Man Eater

Poor bugger was spotted trotting along the Via Sacra with ‘Not known at this address’ unwittingly pinned to the back of his cloak. Orbilio had been the laughing stock of the Esquiline for weeks.

Would I? Claudia’s eyes implored.

You bet your sweet buttercups, his replied.

She smiled.

‘Poor you. Saddlesores for nothing.’ She walked to the vestibule and opened the front doors wide.

‘Forget the explanation, then.’ Orbilio stamped his boots. ‘I’ll hang around, anyway.’

Dammit, I don’t need this. ‘Despite riding all this way for a case of mistaken identity?’

‘Oh, no one mistakes you for another woman, Claudia.’

‘You did. You mistook me for someone who,’ she snapped her fingers, ‘cares this for beautifully scripted scrolls. Or their author.’

By the time she reached the colonnade, he’d just about caught up His expression was unchanged, she noticed, but the light in his eyes seemed to have hardened. Good. He might just leave her life in peace now.

‘I hear you’re in a spot of bother,’ he said indifferently.

How? Godsdammit, it was Junius who stole that bloody horse, Junius who sent for… Her eyes narrowed to slits. I’ll have the skin off your back, you abject little toad. No one betrays Claudia Seferius’ secrets, especially not to this ferreting son-of-a-bitch. Come the next slave auction, my boy, I’ll turn you into silver.

‘Nothing’s wrong, Orbilio. Get your ears tested.’

‘In my profession, ears are always in tip-top working order.’ He paused. ‘How else can we listen under windows?’

Nightmare! Deep inside her ribcage, Claudia’s vital organs threatened to crush each other to death.

‘Then you’ll appreciate Macer is after glory,’ she said levelly. ‘Unfortunately, he has the wits of a woodlouse and appears to be on the wrong treadmill with his investigation.’

So help me, I’ll squeeze that Prefect till his pips squeak. Day after day, the little lowlife will wake and ask himself, when will my torment end? And I shall say to him, ah, but that’s the thing, Macer. It will never end. Not so long as I breathe-and even afterwards, I wouldn’t count on it.

But that was small beer in the overall scheme of things and in the meantime it prickled (really prickled) finding curly-haired investigators nosing around all over the place. Last time he dug up her past. Croesus only knows what he’ll unearth this time.

‘The evidence is stacked in the Prefect’s favour.’ Orbilio crossed to the central pool, splashed his face with water, then settled himself on the tiled rim, one leg thrown casually over the other. ‘Tell me about you and Quintilian and the land devalued by mysterious fires.’

‘There’s nothing to add,’ she lied.

‘This isn’t your first run-in with him, is it?’

Isn’t it? You couldn’t have picked that up by eavesdropping. I wonder what else you know, my fine patrician friend? ‘Senators aren’t above the law,’ she snapped. ‘Why doesn’t Macer pick on him?’

‘Perhaps for the simple expediency that Quintilian wasn’t found with the arsonist dangling on the end of his blade.’

‘Orbilio, if I wanted to dispose of dung-beetles, I’d use more style than a common kitchen knife.’

He looked up to the opening in the roof where sunlight poured into the atrium, flooding it with light. ‘Claudia,’ he said eventually, ‘these are very serious accusations. Macer’s convinced he’s dealing with a simple case of thieves falling out, that you connived to meet Fronto at the Villa Pictor-’

Claudia threw her arms into the air. ‘I argue with my fellow conspirator right here in the hallway, is that it? I lose my temper, stick a knife in him (which I just happen to have handy) and then what? Drag the body under the bed and hope no one will notice till summer? What sort of an idiot are you, Orbilio?’

The best in Rome, Claudia. The best in Rome. ‘I’m merely repeating the Prefect’s case and reminding you that it’s more than sufficient for him to take to trial. Especially,’ he calmly rinsed his hands in the cool, clear water of the pool and shook the drips on to the marble floor, ‘as Macer believes it was no accident, that you deliberately plotted to kill Fronto.’

Shit! Claudia marched up the length of the colonnade, then marched back down, stopping short at a statue of Minerva.

‘Someone let him in,’ Orbilio reminded her. ‘By one means or another, Fronto sneaked past thirty security guards into a house which is locked, barred and bolted.’

This is your doing, she told the goddess. You’ve always had it in for me. With a hefty shove, she toppled Minerva from her podium. ‘This whole wretched affair has spiralled right out of proportion,’ she snapped. ‘I am not a violent person, I did not kill the dung-beetle, and when I’ve finished with Macer,’ the libation jug from the family shrine crashed against a painting of the Minotaur, ‘there will not be one inch left of his skin that he recognizes.’