The Mammoth Book of Roman Whodunnits Read online

  You had a chance, said their sad, accusing eyes. You had the chance to pave the way for other women to take on the men in their own world. Instead, you betrayed us. You sold the sisterhood out.

  The litter drew to a halt outside Arlon's villa. Trumpets sounded. A carpet of red shot with gold thread was thrown out across the pavement to welcome her. Rainbow ribbons soaked in lavender and cedar wood oil streamed down from the rooftops. In a vestibule lined with lilies in tall silver pots and elegant floral frescoes, liveried slaves carried her in on their hands to an atrium gleaming in marble and gold. Here, light streamed in through the roof, fountains danced, and bronze charioteers guided Arlon's bronze stallions in an eternal victory lap. Surrounded by priests, family, friends, business colleagues and neighbours, the man of the house stepped proudly forward.

  Claudia stretched out both hands to greet her blond Adonis and smiled. I ask you. What sisterhood?

  "I shall cherish this moment for the rest of my life." With great tenderness, Arlon rubbed the ring he had just slipped on Claudia's finger and brought it gently to his lips.

  "Ah," sighed the congregation, and one or two of the women surreptitiously dabbed at their eyes.

  "The physicians tell us there's a nerve which runs from the ring finger direct to the heart," Arlon murmured, smiling deep into Claudia's eyes, "and that it is this nerve which governs our happiness. Sealed for eternity by this gold band of love, may the gods strike me dead if I ever have cause to harm you." This time he raised both her hands to his lips. "I love you, Claudia. I love you with all my heart and with all my soul, and nothing and no one can change the way that I feel. You do know that, don't you?"

  Claudia felt an unaccustomed rush of colour to her face. "Yes," she said quietly. "I know that, Arlon."

  Now the women were sobbing quite openly, and there were a few sniffs from the men in the audience as well. Even the priest had to swallow.

  "Let us make sacrifice with offerings of spelt," he intoned solemnly, "that the gods may bless this joyful betrothal."

  They made such a good-looking couple, he thought, so in love, that he had forgiven Claudia her transgressions over the veil. Her previous husband had been old when they'd wed. Fat as a pig, if he recalled correctly, with bad teeth and a bald spot. A marriage of convenience for both parties, and now that the husband was dead, and looking at a lifetime of happiness with a dashing and virile young blade, what woman wouldn't want to advertise her wedding twice over? The priest, laying spelt cakes on the altar and pouring libations, couldn't begrudge her the orange veil for her betrothal, as well as her marriage.

  All the same, he wondered why she hung on to that battered bronze bowl, even during the ceremony, when tradition decreed both hands should be free. It had made his task of exchanging rings and medallions virtually impossible, and he'd had to call one of his acolytes to assist. Most unusual woman, this beautiful young widow, and the priest resolved to have a word with Arlon before the wedding. Intractability is no asset in a wife and if this wilfulness looked like it was persisting, the priest would recommend a jolly good beating. A tactic which had certainly brought his own wife to heel.

  "When did you sweethearts meet?" one old hen clucked. "Yes, do tell us. And where?" clucked another.

  "It was last Saturnalia," Claudia told the middle-aged female crowd which had knotted around her. "I'd laid on a sumptuous banquet and invited a select group of merchants round, in the hope of persuading them to sign up for barrel loads of Seferius wine, when —"

  "When Arlon persuaded you to love him, instead!" the hens shrieked.

  "Well, no, actually," Claudia said. "His first words were, `How much would you take for your cook?' "

  Everyone laughed.

  Claudia slipped away.

  Outside in the garden, it was hotter, not cooler. The mosaics and marble, the honeycomb screens and gently waving ostrich feather fans conspired to keep the atrium at an ambient temperature, despite the crush of the revellers. But there were too many people talking at once. She needed the space. And the quiet.

  Her gown trailing over the path, she found a secluded bench in the shade, overhung by clusters of fragrant pink damask roses. Jewel-coloured birds chirruped and preened in an aviary set in the wall, and marble nymphs danced round fountains which splashed prettily and made prisms as the drops caught the sun. She sat down on the marble bench and stretched out feet shod in the softest white leather. The air was heavy with birdsong and the buzzing of bees, and scented from swathes of bright purple lavender, with valerian, pinks, and a thousand sweet-smelling herbs.

  Why, then, could she feel no peace in her heart?

  "I suppose there's no point in my asking what you're up to this time?" the bay tree to her left asked in a melodious baritone.

  Claudia spun round. The bay tree was grinning.

  "Marcus Cornelius Orbilio, don't you ever think of approaching people in a normal fashion, instead of creeping up on them?"

  "If you'd seen me coming, you'd have run off."

  "Doesn't everyone?"

  He stepped out from behind the bush, his dark eyes twinkling. All the better to see you with . . . "I'll have you know, there are some people who actually like me," he said, settling himself beside her on the bench.

  "Name one, and your mother doesn't count."

  "Not everyone sees the Security Police in a sinister light," he laughed, tugging at his right ear lobe. All the better to hear you with . . . "There are those who actually believe we're an asset to the Empire, rooting out assassins, rapists and thieves."

  "Oh well, then. If it's gardening you're into, the potting shed's over there."

  The grin broadened, to show white, even teeth. All the better to eat you with . . . "Trowel by jury, you mean?"

  Orbilio folded his arms behind his head, leaned back against the trunk of the sycamore tree in whose shade they were sitting and closed his eyes. Claudia did not fall into the trap of believing he was asleep. And now she knew that his sandalwood unguent was truly the scent of the hunter.

  Time passed. It could have been minutes. Then again, lifetimes might have elapsed.

  "Tell me about Arlon," he said at last. "Tell me why you're playing this particular charade."

  Until Claudia exhaled, she hadn't realized she'd been holding her breath. She counted to five. Then -

  "You're the law," she said brightly. "You know how the system works."

  Rome needed babies. As the Empire swelled, so did its population, but it was swelling with the offspring of slaves, not baby citizens. A victim of its own success. With peace came prosperity, and with prosperity came luxury goods, gourmet foods, safer streets, marble temples, libraries, sewers and the dole. It provided everyone with better education and better health. Which, for women, led to improved contraception. Oh, come on. When the risk of dying in childbirth was one in ten, who could blame the poor cows? So a law was passed to reverse the downward trend.

  Widows of childbearing age had two years in which to find themselves a new husband. And if it wasn't a man of her choosing, then by Jupiter, she would be forced to accept the choice of the State.

  Claudia shot Orbilio a radiant smile. "My two years are nearly up," she said cheerfully. "Arlon is the man I have chosen."

  He grunted and closed his eyes again. Cicadas rasped, bees hummed and the heat in the garden pulsed harder. She watched his profile. The patrician nose. The decisive jaw. The vein that beat at the side of his neck. She swallowed. Watched a bumblebee scour the pink blooms of hyssop in its quest for nectar. And found her gaze locked on the flowers long after the bee had flown off.

  "Tell me how you two got together," he said.

  "It was last Saturnalia," Claudia began. "I'd laid on a sumptuous banquet and —"

  "That," he murmured, "is word for word what you told those old ducks indoors, and an investigator always mistrusts the account which never varies."

  "You don't trust your own shadow," she snapped.

  A muscle twitched at the s
ide of his mouth. "Flattery will get you nowhere," he said. "Tell me what happened after that."

  One. Two. Three. "Very simple. I told Arlon, 'I can't sell just one slave. If you want my cook, you'll have to take his wife, his three daughters, his mother-in-law and an aunt, I won't have the family broken up.'

  "Claudia," he growled warningly. One eye opened. "Explain to me — please — how it was that several months passed before you and Arlon met up again."

  Something tightened beneath Claudia's rib cage. He was the Security Police. What did he know? Correction. How much did he know . . . ? Lies formed into a plausible story, but before she could open her mouth, Marcus said, "You do know the rumours about his late wife?"

  Again, Claudia breathed out. "Rumours? Good grief, Orbilio, the woman committed suicide nine months ago. That's hardly a secret."

  No one throws themselves off the Tarpeian Rock without the whole of Rome knowing, much less a rich merchant's wife. After all, if you want privacy when you die, you don't leap from the Capitol Hill, right in the heart of the city.

  "She jumped at night," Orbilio reminded her. "There were no witnesses to the suicide."

  "So?"

  "So she wasn't a pauper," he said dryly. "She brought considerable capital to her marriage, and she had no heirs to claim on the estate. Arlon inherited the lot."

  Claudia reached up and plucked a rosebud from the truss. "You have my undivided disinterest, Orbilio."

  One eyebrow rose in scepticism, but he did not presume to contradict her. Instead he said, "Just humour me, and tell me how exactly you and Arlon got together. How soon it was, after Saturnalia, that he started to court you?"

  A weight lifted from Claudia's stomach. She felt light. Free. Free as the birds in the dovecot.

  "Arlon court me?" She tossed the rosebud into his lap and danced off down the path. "My dear Marcus, for an investigator, you really do have a long way to go."

  "Excuse me?" He was alert now. Tense and poised. "Maybe you should follow the family tradition and become a lawyer instead."

  "I don't understand." He was on his feet now. Frowning. "I'm the one who pursued Arlon," she trilled over her shoulder. "Like a terrier, if you must know."

  He caught up with her after the betrothal feast, after most of the guests had gone home. Claudia wasn't surprised to see Orbilio at the banquet. Being an aristocrat himself, his own house was a mere stone's throw from Arlon's superlative mansion and he'd probably have been on the invitation list as a matter of course. Neighbour to neighbour, and all that. But Claudia knew that he would have inveigled an invitation anyhow. It was his nature.

  As the last guest stumbled out on distinctly unsteady legs and a bawdy song on his lips, she stared around the banqueting hall. Crab claws, lobster shells, cherry pips and meat bones littered the floor between the couches, and a couple of kitchen cats were probing the debris with delicate paws in search of tasty titbits. The sun was sinking fast, casting a vermilion glow over the dining hall and turning the bronze couches to the colour of molten gold. It had been a memorable feast, Claudia reflected with satisfaction. The affianced couple linking arms as they drank a loving cup between courses. Musicians. Poets. Performing apes. Plus a tightrope walker who walked backwards as well as forwards whilst entertaining the gawping diners with ballads. The food had been exquisite. Sucking pig, honeyed dormice, venison and boar, served with asparagus, milk-fed snails and white truffles which had been fetched from the Istrian peninsula. From time to time during the meal, rose petals showered the guests with their fragrance from a mechanical contraption overhead, and iced wine flowed down a river into a pool from which female slaves dressed as water sprites filled the jugs.

  Now Claudia watched as, with a snarl and a hiss and with thrashing wide tails, the tabby and the tortoiseshell squared up to one another over a prawn. Too late. The porter's rangy mongrel strolled in through the open windows, scattering felines to the four winds as it proceeded to snaffle up everything in sight, shells and all.

  "That dog needs worming," Orbilio said.

  "And you need a bell on your collar."

  He leaned against the side of a couch, one hand resting lightly on the carved antelope armrest. "That," he said looking round, "was a very good show."

  "I thought the snake charmer rather went a bit off-key, but the fire-eater was pretty impressive."

  "I'm talking about you," he said. "If you ever fancy a career in the theatre . . ." He let his voice trail off. Then: "What's behind this chicanery, Claudia?"

  She scooped up a handful of petals and tossed them in the air, watching as they floated down like pale pink snowflakes. "You're just worried that, once I'm married to Arlon, I'll set your career back a year."

  Know your enemy. It was a good rule to live by. And Claudia Seferius knew that this fiercely ambitious young investigator only kept such close tabs on her, because she sailed so close to the wind. She was his fast track to the Senate. The more results he clocked up, the closer his seat in the Assembly. Why else would he dog her every step?

  "Or is it merely a question of dented pride?" she added. "That your hundred percent success record will be broken, if I wriggle off your investigative hook?"

  Orbilio sucked in his cheeks. "Whatever you do, Claudia Seferius, and wherever you go, it will always involve some degree of illegality. Believe me, my career is not in jeopardy here."

  She stared at the bowl in her hand. He was probably right. She was destined to live life on the edge, pushing herself to the limits, because danger was as vital to Claudia's constitution as oxygen. Without testing yourself, how can you be truly alive?

  Outside, the sun had sunk below the rooftops and the sky was the colour of blood. Cicadas buzzed like blunt saws, the heat pulsed, and bats darted round the eaves of the building. Soon, slaves would come to light the oil lamps, but for now the twilight and Claudia were one.

  An age passed before he pushed himself away from the couch. She could not make out his expression in the dusk, but she knew without looking that the dancing light in his eyes had died.

  "He's a sleaze ball, Claudia."

  Something changed inside her, too. "What do you know about Arlon?" she sneered.

  She saw his fists clench. "I know that no one gets that rich, that fast, without being a ruthless, callous, grade-A bastard and Arlon's all that, in spades."

  "Strangely enough, Marcus, I'm inclined to agree with you." Claudia scooped her bronze begging bowl into the wine pool. The ice had long melted, making the wine warm, but not unpleasant. "And bloody sexy it makes him, too."

  Orbilio frowned. Spiked his hands through his fringe.

  "Claudia, if this truly is about you needing to find a husband before the State imposes —"

  "Why? Are you offering?"

  He cleared his throat. Stared at his feet. Shuffled. "You could do worse."

  Now who's talking about careers in the theatre? Him, an aristocrat with a lineage going back to Apollo, marry a girl from the slums who'd adopted the identity of a woman who died in the plague in order to hook a wealthy, if ancient, wine merchant? Hades would take day-trippers first. Welcome to my atrium, said the spider to the fly. Oh, really, Marcus Cornelius. Do I look like I have wings?

  "You don't get it, do you?" she said over the rim of her bowl. "I love Arlon."

  "Bullshit. And don't give me that crap about him loving you, either. Arlon wants to get his hands on your assets, Claudia. Nothing more."

  Did he really think she hadn't done her homework? Her agents had dug and dug until they hit bedrock and one of the first things that Claudia discovered was that, like herself, Arlon had also married for money the first time around. His wife's fortune had enabled him to buy a marble quarry in Euboea, then another in Alexandria, then another on the island of Chios, until one way and another he'd acquired quite a collection. When the Emperor was hell bent on turning Rome into a city of marble monuments, from temples to baths, statues to fountains, Arlon's quarries worked round the clock to meet the dem
and. This income in turn funded a string of stud farms round Apulia and Lucania, which, wouldn't you know it, simply couldn't stop turning out winners. At the age of thirty-three, Arlon was rich beyond his wildest dreams. Good grief, by the time he hit forty, he'd have amassed so much wealth, even Midas would turn green with envy!

  But that wasn't the issue here.

  Claudia cleared her throat. Turned to face the ardent patrician.

  "Trust me, Orbilio, there's only one thing Arlon wants to get his hands on," she said pointedly. "And I've promised him that as a betrothal gift."

  Even in the twilight, she could see the colour drain from Orbilio's face. "You aren't serious?"

  Her heart was drumming. Her mouth was dry. "Never more so," she assured him.

  "For gods' sake!" He spun her round to face him. "Claudia, you can't sleep with that bastard. He's a monster. A fiend. He killed his wife, for Croesus sakes."

  She shook off his hands, turned away, but could still smell the sandalwood in her nostrils, taste his minty sweet breath in the back of her throat. And where he had touched her, two handprints burned a hole in her gown.

  "He was dining with friends the night his wife committed suicide," she said levelly.

  But then, as an investigator, he must surely know that.

  "Claudia, please, anything but that. I couldn't bear —"

  Enough. "I'm not asking you to bare anything, Orbilio. Now, the betrothal party is over. The music's ended, it's late, the wine's warm, and you're the last guest left, so I'd be obliged if you'd kindly leave me and my husband-to-be in peace."

  "Don't go to his bed, Claudia." His voice was ragged with an emotion she couldn't place.

  A bad oyster. It must be. She felt nauseous. Faint. Her legs wouldn't support her. But they had to. By all that was holy, they had to . . .

  "What I do or don't do is none of your goddamned business," she snapped, and there was no quaver in her voice, none at all. Attagirl. "Now get out, before I have the guards throw you out."

  She put a hand on the couch to steady herself. Please, Marcus. Please. Go. Go now -