Wolf Whistle

Claudia waited until he was well clear of the woods before approaching the pagan structure. Lamashtu’s snarling face was set with sapphires for eyes and around his neck hung a leather bag containing Arbil’s sacrifice of precious gems. What lies so heavily on your conscience, she asked, that you imagine yourself possessed by demons which need exorcising in the middle of the night? What torments you, Arbil?

Back in the complex, Claudia noticed a light still burned in the slave master’s bedroom and through a crack in the shutters she could see him, the palms of his hands flat against the wall. Correction, flat against a portrait on the wall. That of the younger son. Arbil was crooning, she could just about make out his words.

‘Shannu. Oh my son, my son, what have I done?’

His forehead rested against the handsome painted brow, his shoulders heaved, and from her vantage point outside his window, Claudia watched fat tears roll silently down Arbil’s bearded cheeks.

XXVII

By the time Claudia prised her eyelids apart, Apollo had already driven his blazing chariot quite a height above the eastern horizon. She stretched lazily and yawned. The eerie events of last night coupled with this strange, criss-cross mattress combined to give the impression of having spent the night floating on water, and the fact that the bed stood considerably higher off the ground than traditional Roman couches merely added to the drifting effect.

Perhaps Arbil’s ritual had been part of that illusion? Now, with the floor bathed in morning sunshine, such behaviour seemed highly improbable. Arbil was a hard-boiled businessman, ruthless in his dealings, a lecher and a hedonist. All too often these traits went hand in hand, he’d be no exception-but superstitious one minute, full of maudlin pity the next? Put it down to the beer, Claudia. It went to your head and made you hallucinate- Hang on! She sat up. Did I say hallucinate? Her brain fermenting, Claudia jumped out of bed. Holy shit. Why didn’t I see it before…?

The complex was in full swing as she made a beeline for the segregation wing. Yesterday, Arbil had had his staff primed. Let’s see how they react when caught on the hop.

‘I can never keep track-look!’ The head eunuch indicated the spacious dormitory with its rows of ratproof terracotta chests, its bright red rugs, the neatly made beds and skylight windows. ‘There are a dozen girls in here at any one time, and the turnover’s so fast…’ It might be different, he suggested, if he slept in there with them, but his job wasn’t to police the girls, now was it? It was to prevent the boys sneaking in.

‘And do they?’ Claudia softened the question with a generous tinkle of silver. ‘Sneak in?’

The ageing eunuch declined the coins. ‘Arbil sells virgins,’ he said. ‘What they do when they leave here’s up to them, but until then they stay pure.’ He grinned. ‘That’s an order, and you don’t need me to tell you how Arbil feels about orders.’

Really? Tthe guards might be conscientious, but when hormones run hot, teenagers become highly inventive…

Claudia visited the hospital wing, the classrooms, the workshops, and looped past the lake where a score of youngsters thrashed around in the water. But each tutor and nursemaid said the same thing.

‘Master Sargon in the girls’ wing? Never.’

‘Boys and girls mixing? Oh, the shame of it!’

‘Silverstreak? No dear, we never let the children play with him, one can’t be too careful with a wolf…’

She gazed around the complex. Childish squeals accompanied piggybacks and hopscotch, one girl tied ribbons to a donkey’s tail, a boy mooned at a group of shrieking infants, another hopped on one leg as he tied an errant shoelace. She had not expected them to be happy.

And it was with a heavy sense of anticlimax that Claudia bumped into Angel picking oleanders in the courtyard.

‘I like fresh flowers round the house,’ the girl said accusingly, and that was the thing about Angel. She could control her voice, but her body language took longer to catch up. The petals trembled in her hand, and there was a strange look in her eyes. Claudia remembered their encounter yesterday. Claudia was standing by those same oleanders peeping through the terracotta screen, and Angel had perceived her as an enemy…

‘They were very pretty flowers I saw in your bedroom,’ Claudia said mildly. ‘Thorn apple, weren’t they?’

Instantly the colour drained from Angel’s face, forcing the livid purple bruise into stark relief. Claudia bit her lip. Better by far Angel took the hint from a stranger, than for Arbil to find out.

In the atrium, Claudia glanced at the law plates of bronze and shivered. Oh yes. Far better.

*

Dino, Claudia decided, was the weak link. Time they had a cosy one-to-one.

She knocked on his bedroom door, and a plump housemaid answered. ‘Master Dinocrates? Him and Master Sargon’ll be in Rome by now, it’s market day, see.’

Croesus, she’d forgotten!