Man Eater

How could you explain, to someone who’s never been there, that in Rome the spring equinox signals more than the end of the winter rains? Trade routes reopen, bringing gold from Asturia, cotton from the Indus, cedar from Phoenicia. Ivory from Africa will flood in to the Forum, along with porphyries and pomegranates and pitch. Seas will be open, too, and wives, glad to see the back of their drunken lazy menfolk, will be dancing in the streets as their sailor spouses swap henpeck and trivia for life on a knife-edge and jokes with the boys. How could you begin to describe that?

‘Average.’

‘We’ll get to see all the races, the games, the gladiator fights. I’ll wear Syrian linens and watch every play going, even the Greek ones. Sergius says there’s entertainment laid on for every single day-’

‘Not quite.’

‘-and on top of that, there’s jousting on the Field of Mars and rowing on the Tiber. I can watch-’

‘My dear child, steady on-’

Euphemia flashed her a glance of undiluted insolence. ‘I am not a child.’

‘Indeed you are not,’ Claudia smiled back. ‘You’re eighteen years old, and well versed with delivering messages with menaces.’

‘Nineteen, actually, and the threat still stands.’ Euphemia spat out the lock of hair. ‘Fuck with me and I’ll kill you.’

‘I thought you’d already tried,’ Claudia replied calmly, positioning herself the other side of the window.

Euphemia pulled a sarcastic face. ‘Now why should I want to do that? As long as you don’t interfere with me, I won’t trouble myself over you.’

Consider me indebted!

Claudia was staring at the opposite wall, where a wounded Agamemnon was facing the prospect of the Trojans breaching his Greek defences, and wondering why Euphemia remained unmarried, because if she’d been Sergius, she’d have got rid of the moody little trollop ages ago, when she heard voices in the next room. As though eavesdropping was a social grace to be trumpeted from the rafters, Euphemia moved across to the dividing curtain and put her sulky little ear to it.

‘I don’t see the problem.’ Tulola’s voice drifted across. ‘We’ll get one of the carpenters to run you up a pretty pyx to take home to wherever you live and-’

‘N-N-Narni.’

‘Whatever you say, sweetie, just leave me to square it with Auntie Macer.’

Claudia peeped round the edge of the curtain. Draped on a couch in the next room, her tunic slit to the hip to reveal a shapely oiled thigh, Tulola dangled a bunch of black grapes in the air. Slightly wrinkled after a winter in barley, they didn’t seem to deter her couch-mate in his efforts to snatch one in his teeth. The cheetah, chained to one of the couch’s solid bronze feet, settled down as Salvian, plum red in the face and his hair ruffled, shifted his weight from foot to foot and looked everywhere except at Barea’s hand moving around inside Tulola’s tunic.

‘I d-don’t think I-’

‘Salvian, Salvian, leave the thinking to me. Every great man marks the occasion, even Augustus, so what do you say?’

‘B-B-But the Emperor was twenty-three, he had a p-proper beard to shave off.’

Claudia’s face creased into a smile. To round off the Festival of Mars, which, to say the least, had been overshadowed by events, Tulola intended to give the Tribune that well-looked-forward-to rite of passage every young man hungers for, the First Shave. Poor old Salvian. Railroaded again.

‘Bollocks.’ Barea spat pips into the corner. ‘You’re scared shitless.’

If possible, Salvian turned even pinker. ‘That’s n-not true! Look,’ he shot a tortured glance at Tulola, ‘I only f-followed you, because my uncle said to t-tell you he can’t find a record of your divorce.’

‘Tell him to look harder,’ she snapped. Then, raising one seductive eyebrow at Salvian, she murmured, ‘What it boils down to, sweetie, is whether you want to join the ranks of Real Men or whether you’d prefer to wait until your beard grows like a billy goat.’

Grudgingly Salvian nodded. ‘I suppose so.’

Tulola and the horse-breaker exchanged looks. ‘Come on, then!’ As one, they leapt up, each grabbing an arm and dragging a totally bewildered young Tribune to his doom, laughing at the tops of their voices.

‘Must see this,’ cried Euphemia, racing off to join them.

Claudia pulled back the curtain, saw the cheetah’s face contort into a snarl and quickly jerked it closed again. Jupiter, Juno and Mars, that animal makes Drusilla look like one of those little pink-cheeked cherubs that decorate my bedroom ceiling. Pallas assured me it only eats gazelle, but hell, I’m not going to be the one to find out Pallas makes mistakes.

She retraced her steps across the Judgement of Paris and pulled open the door to find a man leaning against the jamb, his patrician boots crossed comfortably at the ankles. ‘You’re sick, Orbilio, you know that?’

The policeman grinned, uncrossed his legs and advanced into the room, clicking the door quietly behind him. ‘Wrong,’ he said. ‘Sergius is sick. What do you make of that?’

‘Nothing. Would you stop blocking my exit?’