Mevia, still in the shape of a letter Y, draped herself lengthwise on the couch. Not a hair out of place, not a smudge to her make-up, he noticed.
‘I like,’ she said, parting her lips to trace the line of her teeth with her tongue, ‘watching the muscles of big, tall men ripple in the lamplight.’
‘Is that a fact?’ he asked, unfastening his loin cloth and tracing his eye over the curve of her breast. There was a time, and not so long ago, when, so long as she was eager, he didn’t give a damn whether his bedmate was wealthy or poor, brainy or dim, giggly or ardent. But increasingly these days he was not so much making love as going through the motions. The seduction was mechanical, an assembly line of flattery and platitudes, with an end product which satisfied the customer if not the manufacturer. And it was not that he was lazy, lax or incapable. It was simply that another woman’s face would float in front of him, a face with proud, flashing eyes framed by tumbling dark curls, and he would yearn to reach out and touch a waist so slender a man’s hands could almost meet around it…not that he’d ever tried, you understand. There are certain parts of a chap’s anatomy that he prefers to remain attached to him, so one does not take liberties with Claudia Seferius.
Absently his mouth closed over Mevia’s nipple, but it was an ache for the girl who threw back her head when she laughed that made Orbilio groan. Whenever they breathed the same air, he and Claudia, it was like a storm before the rain. White lightning crackled between them-electrifying, frightening, exhilarating. A man never knew where the next strike would come, but one thing was for certain. With Mistress Seferius, it was never the same place twice.
As Mevia arched and wriggled beneath him, cooing his name through artificial red lips, a sound, small and insubstantial, cut into his awareness.
‘I can’t help feeling,’ Orbilio rolled off the bed, ‘that before long there’ll be a return to the old custom of husbands running their wives’ lovers through with a sword.’
Mevia surveyed him through half-lowered lids as she propped herself up on her elbows. ‘What makes you think that?’
‘Because’-to her astonishment, Marcus pulled on his tunic-‘I can hear his horse in the yard.’
‘Darling? I’m home!’
‘Run,’ Mevia squealed. ‘He’ll come in the back way.’ She pointed to a door, which was opening even as she spoke.
‘What’-the pepper merchant strode into the perfumed boudoir to find a handsome, tousled stranger standing over a bed in which his red-faced wife lay stark naked-‘the bloody hell’s going on here?’ His hand had drawn his dagger before he’d finished the sentence.
‘For gods’ sake,’ snapped Orbilio. ‘Can’t you see I’m a doctor?’
‘Eh? Oh.’ The dagger sank back in its scabbard. ‘I thought…is it serious?’
‘Tick fever,’ replied Orbilio, clearing his throat. ‘Fatal, I’m afraid, unless we treat it straight away. I…I’ve been bleeding her with leeches.’ He hastily pulled up the covers. ‘But you could help by fetching a mix of alum and mandrake, three to one. Only for gods’ sake, man-hurry!’
Three minutes later and striding in the opposite direction to the apothecary’s, Marcus chuckled to himself. He’d had closer shaves in the past (the auctioneer, for instance, who’d caught him licking honey off his young bride’s back), but there was nothing like the old physician trick to pull a chap out the mire. Worked every bloody time. Orbilio rubbed his hands together and looked up. The clouds were low but not threatening, and he decided to grab a bite to eat from Galen’s tavern before sauntering down to the wharves to see what gems his other, less attractive informants had garnered during the course of the day. He pushed open the door where the steam, the heat, the laughter, the smell of wine and cooking nearly knocked him back into the street. Being market day, he’d expected the place to be busy, but this was ridiculous.
‘This way, sir. I’ll clear a table,’ Galen said, jostling his way through the crowd, but Orbilio put a restraining hand on his shoulder.
‘I’ll be fine here,’ he replied, resting his weight against the wall. ‘Just bring me a pie when you’re able-venison if you have it, otherwise rabbit.’
He had no desire to see a group of hungry stevedores turfed out simply to make room for the aristocracy, it was not his style, and in any case, standing might strengthen the weakness that the arrival of a jealous husband had brought to his kneebones.
The noise in the tavern almost made the walls bulge out. Tonight men and women from every walk of life were carousing in earnest, pushing to the back of their minds the uncertainty which had gripped Rome following the death of their Regent. The fact was that the Empire was now without an heir because, despite being married to Augustus’s only child, Agrippa had died without issue. There was no one with royal blood to claim the line, which meant that should anything happen to Augustus, the field was wide open…
Still savouring the rich venison gravy and the ribald jokes of the revellers, Orbilio called for a second cup of wine and a dish of black pudding, because when it came to black pudding, there was no place to match it. Galen added onions and leeks and pine kernels, he seasoned with pepper and garlic and caraway, but there was something else-that indefinable something-which made this sausage so special. Was it the crunchy bite? The fact that they smoked it, but only slightly? Or that they cooked it over scented charcoals, possibly rosemary?
That, thought Marcus Cornelius, is what sets man apart from the beasts. Whereas animals rely on certainties in their daily existence, man thrives on the elusive. The thirst for knowledge, despite what the philosophers argue, is by no means sufficient. The piquancy of life comes from not knowing, from not fully understanding.
Which is why, perhaps, his thoughts habitually returned to Claudia Seferius. Orbilio knocked back the last of his wine and combed his hair with his hands. Mother of Tarquin, talk about spirited! The last time they’d crossed swords she’d pushed him in the pool and hurled missiles at him. Oh yes. His mouth twisted into a one sided grin. She was a hazard to health and no mistake.
Not least because she had burned her way into his soul…
He had no doubt that their paths would cross again-living as she did on the edge-but in the meantime, with the scent of sedition heavy in the air, it was time to recoup some of the money shelled out to his narks, and if Mevia had not been able to help, the next best place to start was with a lowlife aptly nicknamed Weasel.
Entrusting his toga to Galen for safekeeping, Orbilio observed one of the drinkers from the corner of his eye. A cube of a man, thickset, with a limb on each corner, it was the man’s attitude that caught his attention. Head down, eyes averted, it was the stance of one who wishes not to be noticed. Yet here he was, in a thronging tavern. Holding, yet not drinking, his wine. Orbilio thought he vaguely recognized that surly square face, perhaps that accounted for the fellow’s shifty appearance, but this was no time to re-open old cases. His priorities lay in protecting his Emperor, because now all that lay between the might of Rome and a downward spiral back into civil war was the life of just one middle-aged man.
There was no time to lose.
After the fierce heat of the tavern, the outside air felt chill and damp as mist rose from the Tiber and swirled between the lofty warehouses. It was up to the praetorian guard to sniff out uprisings in the military (and Remus, there were enough ambitious generals to keep tabs on!), but Orbilio sensed that the cornerstone to any coup would, this time, be money. While few patricians would be prepared to risk an uprising, he knew of many a rich merchant who’d throw their cap in the ring. Hence his visit to the wharves and the warehouses, to see just how many eaves had been dropped Weasel’s way. He turned the corner by one of the spice stores, its towering windowless walls exuding pungent aromas despite the sour smells of the river and the encroaching, suffocating damp. The crowds had thinned, congregating in taverns and restaurants and well-lit streets, away from the gloomy, twisting alleys where they were forced to earn their living. There was just himself and two others now. Almost in sight of the Tiber, he turned left towards a nondescript building where the boys inside were soft enough and pretty enough to pass as girls. When two men appeared in the street in front of him, Marcus Cornelius paid scant attention. There were any number of reasons why men visited this particular quarter of the Aventine, and the house ahead was just one of them. Then, with a chill, he recognized the square-faced cube from Galen’s tavern.