His eyes narrowed. 'Is there something you are not telling me, you saucebox?'
I could ask you the same question, she thought. Instead she asked him if he would translate a set of documents written in Greek, because although Orbilio had gone nearly a week, who knew when he might return?
'Rrrrr.'
'Exactly,' she told Drusilla. 'How was I to know he had an aversion to the Security Police?'
No matter that she was the one who'd be breaking and entering, she was the one who'd be stealing them.
'At the risk of repeating myself,' he'd said firmly, 'penal servitude is not on your faithful servant's agenda.'