Virgin Territory (5 page)

Laughing and whooping, the other three tumbled forward. Claudia screamed ‘Hit him!’ but the silly cow just stood there. She’d dropped the makeshift club and was stroking that bloody blue flagon, even when one of the sailors made a grab at her tunic. Ratface was mopping blood with his kerchief. Funny how the face bleeds so copiously! Claudia swore under her breath. Kicking one assailant’s legs from under him, she flung herself at the piece of timber and whacked Sabina’s attacker hard on the kneecap. He buckled, screaming. She used the reverse swing to hit the fourth man in the stomach. She was right he
was
the softest. He was spewing his guts up.

Before she could run, Ratface threw one arm round her waist and his hand clamped over her mouth.

‘Want to play dirty, do yer?’

Kicking and fighting and squirming and squealing, she caught Sabina’s eye.

Run! Run, you silly bitch, and get help!

Sabina stood stock-still in the middle of the alleyway. Claudia thought she could hear humming.

Shit!

Ratface’s companion was back in the fray and together they dragged her face-flat against the warehouse wall. She could feel her stola being pulled up round her waist, felt Ratface’s blood dribble down her neck.

‘Me first, darlin’.’

His breath smelled of stale wine and bad teeth. The hands pummelling her flesh were calloused and rough. His laugh came from Hades.

The bones in Claudia’s legs had turned traitor. All that was left in their place was jelly. Plaster and dust filled her nostrils.

‘Hold her, Squint, while I ditch me loin cloth.’

Ratface’s hand fell from her mouth and Claudia gulped in the stale night air. Screaming was pointless and Squint’s grip was like iron. Across the alley, two men were retching and groaning. Soon they would recover. She prayed Sabina had run for help. Only somehow she doubted it.

Claudia forced herself to go limp. She pretended to whimper and Squint, befuddled by drink, relaxed. She counted. One, two,
three
! Spinning round, she jabbed her fingers in his eyes. He fell into the blackness, roaring like a wounded bull. Ratface, caught half-in and half-out of his loin cloth, seemed undecided. Claudia made up his mind for him and rammed her head straight into his genitals. His breath came out in a long, low moan and he fell to his knees, writhing in agony.

‘Quick!’

Grabbing Sabina, she raced down the alley, heading for the first lighted street they came to. Outside a tavern, she paused to pin the woman’s torn tunic with her brooch then ran as fast as she could in the direction of civilization. Finally, she fell puffing and panting over a balustrade.

Below lay a bed of wild papyrus, their feathery heads nodding gently in the breeze.

Sabina smiled serenely. ‘Isn’t it lovely here?’

Claudia looked up sharply. ‘Don’t you have any conception of the danger we were in?’

‘Don’t be silly,’ she replied. ‘I made myself invisible.’

You did not, Claudia wanted to scream. You did not make yourself invisible, you stupid, selfish bitch. You stood there while I saved you from those animals and you’d have watched them rape me, you callous, egotistical cow.

She couldn’t trust herself to speak, and when Junius came running up, his face pinched and white and anxious, she had to stop herself from falling on his shoulder.

‘What happened?’

‘Just boys wanting for free what they can’t afford to pay for,’ she said flippantly, but he couldn’t make out the words because her teeth were chattering.

‘I’ll summon a litter to take you back,’ he said, but Claudia shook her head.

Not yet. She needed to calm down, recover her senses.

Minutes passed. Within the tall stems, a duck honked out two rapid notes then the deep pool fell silent once more. A couple of bats (or were there three?) flitted over the surface of the purple waters. Strange to think that here you are, only twenty paces from where the salt sea laps the rocks and you’re dipping your fingers in a spring of fresh water. Claudia splashed her face, washing away the dust and the blood and the memory of Ratface. She lifted her head. It was a fine night. The storm had moved on and was nothing more than a distant memory, as a million and one stars twinkled in the blackness above.

‘There’s fresh water out there.’ Wouldn’t you just know Sabina would spoil it?

‘It’s here.’ Claudia pointed with her toe, too tired, too weary to be angry any more. If skies are pools which drown you and rape makes you invisible, why should fresh water in the sea be a surprise? ‘Poets say the nymph Arethusa was pursued by a lecherous river god, and it was only when she was turned into a spring herself that she could dive underground and escape him.’ She spoke because she needed to get her vocal chords operating normally. ‘Pity Artemis didn’t turn us into water back in that damned alley, eh?’

She could have saved her breath.

‘No,
there
.’
Sabina waved a languid arm across the bay. ‘That’s fresh water. You can drink it, but it turns you white.’

It would be easy, of course, to forget all about Collatinus and the holiday. To leave flaky Sabina with her brother, take the next ship home (poor Junius!) and…and what? More schedules, more meetings, more talk about vines and vintages and heaven knows what. Not to mention earache from the moneylenders.

Claudia gazed up at the fattening moon, lighting the way for the watermen and showing clear the sacks and barrels stacked along the quayside. With a gentle sucking sound, a trireme shipped its oars and the bark of her bosun’s orders carried high over the babble of foreign tongues clamouring to make themselves understood on the wharf.

Easy, but not viable. She needed to travel under the Collatinus party’s name for a bit longer, which meant she needed to stay with Sabina for a bit longer.

At least until she’d eliminated the threat which hung over her future. After that, Sabina could go to hell, and good riddance.

It was only much later, in the comparative comfort of her own room, lying wide-eyed on her back counting the stars through the open window, that Claudia wondered whether the night had been quite what it seemed.

The carts blocking the road. The men who, actually, did no harm. And the escape, which—when you took a step back and thought about it—wasn’t really that difficult.

V

Marcus Cornelius Orbilio stared up at the self-same stars twinkling high above Rome and decided he was glad to be home. Bloody glad, in fact. He was dog tired, he needed a bath and a shave and he had blisters on his bum, but every ache, every pain, every stiffened muscle was worth it. He called for a bowl of hot water and began to whistle as he threw off his dusty clothes.

He could have taken his time had he wished, travelling in style and comfort instead of sitting astride one cantankerous bag of bones after another, except he chose to hurry.

‘You’d best bring me up to date, Tingi.’

That was the thing about having a good steward, one you could truly rely on. He’d separate the important from the dross, the urgent from the trivial, and after several weeks away from home the last thing a man needed was a pile of rubbish to wade through. Tingi, whose face gave the impression he was pining for his Libyan homelands whereas in reality he was like a lamb in clover, read from the list he had prepared while his master splashed water over his face and a slave helped him into fresh clothes.

‘Splendid!’

With nothing more pressing than an instruction to report first thing in the morning to Callisunus, his boss and head of the Security Police, on the outcome of the case he’d been investigating in Ostia plus a note to write to his sister, congratulating her on the birth of her second child, Orbilio felt life was rather less of a lemon now he was home.

‘I’ll have my supper, Tingi, then I’m off for a good, long soak at the baths. That’ll stop the old joints creaking.’

‘Very good, sir. I’ve asked the cook to prepare your favourite, the chicken in pepper sauce. It won’t be too rich, will it, after your ride?’

‘Rich? Never! After the pigswill I’ve been living on these past weeks, I never want to see plain food again.’ Orbilio ran a comb through his tangled mop and winced. ‘Take my advice, Tingi, never take a job as an undercover agent.’

The Libyan smiled. ‘I think I might have difficulty passing the physical, sir.’

Orbilio laughed aloud at the prospect of this African mingling unobtrusively among the Roman aristocracy… Yes, indeed, it was good to be home. It had been a damned nuisance, to say the very least, being posted to Ostia straight after that murder business. His boss, as he’d half expected, came away with all the credit for solving it, while he, Orbilio, had been lumbered with finding out who was fiddling a few measly sesterces in taxes. He’d spent six weeks, six rotten, godawful weeks, acting the part of tutor to two rotten, godawful boys before he got to the root of the problem.

There
was
no thieving. Thanks to bureaucratic incompetence, five hundred citizens had been missed off the bloody register.

‘And the other matter, Tingi? That er, rather delicate issue I left with you?’ The smell of the chicken began to gnaw at his stomach. He hadn’t realized he was so hungry. Damn those wretched nags!

‘Ah!’

He didn’t like the way his manservant said that. Come to think of it, he didn’t much care for the expression on the fellow’s face, either. A whole host of wild scenarios rushed into his mind. He’d been gone only a few weeks and…she’d married someone else, that was it. Would he be old and in the grip of terminal halitosis like her last husband, or would she have opted for a younger, more athletic model? How young? He was only twenty-four himself, the same age as she was. No, no, it was too soon, she couldn’t be married. Sick, then! That was it, she was ill. Nothing too serious or Tingi’s tone would have given the game away, so what was it? Pleurisy? Pneumonia? Jaundice? All three? He couldn’t stand the suspense.

‘Ah
what
,
Tingi?’

The Libyan, noting the slave had pretty well finished adjusting his master’s clothing, dismissed him with a nod of the head. Orbilio was not reassured by the gesture.

‘She has left the country, sir.’

‘She’s
what
?
Did you say, left the country?’ Orbilio rubbed his forehead. ‘Where’s she gone?’

‘Sicily.’

Orbilio puffed out his cheeks and stared up at the ceiling. This was just his luck. His boss had made bloody sure he was out of the way (and fast!) after those murders, there was no time to call on her, and he hadn’t been able to word a letter correctly. Say too much and it’s open to ridicule. Say too little and you’re misunderstood. Empty stomach or not, he poured himself a large glass of wine and waited until he felt it warm him inside before pressing for details. And then he wished he hadn’t waited, because there were no details.

‘How do you mean, no one’s letting on?’

Tingi spread his hands. ‘Not to me, any rate. I tried bribing that Macedonian steward of hers, but he threw me out on my ear.’

Not strictly true. He got two of his burlier servants to do the job for him.

‘Shit.’ You could hear the resignation in Orbilio’s voice in the next street. ‘Help me on with my toga, would you.’ It might be late, but dammit, he had to know where she was. Every night he was tortured by the memory of Claudia Seferius, her thick hair escaping from its moorings, the sun bouncing back blazing tints of gold and copper and bronze. Every night he dreamed he was running his hands through those luscious locks, watching the curls tumble over her shoulders, down, down, down to cover her breasts. And what breasts! He had seen them once, firm and arrogant, a sight never to be forgotten. He longed to kiss her, hold her in his arms, feel his manhood against her. Inside her. Love or lust he wasn’t certain, but he’d give either a go tomorrow, given half a chance.

‘Stay with you through thick and thin, Orbilio? Till you’re thick round the middle and thin on top, you mean. No fear.’

Those words had never actually been spoken, but it was only a question of time, he felt. Unless he could win her over—and he was unlikely to do that while she was swanning around Sicily!

The smell of chicken in pepper sauce tormented him as he passed through the atrium, clutching nothing more interesting than a poppyseed loaf to chew on the way. Who was she with, he wondered, elbowing his way through the throng of late night revellers. What made her take off for Sicily, of all places? He prayed to Venus it wasn’t with a man—the mere thought brought a sharp pain to his gut. As if to drive salt into a wound, he practically collided with a young couple, panting and intertwined, against a street corner. The sight of the boy, one hand on the girl’s buttocks, the other fondling her exposed and naked breast, stirred his loins. How long since he’d taken a woman himself? He’d been tempted in Ostia, but always at the back of his mind was a picture of one woman whose beauty made others wilt in comparison. The flounce in her walk, the toss of her head—who could come close to matching her? Orbilio felt his desire rising as the boy tugged at the girl’s tunic to expose her soft white parted thighs and he forced himself to walk on. The sages had it wrong, he thought. It was
abstinence
which made the heart grow fonder.