Man Eater

Credit where it’s due, Supersleuth would have come and gone and probably taken the air he’d breathed with him to ensure he left no trace, so what was this person looking for?

A long soft whistle followed by two short ones came from the far side of her window.

What imbecile could possibly imagine Claudia either had something to hide or held incriminating evidence-and at the same time was foolish enough to leave it lying around? Someone who didn’t know her very well, that’s for sure.

The whistles were repeated before she realized it was her bodyguard’s signal.

‘Junius, did you know Rollo hadn’t sent any blasted message to Rome?’ Godsdamnit, she’d need to start sealing her letters.

‘Yes, madam-’

‘Don’t you turn your face away from me!’

‘But-’

‘Butt is just where I’ll kick you if you don’t look me in the eye. Now did you or didn’t you… For gods’ sake, boy, what’s the matter with you?’

Now the idiot had his hand across his forehead. Oh! Claudia bounced back from the window and grabbed her tunic off the back of the chair. It was damned hot, that cotton, because when she turned back to Junius, her cheeks were as scarlet as the tunic.

She cleared her throat. ‘Yes, that letter-’

‘I tried to tell you, madam, when I got back from Etruria-’

‘Rubbish. I’d have remembered something as vital as that. Anyway, what are you doing skipping around in this downpour?’

‘I wanted to ask you when you thought would be the best time for me to create a diversion.’

I suspected as much. You’ve been drinking. ‘What diversion, Junius?’

‘The one which enables you to slip away from here.’

‘Oh, and exactly where do you suggest I slope off to? Greece, Crete, Alexandria?’ And how long till the heat dies down? A year? Two? By then, I’ll have lost control of my wine business, I’ll be lucky to keep a roof over my head. Unfortunately I have to ride this one out.

‘No, no.’ When the young Gaul shook his head, it was like a dog shaking itself. Water sprayed everywhere. ‘I was only talking about Rome,’ he said in a small voice.

Rome! Bless him! ‘Junius, it’s a kind thought, but I can’t see that my doing a runner is going to help my case, so why don’t you-’

‘The Prefect can’t touch you in Rome, can he?’ Claudia stared at the elecampane as its leathery leaves shrugged off the raindrops. By Jupiter, the boy’s right. The same way Loverboy has no authority in the provinces, Macer holds no sway in the city.

‘Junius, come under the eaves, you’re starting to look like a water vole. That’s it.’ I don’t want my little genius catching a cold. ‘Now, one simple question. Do you want your freedom?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Come on, yes or no? Tulola wants to buy you’-it’d go to his head if she told him how badly-‘and I need to know where your loyalties lie.’

The bodyguard’s face flushed. ‘Where they always have. Madam.’ The last word came as something of an afterthought. ‘I didn’t think you’d ever need to ask.’

Dear me, his voice sounds a bit croaky, I trust he’s not going down with the fever.

‘That’s settled, then.’ He probably keeps some doxy over on the Aventine, or else he goes moonlighting, that’s why he sticks with me. ‘Now about this diversion of yours-’

*

Plans are fun. For a start they are such flexible little beggars, you can tweak them, twiddle them, you even have the luxury of abandoning, postponing or advancing them, all with the underlying reassurance that, come what may, they will repay you with the immeasurable satisfaction that can only be gained from voracious mental stimulation.

Then again, it could just be down to that indescribable, delectable, mouth-watering wait.

To a girl like Claudia, for whom anticipation was a drug, the dry throat, the increased heartbeat, the constant swallowing, was unadulterated bliss, exquisitely enhanced by the knowledge that the very earliest Junius could put his proposals into action would be tomorrow, Friday.

Which left her, she calculated, skipping up the atrium, the rest of the afternoon and all of the evening to gather as much ammunition as she could possibly muster against the residents of the Vale of Adonis. Snakes, each and every one, but among them, oh yes-among them was a viper. Would she have time to find out who?

It would not be easy defending herself far removed from the scene of the accusations, but at least in Rome there was a reservoir of lowlife willing to swear on their mothers’ graves that Claudia Seferius was with them at the time of the murders.

My word, the old spondulicks comes in jolly handy at times. Of course that was valid more for equestrians, she mused, ducking behind a marble bust to avoid certain marauding security policemen, than for patricians. There would be no need for the likes of Fancypants, for instance, to dip into his coffers. Toadies cluster round the aristocracy for free. She watched him knock at a door along the east wing and waited until it swallowed him up.