Man Eater

The last thing Marcus Cornelius Orbilio desired at that particular moment was company, but a policeman investigating three cold-blooded murders cannot afford the luxury of solitude and when a man slaps you on the back and says, ‘Come and test my latest stallion’, you have very little option. Especially when he qualifies the invitation by adding, ‘Assuming you’re up to it.’

Three hours spent steering a pair of cantankerous mules on a derelict road with a cat yowling all the way puts considerable strain on the biceps, the wrists and the patience, and when it comes on top of hearing of the death of Rome’s second most beloved citizen, all underpinned by the presence of the woman you (careful, Marcus, careful!)…underpinned by Claudia Seferius, then the last thing a man fancies is a ride round the ring with a temperamental stallion. However, with a decent chunk of daylight remaining, Orbilio was in no position to refuse a challenge thrown down by a man who was still very much a suspect in the case.

‘Great!’ He’d told bigger lies in his time, though none, he reflected, with quite such conviction.

‘This is the last,’ Barea explained, stroking the horse’s nose as the groom saddled up, ‘and the best. Corbulo thinks he can teach him to dance, he’s that good. What do you think?’

After a canter then a gallop then a couple of difficult jumps, Orbilio was inclined to agree. The horse was the best he’d ever ridden. ‘The new animals arrive soon, don’t they?’

‘Who cares?’ the horse-breaker shrugged. ‘For me, it’s time to move on.’

Orbilio dismounted. ‘You’ve formed no attachments here?’

Barea wrapped his bony arm round Orbilio’s shoulders in a conspiratorial gesture. ‘You might be a high-flying policeman and I might be the son of a Lusitanian peasant, but we both work our bollocks off, and when the sun begins to sink, you and I want what men everywhere want.’

‘Marriage?’ he asked innocently.

‘Knock it off, my son.’ Barea chuckled as he scratched at his jaw. ‘Take that girl in the kitchen, the one with the dimples. She’ll give you the same as Tulola-only with her, she expects a bloke to listen to her tittle-tattle for an hour while he strokes her hair and tells her how pretty she is, and then afterwards he’s got to hang around and tell her he don’t even look at another pair of tits, not while he’s got her.’

‘You’re not exactly into heavy relationships, then?’

Barea closed the stable door behind him and tested the lock. ‘Whores’ll do me, mate, except with Tulola I even get that for free.’

‘It’ll be hard to give up those perks,’ Orbilio ventured.

‘Freedom’s my perk, mate.’ Barea wiped his hands down the length of his tunic. ‘Who is it you Romans pray to? Fortune? Well, I reckon I owe her one, because if she hadn’t stepped in, I’d be stuck in that poxy mining village watching convicts and captives slog their guts out for the same nation which put me and my people under the yoke, while our women, our beautiful, virtuous, virginal women, spread their legs for the nearest legionary.’

A small nugget of understanding found its way into Orbilio’s possession. He saw a small Lusitanian town swamped by men with silver in their purses to lavish on dark-eyed girls whose menfolk were unable to compete. With resentment on that scale seething beneath the surface, no wonder Barea’s opinion of women was so low, ‘How did you break away?’ he asked.

‘Easy as a poke in the eye. Rounded up three mares and a stallion for the Praetor, broke ’em in, and then found out he was shipping nags to some posh chariot school in Rome.’

Orbilio thought of Gisco and felt several conflicting emotions caper through his body at once. ‘Not the red faction?’

‘Yeah.’ Barea vaulted the fence. ‘Now you mention it, I think it might have been. Anyway, two years later the Praetor moves on and I’m in the queue for me cap of freedom. Farewell Lusitania, hello world.’

As Orbilio climbed the fence rung by rung, the sun dropping fast and the crickets starting their evening chorus in competition with the caged beasts, he studied the thin, tanned face of the horse-breaker. Older than he looked, in all probability he’d have been a free man for five, maybe six summers. A ‘V’ of geese made their untidy way across the orange sky, and the tips of the clouds turned black. In the sheds to the north, a buzz of activity signalled the end of the day for the field workers, and the little stream that fed the Vale of Adonis gurgled contentedly.

‘You’re not going to Rome with the Pictors?’

‘Rome sounds good.’ The horse-breaker bent to pick up a stone and rolled it around in his fingers. ‘But not with Sergius.’

He aimed the pebble and lobbed it into the seal pool, receiving a disapproving honk for his pains. ‘There’s been nothing for a bloke to spend his dosh on here. I’ve got enough of a wad put by to go independent-learn more about them chariots, you know?’