Read Online The Song of the Gladiator by Paul Doherty - Free Book Online

deaths. Almost unbidden, her nightmares returned, of racing along tunnels like this, chased by her assailant with a purple chalice tattooed on his wrist. She could hear his breathing, and somewhere in the distance Felix was also fleeing, little legs moving fast. She wanted to reach him, but hands and arms came through the wall to grab at her. Claudia stopped at a corner.
    ‘Don’t be a stupid hussy!’ she whispered. ‘Be more frightened of the living than the dead.’
    She strained her ears; there was no sound, and she walked purposefully on. When she reached the steps, she replaced the lantern and found her hat had not been moved. She put it on and climbed up into the sunlight. Gripping her staff, she walked amongst the tombs. An old beggar woman, cloaked in black, hiding in the shadows, stood up abruptly, claw-like hands begging for alms. Claudia recalled the witches and warlocks who frequented this place to sacrifice a black cock at midnight. She would have screamed abuse, but the old woman’s face was seamed by time and her eyes were a milky white.
    ‘Just a denarii,’ the beggar lisped, ‘some money for some wine.’
    Claudia handed across two coins and hurried on. She joined the crowds thronging along the Via Appia, losing herself amongst them, relaxing at the usual smell of dirt, freshly baked bread, spiced meat and the ever-pervasive stench of oil. The travellers to the city were breaking their fast, so the cooks and food sellers, water carriers and wine pedlars were doing a roaring trade. Claudia slaked her thirst whilst gossiping to a farmer laden with two crates full of squabbling ducks. She asked him about his small farm and the prospect of a good harvest. The farmer, flattered by such attention, chatted like a magpie whilst Claudia stared back, narrow-eyed, along the way she had come.
    Once inside the city, Claudia left the broad thoroughfare into a warren of side streets. She was in a quarter she knew; the dyers and the tanners, the merchants behind their stalls, all those who frequented the She-Asses shouted out their greetings. Claudia hastily replied but her mind was still full of what Sylvester had told her, particularly about Murranus.
    She found the She-Asses quiet. Oceanus informed her that Polybius was still sleeping off the effects of the night before, whilst Poppaoe had gone down to the marketplace.
    ‘You know who I want?’
    ‘He’s out in the garden, little one.’ Oceanus said, leaning down. ‘He’s got very special visitors.’
    Claudia’s heart almost skipped a beat. However, Murranus wasn’t entertaining a lady of the city but a young athlete with a sharp sardonic face and black bushy hair. Next to him squatted a grizzled old man who was allowing a tamed snake to wind itself around his arm. From the staff on the table, with its emblem of Aesculapius, Claudia reckoned he must be a physician. Murranus had his back to her; his visitor leaned over, tapping him on the arm, and pointed. The gladiator sprang to his feet. Instinctively Claudia looked at his wrist and felt guilty: there was no tattoo there. Murranus wasn’t a rapist, a child-killer! She was not so convinced about her admirer’s visitor. He was of medium height, with mocking eyes and cynical lips. A man who had a beautiful body, and revelled in his glorious physique.
    ‘You know who this is?’ Murranus rubbed his hands. ‘Spicerius, you remember Spicerius? No one forgets Spicerius.’
    Claudia nodded, mouth open but nothing to say. Spicerius was staring at her coolly, carefully examining her from head to toe as if she was a slave in the market. The insult was quite studied, then he hastily apologised, rose, grasped Claudia’s hand and lifted it to his lips.
    ‘A beautiful name, Claudia.’ His light blue eyes were full of mockery. ‘A beautiful name for a beautiful woman.’
    He let her hand drop.
    ‘Murranus, you didn’t tell me about her, at least not in detail.’ For a short while there was laughter, then