Dream Boat (11 page)

Don't think about it. Don't think of the innovative execution options facing that young bodyguard: crucifixion, trampling by elephants, being pitched against a bear in the arena, tied to a stake among a pack of starving hyenas . . .

'Well, it ain't my fault,' Flea whined, as Claudia hailed a passing charioteer to cadge a lift across town. 'You told him what to wear, not me.'

A millstone dropped in Claudia's stomach. 'Thank you, Flea, that point had not escaped me.' She looked deep and coldly into the girl's eyes. 'But remember it was Flavia, your accomplice, who shopped him! You two are in this together.'

Wait till I get my hands on that bitch.

The sky was dark, the air muggy when Claudia and Flea alighted from the chariot. Ordinarily the Argiletum was far enough away from the Tiber to be free of its pungency, but

tonight the cloying heat intensified the stench of rotting fish, of bloated animals floating down the river, of its stinking yellow mud - and the viscous breeze was generous enough to ensure that everyone received their fair share of it, even the patricians who made the hill she was aiming for their home because the air there was reputed to be the purest in the whole of Rome.

'Thanks.' She proffered a coin at the scarred charioteer who'd so generously given her and her 'maidservant' a lift, but the old man waved it away.

'When you're accustomed to having ugly old warhorses on board, m'dear, two lovely ladies is a treat,' he said gallantly, before adding, 'Even if one of them does have a legionary's tongue on her!'

Flea stuck it out at his retreating back. 'Smarmy git.'

'Listen to me, you little wretch,' Claudia hissed. 'If you'd have been half as philanthropic with the truth as you are with your insults, Junius would not be facing death.'

'You can't pin that on me,' Flea protested sullenly. 'It weren't my fault.'

'Oh, wasn't it!' Claudia jerked on the shackles, making the girl wince at the red weal which formed as she was spun round to face her. 'Thanks to your stupid, selfish lies, a good and innocent man is being sent to the arena! Do you understand that, Flea?
Junius is going to die!'

'I ain't no bleeding fortune-teller,' Flea began, 'how—'

But Claudia was sickened by the girl's irresponsibility, her refusal to shoulder any blame. 'You selfish little bitch,' she stormed. 'You think only of yourself, and then no further ahead than where your next meal's coming from.'

She drew them into a doorway to let a wagon past, then set a cracking pace up the Via Cavour, skirting wagonloads of sacks and crates and a cart of hide destined for the quayside. She spun right, down one of the narrow sidestreets, to avoid a brawl. Someone was ripping a shutter off the oculist's shopfront to act as a makeshift stretcher to carry home a battered, bleeding stevedore.

'Look, I'm sorry.' Flea jerked at the long frock which,

because she was accustomed to wearing short tunics which left her skinny legs bare, tangled round her ankles. 'I thought it was a laugh, a bit of a joke, all right? I never expected it to backfire.'

A joke? Helping Flavia stage her own abduction? Claudia could have kicked herself for not paying sufficient attention at the beginning. Goddammit, it was obvious, she should have seen through it straight away. Who knew the family well enough to know Marcellus and Julia would jump to ransom their niece? Flavia! Who'd think it funny to give her foster parents the run-around? Flavia. And who knew damned well they'd swallow that cock-and-bull story about her being invited to take part in the
Serving Women
drama without question? That was the bit Claudia should have picked up on. Janus, Croesus, no one in their right mind would ask Flavia to lead a
dog,
much less a civil performance before a crowd of hundreds!

'What did she promise you, eh? A share of the booty?'

Flea suddenly became preoccupied with picking her way through the debris scattered along the tangled network of slopes and alleyways, the broken toys, the running gutters, slops and meatbones and greasy cobblestones.

'Well, I hope the pair of you choke on the pebbles!'

'What d'you mean, pebbles?'

In the darkness, Claudia smiled. It had been a gamble, of course. A game of bluff and double-bluff, but with no way of raising two thousand gold pieces (and it had to be gold, the note insisted!), it was a simple question of expediency. Claudia had filled the ransom chest with rocks. A quick visit to the goldsmith ensured that only the thinnest smear of gilt covered the top layer of stones and hey presto, a box full of 'gold'.

'You rotten bitch,' Flea growled. 'What if Flavia really had been kidnapped?'

As I said. Bluff and double-bluff . . .

Torch-bearers appeared as though conjured up, lighting the way of those who could afford it, and laughter echoed out

of a brightly lit tavern on the corner at the punchline of a joke, that hoary chestnut about the centurion and the barber's wife, hilarious no matter how often one had heard it. From the serried ranks of the balconies above came arguments and sneezes, meows and bedtime tears, the smell of frying mullet, onions and stale garlic. Slowly, though, the landscape changed. Cramped and overcrowded tenements gave way to spacious houses, whose inner secrets were muffled by high windowless walls, and the aromas were more of roasting boar and incense, fresh paint or the polish from the armoured vigilantes.

'I've never been up here before,' Flea marvelled. 'They,' she indicated the vigilantes, 'always ran me off.'

They would! Private security organised by those who inhabited these exquisite mansions ensured no crime took place in
this
district on the Esquiline. One glance at their mighty clubs, studded with nails, and you realised it wasn't called Nob Hill for nothing!

Outside the shops, the pavements still glistened where the shopfronts had been swabbed down at dusk and the gentle strains of a harpist drifted from one house, while doves crooned in their sleep from the courtyard of another.

'Some gaff, innit?'

Flea's eyes were the size of temple censers as Claudia stopped outside a white-fronted house of modest proportions, which screamed breeding and good taste. The door was highly polished, you could smell the beeswax even in this clammy heat, the bronze unicorn knocker gleamed in the light of the brands which burned either side the doorway in blacked-up iron brackets. 'Whose is it? Family or friend's?'

'Neither,' Claudia replied tartly.

Let people close and they hurt you.

Her hand hovered over the unicorn, then withdrew, uncomfortably aware of a churning in her stomach, the fluttering of a whole flock of starlings inside her ribcage. Anxiety - what else? Watched by half a dozen tough looking vigilantes, she lifted the knocker and pounded the unicorn with such force, it

was a wonder Neptune himself didn't rise up out of the ocean to see what the fuss was about.

Suddenly, as the door swung silently open on its well-greased hinges, a fish hook tangled deep inside her and began to pull. Damn his eyes, why couldn't Orbilio be married, bald, fat or ugly, why did he have to have a twinkle in his eye? Bloody unfair that the Fates had bestowed on him an easy lope
and
that sceptical, lop-sided grin, because sometimes, when she couldn't sleep at night or when her mind drifted at the baths, Claudia would find herself musing on what it would be like, his lips on hers, his strong hands exploring nooks and crannies - although equally quickly she'd snap out of it. He was patrician, rich and clever, with integrity all but tattooed on his cheekbones. She came from an altogether different class and walked a tightrope between what was legal (very little) and what was not.

And as any rope walker will tell you, the last thing they need is some berk yanking on the balance pole, no matter how tall and wavy-haired and rugged!

Besides. Any lustful feelings were on her side only. He'd never even made a move, in all the months she'd known him, in all the adventures they had shared together.

His sights were on the Senate, not her bed!

In the shadows she noticed a small shape, dark and shifting. It slithered forward. Bending down, she scooped it up and thrust it in to Flea's disbelieving arms.

And as Claudia Seferius swept into Orbilio's lofty vestibule, she couldn't help wondering what propitiation the gods of this magnificent cedarwood threshold demanded.

She had a feeling it would be one colossal slice of humble pie!

Marcus Cornelius Orbilio did not need the soldier stationed in his porch to tell him who had taken a fancy to wrenching his front-door knocker from its gleaming silver hinge. Only one woman in the whole of Rome possessed passion on that scale! Any other time and his heart would have lifted, but today, he realised, the gods had answered his prayers.
Every bloody one.

He had prayed for a reason to be taken off the Roll of Honour.

He had prayed for a juicy murder case.

He had prayed for the ensuing scandal to be attached to a high-profile family.

He had prayed that one day Claudia Seferius would come to him and not the other way round . . .

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Orbilio recalled the old Corinthian proverb: Be careful what you wish for, it may yet come true. Remus, his head ached so abominably, otherwise he'd remember the name of the nymph who had, in return for a favour, asked the gods for immortality and, because she beseeched them so pityingly, had had her wish granted. Only later, of course, did she come to realise that what she should have sought was perpetual youth, because as the years passed she grew ever older, ever more shrivelled, her body bent and wasting away, but with no chance of her misery ending. Orbilio knew how she felt.

'Present for you!'

A black squirming object was suddenly stuffed in to his arms, although Claudia seemed to be experiencing a certain

difficulty owing to the fact that there was a young woman manacled to one of her wrists. Orbilio felt the room - indeed his whole world - spin.

'His name is Doodlebug and he's a pedigree thingamijig, fully house-trained, of course. Now say thank you.'

'Er . . .'

'My pleasure, Marcus. What are friends for.'

'You . . . bought him? For me?' The day Claudia Seferius gave him presents was the day Hades put up a sign advertising day trips! Besides. There was something vaguely familiar about those big, amber eyes and the even bigger nose which pressed its icy wetness into the crook of his elbow then promptly fell asleep.

'A breeder on the Aventine,' she said breezily. 'Sound chap. Supplies guard dogs to the rich and famous. Now, while I'm here—'

Guard dogs! A shiver ran down his spine. No wonder the puppy looked familiar. That slavering monster three doors up had recently birthed a litter and as Orbilio tenderly stroked the solid rolls of fat, the bare pink podge of stomach, his ears remained pricked for the sound of Momma's claws skidding across the mosaic demanding her runaway babe's return. With his spare hand Orbilio protected his jugular vein.

'I need some advice,' Claudia was saying.

'You need a key.' He indicated the iron shackles linking the two women together.

'No, I don't. And for gods' sake, Orbilio, what's the matter with you? You keep twitching your neck. Do you have a sore throat?'

'Not yet.' For a small pup, Son of Disemboweller seemed extraordinarily heavy, but as Marcus lowered his arm, the look of censure from the two young women immobilised him faster than the Gorgon's glare. Marcus felt sure the gods were laughing.

'My problem,' Claudia began, 'is—'

'How long have you been into S and M?'

'Marcus Cornelius, will you please pay attention!'

'What does he mean, S and M?' It was the first time the chainlink had spoken. Until now, her eyes had been sweeping round Orbilio's atrium, and he had a feeling they had priced every item they landed on.

'Ignore him,' Claudia snapped. 'He's having a cheap dig at your cropped hair, the gangly gait and your obvious quarrel with that frock.'

'What?'
Animal eyes burned into Marcus. 'Are you suggesting I'm some sort of pervert, mate?'

'Lesbians aren't perverts,' he corrected her, but the creature was taking no prisoners.

'Listen, I ain't here because I like it!' She jangled the chain at her wrist.

'I'm prepared to swap places,' Marcus offered generously, ignoring the twin fireballs which shot from Claudia's eyes.

'I'm here, coz she -' the girl's head jerked at Claudia - 'is trying to pin that sodding kidnap on yours truly and I ain't having it!'

'Kidnap?' Such were the Shockwaves down Marcus's arm that the jerk woke the pup, who promptly relieved himself down his richly embroidered, lushly dyed, fine patrician tunic. 'And who might you be?' he asked, setting Doodlebug down and mopping his tunic.

'Flea, and I'm innocent, I tell ya. Get her to cut me loose.'

Huge amber eyes rolled up from the mosaic. Did she say,
fleas?
As a measure of his anxiety, the puppy deposited a more solid little mess and Orbilio wondered how much more Jupiter could pack into the space of one small day.