And all the time, Jovi continued to hack. ‘Why don’t she come, Passi?’
Cypassis, having no answer, stroked his wracked shoulders and cooed into his hair. Even a five-year-old knew that, by now, there wasn’t one square inch of Rome that had not been covered in an attempt to reunite him with his mother. Messages had been posted, criers were calling, and in the warrens where Jovi lived, word travels fast. Tight-lipped, Cypassis unhooked the balled fists from her tunic and led him away to the corner where the oil jars were stored. Two dark ovals stood stark on her sky-blue cotton tunic, their wetness cold through her undershift.
‘Passi, have I been naughty? Am I being punished?’
She fell down and hugged his hiccupping shoulders. ‘No, Jovi, of course not.’ She could feel him gulping against the lushness of her hair and her bones dissolved with pity. ‘You’re a good boy.’
Verres the cook, passing, rumpled the little lad’s mop and offered to show him how you bone a hare then stuff it with truffles and oysters, if he liked? The head embedded itself deeper into Cypassis’ neck.
Steam spiralled from bubbling saucepans. The cauldron which hung over the fire gurgled contentedly, and fat from the goat on the spit hissed as it dripped on the charcoal. A kitchen maid strained carrots in a giant iron ladle, then dipped bream into white wine and parsley, wrapped them in cabbage leaves and laid them on the hearth. A shanty started up, and before long the whole kitchen was alive to the rhythm, voices joining in whether they knew the words or not. Cypassis patted his convulsions to the beat as almonds were ground in a mortar and smoked sausages were cut down and fried. And she thought what a contented, happy scene it was, were it not for Jovi.
As another tune took over, she considered his mother’s options. Too ill to claim her child, would she not send someone in her place? Cypassis could not understand abandoning a five-year-old to strangers and confusion. Who’d do such a thing? Tears streamed down her cheeks and filled her dimples right until the moment Verres the cook caught his finger on the gridiron and swore, with great fluency, in at least seven different languages.
Even Jovi laughed.
*
Up in his attic, the man who called himself Magic had his head bent low over the page. The light from his smoky tallow picked out patchwork walls blistering in the damp, cobwebs trailing from the ceiling and the remnants of a meal which had long since congealed. Six storeys below a dispute over a right of way was turning acrimonious, but for him, such things were trivia. A weight had been lifted from his heart, there was no time to lose. He smoothed out a clean sheet of parchment and flipped open the inkwell.
‘my beloved soon shall we be free – ’
He’d been so stupid! It was as clear as the waters from an Umbrian spring what had been happening. Other People were keeping Claudia from her beloved Magic. His fingers curled into claws. It was his fault. He should have realized sooner. All those letters he had sent without a solitary word by return-it was obvious. Her letters had been intercepted. The knuckles on his hand grew white. Now he knew Other People were between them, it was easy.
‘true love will always conquer,’ he wrote, and the candle guttered when he laughed. Theirs was a love which would last for all eternity. Other People could not keep them apart. He wrote that down as well.
‘other people can not keep us apart.’
Magic laughed again, and had there been fresh eggs in the room they would have curdled. He could not be sure, of course, that Claudia now received his letters, not when Other People interfered. He’d have to send her something else. What? He chewed his bottom lip for inspiration. What would scream his feelings for her, let her know she had not been abandoned.
‘i have not abandoned you.’ Write that down as well. Cobs of sweat broke out on Magic’s forehead. Somewhere, hundreds of letters, written in her own sweet hand, lay mouldering in a box. ‘i will find them,’ oh, yes he would, and then he could take down all those poor, unhappy copies from his wall and nail up the genuine love-filled articles. All of them.
Well, now he knew his letters were being read by Other People, they ought to know who they were dealing with. Yessir, they ought.
‘when you my darling love slave press your rosy nipples to my lips and plead with me to whip and beat you – ’
He felt a jolting in his loins, and the nib flew across the page as he envisaged all that he would do. He described the taste of blood, the pain, the pure, exquisite torture… He had nearly filled the page before he remembered his mission.
‘and when we fly to heaven sated and complete then other people will not need to die.’
Would they understand, he wondered? Yes, of course they would. They were clever people, these stealers of letters. Almost as clever as Magic was himself.
X
The door at which Claudia rapped was about as impersonal as a door can be. Hinges iron, studs without rust, timber durable, common, and because holm-oak rots down slowly, there were no clues as to the age of the door-a criterion which applied equally to the servant who opened it. Stolid and dough-faced with a nose like an anchor stone, the woman could have been any age from fifty-five to seventy. Her hands, puffed and red from scrubbing, offered no hint, her hair was dyed black and she wore a yellow scarf which concealed the lines around her neck. Claudia felt herself on shifting sands. Doorkeepers, without exception, were male.
‘I’m here to see Kaeso,’ she said breezily. ‘Is he in?’
‘Nnnn.’
Claudia thought irreverently of Cypassis telling Jovi about poor little Echo, spurned by Narcissus and reduced to repeating other people’s endings. However, this was no cave and this, certainly, was no nymph. Not now. Not ever. Doughface was examining the visitor like a fisherman inspects a mackerel and Claudia felt her blood start to bubble.
‘If it’s too difficult, I’ll rephrase the question. Is he in?’
‘Nnnn.’
Just as Claudia was about to yank on the scarf round this awful creature’s neck, Echo stepped aside and wagged one swollen finger to indicate that the visitor should remain in the atrium. Had she been a dog, Claudia suspected she would have been expected to sit.
The hall, like the entrance, was miserably neutral. A bleak geometric mosaic, black, white and brown, hardly a challenge for the designer, and the walls had been painted yellow and green, the colours of spring, but the lack of ornamentation and the dogged repetition of colour blocks denied more imaginative connotations. There was, of course, the obligatory pool in the centre but again, this was a passive rectangle of water, not a sparkling, chattering fountain.
She could leave, of course. Walk out now. Hire another tracker, heaven knows there were plenty to choose from-men who traced runaway slaves, errant wives, missing children. But Kaeso had a reputation which went way beyond mere pursuit…
Time passed. Claudia’s ears strained for sounds, and picked up none, and that was the worrying part. The street itself sat tucked away on the flat of the Quirinal, comprising mostly of tenements for the moderately well-off artisans, craftsmen, self-sufficient freedmen. A quiet, respectable suburb, where no dogs barked, no hawkers touted, no children kicked inflated pigs’ bladders through your windows every half hour. But indoors? In a house this size, you’d expect to hear servants scurrying about, floors being swept, pans clattering in the kitchens. Here there was only silence. And where were the smells that make a home? The camphor scent of rinsed linen? Or yellow cones of juniper burning day and night to keep the snakes at bay?
Invisible eyes seemed to follow her every movement and gooseflesh crept up her arms. This was turning into an Assyrian horror story, one of those gruesome tales the desert nomads seemed so fond of as they sat around their camp fires, while jackals howled in the hills. Let me tell the true tale of the House of Silence, where the door was held fast by invisible demons, imprisoning for eternity all who passed through its portals…