for some rich family. You could start your own business, form your own cohort.'
Murranus groaned inwardly, yet at the same time he was deeply flattered by this delightful young woman's affection and concern for him.
'I know what you are going to say, Murranus,' Claudia edged closer, 'but it isn't true. You are not just a killer. You have a soul, you are kind, fair and sometimes very, very funny, especially when you drink. Uncle Polybius regards you as a son; Poppaoe adores you, as does everyone else at the tavern. Even Narcissus the Neat.'
Murranus laughed at the mention of the most recent addition to the company at the She Asses tavern. A Syrian, a former slave, Narcissus now wanted to start his own funeral business with the help and support of Uncle Polybius.
'Are you worried about Polybius?' Murranus asked.
'Don't change the subject. Yes, I am always worried about Polybius and his constant schemes to get rich quickly. He's even thinking of becoming a Christian to win the favour of the priests, not to mention that of Presbyter Sylvester. But Murranus…' Claudia began to gather the food together, neatly folding the linen cloth. She glanced up. 'I saw a fresco on sale in the flea market near the She Asses. It depicts a gladiator, a bestiarius, whose enormous penis is a ravening wild animal. The penis, a dog with gaping jaws, is part of the gladiator's own body yet it has turned furiously against him. He is about to slay the beast which is threatening him; in doing so he must castrate himself.'
'And?' Murranus asked.
'It's a parable.' Claudia leaned over and kissed him on the tip of his nose. 'In the arena, Murranus, you entertain, you give pleasure to the mob. But in the end you're not only killing other people, you're killing yourself. If we are to marry,' Claudia breathed in deeply, 'that must stop.'
Murranus got to his feet and placed his hands on her shoulders. 'You mean that?'
'I know that.' She smiled.
'If I don't agree, whom would you marry?'
'Burrus.' Claudia kept her face impassive.
Murranus burst out laughing. He leaned down and kissed her on the brow.
'In which case,' he whispered, 'it's time we talked about this business.'
Claudia looked away across the haunted heathland, the gorse and grass now shifting in the quickening breeze. The heat haze was thinning. She had got what she'd come for.
'It's time,' she murmured, 'it's time we went back.' She held her hand out warningly. 'Remember what I've said and what you have promised.'
Murranus seized her hand and they left; halfway down, Claudia paused and, standing on tiptoe, kissed him swiftly on the cheek. They continued along the dusty trackway on to the paved via which would lead round to the Flavian Gate. At first Claudia hid her pleasure and excitement by chattering to Murranus, but the day's heat was now dying and the traffic on the thoroughfare had increased, making conversation difficult. Time and again they had to stand aside to allow a cohort or maniple go swinging by under their hoarse-voiced officers. Farmers and peasants, their families bundled into the carts they'd left outside the city gates, were now returning to the countryside. Other wagons heaped with provisions were lumbering towards the city to take advantage of the imperial decree which allowed them in once night had fallen. Claudia watched them go and quoted from Juvenal's Satires, the poet's famous diatribe against the noise at night in Rome's busy streets. Murranus nodded in agreement.
Soon Claudia fell silent, doing something she loved: observing and studying what was happening around her. For a while she and Murranus walked with a group of tramping hawkers, each of whom had a tray of cheap jack goods slung around their necks ready to sell. Claudia bought a few hair pins, a comb for Poppaoe, a fine Egyptian knife for Narcissus and a set of bracelets depicting a Thracian facing charging boars for Oceanus, the one-eared former gladiator supposedly in charge of security at the She Asses. The hawkers eventually left the via to shelter under some trees. Claudia then listened to a Numidian muleteer chattering in the lingua franca of the ports as he described the news he'd heard about Licinius, Emperor of the East and Constantine's rival, who was apparently lurking in Nicomedea planning to take Constantine's empire, as Constantine and his mother were plotting in Rome to take his. This flow of news ceased abruptly when the Numidian became involved in an acrimonious dispute with eight Syrian litter-bearers, their hair greased and plaited, all dressed in the same livery, who were carrying a large, plump matron back to her 'dear husband' in Rome. Claudia then decided to follow a cart of actors who were eager to supple-ment their income by telling their fellow travellers stories from Rome's past. A young man with a bell-like voice was declaiming extracts from the historian Suetonius about Caligula, who had lived almost three hundred years earlier.
'Oh yes,' the actor shouted from the tail of the cart. 'He was so depraved,' the man's hand slipped to his crotch and he made an obscene gesture, 'he used to go into the Imperial Gardens and make love to the moon, whom he regarded as his wife.'
This immediately provoked a shocked denial from a woman in the audience and the declamation was transformed, much to the delight of all, into a fierce slanging match about sexual practices. Claudia half listened as she studied the props piled on the huge cart pulled by serene-looking bullocks. She recognised the grotesque face masks, the imitation jars, the pieces of scenery which could be hastily assembled to fashion a tree, a wall or the door of a house. She recalled her own days with Felix journeying from town to town: such a strange time, always on the move. Since she had settled at the She Asses, her life had been transformed. She was a secret official of the Empress, a confidante of the powerful Presbyter Sylvester and, she concluded wryly, the protector of Uncle Polybius, about whose night-time meetings with shadowy figures in the garden she was growing increasingly suspicious.
Lost in her own thoughts, one hand holding her parasol, the other grasping Murranus', Claudia was startled from her reverie when they reached the Flavian Gate. She glanced up and stared around at the outhouses, barracks and fences, as well as the makeshift market which had grown up there. Guards in half-armour lounged in the shade gambling, whilst their officer, a German clad in tawdry finery, stood surveying the crowd. Claudia wondered idly if the officer was from Burrus' cohort. She knew the real watchers were hidden away. The Ethiopian with his braided hair selling bruised fruit from his wheelbarrow; the scrawny girl offering sulphur matches; the priest of some minor deity clad in dirty saffron robes, chanting over a pot of flame: perhaps they were spies. Or was it the sharp-faced, balding pimp, with three of his ladies, all bewigged, painted and clinking with cheap jewellery, looking for custom, yelling that he had set up an awning in a shady corner just inside the city walls? Any of these could be the 'surveyors' of the Empress Helena, looking for faces, studying those flocking into the city, recalling descriptions and searching for anything untoward.
The entire crowd fell silent as military horns wailed a fanfare. An execution party came marching out, sixteen men under their decurion, divided into squads of four. Each squad guarded a prisoner, a beam across his shoulder, being dragged out to be crucified at the Palace of Bones. Once these had passed, Claudia and Murranus joined the rest of the crowds as they surged through the gateway on to the thoroughfare, which immediately radiated out into narrow runnels, alleyways and side streets.
Claudia heaved a sigh of relief, as she always did whenever she returned to this quarter. It might be stinking, noisy and colourful, but this was her home, a safe place where she could recognise people and knew who they really were, a bustling rabbit warren of narrow lanes cluttered with open-air stalls. The traders set up their makeshift shops in the crumbling loggia and peristyles or at the mouths of alleyways, selling everything from pots to cakes. On the walls around them garishly daubed notices proclaimed the price of certain goods and where these could be bought, as well as the names of candidates for the next election to some municipal office. Claudia and Murranus were well known here and were greeted with good-natured teasing and salutations.
Torquatus the Tonsor, a seller-of-potions-cum-barber-cum-leech, had, as usual, procured the best position under a giant gnarled sycamore tree in the square near the She Asses tavern. Torquatus spent his days shaving people, cutting their hair, listening avidly to their medical ailments and, as he put it, offering his 'best advice', which, he solemnly assured his customers, came from leading imperial physicians. He greeted Claudia and asked if she'd seen the 'Great Miracle' at the She Asses tavern? Claudia stared back in puzzlement. But even before she and Murranus reached the small square fronting the inn, she sensed something was wrong.
The She Asses was one of the most comfortable taverns in the Suburra. It boasted a restaurant, eating hall, small chambers upstairs and a very well-endowed kitchen, as well as Polybius' 'crowning glory', a graceful, spacious garden to the rear. The tavern occupied most of the ground floor and first storey of an insula or apartment block situated between the Flavian Gate and the crumbling Temple of the Crown of Venus. The windows were covered
