‘I’m next on the hit list, you know.’
Oh lord. In her fantasy world, not only has this creature convinced herself Orbilio’s her cousin and she can play a key role in solving the murders, she believes she’s the murderer’s next victim. How sad. Not unlike Magic in a way. Except at least Annia’s delusions hadn’t made her a sick and dangerous lunatic…
Claudia wiped her sticky hands and fished out two copper quadrans for the snake dancer who was entertaining a crowd with two fat reptiles draped around her shoulders. An old man played the pan pipes as serpents and dancer writhed in sensuous unity, the snakes’ red tongues flicking in and out to smell the crowd. When Claudia turned round, she expected Annia to be gone. Instead, what she saw, she couldn’t quite believe.
Another writhing creature. Another tongue flicking in and out. Only this one was blue, and the colour matched Annia’s eyes to a tee. But this was no snake. This was a mythical dragon staring back.
‘Now do you believe me,’ Annia was saying, rolling down her immaculate white sleeve. ‘Now can you see I’m telling the truth?’
Claudia shivered and wondered why, when there was so much sunshine about, she should be cold. It was only a tattoo, for gods’ sake.
Only a miserable tattoo.
XXII
On the question of necklaces, Claudia much preferred pearl ropes to millstones, and since Annia very definitely fell into the latter category, Claudia saw no reason why said stone should not hang round the neck where it belonged. The girl was a slave, let her master protect her.
‘Mistress, actually,’ she’d trilled. ‘For the past two years I’ve been dressing the hair of the temple warden’s wife, she pays very good bonuses, you know. That’s the Temple of Apollo. Magnificent building, have you been inside? Probably not, they don’t allow commoners past the portico, but it’s solid Numidian marble, and you’ll have seen, the yellow marble colonnades and all those wonderful sculptures on the outside. Greek, mostly, and though they haven’t finished painting all the friezes, they are so atmospheric.’
And so it went on. Prattle, prattle, prattle. But beneath it all, Annia was resolute. Wild horses would not drag her back. Point out that fifty, sixty people are employed in the temple, she’d be far safer there, but would she listen? Would she hell.
‘The Temple of Apollo is right next door to the Wolf Cave, Claudia, I don’t want anything to do with it. I’m sticking to Marcus, he’s my cousin and he has an obligation.’ Without drawing breath, she’d moved on. ‘It’s a downright disgrace what they did to me, handing me over to be raised as a slave, my life could have been so different, it could have changed everything. Everything. But I’m only eighteen, too late to start over. Once I receive my Cap of Freedom, I shall take my true place in society and wear diadems and fine slippers and ride in a litter, but of course that’s not until October, so in the meantime, I shall move in with Marcus.’
‘But-’
‘I shall be no inconvenience, you won’t know I’m around. But really, Claudia, you ought to let me do something with your hair, you need more than just a few pins and combs to keep it in place. What I suggest…’
Belatedly Claudia realized she’d capitulated, simply because Annia ground her down. That the story was true, she had little doubt. Had Orbilio not confessed his desperation to save ‘ann-other’ slave girl? To save Annia? But the girl’s sickly wholesomeness, her innate snobbery and her morbid curiosity about the Market Day Murderer wore Claudia’s nerves threadbare. You drop something, guess who pounces to pick it up? You sneeze, guess who’s there with a hanky? No, no, you should never match silver with gold, it looks crass, tell me again how those poor creatures died, oh, this plate’s worth a fortune, just look at the moulding! In truth, Claudia suspected the temple warden’s wife wouldn’t have Annia back for all the gold in Dacia.
Meanwhile, the Megalesian Games were ticking by, a festival of gladiators, theatre and athletic events, alongside feasts, conjurors and puppet shows and she was buggered if she’d give that a miss. Stuffing her cushion into the small of her back, Claudia noticed that the Circus Maximus was filling up rapidly. The place hadn’t seen a chariot raced round its circuit since Agrippa succumbed, so the excitement and tension was growing minute by minute. She was glad, now, she’d dumped the aunts down the easternmost end and left Annia in Junius’ care.
Down at track level, a flurry of activity broke out in the royal box. Five out of six Vestal Virgins surrounded Augustus and his only daughter, heavy with Agrippa’s unborn child, but the buzz centred on the arrival of two sombre, white-robed priests. A collective groan rippled round the Circus. The augurs had studied the cloud patterns and declared the omens for the first race unfavourable.
Irritable drivers untied themselves from their chariots, the man from the Blue faction shoving the man from the Red in the back. He retaliated with a high-flying kick, and when the man from the White faction moved in to break up the fight, blood spurted from his nose at Blue’s wild punch and he in turn laid into the man from the Green, who had merely been patting his stallion. The crowd loved it, cheering, whooping, baying, booing, because if the priests intended to spend the next half hour playing with their silver censers and pouring new libations to the gods, they needed some form of entertainment. Bookmakers started taking bets on the charioteers instead of the chariots.
Claudia couldn’t concentrate on the fisticuffs. How could she? She crossed, then uncrossed, then re-crossed her legs. How could anyone concentrate, knowing a crazed killer might call at their house any day?
Down on the racetrack, the priests had finished wafting incense and chanting entreaties to the gods in order to make the omens for the first race favourable. The bookmakers stiffened. The crowd craned forward. The race marshals shuffled. In the ensuing silence, the augur stepped forward, his head covered, and held wide his arms. For three minutes he spoke on the pattern of cloud cover, the shadows cast on the great obelisk of Rameses which sat on the central spine of the Circus. Yes, yes, but is the race on? Then he turned to face West and solemnly intoned the significance of each of the twelve starting gates representing a sign of the zodiac. We know that already. Will the race go ahead? In his opinion, the augur droned, the Circus Maximus is representative of the entire universe, being symbolic of ‘Boooo!’
His words were drowned by the crowd, who wanted an answer. Were they wasting their time here or not?
‘Leonides said I’d find you beside the statue of Victory.’ A young patrician plumped down on the seat next to Claudia, even though it was taken. The affronted occupant moved huffily up. ‘Who’s your money on for the first race?’
‘The augur,’ Claudia replied. ‘If he hangs in there long enough, there won’t be time for one horse race, let alone twelve and he seems very taken with that number, does our augur.’
‘Lip-reading,’ Orbilio said, squinting, ‘he appears to be down to the number seven and its connection between the drivers’ seven laps of the circuit, the seven planets and the seven days of the week. How’s Jovi?’
‘Confused. In his mind, his mother doesn’t love him, whereas complete strangers do.’
‘And the monkey?’
‘Boooooo!’
‘Still decimating my house.’
‘Actually, I was referring to Porsenna.’
Claudia turned so fast in her seat, her cushion spun off. ‘Porsenna makes an excellent companion,’ she said stiffly. ‘Attentive. Generous. Informed.’ You won’t believe what I’ve learned about dormice this week. ‘What can you possibly hold against him?’
‘Other than the fact he’s a complete and utter jerk?’
A hush settled over the Circus. Apparently the race could go ahead, providing the chariots moved to different stalls, the augur said. The crowd harrumphed, and supposed that would do.