‘No one could have predicted a second murder so quickly, Marcus. It’s only eight days since Sabina was killed.’ Officially the family still had one day left of mourning. Unofficially they never started.
‘I should have arrested him on the spot instead of prancing round Agrigentum in search of proof. I could have done that while he was under lock and key.’
‘You’re not still on about Diomedes?’
‘I know you rate him, Claudia, but I’ve tried tracing the references he gave Collatinus, and they’re false. Every last one of them.’
Her eyes challenged him. ‘You condemn everyone who’s forged their own past?’
‘Dammit, Claudia, why can’t you admit you’re wrong about this bloody quack?’
She smiled and dipped her handkerchief in the bubbling fountain. ‘I may have my faults, Orbilio, but believe me, being wrong isn’t one of them. Wrap this round your knuckles.’
‘Who else could it be?’ He absently bandaged his bleeding hand. ‘Who else has that precise medical knowledge?’
Claudia shrugged. ‘How do I know? Someone who’s spoken to him in the past? Another physician? An apothecary, pedlar or cutler? Could even be a lucky strike and now the killer’s found a method, he’s sticking to it.’
‘This isn’t about luck and the sooner this pervert’s executed, the better. Are you coming with us to the villa tomorrow?’
That was one very intimate ‘us’. And let’s not forget she calls you by your personal name. ‘Someone has to stop you putting the wrong man in chains,’ Claudia said.
‘Come on, who else is there?’ he asked. Orbilio picked up the battered loaf and pulled a chunk off.
‘You don’t go along with Eugenius that it might be Utti?’
‘Uh-uh,’ he mumbled, his mouth full of bread. ‘The proverbial gentle giant, him. I don’t know what game Tanaquil’s playing, but I don’t think her brother’s a party to it, which is why I’m in such a hurry to get back and knock some sense into the old man.’
There was a silence as the musicians took a well-earned break and the revellers paused for the last course of the banquet, probably fresh, sticky honeycombs. Little else would keep them so quiet.
‘Two virgins, two murders,’ he said eventually, brushing crumbs off the front of his tunic. ‘What sort of maniac is this?’
‘I hate to disabuse you, Orbilio, but there’s a problem with your arithmetic. Sabina wasn’t a virgin.’
‘Not a Vestal, I know-’
‘No, I mean she wasn’t a Vestal or a virgin. I saw her body before it had been cleaned up, remember? Bruised, battered, semen on her thighs-but no blood. Wherever Sabina had been for thirty years, she hadn’t been sticking to a vow of chastity.’
‘Croesus!’ Orbilio combed his hair with his hands and began to pace up and down again. ‘You know, one of the lines I followed up was to see whether a Sabina Collatinus had ever been called to initiation and guess what? She turned up all right, six or seven years old, but before she could be ordained, she ran away. Naturally a full-scale search was organized, but before the holy sisters could contact the family, word came back that Sabina had been killed in a traffic accident. As far as the Vestals were concerned, the matter was closed.’
‘How does that tie in with Matidia writing to her daughter, care of the Vestals in Rome?’
‘It means the letters were intercepted.’ Orbilio cupped his hands in the fountain and briskly sluiced his face with the cold water. ‘The pieces are beginning to come together at last.’
They are? ‘It still doesn’t answer whether the woman I met was the real Sabina Collatinus or an imposter.’
‘No it doesn’t, but it’s proved one thing. You weren’t in on it.’ Orbilio let out a loud and throaty chuckle. ‘Juno’s skirts, you were after Varius all the time. You bloody came after Varius!’ This time he drank the water cupped in his hands.
‘I came for a holiday,’ Claudia replied coolly. ‘Chaperoning Sabina was all part and parcel. Who’s your money on now for her accomplice?’
‘Take your pick, anyone’s as likely-or as unlikely-as another. But one thing is without doubt. The bastard who killed Sabina and Acte is no novice. Someone, somewhere, has been butchered in the same way, I’ll lay money on it.’
XXV
The sun beat hot on his back as Melinno stumbled along the road, pushed and jostled by the throng of pedestrians and donkeys and handcarts making their way to market. Children jeered and mimicked his apelike shuffle, catcalls rang in his ears and more than once he’d been on the receiving end of a lash.
He knew what he looked like-clothes torn and ragged, hair long, beard matted. He probably stank like a hoopoe’s hole, only he’d lived with himself too long to notice. Tears streaked the grime on his face. Sulpica would be ashamed of him, it were pitiful. No longer able to walk upright, he clutched his aching chest, shuffling like a stroke victim, barely strong enough to cough up the dark phlegm in his lungs.
He were dying.
He knew it-aye, as sure as the sun rises in the east and the Trojan horse were made of maple-and it didn’t bother him none. Soon he’d be with Sulpica. Together for ever. It drove a sword in his heart that he could no longer picture the precise colour of her eyes or recall the way she spoke, but soon-very soon-he’d be able to see for himself.
But before he could go to her, he must avenge her. How could he face her otherwise? He had made his vow on her deathbed and by Janus, he would keep it. It were this oath what drove his body, lending him the strength and cunning to leap aboard the wagon of an itinerant pitch seller, a Corsican, bound for Agrigentum from Henna. The strong resinous smell of his cargo disguised the presence of the stowaway and after just three days the wagon was rumbling through the high arches of the Gela Gate.
Within minutes, almost, the Corsican were descended upon by hordes of farmers, desperate to melt his pitch into tar to preserve their timber and put in their sheep-wash, mark their corn sacks and smear on their wine corks. Unseen, Melinno slipped into the crush. Agrigentum. Half a day from the Villa Collatinus. Cough or no cough, he were within an ace of his quest. Retribution would be his.
He reached down to pat his knife. It were gone. He spun round, losing his balance. His knife, his cloak, his pack, his canteen! He’d left them on the wagon! Oblivious to the blood coursing from his knee, he hauled himself up from the gutter and pushed through the crowds, first this way, then that, until all hope of finding the Corsican was lost. He fell against the stone wall of a spice dealer, too tired, too spent to swear. Not that he’d sworn much of late. Sulpica didn’t like it, and he wanted to be more the man she loved and remembered when they met up.
‘Oi, you! Clear off!’ The spice merchant prodded him with a cattle goad. ‘You’re bad for trade.’
Melinno reeled round the corner. In his confusion, he realized now, he’d been blundering in the wrong direction, He was back at the Gela Gate, which was closing for the night. Now what? He tried begging, and received only clouts. Being neither blind nor lame nor deformed, people mistook him for a common drunk, shivering and delirious with the DTs. Turning right, where the wall fell away so many hundreds of cubits it made him dizzy, Melinno chanced upon a flight of steps cut deep into the rock. He slipped and slithered, hoping to find a roost for the night, and found instead they led to a narrow chamber, which in turn led to two great caverns lit by torches. This were a shrine, most likely Ceres judging from the offerings, but if he kept to the shadows he could pass the night here and maybe get healed a bit. There were springs in the caves, springs of sweet, fresh water which fed the basins in the little courtyard, and some of the pilgrims had left bread for the corn goddess.
At first light, before he could drink the water or eat the bread, the priests had found him and thrown him out by the scruff of his neck, splitting open the cut on his knee. Now, well clear of the city and shambling along the Sullium road, he found the local traffic had thinned and his ears picked up the sound he’d been waiting for. The sound of hooves clip-clopping along the paving blocks. Turning, his weak eyes nearly blinded by the sun, he saw he were right. Two mules, a covered wagon for long distance travel. Stepping into the middle of the road, he flagged it down.