Wolf Whistle

‘He won’t trouble you again.’

‘That’s not what I asked.’

Kaeso’s head turned sharply. ‘I’ll get rid of him. For a price.’

Naturally. Claudia’s finger trailed over the faience vases, the ivory cats, the marble stags, the figurines. These were no cheap market knick-knacks. Quality on this scale had to be paid for. ‘How much?’

‘Nothing you cannot afford.’ He was leaning against the wall, with his arms across his chest, staring at his feet.

‘Kaeso, you don’t strike me as a man of imprecision. Can you be a little more specific?’

She waited for him to answer, struck by the spooky silence of the house around her. All you could hear was the spitting of the logs. Orange flashes leaped out of the flames to land as dead, black ash. Blue smoke spiralled up the chimney. The scents of musk and applewood swamped the tiny room.

‘I am aware of your financial position,’ he said at length, fixing his gaze on an ivory kingfisher. ‘I was hoping to negotiate a fee of a rather different kind.’

Claudia’s eyebrow lifted. Oh, were you.

‘Not,’ Kaeso held up his hand, ‘what you’re thinking. A favour in return, shall we say? When the time is right?’

She lifted the vase of leaping billygoats and held it to the light. Faience. Exquisite. Golds and reds and greens with a silvery sheen to the glaze. ‘That smacks of blackmail,’ she said, turning the vase in her hands. ‘Oops.’ It crashed to the floor, a thousand shimmering smithereens.

She heard his jaws snap. Or was that a crackle from the logs upon the fire?

‘Magic is not some husband I want to get rid of, or a lover who’s proving tiresome.’ Her eyes flashed every bit as brightly as the flames. ‘This man poses a very real threat, with his pornographic fantasies and-’

‘I understand what he is, Claudia.’ Kaeso ran his tongue round his lips and then pursed them. ‘And there was never any question of blackmail.’ Sad eyes surveyed the broken billygoats. ‘So which is it to be? Silver, or payment in kind?’

‘I’ve always said, one good turn deserves another.’

‘Then that’s settled,’ he said. ‘You go home.’ He tossed a glistening object through the air. ‘And leave the Magic to me!’

With a swirl of his cloak, he was gone. Claudia examined the gold and emerald bracelet in her hands. He must have relieved her of it when she handed him the letters, but all the same…

Outside, the mute’s garden was deserted. Apart from a brindle dog, snoozing beneath the yew.

*

Arbil groaned. It was happening again. His vision was fuzzy. He felt sick. When he went to wipe his face, his hands were shaking, and moreover his fingertips were wrinkled, like prunes. The image of Enki, the water god, rose up before him then vanished into the mist of his vision.

‘What…?’ His tongue was too heavy to string words together and he thought the frogs round his fishpond croaked better.

Enki solidified, and Arbil realized he was sitting in his bathtub. The water felt tepid. No wonder he was shivery! He hauled himself out and blotted his face with a towel. ‘Shit.’

Thick streaks of black dye stained the linen, and pulling on his beard he could see immersion had straightened the crimping. He swore and kicked at the bathtub till water sloshed over the sides. How did he get here? How long had he blanked out this time?

Think, Arbil, think. Be logical about this. What’s the last thing you remember?

I remember lunch.

And?

It was with Dino and Sargon, and Dino was pouring out the ale and teasing me, asking when I planned to abandon the Babylonian practice of eating upright in favour of reclining on couches and I pretended to cuff him round the ear. I remember that quite clearly. We ate stuffed turbot and sucking pig, and Sargon was slipping titbits to Silverstreak under the table, and don’t think your father hasn’t noticed, I joked.

Then what?

Then-Arbil scratched his head. Yes, then I took a pee.

After that?

I went into the office, like I always do. Poured myself a date liqueur, picked up the ledgers and sent for Tryphon, now what was it I had to speak to him about? No, no, no. I’ve got it the wrong way round. Tryphon came to see me. That’s right, there was an outbreak of fever in the seventh block, the Captain said, nothing to worry about, though.

Can you remember your reply?

Absolutely. Keep them quarantined for a week, I told him, we don’t want any more going down-or you either, come to that. Tryphon’s been looking decidedly peaky of late, so I said, take the rest of the day off, man. Go to Rome. Have some fun.

Did he?

Have fun? Tryphon? No idea. But he thanked me and said in that case, he’d tag along with Dino and Sargon.

Then what? What did you do after the Captain left you?

Nausea swamped Arbil again. He didn’t know. That was the problem. He didn’t fucking know.