Wolf Whistle

Claudia stood riveted on the cold, stone floor. Physical disease she could deal with. Jaundice, dropsy, pneumonia, no problem. But confronted with mental illness, she froze. She watched, mesmerized, as Magic staggered to his feet. Magic swayed. Magic pulled out the knife. Magic roared. Not with pain, but with anger, and any compassion Claudia felt, any confusion, vanished on the spot. Blood spurted from the wound in his side, gushing on to the flagstones, and suddenly he was lumbering towards her, stabbing with the knife. Her knife!

Terrified, Claudia ran into the street as Magic, hands red with blood, stumbled after her.

‘Bitch! You treacherous bitch! Come back here!’

Even in the next alley, she could hear him.

‘I’ll kill you, you fucking treacherous bitch! Do you hear me? I’ll fucking KILL YOU!’

Swamped by nausea, every limb shaking and her teeth clashing like castanets, Claudia fell against a wall for support. Where was everybody? Janus, she’d been dragged off the streets, almost raped and these people were still sleeping? Lumbering steps echoed in the grey dawn light. Holy shit, run!

And run she did. Past the mills which, at any other season, were beehives full of millers and sackmen, porters and donkeymen, the dry air alive with clipped orders, where flour would tickle your nose, make you cough. It would never echo like it did now. Claudia could hear her own light footsteps, and a heavier, dragging tread from behind… Rounding a corner, she collided with a solid mass of horseflesh.

‘Move aside, you’re blocking the road!’

The boy who sat perched upon the animal looked down his snooty, freckled nose. ‘My father hired this horse for me to try out. It’s my birthday.’

‘Out the way!’

‘He’s magnificent, isn’t he? I might ask Father to buy him.’

Perhaps the horse might pay more attention. ‘Shift,’ Claudia told it, ‘or prepare for the gluepot.’

Any second now Magic will come stumbling round the corner…

The boy was stroking the animal’s mane. ‘He’s called Comet, he’s so fast.’

‘Is he?’ Claudia licked her lips. ‘Then it’s about time he showed us.’ She yanked the kid off and jumped into the saddle.

‘Hey!’

It was one hell of a way up. And having never sat astride a monster like this, bloody uncomfortable, too. ‘Gee up.’ That’s what they say, isn’t it. ‘Gee up’?

‘That’s stealing.’ The boy scrambled to his feet.

‘Damn right.’ Comet? It hadn’t budged a hoof.

The boy was frantic. ‘Gerroff, you!’

Claudia leaned into the animal’s ear. ‘Ssssssss.’

‘He’s mine, give him back!’ the boy cried, pulling at Claudia’s ankle.

She tried again. ‘Ssssssss.’

Then there was no question of how Comet came by his name. Houses, shops and streets flew past in a blur as Claudia clung to his shiny black neck. People screamed, cursed and yelled as the horse cut right through them, his hooves clattering and slithering over the cobbles. In the Circus Maximus, they do seven laps then they’re whacked. Kid’s stuff to this beast.

‘Whooa, boy. Whooa.’ But the horse wasn’t stupid. It knew a cobra when it heard one, and concentrated on putting more distance between them. Claudia began to feel dizzy. Then seasick. Finally, when vital organs started to shake hands with each other, she screwed up her eyes and clung like a barnacle. She thought of her mission to Arbil’s. Dammit, Marcus Cornelius, you’ll have to find another mug to play sodding detective. I’m paralysed.

Mercifully, gallop slowed to canter, canter to stop. Claudia prised her eyelids apart. Where the hell was she? Comet seemed happy, clip-clopping his way across this stable yard to bury his big, black nose in the manger. His breath steamed white on the cool morning air. As did Claudia’s.

An elderly groom came limping over. ‘Comet, old boy, what are you doing back so soon? I thought you’d been hired for the day?’

He seemed not to notice the rider, who landed in a boneless heap on the flagstones. Never mind asteroids, she thought. More like haemorrhoids. The horse snickered with pleasure and chomped noisily on the sweet-smelling hay.

‘Madam?’ A familiar face thrust itself in front of Claudia’s.

‘Junius?’ The horse has thrown me, I’m concussed. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ Doing where? What was this? Was she dead? Were Claudia and Comet about to meet Gaius in the afterlife?

‘Just after dawn, you said.’ The young Gaul helped his mistress to her feet. ‘First post house beyond the Collina Gate?’

‘You mean-’ Claudia looked round in amazement. Of all the ironies…!

And yet was it so surprising? She knew she’d been close to the Gate, of course a horse would head home. It’s his nature, you clumping daft tart.

Clouds of brown dust billowed from her skirts when she shook them. Dammit, she needed the baths to wash away the smell-the feel-the taste — of that slimeball who called himself Magic. Her hands, she saw, were still shaking. From the ride, she told herself. What else?

Come on, it was self-defence, that stabbing. What other option was there?