‘I need a ride,’ he pleaded. ‘To Sullium.’
It were gentry on the wagon. A young noblewoman, tall and beautiful, surrounded by slaves and a girl with red hair.
‘It’s a matter of life and death.’ He were stuttering, only he couldn’t help it, it were the fever.
The noblewoman stood up. ‘It would be for us, you walking pestilence factory. Out of the way.’
Melinno held out the only treasure he had left. Sulpica’s betrothal ring. ‘I can pay.’
The young woman’s nose wrinkled. ‘I don’t want your trinket, you verminous little man.’
Their eyes met momentarily and hers looked away first. When she spoke, her voice was softer. ‘You can take this, if you like.’ She nodded to one of the slaves, a black man, who offered a water flask by its leather strap held at arm’s length.
Melinno’s eyes blinked his understanding. He were a fool to think gentry’d have him, and were grateful beyond words for the water. As he leaned forward to take the canteen, the mules already being chivvied, he heard a cat snarl and a soothing voice saying:
‘It’s all right, poppet, our kittens won’t catch anything nasty from him.’
*
Claudia yawned and massaged her ankle where her left foot had gone to sleep. Junius was riding on the buckboard with the driver, an extra pair of eyes to watch for bandits, leaving Claudia with the other three bodyguards in the back. Safety was not a problem. She yawned again and rubbed her eyes. Dammit, she hadn’t slept a wink all night. Not that she was jealous of Tanaquil bunking up with Orbilio. Good heavens, no. Those images of writhing limbs and sweat-soaked bodies which kept her awake were mere irritants, nothing else. Who cared what they got up to?
All the same, if Fancypants was such a hot-shot lover, how come Tanaquil had been uncharacteristically silent all day? She, who wouldn’t talk for five minutes when half an hour would do, had done nothing but hold her head in her hands since boarding the wagon. Orbilio, of course, true to his word, had set off at daybreak on Tanaquil’s horse, so Claudia got no clues from that quarter.
Her own progress, meanwhile, consisted of one delay after another. First came the legion on the march, clanking six abreast, bronze greaves dazzling in the morning sunshine and there was a slight argument in which the wagon drive put the case for pulling off at the approaching post station and Claudia put the case against, followed by a full-blown argument when Claudia put the case for skinning the wagon driver and he put the case against.
The cavalry, protecting the baggage, led the van followed by the legates and the tribunes and the prefects and the escorts, a myriad of scarlet cloaks swinging in unison. Then came the eagle bearer and the standard bearers wearing their animal skins, wolf and lion and leopard, followed by ten thousand crunching hobnail boots. Finally the doctors, the secretaries, the blacksmiths and the orderlies brought up the rear. Somewhere, too, were the musicians-horn blowers, drummers, trumpeters.
The sound was not dissimilar to a million bronze sieves and saucepans being repeatedly dropped from a great height, yet in years to come, the master of this particular post station would swear, hand on heart, that he had witnessed a miracle. The 8th Legion had filed past in silence, he swore. All anyone could hear was the heated argument between one young noblewoman and her driver.
To Claudia’s disgust, the sun had moved considerably across the heavens before the last orderly had jangled off and Tanaquil still had her face buried in her handkerchief. Well, let’s be accurate here, it wasn’t her handkerchief, was it? It was a patrician handkerchief, and one could only hope he had something infectious to pass on.
Clambering back on board, she thought of that dungbeetle Varius. Attractive as it seemed, it was no use having him turn up in the river with a blade between his ribs, she’d be prime suspect-and anyway, who could she trust? Junius, she knew, would give his life for her. Which was not the same thing as taking one for her.
For some strange reason, instead of staying in Agrigentum to sort the problem out, here she was, trotting back to Sullium and making as much headway as a sleepy slug on an oiled pole. Shortly after the cohorts had marched past, they were delayed by some filthy tramp with a bleeding knee trying to cadge a ride, if you please. On the face of it, she ought to have sent him away with a flea in his ear (although he probably had a whole nestful of them there already), yet there was that momentary flicker when his eyes held hers and she saw, not the drunken beggar, but the young artisan he once was-straight of spine and keen of eye-and in that brief flash of communication, she had wondered what circumstances had reduced him to this pathetic level.
Claudia had encountered many beggars in her time. They clotted round city gates like flies on a sore and sometimes you dropped copper and sometimes you didn’t. But they never expected you to look in their eyes, and thankfully you never were tempted.
That, though, was mid-morning-yet here, two hours on and the far side of Sullium, the wagon was once more at a standstill! Goddamit, was there no justice?
Claudia nudged the canvas aside, more for air than the view, yet it was the view which startled her. They were on the western highway, less than a mile from where the road to the Villa Collatinus branched off, giving a fine view of Eugenius’s estate.
Had she really been gone only three days? It had changed out of all recognition!
The blue of the African Sea was as bright as ever and sparkling like glass, and the red tiles and white walls of the villa itself still shone like gemstones on a granite slab. You could even see the tops of the birch grove where Acte had met her fate, and the serpentine trail that was the short-cut she had taken the day she found Sabina. Then it had been the epitome of solitude and rural tranquillity. Today it swarmed with life.
Sheep, hundreds of them, had been brought down from the hills and packed into hastily erected pens. Shepherds who, for most of the year, were tough, self-sufficient, solitary creatures, clustered together with their fellow shepherds and the sea breeze carried the bleating and the pan pipes and the gossip and the laughter, even at this distance. Closer to the building, and more curiously still, half a dozen cows were gathered in a smaller pen, gormless creatures with dewlaps flapping, horns glinting, brushing away flies with a desultory swish of the tail. The occasional low filtered up, a baritone among the bleating sopranos.
Claudia decided the delay had gone on long enough. Small clouds of dust rose from her feet as she walked round the cart. There was a strong smell of wild celery in the air, and rosemary and spurge. She stretched her arms, stiffened after the journey. ‘What’s the problem?’
Junius pointed. ‘The old man,’ he said. ‘Said he was here first, he’s too old to shift, and the driver can’t move over because of the camber.’
Typical, she thought. He gives way to a couple of soldiers and then refuses to help an old man.
‘I’m going uphill, I’ve got right of way.’
‘You’ve got no rights, you stubborn old sod, shove off.’
Seven donkeys, laden with baskets bursting with seaweed the old man had collected to enrich his exhausted patch of soil, stood mournfully in the middle of the road, while pack-man and driver traded insults. They had just reached the stage where their mothers’ sexual proclivities were being aired when Claudia tossed a denarius into the seaweedy air. Instantly the old man’s eyes homed in on the silver and a claw swooped down. Faster than you could say ‘That’ll buy one week’s meat and grain for a month’, the denarius had disappeared and five of the donkeys were already treading grass. Not so difficult, was it?