"Well this is intimate!" Her eyes told me what I could do with myself. I was aware of her hands twitching, ready to go for me. I tightened my grip. She saw sense. "Now why is it that when I end up in the arms of beautiful girls with no clothes on they are always trying to kill me?" Her response was a look full of hatred; well, the question had been rhetorical. While she glared, I suddenly wrenched her around so her back was against me and I felt less vulnerable to frontal attack. I kept one arm tight across her throat; with the other hand I was reaching for the knife that I kept down my boot. That improved the situation. I let her see what it was. Then I tucked the tip under one of her ribs so she could feel how sharp the blade was.

"Now we're going to talk."

She made some sort of angry gurgle. I increased my pressure on her windpipe and she fell quiet again. I edged her over to the table that she had conveniently cleared, then I pushed her face down. I was lying on top of her. This possessed some attractions, though I was too preoccupied to enjoy it. Holding down women is nearly impossible; they're too supple. The gods know how rapists manage it—well they use terror, which on Selia had no effect. I tweaked my knife against her well-oiled side. "I can scar you for life, or just kill you. Remember that."

"Damn you."

"Is Selia your real name?"

"Get lost."

"Tell me who you work for."

"Anyone who pays."

"You're an agent."

"I'm a dancer."

"No, Spanish dancers come from Gades. Who sent you to Rome?"

I can't remember. "This knife advises you to try."

"All right; kill me with it then."

"Very professional! Believe me, real dancers give in much more easily. Who asked you to perform at the dinner that night?"

"I was the official entertainment."

"That was Perella. Stop lying. Who paid you for what you and your two cronies did afterwards?"

"The same person."

"Oh you admit you committed murder then?"

"I admit nothing."

"I want his name."

"You want your balls hacked off with a disemboweling knife!" I sighed. "I'm sorry you're taking this uncooperative attitude."

"You'll be more than sorry, Falco." She was probably right there.

"Now listen! You may have killed Valentinus, but you underestimated what a thick skull Anacrites had. Simply cracking the Chief Spy's head will have worse consequences than killing him outright."

"You're never working for Anacrites?" She sounded surprised.

"You did leave him with a slight headache; he was allowed sick leave for a day or two. So you're right. Anacrites is not commissioning. I'm working for a man called Laeta—" I thought I felt her start. "Keep still, I said."

"Why?" jeered Selia. "What are you worried about?"

"Not a lot. I'm a professional too. Crushing a beautiful naked female on a table has its lighter side—but on the whole I like my women right side up, and I certainly like them affectionate."

"Oh you're all heart!"

"A complete softie. That's why you're face down against a plank of wood covered in bruises, and my knife's in your ribs."

"You're an idiot," she told me. "You don't know anything about the mess you're in. Hasn't it struck you that I'm working for Claudius Laeta—just like you!"

That sounded all too plausible. I preferred not to consider it. There was no immediate need to do so: we both abandoned comparing notes on our devious employer. Two things happened. I was unaware of lessening my grip on the dancer, yet somehow she wriggled suddenly and slithered sideways away from me. Then somebody else seized hold of my hair from behind and pulled me backwards in excruciating pain.

FIFTY

 

I thought you would never get here!" the girl snarled angrily.

Whoever had hauled me upright had me bowed over backwards with a torsion as tight as the throwing sling on a rock-hurling artillery mule. Once I realized, I began to react. Hair grows again. I wrenched my head free. I must have left behind a good handful of my bouncing curls, but now I could move. My eyes streamed, but I was bucking and thrashing. Of course he snatched at my wrist in the same way that I had previously grabbed Selia to make her drop her own knife; he was behind me so I closed my elbow against my side, resisting him.

Blows rained on my spine and kidneys, then I heard somebody else entering the room. The girl meanwhile was rubbing her bruises and finding a tunic as carelessly as if the rest of us were just flies buzzing around the window frame. Her bodyguards could do the work now.

I had managed to twist free. I jerked around so I could see my assailants: the two dark-skinned musicians from the dinner on the Palatine. It was the elder who had attacked me; he was wiry enough, and full of malice and energy. The other, more youthful, was burly, well-muscled and mean-eyed. I was in deep trouble. These were the men who had smashed in the head of Valentinus and left Anacrites for dead. I was fighting for my life.

"Sort him out!" Selia ordered. She had pulled some clothing over her head, but left it around her neck. She had paid these toughs sufficient to be sure they would kill for her. They looked as if they would enjoy it too. So much for the refining effect of music. Apollo was a thug, according to these two.

It was too small a room to contain four of us. We were close enough to smell each other's breath. Impetuously Selia herself went for my knife arm, grabbing hold and biting me. The others plunged at me too and with three to contend with in such a confined space, I was soon overpowered. Selia took possession of my knife. Her assistants each had me brutally by an arm; they were turning to rush me forwards against the farther wall when the girl complained, "Oh not in here!" A person of taste: she shrank from having my brains spread over her living space.

As they manhandled me towards the door I grunted in annoyance, "Just tell me this, Selia—if we're both working for Laeta why in Hades does he want you to remove me?" I ignored the two brutes, who for a moment stopped bundling me out.

"You're in my way," Selia responded offhandedly.

"Only because I don't know what's going on!" I was stalling. This group had killed. In no circumstances were they on the same side as me. "Anyway you take too many risks!"

"If you say so."

"The Parilia!" I reminded her. "You should have been lying low, not showing your face."

"Oh yes?"

"And I went to a daft lads' party afterwards where everyone knew you had gone home to Hispalis. You leave too many tracks. I found you—and so can anyone."

The heavies again started dragging me out, but Selia halted them with a raised hand. "Who's looking?" she demanded.

At least I was collecting my strength. The longer I could hold off any final battering, the more hope of escape. I ignored Selia's question. "If you really are a home-loving Hispalis girl, however did Laeta discover you?"

"I went to Rome, for someone else. I'm a dancer. I went to Rome to dance."

"So it wasn't Laeta who sent you to that dinner in your little Diana costume, then?"

"Find out, Falco!"

"Did Laeta order you to attack Anacrites and his man?"

"Laeta gives me a free hand." I noticed it wasn't an answer.

"You're in trouble," I warned her. "Don't trust Laeta to support you if the water heats up too much in his own pot."

"I trust no one, Falco." She had pulled down her dress and was calmly applying new paint to her face. She stroked it on with a spatula, swiftly and thickly. Before my eyes she was turning back into the archetypal Spanish Castanet girl (the one who only exists in men's dreams); the blue-black hair she wore for dancing for Romans had been combed out on a stand. When she bent forwards and pulled it on the effect was as dramatic as when I saw her on the Palatine.