Man Eater

When Claudia came to, she realized Macer had taken no chances this time. He had tied her up like a despatch rider’s satchel-five hours of joggling would still never loosen the bonds. Claudia paused for breath. Talk about tunnel vision. That pompous, fussy, on-the-take Prefect was like Agrippa’s underground aqueduct-except whereas that was designed to keep litter and scrap out, the Prefect’s tunnel repelled justice, logic and anything resembling an open mind. I’ll have your lungs on a skewer for this.

Lying on her side in the dark, it was difficult to take stock of her surroundings, but Claudia was pretty sure, from the cidery smell, that this was the old fruit store, the one that Pallas had suspected of being damp. Like the others, it would be stone-built, devoid of windows, boast a high, pitched roof, a floor of dry, compacted earth-and just the one door.

Now then, Macer, you blockheaded, imbecilic numbskull of a nincompoop, just what have you tied me to, eh? Writhing and thrashing, twisting and squirming, Claudia could not even sit up. So what was it she was tied so securely by the arms, waist and ankles to? Well, it was heavy, but not solid-a sack? No, sacking would have chafed her back-her back?

For the first time, Claudia realized her tunic was missing, that she was lying in just breast band and thong. Godsdammit, Macer really was taking no chances. Using her skin as a sensor, she began to eliminate the possibilities one by one. All right, we know it’s not a sack. Or (rub, rub) wood or metal or terracotta. It feels like… She jolted in the darkness and felt the blood freeze in her veins. It feels like flesh.

Jupiter, Juno and Mars, I’m tied to a corpse!

She felt a pulse of revulsion. Then another, and another and another. In a surge of nausea, she kicked and writhed, but the ropes held good and Claudia forced herself to subjugate the revulsion. A corpse is just a person who’s stopped breathing. A corpse is just a person who’s stopped breathing. She had no idea how many times she repeated it before some semblance of calm set back in and she began to pray to Fortune that the body wasn’t Junius. And yet, logically, who else could it be? Not Marcus, he was too smart and, dare she say it, too important. She remembered her vow. Kill my bodyguard, and I’ll personally send you to hell.

There was a noise in her ear, not unlike the squeak of a door. A…groan? Junius? Her heart started walloping against her ribs. At her back, she felt the first flutterings of movement as the corpse began to revive. Then it began struggling, then thrashing, then jerking so violently she was forced to tell it, in no uncertain terms, to have a care, there are others involved in this, you know.

‘Claudia?’

‘Orbilio?’ I do not believe this! ‘Did you do this on purpose, for a cheap thrill?’

‘This doesn’t come cheap,’ he laughed, shaking his ankles. ‘I’ll be charging you twenty sesterces at least. Do you know where we are?’

‘The old fruit store, and I won’t pay a quadran over twelve.’ Then she reminded him that, if he pleased, there were other ankles attached to his.

‘Make it eight and you’re on.’ He gave another kick. ‘The rope has a bit of slack in it, can you feel it? If we can just roll from side to side and loosen it-’

Like a landlocked hippopotamus, they wallowed and rolled, rolled and wallowed, momentum gathering all the time.

‘Oooof!’

She heard the air spurt out of his lungs as she landed smack on top of him. ‘Don’t blame me, this was your idea.’

‘Ptth.’ She heard him spit out a mouthful of dirt. ‘Can (wheeze) you (wheeze) wriggle your foot free?’

‘I can see a rope dangling from the rafters.’

‘Could you (rasp) hurry?’

‘We could climb that-’

‘Claudia? Ple-eeze?’

‘-and escape through the roof.’

‘Claudia, move your godsdamned foot!’

‘Don’t shout, I’m only trying to help!’ Her face screwed tight in concentration. ‘Yess!’

Puffing, they rolled on to their sides, Orbilio gasping for air for what she told him was a very selfish amount of time and would he please let her know when he’d finished playing with the dust in his mouth, so they could at least shuffle into a sitting position.

‘If we could find a rough edge,’ he said, oblivious to the verbal spillages, ‘we could saw through these ropes.’

‘Try using your tongue.’

He ignored that as well. ‘But we’ll need to stand up, so…on the count of three, right? One, two-are you trying?’ He supposed the raspberry meant yes. ‘Again. One, two-up!’

‘You said on the count of three.’

‘That was three.’

‘It was only two.’

‘All right, all right, this is no time to argue. One, two, three. PUSH!’

Backs together, they thrust their way to a standing position.

‘First it was sherbet,’ he said, ‘then it was milk.’

Claudia’s eyebrows furrowed. ‘You took the trouble to sniff the contents of the jug before it landed on your head?’

‘You were the only one who was knocked out,’ he chuckled. ‘Tonight, when I went to my room for my sword after Macer set up the hue and cry, I realized, somewhat belatedly, that my milk had been laced.’