Man Eater

She obviously thought nothing of two well-heeled strangers standing at the dilapidated counter. But then you rather got the impression she didn’t have the necessary equipment to think with.

‘Balbilla?’ Claudia hoped her blank look passed unnoticed, because whatever she had expected, it wasn’t this.

Something about the visitors seemed to click. ‘Are you here about Fronto?’ She sniffed noisily. ‘They say he were in bed with some rich bitch and she stabbed him, but it’s not true,’ she gulped. ‘He adored me and them babies, did Fronto. He’d never do nothing like that.’

‘I’m sure he wouldn’t,’ Orbilio said smoothly, as Claudia intently examined some blue cloth that wasn’t even fit for dusters.

‘There’ll be better men than him along for our Bill,’ the old man put in, his palsied hand patting hers. ‘She’ll find one, you’ll see.’

Balbilla, as you’d expect of the recently bereaved, did not share her father’s opinions and expounded at such length on her husband’s generosity, his devotion to work, to his family, to his Emperor that Claudia doubted she had the faintest inkling of how Fronto earned his living.

‘I had such important news for him, and all,’ she wailed, repeating it over and over as she rocked back and forth. ‘Dead important, it were.’

Claudia’s pulse leapt.

‘Can you tell us?’ Orbilio urged.

‘Now he’ll never know.’

‘Know what?’

‘She’s expecting again,’ her father explained, his grey face contorting with pain, and then his features softened slightly and he managed a smile. ‘When the leaves begin to fall, I’ll be holding another grandchild.’

A shiver ran down Claudia’s arms. Before the leaves began even to turn, Balbilla would have watched another pyre burn…

With nothing to be gained from prolonging the meeting, Claudia and Orbilio walked silently back along the main street. They were just passing the baths when a horseman came hurtling through the Julian Gate, his mount steaming, foam streaking its flanks. Curiosity had ceased to be a characteristic of the Tarsulani, but it had not dimmed in Claudia. Without appearing to hurry unduly, she followed the rider to the back of the law courts, her stride outstripped by a certain policeman.

‘What’s happening?’ she asked. Something was seriously amiss, you could tell by the horseman’s pinched expression.

‘No idea,’ Orbilio replied, taking her elbow and leading her round the corner. ‘But we should be able to find out from here.’

His police training had done him proud. On the other side of the wall, she could hear the rider as clearly as if he was addressing them personally.

‘Agrippa’s dead! Marcus Vispanius Agrippa is dead!’

Wide-eyed, Claudia and Orbilio stared at each other. Agrippa was the Emperor’s right-hand man, they were closer even than brothers. Sweet Jupiter, you couldn’t count the years they’d been together, the gentle aristocrat and the low-born man of action, the battles they’d fought, the victories they’d won, and the peace that was proving even harder to keep.

‘Now what?’ she said.

Despite being the same age, Agrippa was also the Emperor’s son-in-law, Augustus having married his friend to his silly, capricious daughter to tie up the loose ends of his complex administration. By adopting the result of their union as his heir and effectively making Agrippa Regent, Augustus thought he’d succeeded. But now, with his general dead and his grandson barely eight years old, what would happen if Augustus died?

More than at any time since the end of the Republic, the Empire had been plunged into a state of crisis.

Anything could happen.

Anything at all.

XXI

‘You sure this is the right place?’

Pansa took a step backwards and grimaced at the ramshackle building, its door bowed, its fallen shutters overtaken by fungi and woodlice. This was an old patrician hut, one of the lodging stops for those too rich and fastidious to pass their nights in taverns with the commoners. They preferred their own private domiciles, wooden affairs of sufficient dimensions to afford a modicum of comfort during the nomadic course of their aristocratic duties. But fifteen years of neglect, of merciless summer suns, pitiless winter rains and a relentless stream of pillaging had taken a heavy toll on these rudimentary constructions. Several had collapsed, many more lolled drunkenly, needing only the next spring gale to finish the job.

‘Yep.’ Confidently Froggy screwed up the parchment detailing directions to the cabin and tossed it into a bed of wild liquorice. Startled, a black-eyed rat scurried away. ‘Oi, Ginge! Still having problems back there?’

‘Just about cracked it.’ A mop of red hair poked round the back of the hut. ‘Two more minutes should see me right.’

‘Good.’ Froggy nodded wisely, because the instructions were clear. The sum of money requested would be paid, but on the strict understanding it was to be a one-off remittance and that it should be made in absolute secrecy. To that end, the Client (as Froggy insisted all marks should be called from now on) had chosen the time and the venue.