Wolf Whistle

‘I know he’s in there.’ Claudia pounded her fist against the heavy, holm-oak door. ‘Dammit, Tucca, open up!’ Heads poked out of windows, doves took flight, dogs barked. This was a respectable suburb on the Quirinal, the residents were unused to disturbances. A small child began to bawl. Claudia continued to batter.

Click, clunk, graunch. Finally, the door swung open a hand’s span.

‘Where is he?’ Claudia shoved her weight behind the timber and sent the mute reeling. ‘I know you’re here, Kaeso. Come on out!’

Tucca picked herself up and stumbled after the intruder, gargling and gesticulating with her raw, red hands that Kaeso didn’t live here, please go now. Undeterred, Claudia swept down the atrium, her magenta wrap flapping like batwings as she flung aside curtains, doors and shutters and peered into every dismal, empty room along the way. Nothing. She marched into the peristyle, still deep in shadow where the sun had not yet risen above the surrounding apartment blocks, and swore. The garden, if possible, looked gloomier than ever. No brindle dog to cheer it up, no puffs of white narcissus or scented squills, and the room of curios was strangely silent, too. The grate had been swept clean and only a lingering hint of woodsmoke suggested a fire had ever danced here. The collection of carved animals-rearing horses, diving dolphins, licking cats-seemed static somehow, lifeless, and the gap where the leaping billygoats had stood glared mournfully back at her.

The vitality of the room, she realized with an irregular thump of her heart, had been generated solely by Kaeso.

Tucca stood beside the polished cypress door, hands on solid hips as though to say I-told-you-so. Claudia’s eyes narrowed as she slowly retraced her steps to the atrium. The doors she’d flung open Tucca hadn’t bothered to close. Another smack in the face for her visitor. He was here, though. Goddammit, he was here…

Methodically she cast her eye over the atrium decor. Unimaginative was the word, that geometric mosaic, those boring blocks of colour on the walls, that mean little pool. Claudia looked up at the neutral stuccoed ceiling. Janus, the silence in this house was creepy! Then she remembered how Kaeso was predisposed towards tricks. Aha! With a judicious shove, two concealed doors in the far wall gave way, exposing a hidden room washed with blues, greens and silvers, sparkling with the reflections from a polished silver mirror. A shrine to an unfamiliar figure filled the far corner, although she recognized the Babylonian cherubs that were clinging to the ceiling.

‘Now tell me what were you doing at Arbil’s,’ she demanded.

And still there was nothing straightforward about Kaeso. The linen of his tunic was neither green nor blue, yet it could pass for either, and in the early morning light, his shaggy mane shone silver. Even in the privacy of his well concealed bedroom, it transpired, Kaeso resorted to camouflage.

He hadn’t so much as blinked. ‘Don’t you want to know about Magic?’ he asked, sweeping his arm to indicate the chair.

‘No.’ Claudia remained standing. ‘His tirade of filth has stopped.’ There had been nothing for two days. Perhaps she’d killed him, after all?

Kaeso straightened a marble bust which stood upon a podium by the wall. There was a Greekness about it, suggesting great antiquity.

‘I am here,’ she said, ‘to talk about Arbil, and why, when you were engaged in a game of cat-and-mouse involving Magic, and doubtless several other commissions besides, you felt obliged to look up a few old friends half a day’s ride out of town.’

‘And just what business might that be of yours?’ he asked, so quietly she had to strain to catch the words.

Well… now you ask. None actually.

‘Furthermore, what gives you the right to barge into my house then root me out like a truffle?’ He padded across the room and his grey eyes bored into hers, but he couldn’t quite hold back the amusement which danced in them. ‘But most importantly, Claudia Seferius, how the bloody hell did you find out about this room?’

He’d been washing, she decided, when she’d burst into the house. There were splashes of water round the bowl and on the floor, and the towel was soaking wet.

‘Your conjuring tricks.’ Against her will, she smiled back. And that was why Kaeso was dangerous. ‘I spent a long time waiting in your atrium-’ (was it really only eight days ago?) and I had a feeling then I was being watched.’ In fact, I suspect the peephole is behind the statue you’ve just straightened. ‘Also, that story you spun about Tucca, something didn’t quite ring true. Is she your mother?’

‘Commendably close.’ He adjusted the buckle on his belt, reinforcing the notion of recent and hasty dressing. ‘She worked as a nursemaid for Arbil, we grew close and as you’ve already guessed, it’s me and not some fictitious daughter who looks after her. But,’ he gave a twisted grin, ‘the part about her husband is the truth. His bones do lie in the garden, and I should know, because I buried him myself.’