Venus in copper

'Right.' A female. Displeased, but not greatly disturbed. 'Get him out. Let's have a look at him.' I thrashed angrily. 'Careful! That's a good bag he's ruining-'

I recognised the sturdy slave with the big hands who unsheathed me from the hopsack. Then I identified the clicking sounds: big round terracotta loom weights, which swung against each other as someone tugged at the warp threads on the weights. She had just moved down the heddle bar to the next pegs on the frame, and was squaring up the cloth again. I had never seen her bareheaded, but I recognised her too.

So much for my professional expertise: I had been kidnapped in broad daylight by Severina Zotica.

Chapter XXI

The red hair was the crinkled gingery type. It was red enough to call for comment, though not too vivid. It would not distract nervous cattle, for instance-and it did not frighten me. With it came pale skin, invisible eyelashes, and sluice-water eyes. The hair was drawn back in a way that emphasised her brow; it should have given her face a childlike quality, but instead her expression suggested that Severina Zotica had passed through childhood too quickly for her own good. She looked the same age as Helena, though I knew she must be younger by several years. She had a witch's old eyes.

'You'll get the pip,' she said sourly, 'sitting out in the shade all day.'

I tested my limbs for broken bones. 'Next time, try sending me a simple invitation to come indoors.'

'Would you accept?'

'Always glad to meet a girl who has made a success of herself.'

The professional bride wore a sleeved overtunic in a shade of silver green which combined both simplicity and good taste. An eye for colour: the work on her loom was in happy shades of amber, oatmeal and rust. Her room had matt saffron walls, against which glowed the chair cushions and door curtains worked in brighter tones, while a great floor rug stretched in front of me, thickly tufted with flame, dark brown and black. I ached in so many places I gazed at it, thinking the floor would be a nice place to lie down.

I felt the back of my head, finding blood in my hair. Inside my tunic something trickled depressingly from my last mission's unhealed wound. 'Your musclemen have knocked me about. If this chat is going to be drawn out, could one of them bring me a seat?'

'Fetch it yourself!' She motioned her slaves to absent themselves. I folded my arms, braced my legs, and stayed on my feet. 'Tough, eh?' she mocked.

She started working at the loom. She was sitting sideways, pretending to give me little of her attention, but it was all there. The repetitive movements of the shuttle frayed my tender nerves. 'Lady, would you mind not doing that while you're talking to me?'

'You can do the talking.' Her mouth compressed angrily, though she kept her voice level. 'You have plenty to explain. You have been watching my house all week and following me around blatantly. One of my tenants tells me you were in the Subura asking crass questions about my private life-'

'You must be used to that!' I interrupted. 'Anyway, I don't follow you everywhere; I gave the pantomime a miss: seen it. The orchestra was flat, the plot was an insult, and the mime himself was a balding old paunch with goggle eyes, too arthritic to make a decent stab at it!'

'I enjoyed it.'

'An awkward type, eh?'

'I make my own judgements-do you have a name?'

'Didius Falco.'

'An informer?'

'Correct'

'Yet you despise me!' I was not one of those pathetic worms who eavesdrop on senators in order to sell their sordid indiscretions to Anacrites at the Palace or to their own dissatisfied wives, but I let the insult pass. 'So, Falco, who is hiring you to spy on me?'

'Your fiance's family. Don't blame them.'

'I don't!' Severina retorted crisply. 'They and I will reach an understanding in due course. They have his interests at heart. So do I, as it happens.'

'In love?' I demanded caustically.

'What do you think?'

'Not a chance! Is he?'

'I doubt it.'

'That's honest!'

'Novus and I are practical people. Romantic love can be very short-lived.'

I wondered if Hortensius Novus was more smitten than she was. A man who has survived so many years as a bachelor usually likes to persuade himself his reason for abandoning his freedom is a special one. The girl spoke to me with a cool competence she probably restrained in his company. Poor old Novus might be deluding himself that his beloved was demure.

Reaching into a basket for a new hank of wool, Severina lifted her head; she was watching me. I meanwhile was still trying to decide why she had taken the initiative today. It could be simple impatience at me following her about. Yet I sensed that she really loved playing with fire.

She sat up, and rested her pointed chin on tapering white fingers, 'You had better bring the family's anxieties into the open,' she offered. 'I have nothing to hide.'

'My clients' anxieties are those anyone would have, young lady-your sordid past, your present motives, and your future plans.'

'I am sure you know,' Severina interpolated, still composed but with a glint I welcomed, 'my past has been investigated thoroughly.'

'By an old praetorian bombast who had not enough sense to pay attention to his extremely able clerk.' The look she gave me might be renewed respect-or increasing dislike. 'I reckon the clerk took a shine to you-and not necessarily in secret,' I added, remembering Lusius as a straightforward type who might speak out. 'What did you think?'

Severina looked amused by the question but managed to make her answer sound genteel. 'I have no idea!'

'Lies, Zotica! Well, I'm the new boy here; strictly neutral so far. Suppose you whisper into my kindly ear what really happened. Let's start with your first manoeuvre. You had been dragged from the Delos slave market in your childhood, and ended up in Rome. You married your master; how did you wangle that?'

'Without trickery, I assure you. Moscus bought me because I looked quick; he wanted someone to train as a stock-keeper-'

'An aptitude for figures must stand you in good stead as a legatee!'

I saw her take a breath, but I failed to raise the flash fire

I was hoping for. As redheads go she was pinched and secretive-the kind who broods on the ruin of empires. I could imagine her plotting revenge for imagined insults years after the event. 'Serverus Moscus never touched me, but when I was sixteen he asked me to marry him. Perhaps because he had never abused me - unlike others - I agreed. Why not' His shop was the best place I had ever lived in, and I felt at home. I gained my freedom. But most marriages are based on bargains; no one can sneer at me for taking my chance.' She had an interesting way of anticipating both sides of a conversation. In private she probably talked out loud to herself.

'What did he get?'

'Youth. Company.'

'Innocence? I chided.

That did make her burn more fiercely. 'A faithful woman and a quiet house where he could bring his friends! How many men can boast so much? Do you have that-or a cheap scut who shrieks at you?' I made no reply. Severina went on in a low, angry voice, 'He was an elderly man. His strength was fading. I was a good wife while I could be, but we both knew it would probably not last long?'

'Looked after him, did you?'

Her straight look rejected my sly tone. 'None of my husbands, Didius Falco, had cause for regret.'

'Truly professional!' She took the sneer on the chin. I stared at her. With that pallid skin, an almost brittle frame and her self-contained manner it was impossible to imagine what she must be like in bed. But men in search of security might easily convince themselves she was biddable. 'Did you send Moscus to the amphitheatre that day?'