I, Claudia (35 page)

A mischievous gleam twinkled in Claudia’s eyes as she wondered how the crew would react to the announcement that, as of this morning, there was still one small Egyptian cat with blue eyes and a wedge-shaped face…but with the addition of four tiny replicas.

The impending storm and the prejudice of the men had not, it seemed, deterred Drusilla from the practicalities of motherhood.

The long-threatened rain began to lash Claudia’s cheek and, gripping the rail with one hand, she tucked flyaway curls under her collar with the other. That letter she thought, was a godsend. An absolute godsend.

It
had
seemed the answer to her prayers when, five weeks ago to the day, she inherited from fat old Gaius his entire fortune. Now Roman law might not insist a man divide his estate among his natural children in preference to his third wife, but it was pretty well-accepted practice. Fortunately her husband, may he rest in peace, had swallowed every baited hook—and the whole lot had come straight to his twenty-four-year-old widow rather than to his daughter Flavia. Every single copper—quadran. Except…

How on earth was Claudia supposed to know Gaius’s fortune was tied up in property? Did he discuss his business? Did he confide in her? Did he ever so much as mention money to her? Did he, hell! Instead of inheriting a shining pile of gold pieces there for the spending, Claudia was lumbered with a bloody great house in Rome, a vineyard and villa in the middle of nowhere and a wine merchant’s business that she knew bog-all about and cared even less for. It simply wasn’t fair. You marry a man for his money and he leaves you with this to sort out!

What Claudia Seferius knew about viniculture could be written on the back of…well, a vine leaf. I mean what is there to know? Vines have thick, twisty stems, they throw out dark green leaves and lots of twiddly bits and at some stage they produce bunches of grapes to be picked by slaves who then trample them around in some buckety thing. Frankly, what happened between that and the filling of her glass was of no interest whatsoever. Yet within days of her husband’s funeral, Claudia had been swamped. Buyers to meet, contracts to honour, shipping to arrange—there was no end to it. Pricing, irrigation, pruning, manuring, it was enough to make a girl’s head spin and there was only one solution, really there was. The races.

In fact the very first thing she’d determined was that Gaius had left in his moneybox a float of 23 gold pieces, 1 silver denarius, 835 sesterces, 6 asses and 12 quadrans. Hardly a fortune, but ample funds to finance the odd flutter. Her mouth twisted down at the corners. She ought to stop. Hadn’t she been taught a lesson once already? Except the old excitement had taken hold, more and more with each wager—which in turn became heavier and heavier wilder and wilder. The addiction was back. With a vengeance.

‘Boredom,’ she told herself.

And so rather than face up to the fact that the weight of her inheritance was too great and she simply couldn’t cope, Claudia immersed herself in the thrill of the chariot race, the combat of the gladiators. Here it was easy to ignore pressing commercial problems and decisions up at the farm. Here you can escape in-laws clamouring for a decent settlement. With breathtaking alacrity that liquid float turned itself into a paper deficit of over 700 sesterces, the equivalent of a labourer’s annual wage. Claudia sighed. It was true, the old saying. The best way to make a small fortune is to start with a large one…

Therefore that letter from Sicily, coming out of the blue, had been nothing short of a godsend. One Eugenius Collatinus, an old friend of her husband, sends condolences to the grieving widow and invites her to stay with him and his family for as long as she needs. If, however, she does decide to visit, would she mind chaperoning his granddaughter Sabina, returning home after thirty years’ service as a Vestal Virgin?

He lived just outside Sullium, he said, not far from Agrigentum. Claudia, who barely knew where Sicily was, much less Sullium, rooted out an ageing map etched on ox hide, blew the dust off and unrolled it. Triangular in shape and large enough to be a continent in itself, Sicily was plonked right in the middle of the Mediterranean and it wasn’t so much a bridge between warring nations as a breakwater. It was easy, now, to see how the province had become Rome’s first conquest. Where are we? Ah yes, there’s Agrigentum, on the south coast. So where’s, what’s it called, Sullium? Claudia’s finger trailed along the cracked surface of the hide until she found it. West of Agrigentum. Oh good. Right by the sea. After that, the hard work had begun in earnest, but a thorough—and she meant thorough—search of Gaius’s business papers for transactions involving this Collatinus chappie came up empty-handed. There was nothing in his personal correspondence, either.

But she did find something else.

Something very, very important…

Something which put her whole future in jeopardy…