Man Eater

‘Well, we-’ Froggy didn’t know what to say. Praise had not visited him often in his eighteen years. ‘I-’

‘And considering we all have a long ride home, what say you we share this before setting off?’ A flagon of wine appeared from the copious depths of the leather sack.

The boys licked their lips. It was a long ride back to Narni…

Three cheap cups also materialized and the Client filled each to the brim. ‘Since we are a mug short, you will perhaps pardon my manners if I sip from the jug. Do you wish to propose a toast?’

Froggy could smell the wine. It was good stuff, Campanian, or maybe even Falernian. ‘Why drink to anything special?’ he said, eager to sample that which had previously been beyond the scope of his pockets. ‘Straight down the hatch, that’s what I say!’

He did not notice the Client’s slanting smile. ‘I could not agree more. Straight down the hatch!’

As their heads tilted back, the boys were only vaguely aware of the Client lowering the jug and backing towards the door.

‘What the fuck?’ Froggy’s hand flew first to his throat, then to his dagger, but he was too slow. The coins had gone, the door was closed, he could hear two heavy bolts being shot.

‘I told you-’ began Ginger, and then the pain hit him. The searing, burning, tearing pain as the acid reached his stomach. Writhing and hissing, he gouged at the decaying wood.

‘The back way!’ cried Froggy. His eyes were on fire, and his mouth, his belly. When he gasped for breath, a stream of dark vomit shot across the room.

Pansa, convulsing violently, began to make hideous screeching noises.

Froggy thought he heard ‘Nails’, but it made no sense to him.

And looking upwards through the hole in the roof, he wondered why the sky had suddenly turned red.

XXII

After a long day in Tarsulae, Marcus Cornelius Orbilio knew how Atlas must have felt when, having lost the argument with Perseus, the gorgon-slayer turned his grisly trophy upon the giant. His bones solidified, his shoulder blades turned to granite as the weight of the heavens was thrust upon him for all eternity.

The loss of Agrippa was every bit as personal to Orbilio as the death of an uncle or a boyhood friend, and his only consolation came in the satisfaction that the great man’s works-the aqueducts, the Pantheon, even the Tiber’s anti-flood defences-would stand the test of time so that for centuries to come, Romans would know that here lived a man of vision whose love for his people showed in the bridges he built for them, the basilicas, the warehouses, the porticoes, the museums.

That Orbilio had been able to confide his sentiments to Claudia had been of great comfort to him, and had little to do with Agrippa’s death. Inside she was nowhere near as brittle as she liked to make out, and intimate moments such as this allowed him a glimpse of the small, frightened child locked in the labyrinth of this complex woman’s emotions-and they aroused every masculine trait, from the instinct of challenge to the instinct to protect. She had listened in silence while he talked (rambled?) about his personal encounters with Agrippa, asked intelligent questions as to the impact of his death. Would Augustus not have to make Tiberius his heir now? How could he, he’d countered. The young man who’d shown his military and administrative qualities in the provinces and who’d proved himself a respected and, above all, loyal general, was no blood relation. Ah, but neither was Augustus to the Divine Julius, she reminded him, and look how that turned out. Couldn’t he just put the adoption of his wife’s son to the Senate and see how they vote? The complication there, Orbilio had explained, was that Tiberius was married to Agrippa’s daughter, who just happened to be several months pregnant. No matter how strong the Emperor’s feelings, the Roman people won’t countenance lack of purple blood. Interesting, she mused, because had Tiberius been free to marry Agrippa’s flibbertigibbet widow, the Empire would be in very safe hands indeed…

Orbilio had enjoyed computing the odds with Claudia, almost as much as he’d delighted in the way her curls bounced in time with the wheels on the journey home, the way she tipped her head back when she laughed. Minerva’s magic, the sun in her hair was like a celestial forge working all the metals of the Empire, copper, brass, bronze, gold, and he’d wanted to sink his hands in that thrilling furnace, bury his head in the flames and nuzzle the sparks. Every movement she made was electric, energizing him, quickening his emotions, his wits and his loins, and now that he was parted from her, even for the short while that she soaked her bones in Sergius Pictor’s bath house, he was forced to face facts.

Life without Agrippa’s influence would be the poorer. Life without Claudia Seferius would be barren indeed.