*
Marcus Cornelius Orbilio was frustrated. In fact, he was frustrated on so many counts, he had actually lost count. Taking them point by point, and not necessarily in order of priority, they looked grim. Put them together, and the outlook was bleaker than a Gaulish winter.
He could kiss his career goodbye. This evening he’d called on the local magistrate, a redneck equestrian called Ennius, and the meeting got off on completely on the wrong footing.
‘You’re interrupting my devotions,’ the man had said irritably.
Orbilio had difficulty in controlling his runaway eyebrows. Whatever goddess Ennius was worshipping, she wore cheap scent and left long, dark hairs on his tunic, which he hadn’t had time to belt properly. Orbilio apologized and offered to call back when it was convenient, but Ennius took this as a slight, the nobility patronizing the lower classes as usual, and insisted he conduct his business on the spot. To emphasize both point and authority, he meant it literally and Orbilio was faced with the embarrassing position of outlining the facts on the magistrate’s doorstep.
Ennius already had strong views regarding the Security Police stomping over his territory and showed Orbilio the letter of complaint he’d sent to the Head of Security Police in Rome. When asked politely what he, as magistrate, proposed to do about Utti’s illegal execution, Ennius lost no time in telling Orbilio that he backed Collatinus to the hilt-clearly the fellow was guilty as hell.
‘This is nothing short of cold-blooded murder,’ Orbilio pointed out reasonably.
Ennius jabbed his neatly manicured finger into the younger man’s chest. ‘Don’t lecture me on the law, you insolent puppy. In Sullium I am the law-and the law backs Collatinus. Now get the hell off my doorstep.’
Orbilio found himself raising the subject of Tanaquil’s illegal imprisonment to a bronze door-knocker.
So! Ennius had put in a less than favourable report and his boss, ever the wily politician, was unlikely to consider the subtler aspects of a matter which fell outside his jurisdiction. It would have been different (oh, how it would have been different!) had Sabina genuinely served as a Vestal Virgin, but of course she hadn’t. Instead, an innocent man had been executed and the whole affair had turned into nothing short of a fiasco.
He could not see a way out. He could not arrest Diomedes, there was insufficient evidence to go to trial-largely because, between them, Ennius and Collatinus would ensure the case against Utti was rock solid. Providing Diomedes didn’t kill again, he was free to move on and murder away to his heart’s content. Which he’d probably been doing for years and years.
As the law stood-Roman law, as opposed to Ennius’s law-a murderer need not stand trial providing (a) he confessed or (b) he was caught red-handed. Diomedes was no fool. A man had been executed for the crimes he himself had committed, he would not risk his neck by killing again in the same area. Orbilio did not relish the prospect of losing his job (and thereby his shot at the Senate), but he bitterly regretted his loss being caused by a man who had, quite literally, got away with murder.
He began to pace the room in frustration, not all of it connected to work. Common sense and logic told him to bed the first woman who came along and there had been plenty. The prefect’s mansion in Agrigentum was packed to the rafters with pretty girls and his ears still rang with their offers, and yet he’d held back. It made no kind of sense and was something he’d never encountered before, even when married.
He rubbed his back muscles. The tension started in his neck and continued to his loins. Here he was, in the wee small hours, unable to sleep for frustration. He urgently needed release, he was as taut as a bowstring, but what? He would wear a groove in the mosaic if he kept pacing up and down. Weights! That was it. In Rome he frequently worked out in the gymnasium, why not here? Two small statues stood on the desk, one of Castor, one of Pollux. They would do very nicely. He stripped off his loin cloth and systematically flexed every muscle in his body. Placing the statues at his toes, his hands closed tightly round them.
‘You don’t expect to see a full moon on a night like this.’
Orbilio spun round. ‘Croesus, Claudia, don’t you knock?’ He lunged for his tunic and held it in front of him as Castor rolled under the bed.
She had a wicked, wicked grin on her face. ‘Ssh! There’s something I want you to see.’
‘Do you know what time it is?’
‘Too long after supper and not long enough to breakfast. Come along, you’ll enjoy this.’
He stared, inhaling her spicy perfume. She was wearing a night shift, diaphanous and white. Her hair hung loose, luscious thick curls framing her face and tumbling over her shoulders. He could see the firm points of her nipples moving up and down as she breathed.
‘I’m not dressed,’ he said pompously.
She cocked her head to one side and let her eyes rest on the bunch of material he was gripping in front of him. ‘Orbilio, are you coming or not?’ she said innocently, and he found himself doing something he hadn’t done for over ten years. Marcus Cornelius Orbilio blushed to his roots.
Claudia watched while, with unconscious masculine grace, he donned a fresh tunic before letting the other fall to the floor. She thought back to the marble warrior in the garden of Julius Domiticus Decianus and compared it to the figure in front of her. Lithe and lean with hard, rippling muscles and dishevelled hair that fell into his eyes. How many women, she wondered, had succumbed to the urge? She doubted whether he could keep count, or even if he wanted to. Then she remembered Tanaquil and the hand on his knee…
‘For gods’ sake, Orbilio, we haven’t got all bloody night.’
But by then, Marcus had caught up with his equilibrium and he merely raised one little eyebrow in response.
‘Sssh!’ She placed her ear to the door and opened it carefully. ‘Be very quiet,’ she whispered.
He followed her on tiptoe across the shadows of the atrium, their bare feet making no sound. The only noise came from Cerberus, snoring loudly by the front door.
‘See?’ She spoke so softly, he could barely hear and it was dark, he had to squint. Then he saw what she was pointing at. Aulus. Pacing barefoot up and down a mosaic of Apollo in his chariot, spitting something from his mouth and glancing furtively round the hall.
‘What’s he doing?’
Claudia strained to catch the words. ‘Black beans,’ she hissed back. ‘Listen.’
‘With these beans I redeem me and mine.’
Aulus popped another one in his mouth, sucked it a bit, then ptwee. Out it popped and he repeated the phrase. Finally he poured a small trickle of water over his hands in a symbolic cleansing ritual, picked up two bronze kettles and closed them very, very quietly together.
‘Ghosts of my fathers, be gone!’
He gave a low bow, then walked softly across the hall towards his bedroom. Claudia and Orbilio filed back to Marcus’s room, since it was closest.
‘What do you make of that?’ she asked, settling herself on his bed and drawing up her knees.
‘I’m not sure. Some sort of death ritual?’
‘Like the rites you give a loved one’s spirit to help it on its way? I mean, the same bronze kettles, the nine beans and all that, but-did you catch his words?’
‘And what about the symbolic cleansing?’ He found Claudia’s excitement contagious.
‘Do you think what I think?’
He nodded. ‘The ceremony for the undead.’ Orbilio shook his head in bewilderment. ‘What were you doing lurking in the shadows at this time of night, anyway?’
‘I was hungry.’
They thought everyone had the appetite of an ant in this house. The only one who looked properly nourished was Fabius, and when you compared Collatinus grub to army rations, it might well explain why he joined up.
‘So there I am, rummaging around in the black of night for a bit of cheese or a cake, and blow me down, what do I hear? Old Conky droning on. I thought at first he was sleepwalking, then…’