Queen of the Night (13 page)

'Tell me again,' Aurelian demanded, 'about what truly happened along the Great Wall.'

Claudia did so. Every so often the General would interrupt with a question, then allow her to return to her narration. At the end he tapped his sandalled feet.

'I'll ask Secundus and Crispus to shelter here. I agree with your conclusion, girl: when those men were killed, the only person who would have been able to get close would be a whore, and one armed with a dagger.' He turned to ask Urbana a question, but the door opened and Leartus walked in, black hair carefully combed, his olive-skinned face oiled. He was dressed in a dark red tunic edged with green, reed sandals on his feet. He carried a posy of flowers in one hand, an elegant ivory-tipped wand in the other. Despite his status, the General appeared to like him. Aurelian smiled, gesturing him forward to the stool next to his mistress, and briefly told the eunuch what had happened. Leartus sat sad-eyed and listened attentively, nodding every so often. Aurelian remembered Claudia and abruptly gestured at her.

'Well, girl, are there any questions you wish to ask me?'

'Do you know anything?' Claudia asked. 'Can you add to the report I've given?'

Aurelian spread his hands. 'You are talking of the province eighteen years ago. It was like an overturned beehive, people streaming along the roads, towns and villas deserted. Our greatest enemy was fear. No one knew precisely what was happening, which general was in charge, which units could be trusted. Had pirates landed on the coast? Were the Picts through the wall? Had the Scoti breached the western defences? Which tribes were in revolt?' He glanced at Cassia, smiled and stretched out a hand. 'Poor Cassia here was caught up in it. Days of blood, nights of horror,- she still can't really recall what happened.'

The former courtesan smiled tenderly at the old general, who seemed flattered. He sighed loudly.

'Ah yes, it took years to reimpose order. We were only too pleased to see the Fretenses. Of course, when we heard of their great victory, rewards and praise streamed like a river towards them.'

'Did you hear of them taking prisoners?'

'None whatsoever,' the General replied definitely. 'They were moving fast, their possessions lashed to their saddle horns, no carts, only the soldiers and their mounts. They'd even left their own wives and children.' He glanced sharp-eyed at Claudia. 'Next question.'

'Are there Pictish slaves in Rome?'

'That's a hard question.' Aurelian rubbed his chin. 'The Picts,' he said, 'it is years since we've had a campaign against them. I don't know. I suppose I could ask the Aedile or the Prefect.' He glanced at Urbana. 'Can you help here?'

His wife shook her head, her eyes never leaving Claudia's face.

'I'll make enquiries.' The old general sighed. 'But I follow your logic, girl. If that Pictish war band was wiped out, if the woman they called the Golden Maid hanged herself, who would know, who would remember?'

'Do you know anything about Postulus?' Murranus asked. 'The murdered centurion. Did he have a wife and family?'

'Not that I know of,' the General replied. 'Postulus was a loner, that's why he drank. He had a wife once but I think she died; no children, nobody here in Rome. If he had, they'd have been along to see me seeking this favour or that.'

'And Petilius?' Claudia asked. 'You invited him here for a reunion, and shortly afterwards he began to pester you, demanding an audience.'

'Yes, yes, he did,' Aurelian replied.

'Do you know why he wanted to see you?'

The General stared at the ceiling, breathing out noisily, scratching the lobe of his ear. 'I don't really know,' he replied slowly, 'but it must had been something to do with our days of glory' He smiled. 'Claudia, do you know anything about Petilius?'

Claudia shook her head.

'He was a scout. Now when you're a scout in the cavalry, girl, you not only have to be a fine horseman, you need a very good memory and a sharp eye for land and faces. Petilius was like that. He was also a born lecher; not a whore in Rome was safe from him. I can see how he was killed. Petilius would put himself in danger for the mere smell of a woman. At our reunion he must have noticed something which reminded him of the past so he wanted to discuss it with me. Anyway, that's all I can say.'

The General rose to his feet, rearranging his old-fashioned toga about him, and came across and touched Claudia gently under the chin.

'Claudia, that's your name, isn't it?' He patted her on the shoulder. 'You're so small! You look tired; you're worried, aren't you, whilst your friend here has to settle and make himself at home?' He beamed down at her. 'According to the auguries, it's going to be a beautiful day. Perhaps you should stay for a few hours, before you return to Rome. I will arrange an escort for you later in the day.' He turned. 'My good friend Leartus, you'll look after Claudia, won't you? My wife will be too busy with her hymns.' The General turned back. 'So, let this house be your house. You brought me news, Claudia, something I didn't know. I've got to think about it.' And, wagging a finger at her, he spun on his heel and walked away.

He'd hardly left the chamber when Alexander, who'd sat motionless and silent as a statue throughout, leapt to his feet and rushed towards Murranus with a litany of questions. What was his best fight? Had he ever fought a lion? Was it true that a bull was the most dangerous animal?

Leartus came over and gently took Claudia by the hand. 'Come, Claudia.' He leaned down, face smiling. 'I'll show you the villa.'

Urbana and Cassia were chattering between themselves, but as Claudia rose to her feet, Cassia turned and smiled at her. Urbana appeared more relaxed and waved in a friendly fashion, mouthing that they were busy, but perhaps they could meet later.

Probitas laudator et alget.

Honesty is praised and left out in the cold.

Juvenal, Satires

Leartus took Claudia on a tour of the villa. They first visited a two-storey tower in the gardens with a viewing platform at the top. From there Claudia could look out over the scenery on either side, and she realised how much it varied. She glimpsed the road she'd travelled on as it narrowed through copses of wood; on either side stretched broad meadows where flocks of sheep and herds of horses and cattle grazed. She could see the different-coloured gardens and flowerbeds of the villa, how the whole complex was in the shape of a 'D'. Leartus pointed out the courtyards, the porticoed walks, the various rooms, the cubicula, the banqueting room, the small apartments, the sun terraces and the heating chambers. He chattered away in a soft, pleasant voice, explaining how the General greatly loved evergreen shrubs and rosemary, whilst he had a special fondness for mulberries and fig trees which grew so luxuriously in his gardens because the soil was especially fertile.

From the tower he took her down into a small garden where the trees were planted in a stylised arrangement reflecting the regular rhythm of the columns and other features of the surrounding buildings, with flowerbeds positioned precisely between different statues or trees. Leartus, laughing softly, explained how Aurelian was a disciplinarian, a military man even when it came to laying out a garden, whilst the Lady Urbana was an expert on herbs. Claudia was fascinated by the different flowerbeds; she was able to recognise many plants: the lily, the violet, the myrtle, the acanthus, the rose, as well as the hybrids and a range of other shrubs. They sheltered under a small cupola overlooking a pool of purity, its water gleaming blue and gold in the sunlight. Leartus explained how the fresco at the bottom of the pool reflected the sun god Mithras, Aurelian's favourite deity, and how the old General refused to become a Christian, claiming he would have nothing to do with the teachings of a criminal who'd been crucified on the far edges of the Empire.

'And you, Leartus?' Claudia leaned forward to sniff a rose. 'How come you're here?'

'I was born in a small village,' Leartus squinted up at the sky, 'near the River Granicus. My father died young and my mother sold me into service. I became a eunuch as a boy and then, of course, there was war. A Roman raiding party came to the village. You know what happens: the women were abused, the men killed. The farmstead I was working on was burned to the ground. I was taken prisoner and brought to Rome. I must have been then no more than fifteen or sixteen.' He rolled back the sleeve of his tunic and showed Claudia the impression of a slave merchant. 'I was put on sale, but because I was a eunuch, very few people had time for me, particularly as I was ill-educated and hardly knew the Latin tongue. But then the Lady Cassia – she's much older than she looks – visited the marketplace. She was looking for someone like me and took me home. One of her patrons, a Pythagorean from Athens, a scholar, a very wealthy man, educated me and taught me the sign language, and ever since, I've been in her service. Where she goes I follow; what she does I watch. A few years ago she met the Lady Urbana; Cassia became a Christian and so did I.' 'And are you happy?

Leartus screwed up his face, and Claudia noticed how young and athletic he looked. He smelled faintly of some delicious perfume; his hair was slightly ringleted and carefully cut, his hands and nails scrubbed clean, his every move elegant and refined.

'Happiness,' he declared, 'is a state of mind, or so Plato would have us believe. Happiness is relative, I suppose. If I had not been made a eunuch, not been captured, not enslaved, perhaps life might have been different, could have been better. And you, Claudia?'

She was about to reply when a servant appeared in the garden calling Leartus' name.

'My mistress summons.' Leartus smiled. 'Claudia,' he gestured at the servant to keep quiet, 'would you like to stay here or go somewhere else? Is there anything more you wish to see?'

'I've seen so many things recently.' Claudia grinned up at him. i move from one extreme to another. Yesterday I was inspecting a corpse in a stinking alleyway; this morning I am sitting in a beautiful garden, the air rich with perfume, nothing to listen to except the birds and the dull hum of bees searching for pollen. Have you ever read Pliny's description of his villa?'

The eunuch nodded.

'Just to read it is soothing enough,' Claudia declared, 'but being in a garden like this is paradise. Ah well!' She sighed. 'The day goes on, and work has to be done. I would like to see the library, there are things I must do.'

Leartus quickly agreed. He told the slave to wait and took Claudia back into the villa, along its elegant, beautifully decorated galleries to a chamber called The Hermes. It had a shiny wooden floor and white-plastered walls, most of which were covered by carefully erected shelves of Lebanese cedar holding stacks of parchments, some recent, others yellow with age, all carefully listed and tagged. A long trestle table, polished and gleaming, ran down the middle of the room. At the far end, under an open window, sat a dusty-faced freedman whom Leartus introduced as the librarian. When the eunuch explained that Claudia was the General's personal guest, the librarian could not do enough to please. Leartus departed, and for a while Claudia moved amongst the different manuscripts taking down the works of Terence and Petronius. There were even some Christian writings, including a copy of a letter from their great teacher Paul, transcribed elegantly in both Latin and Greek.

'Is there anything else you need?' The librarian kept following her like a shadow.

'Yes, there is.' Claudia smiled. 'I'd like a fresh piece of papyrus, a pumice stone, a quill and some ink and I'll be very happy'

A short while later, in a writing carrel placed beneath a window, Claudia sat, face in her hands, and stared at the dust motes dancing in the light. What had she actually discovered so far? She took a sharpened quill, dipped it into the ink and carefully wrote her ciphered conclusions.

Primo. The hostages were wealthy young men and women snatched from their doting parents, gagged, bound and held for ransom. The amount demanded, 25,000 in gold coins, was heavy but not too onerous. None of the hostages could determine where they'd been kept, except their cell was fetid and rather cool. They were held there whilst the abductors sent their parents threatening messages to deliver the gold to that rambling cemetery along the Via Appia. The money was always delivered, the young man or woman always released. Claudia paused, then continued writing. The more she reflected on this, the more certain she became that the cemetery along the Via Appia was not only the place where the hostages were released, but that they were actually detained in some catacomb cavern beneath. The abductors were certainly a gang. Theodore had talked of a group of masked men invading that garden. Was their leader someone who knew all the movements of those they kidnapped? Such information could become common knowledge in great households such as those of Senator Carinus or General Aurelian; slaves, servants, freedmen, people hired for a special occasion, they could all be bought. And why were the youngsters abducted? Was it purely for profit, or was the leader of this gang trying to bring the rule of Constantine and his mother into disrepute? Claudia dipped her pen in the ink again.

Secundo. Theodore. She felt a pang of sadness,- she'd worked with men like Theodore. A good man at heart, absorbed in his own art, the love of drama, the play, the lines, the world of make-believe into which she had once retreated. Theodore had been with Antonia the night she'd been abducted. Claudia could understand a young woman being seduced by Theodore's learning, his affected ways, his flattery. Had the actor been part of the gang? Or were the abductors led to the Fountain of Artemis by someone else, a traitor inserted into Carinus' household? Theodore claimed he had tried to resist, that he'd plucked a mask from one of the gang and would recognise his face again. Yet he was not that brave. Surely, if the gang of abductors had realised that one of them had been unmasked, they would have dispatched Theodore, a mere actor, there and then? So why had Theodore developed that story? To pose as the hero, to win the favour of Senator Carinus, or something else? He had been taken to the palace, interviewed by the Empress and later became an enforced guest at the She Asses tavern. Why had he been killed? What did he see? What did he know? Claudia put her quill down and nipped her thigh.