II
Ask yourself this. If you’d just spent the past three days being tossed around boiling seas with salt water chapping your cheeks and bilge water slapping your ankles, would your first thought on stepping ashore be for a fortune teller?
Claudia barged past.
‘I see the image of a ram,’ a Sicilian voice called after her, ‘and arrangements for a wedding.’
Claudia rolled her eyes. Every man, woman and child in Syracuse could see the image of a ram, that was the shape of the Furrina’s red, carved sternpost.
‘I see a funeral-’
‘You’ll see your own bloody funeral if you don’t get out of my way, now clear off!’
Where was her bodyguard, for gods’ sake? Surely Junius had got his sea-legs back by now?
‘-and I see love blossoming for you. A tall-’
Don’t tell me. A tall, dark, handsome stranger. Claudia pulled up short and heard a satisfying thump as the fortune teller tripped over a rope. What was it about these people, hustling you all the time? Respected astrologers she could understand, theirs was a science, an art-but these frauds? Weddings, funerals, tall, dark, handsome strangers. Originality was hardly her strong point.
To her credit, the fortune teller, with her mass of red hair and generous bosom (neither of which was her own), might have many things to learn, but tenacity wasn’t one of them. She’d already picked herself up and was limping up the wharf after her quarry.
‘For just two sesterces, I can whisper the name of your future husband in your ear.’
‘For just two sesterces, I can have any one of these big, burly porters throw you in the harbour.’
‘You wouldn’t…?’
But the look on Claudia’s face told the fortune teller that she just might, and the subsequent arrival of a muscular, Gaulish-looking slave at her elbow tended to confirm the issue. The redhead vanished.
To Claudia’s surprise, Sabina had not been at all perturbed by the storm, though neither had she been eager to stretch her legs. She’d wait till the last minute before disembarking, she said. Well, that was her loss, because Syracuse was fun. It was big and bustly, noisy and colourful. Fortune tellers apart, it thrust its wine shops and whores, food stalls and physicians upon you the instant you set foot on solid land and after a long sea voyage, Claudia decided, as she marched back to supervise her luggage, the men would probably need them all. It was merely a question of priorities.
On every step, round every pillar, under every towering statue along the harbourside, clerks and merchants, watermen and wharfies went about their business through the constantly changing tide of humanity, waving, gesticulating, holding up fingers-five, I said five-as bales and crates and sacks changed hands to the clank of the tally pieces. Donkeys brayed under the noonday sun, bright pennants and banners flapped in the breeze.
Despite an abundance of temples, theatres and other public buildings to testify that, regardless of two hundred years of Roman occupation, this was still the gem in a once-Greek crown, the city had a curiously cosmopolitan feel, with its assortment of brightly coloured tunics and dark coloured slaves. Great tusks of ivory lay piled on the quay alongside Lebanese cedars and Carthaginian camels honking in protest. A tigress, bound for the arena, snarled inside her cage. A Syrian aristocrat in floppy hat and pantaloons gathered together his brood of little Syrian aristocratlets. Yet for all that, Syracuse had contrived to remain Greek.
Yes, there were togas in evidence, but it seemed the good men of Sicily weren’t perhaps so status-conscious as their counterparts in Rome, for here far more of them took advantage of the Greek pallium. It was lighter and smaller and draped in such a way as to leave the right arm and shoulder bare, making it a much more attractive garment for the climate, as well as considerably less restrictive than the conventional toga. However, one man who had not adopted this cool and casual form of dress stood out in the crowd. Not necessarily because of his height, which was above average, or because of his looks, which were compelling rather than handsome, but because at this very moment Claudia was being pointed out to him by one of the men off the ship. His bearing proclaimed a military background, which was confirmed when he marched straight up, stopped abruptly and all but saluted.
‘Mistress Seferius, my name is Fabius Collatinus. Follow me, please.’ He strode off down the wharf.
So much for the army. It teaches a man how to build roads, bridges, aqueducts and fortresses. It teaches a man how to fight, build siege engines and guard frontiers. It does not, unfortunately, seem to teach a man manners. Claudia resumed supervision of her baggage.
It was a rather less confident Fabius who returned. ‘Excuse me, you are Claudia Seferius?’
‘I am.’
This time she didn’t even bother to look up. Amongst legionaries he might be a giant among men. Among the Claudias of this world he was a mere babe in arms. She turned to the porters, who appeared to be handling Drusilla’s cage with some trepidation.
‘That crate’s to travel with me.’
‘It’s my duty to escort you onwards to Sullium. There’s a passage booked on board the Isis, she sails within the hour.’
‘Then she’ll have to sail without us.’ She turned towards him and smiled prettily. ‘I can’t leave Syracuse until their eyes open.’
He cocked his head to one side. ‘I beg your pardon?’ Claudia indicated the crate at her feet. ‘The kittens. I’ve promised Drusilla we won’t embark on the next leg of the journey until their eyes open.’
‘Drusilla?’
‘My cat,’ she explained cheerfully, beckoning over a food-seller and selecting a venison pie. ‘Now, Fabius, I don’t suppose you know of a decent tavern, do you?’
He shook his head, and it was difficult to tell whether Fabius meant no, he didn’t know of a tavern or whether he shook it out of pure bewilderment.
‘Where do you recommend?’ she asked the pie-seller. ‘The island here or the mainland?’
For a moment the poor man was speechless. Not once in his life had the nobility canvassed his opinion on any subject under the sun, let alone asked him to recommend accommodation. But he had a shrewd eye for business (how many pie-sellers bothered to meet incoming ships?) and therefore suggested an establishment he knew to be frequented by visiting dignitaries.
‘Oh, the island, m’lady. Without a doubt!’ The fact that the place belonged to his brother was, he felt, neither here nor there. ‘I’ll lead the way.’
That was worth three asses, he reckoned. Add on a cut from his brother and with any luck he’d be pissed before twilight. To his dismay, the man in the toga sought directions then dismissed him with the princely sum of two copper quadrans, which just happened to be the price of the pie.
‘Which reminds me, Fabius.’
The soldier spun on his heel. ‘Yes?’
‘Would you be so kind as to arrange a couple of sacrifices for me? Two white bulls-that’s one for Neptune, one for Jupiter-and something nice for the Tempestates while you’re at it.’
‘White bulls? They cost a fortune!’
‘Then it’s as well you’re only shelling out for two, isn’t it?’
He didn’t look particularly happy as he set off down the sidestreet indicated by the vendor.
Munching on her pie and careless of where the gravy dribbled, Claudia gestured over a litter. If that marblehead thought she was accustomed to walking up and down wharfs, he was very much mistaken. Where she came from, ladies travelled in vehicles which reflected their station in life.
Heaving Drusilla and her family into the litter and wiping her greasy hands on a cushion, she began to have serious misgivings about this whole wretched enterprise. What sort of family were the Collatinuses, for heaven’s sake, expecting their womenfolk to walk? Before instructing the bearers to move on, she prayed to whatever spurious gods they worshipped in this isolated land that it was simply Fabius who was unused to a civilian lifestyle. The last thing she wanted was to be stuck with a family of misers!