Wolf Whistle

Goddammit, that stupid policeman actually seemed to find this amusing. Well I can’t have him around, for a start. If they recognize Orbilio from my previous run-ins with the law, I am doomed-especially when the investigator in question is black and blue from fighting. Quickly she ushered him through the far door and, with a finger to her lips, cautioned Leonides to silence. Now for the checklist.

Gaius’ marble bust? Out of the attic and dusted.

Business accounts? Doctored.

Jovi? Out of sight and out of earshot.

Moneylender? Knocking at some other mug’s door.

Snooping detectives? Banished to gardens.

Murder? None of my business.

That’s right. None of my damned business.

Satisfied there was not the slightest whiff of scandal for the battleaxes to pick up, Claudia patted her curls, smoothed her gown, adjusted her ear studs and glued a very large grin into place.

Serenely she opened the door to the atrium. And walked straight into the smirking legionary whom she’d stationed there.

VI

The Argiletum, Claudia discovered, turning into it from the Forum, was doing its customary roaring trade. As though pushed into some kind of civilian uniform, rich merchants drew their togas over their heads to protect themselves from the rain, but the majority of men-the slaves and street porters-had no such umbrella. Ankles splattered with mud and slurry, they clutched the necks of their tunics to minimize the drips which would trickle inside and more than one bemoaned the cheap fabrics which shrank, cold, to their flesh. Beneath an awning carried by slaves, a thickset widow considered how best to spend her inheritance, and this did not include cloaks for her staff. Claudia pulled her own wrap lower over her brow and became as anonymous as everyone else tramping about in the drizzle.

Over on the Palatine Hill, where the aunts sheltered in the dry of a marble colonnade, the Priest of Luna would be double-checking the placement of his sacred paraphernalia, for if even the slightest thing was adrift, the ceremony would at best start all over, at worse be abandoned.

Let no one forget that the taking of a life was of supreme sanctity.

Let no one trivialize the event.

Swamped by the smell of wet wool on this street of bookshops and cobblers, Claudia smiled to herself. Confronted by a dozen hostile women and a soldier in her house, she did what any girl would have done.

‘Cypassis,’ she chided. ‘If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a hundred times, the instant our dear relatives arrive, we are off to the Palatine!’

Most of the old trouts looked suitably confused, but it was the ringleader you needed to watch. ‘Luna?’ Larentia queried. ‘You’ve got us seats for the Festival?’

Provided Junius rode like the clappers, there should be ample time to persuade a dozen decent citizens to give up their place, and idly Claudia wondered how many would require silver assistance. ‘We’ll need to leave now, though,’ she said. ‘It’s quite a long walk.’ Which, with luck, would do for the old bitch.

‘Walk?’ quailed at least nine of the women. ‘Walk?’

‘Best form of exercise,’ she insisted, flapping her hands behind her back as a signal for Cypassis to dismiss her litter.

Larentia jabbed a bony finger at the legionary. ‘What’s he doing here?’

‘Him? Ah. The soldier is… an official escort.’ She turned a full set of teeth upon the leering legionary and spoke through them. ‘You squire us, I visit murder scene,’ she hissed. ‘Tell Orbilio.’

Less than a minute later, a baritone laugh rang out from the peristyle (which Claudia took to be confirmation that the deal was on) and then the only obstacle was to absent herself from the ceremony. No problem. As the women were grouping themselves in front of the white marble shrine, Junius ran up to inform his mistress that her best friend was suffering a miscarriage, please come quickly, it was an emergency and so utterly convincing was he in his role that Claudia very nearly called for a doctor herself.

A chair turned into the Argiletum, bouncing so badly as the bearers dodged the glistening puddles it was a wonder its occupant wasn’t seasick. And suddenly Claudia remembered why she was here. She stepped aside for a woman with a pot of forced lilies under one arm and a bawling infant under the other, who was collecting her husband’s boots from the menders, then listened as a Sarmatian bartered in bad Latin with a Parthian whose vocabulary was worse. She lingered at a stall specializing in foreign books, helping the wizened shopkeeper secrete his treasured scrolls beneath a yellow cloth to keep the damp at bay, she passed the time of day with an inkseller extolling the virtues of soot and pitch and octopus juice and she allowed the slipper-maker to ramble on about the guild he belonged to, but my, my, where were his manners, would the lady feel the softness of his leather?

Then finally…no more shops. No more diversions.

No more excuses.