Man Eater

‘Ah, yes. That mysterious movable ulcer.’

‘Please!’ he protested. ‘Do you know how long I’ve gone without a drink?’

Gently she knocked her head back against his. ‘The longest I’ve ever seen you without liquor, Marcus Cornelius, is thirty paces. Now are you going to get us out of here or not?’

It took a complicated set of hop-skip-and-jumps, which in the dark proved often painful what with jutting shelves and unexpected crates, but eventually they found what they were looking for. At some stage in its history, a bronze cooking pot had been left on an unattended stove for a jagged hole to burn through. How thoughtful of it to wait in the store to be patched.

‘How is it,’ he asked, manoeuvring the vessel into position and rubbing off the thick crust of verdigris with his thumb, ‘that wherever Claudia goes, trouble trots beside her?’

‘Me? I’m just your average little catalyst.’ She heard the rope grate against the rough, serrated bronze. They all had their secrets, Tulola, Pallas, Sergius, Euphemia, even Taranis the Celt. Her stumbling into their lives merely accelerated the situation. She concentrated on the rope, rasping and scraping. Surely, yes surely she could detect a bit of give in it?

‘I could get used to this,’ he said languidly.

Claudia’s mouth twitched at one side. Half an hour of wiggling up and down, back to bare back, loin cloth to thong? ‘I’ll bet you could.’

Twang! As the strands burst free, they massaged the weals, then Orbilio spotted a tallow and suddenly there was light.

‘Can you reach?’ she asked, pinching her nose against the stinky candle. ‘It’s quite a way up, that rope.’

‘Forget it, there’ll be guards posted all round this building. Listen! Can you hear that?’

‘Yes. Rats.’ She’d seen two so far, and that was just since the light went on. Any bigger and Gisco could harness them to his chariots.

‘No, no. Can’t you hear a low, gurgling sound?’

‘Water?’ she ventured.

‘Exactly. Now hold this candle, will you?’

Arm’s length was still too close for the evil pong. ‘What are you looking for?’

Save your breath, Claudia. The Boy Wonder is in a world of his own. With a gleeful yelp, he pounced on a rusty iron sieve. ‘We need to trace the run of the pipes.’

‘What pipes?’ In candlelight, she could see verdigris on her arm, rope burns all over, and a couple of scratches on her shins.

Orbilio tested the handle of the sieve. ‘Sergius diverted part of his stream-those beasts need a lot of fresh water-this is the runaway.’

‘Sewage, you mean?’

‘Whatever,’ he said cheerfully, prodding the handle into the compacted soil. ‘Pushed for space,’ he tried another spot, ‘he laid underground pipes for his outbuildings to go over the top.’

‘Do we sift our way out? That’s radical.’

He looked up and grinned. ‘That’s what I like about you, always willing to try out new ideas.’ A couple more exploratory probes. ‘I know two waste pipes meet, one from the monkey house, one-’

‘How do you know?’

‘I always check the lie of the land, my dear. You never know when-’

‘-a Gisco might be after you.’

He shot her a ha-ha-very-funny look as he prodded the soil. ‘Here we are.’ There was a dull clunk as iron connected with terracotta.

‘I still don’t get it.’ It came out nasal, on account of her hand clamped over her nose.

‘Well,’ he proceeded to tap his way along the pipe, ‘each channel is four hands square at best.’ He paused to swipe the perspiration from his eyes. ‘It would be far more comfortable if we could find the junction, where it widens to accommodate both outlets. Can you hold that candle steady?’

Claudia willed the muscles in her hand to change from jelly into steel. He’s talking about escaping…through the sewer?

‘How-’ She cleared her throat. ‘How far does it go, do you know?’ They could easily get stuck! Buried alive…

‘At a guess? Two hundred paces.’

‘Two hundred?’

‘Maybe three or four. Look.’ He pointed to a dark, damp mound.

‘A leak?’

‘A blockage,’ he corrected, shovelling frantically. ‘Which has put such a strain on the joints, we don’t have the bother of how to smash our way through.’

‘It’s quicker if we both dig,’ Claudia offered. Any excuse to dump this revolting lump of goat fat. As she balanced the candle on a shelf, Orbilio jumped up as though scalded.

‘Holy, holy shit!’ he said.

In the bright halo of light, a hand was sticking out of the earth.

As Orbilio clawed at the soil, she saw the arm was attached to a torso, and the torso attached to a neck, which still bore the deep mark of the garotte. Attached to the neck was a head with a crown of baby-fine hair, and a thin pink nose.

‘Macer!’ Claudia gulped. Orbilio’s expression was grim as he hauled the body out of the drainage pipe.

‘Look again,’ he said roughly.

For it was not the Prefect who lay dripping in his lap. It was his nephew.

XXXII