‘Only that the financial rewards will be huge and my skills will be required on a permanent basis. With Arbil’s rapid deterioration in health, he intends to move quickly and asked me up there because he wanted to know whether I was in or not.’
‘And are you?’ Before nightfall, Sargon will be marched into Rome charged with peddling children for sex. Will you be in chains alongside him, Kaeso? Will you?
‘I haven’t decided,’ he shrugged.
Claudia walked over to the shrine. The figurine was cast in silver and appeared, from above, to be sexually ambivalent. She resisted the urge to lean down and determine its gender. The libation jug had dried out, only a red ring remained at the bottom, but the posy of flowers beside it was fresh. They were fragrant white lilies and she held one to her nose to inhale its heady perfume. Suddenly her magenta gown seemed garish in this room of seascape colours.
Without a word, Claudia tossed the lily in his lap and swept out of Kaeso’s bedroom.
At the far side of the atrium, she paused to glance over her shoulder. The green and yellow blocks of colour on the walls revealed no trace of the concealed doors that had closed seamlessly behind her. It was as though they’d never been. And for an instant, Claudia, too, was tempted to believe it was pure imagination, a figment of the light and lack of sleep.
The house did that to you.
It was intended to.
*
The figure that stepped out from behind the tapestry in Kaeso’s room was frowning. ‘What did that meddling bitch want?’
The man’s tracker eyes were still fixed on the pair of double doors. ‘She’s having trouble with a stalker. He attacked her, and she wants him dealt with.’
‘She didn’t look very scared when she came barging through your front door, pushing Tucca to the ground.’
‘I never said she was frightened,’ Kaeso pointed out. The other person sighed away their irritation, slowly inching up their tunic, first above one knee and then the thigh, then the other knee and thigh. Only when the body was fully revealed in its exquisite beauty, bathed in gold from pools of sunlight, did Kaeso wrench the whole of his gaze away from the doors. Sinuous arms coiled around his neck.
‘You do love me, don’t-?’ But the lips were silenced by the placing of two gentle fingers over them.
‘Ssssh.’
Teeth made a playful grab for the admonishing fingertips. ‘What’s that you’re hiding in your hand?’
He unclenched his fist. ‘A lily,’ he replied. ‘Nothing but a lily.’
‘It smells better than that perfume she’s left in the room.’ Expert hands began to unbuckle Kaeso’s belt. ‘Do you think she suspects?’ a voice murmured in his ear. ‘About you and me, I mean?’
Grey eyes pierced the lily he still clutched in his fist. ‘Not a chance.’
His belt clattered to the floor, but when fingers gently tugged the tunic upwards, they were stilled by firm and downward pressure.
‘Not now,’ he said. ‘Not just for the moment.’
Hurt replaced lust in the eyes. ‘Why not?’
Kaeso smiled, but in his eyes there was no emotion to be read. None at all. ‘Because I have to go out for a while, that is why.’
*
The last person Orbilio expected to see when he returned to his own house was Annia, and several emotions hit him at once. Relief, of course, that she was safe. Anger, aimed at himself for not keeping proper tabs, and at her, for being irresponsible. And other, less rational feelings. Irritation, compassion and, it has to be said, pride. Watching her feeding the caged birds in the courtyard with seed from the palm of her hand, her long, fair hair tumbling down her back just like her mother’s, he felt a constriction in his breast, which he could not explain. So slight, he thought. So fragile. He followed the liquid pleats of her tunic down to the hem. How could Daphne have been so callous?
The thought was an ignoble one, but he was glad it was Severina last night…
‘I only did what you told me.’ The strain showed clear upon Annia’s pale and scrubbed face as she brushed the birdseed from her hands. ‘Go home and stay there, you said.’
Weary to the bone, Marcus had no defence. He did not recall using the word home, but, he admitted to himself, that was precisely how it felt. Whenever he was with Claudia, wherever they might be and whatever the circumstances, it bloody well felt like home.
‘You look awful,’ Annia tutted, straightening his crumpled clothes and smoothing the nap. ‘You look like a man who hasn’t slept, you need a shave, and really, Marcus, if you’re going to make an impression on the Emperor, you ought to have a haircut. How is Augustus? Have you spoken with him personally? What’s he like?’
She was relentless. What’s the latest on the crisis? Has the Emperor appointed an heir? What about his stepson, Tiberius, is he in the running? She questioned him about the coup, how did he feel, he a proud aristocrat, mixing among the lowlife of informants? And then, as he caved in to the demands his growling stomach insisted upon, Annia broached the subject which he’d so far managed to skirt.
‘Did…did anything happen yesterday?’
He drank the wine she poured him. Should he tell her? Would not telling her be protecting her? Having overstretched himself these past few days, he could hide under the umbrella of exhaustion without a conscience. But then she’d find out somehow, either from the servants or from gossip at the baths, and in any case she’d require an explanation for being shipped off to the country, which was the best (and possibly only) way he could guarantee her safety for the moment.
He broke a steaming roll in half and formed a ball of dough between his fingers. ‘As a matter of fact…’ With only the barest of encouragement, he recounted the facts, and by doing so clarified them in his mind.
‘Oh, Marcus!’ Annia buried her head in her hands. ‘What am I going to do? I’ll never be safe!’
Marcus was seven years old when Penelope knelt on the parapet of the Aemilian Bridge one heavy, thundery night. As the lightning crackled and thunderbolts rumbled, she knotted a lump of masonry round her waist and then calmly pushed it over the side. Passers-by had rushed to the spot, but Penelope had timed her moment well. In the dark, churning waters there were no discerning ripples and no splashes. Then the rain began to fall in buckets.
The blonde head emerged from its burial place and pushed the hair from her face. ‘It was selfish of me, wasn’t it? Not going to Arbil’s with Claudia?’
He tossed an apple from hand to hand. ‘Being frightened is nothing to be ashamed of,’ he said slowly.
One shoulder rose and fell. ‘You say that, because you’re brave. When those thugs attacked you last week, you said yourself you weren’t scared.’
‘Angry,’ he said. ‘I was bloody angry, mainly for allowing myself to be cornered so easily, but that’s different. The blood’s up, emotions are running hot and they’re running high. But inside, we’re all frightened of something.’
She twisted her head on one side. ‘What scares you, then?’
‘Me?’ He bit into the apple. ‘Losing people I care about.’ Passion deepened his voice. ‘That scares the hell out of me.’
Annia brightened. ‘Then you’d better tell me what Claudia found out at the ranch. Maybe together we can come up with some answers!’
Even as Orbilio relayed the information Claudia had passed on, his mind travelled to an altogether different plane. With so much going on, he’d overstretched himself of late. Well, he wasn’t the only one under pressure. Suppose the killer, too, had overstretched himself? Suppose that by staging the last murder in Claudia’s garden, he’d tried just that bit too hard to be clever?
‘I have to get some sleep,’ he told Annia, because he needed to be alone with his thoughts. Break the problem into segments then deal with them one at a time, that was the rule that he worked by, and right now he was paying the price for ignoring his own advice. By juggling three demanding cases, he’d not been true to any.
He splashed cold water over his face. Segment one, the Magic problem seemed to have sorted itself out-no more letters, packets or ripped dolls had been delivered and Orbilio’s theory was that, unable to frighten Claudia, he’d moved on to terrorize another, weaker victim. In a way, he was relieved. The pressure was off, Claudia was safe-but now what excuse did he have to hang around?