Dark Horse

Twenty-One

The islanders watched the sea turn red. Red, like the blood of the sorceress Medea's brother, whose body she'd so heartlessly dismembered. Red, like the flag of war the pirate warship flew. Red, like the pirate captain's leather boots. They had heard the prediction of Shamshi the Persian, and they feared the worst.

Men barricaded their families indoors and fell to their knees in prayer. Beseeching Mars, god of war, to preserve them in safety and bestow peace and prosperity upon them. Calling upon the goddess Ceres, who protected this gentle month of August, to use all her powers of persuasion to bring concord. Placating Eris, goddess of strife, with offerings of wine that she might turn her attentions elsewhere.

Right around the town, all across the island, the power of prayer was strong. The question is, was it strong enough?

Watching the Soskia drop her anchor stone and ship her oars, Claudia experienced a chilling sense of disquiet. Not because of a possible raid. This was not Jason's intention. He had lit torches the entire length of her deck until the little Moth was lit up as brightly as a midsummer noon. Jason was here to show menace. That he could come and go as he pleased and that Rome couldn't stop him. I, he was saying, am all powerful. Fear me.

The people had every right.

'What are you waiting for?' Leo yelled to the lone figure standing, arms crossed, on the prow. 'Too scared to take me on again?'

'Leave it,' Silvia urged. 'You're only provoking him further.'

'Let's see what you're like pitched against armed men, you bunch of fucking cowards!' Leo shouted down. He had outfitted every man on the estate with a weapon and then lined them up along the cliff in a massive display of strength.

'For heaven's sake, ignore him,' Silvia hissed, but she was wasting her breath. Leo's tail was up, his blood hot. It made no difference at this time of night that the Medea was out of action, he could not have followed in the dark anyway. Instead, he was daring the brigands to come ashore and prove who was the strongest.

'Brinkmanship,' Volcar muttered in Claudia's ear. She swatted his hand away from her waist and thought, he knows. The old man knows it's a performance. He knows, as Leo does, that Jason would not fight head to head.

For two long hours Leo's men stood in silence, gripping their clubs, their swords, their axes, as the lights along the Soskia's deck glittered on the metal shields which lined the rail and her bronze ram glinted double in the placid sea. By torchlight, the torsion-sprung ballista that she carried amidships oozed menace. Capable of shooting a flaming fireball right into the heart of Arcadia, it could equally loose off a volley of lethal iron bolts. But the most menacing weapon of all was the figure who stood motionless out on the prow. What game was he playing down there?

Claudia's nerves stretched to infinity and then beyond, and when a screech-owl screamed from a pine, her heart almost stopped. Was it really only a few hours earlier that she had stood on this same spot, watching a pair of blue butterflies chase one another round the hollyhocks as a flycatcher trilled from its perch in the almond? Then, heliotrope and pinks, yarrow and vervain had scented the late afternoon air like a welcome breeze. Now their heavy perfume pulsed through the heat like a drum. Cloying, nauseating, clinging tighter than ivy.

Before the sun stands thrice more over our heads, a woman shall die.

Garbage. No woman was going to die, get a grip!

Except that before the new light was born in the sky, bad news had come over the water.

Stop it. That creepy, hook-nosed fraud makes it up as he goes along. Cressia's an island, for gods' sake. All news comes over the water. Fifty-fifty chance whether it's good or bad. Shamshi was aware of the passions brewing here in the villa, knew something had to blow soon. Isolation breeds oppression and, just like this throbbing, interminable heat, there's no escape. The tendrils wrap round you, tighter, tighter, drawing you in, drawing you down. A slow, treacly whirlpool, sucking you deeper where no one can hear you scream, because the scream is only inside your head. And the old fraud capitalized on that incestuous whirl of emotions. He'd been present at dinner when Lydia had threatened to blow Leo's marriage plans out of the water, and he'd know all about Nanai's refusal to leave, the landlord's patience running out, Nanai's threats once she could no longer get her own way.

'I make a dangerous enemy,' she had warned Leo, inciting him to retaliate with threats of his own by reminding her how he dealt with his enemies.

Shamshi would know about Silvia, too. How she was trying to blackmail her brother-in-law into marriage, and the threats she had made if he did not play ball. And it was more than likely the Persian knew about the mysterious Clio, as well. Part intelligence gathering, part mumbo-jumbo, but with women at the centre of each of these blazing rows, why not chance your arm with a sinister prediction? Accidents happen. When emotions are heated, people become careless, it's easy to lose concentration. One slip on the clifftop, for instance, and hey presto it's a coin for the ferryman.

Two hours passed that seemed like twenty.

The moon had surely stuck in the sky.

Then — boom. A single drumbeat sounded out across the water. As one, the lights along the deck were extinguished, strong arms hauled up the anchor rope and swoosh, swoosh, swoosh, as the flautist played time for the oars, the little Moth fluttered away. As suddenly as she'd arrived.

'Cowards,' Leo called after her. 'Snivelling cowards, the lot of you!'

He turned to his bailiff.

'Qus,' he said, 'post armed guards along the shore and station lookouts there, there and there. Also, the Medea's vulnerable up on the stocks, so have a contingent keep a close watch on her and, one last thing, I'm taking no chances, post six men round my wife's house.'

'The mistress won't like it.'

'There you go again! Defying me! By Croesus, I don't give a toss what the mistress likes or doesn't like, and you can remind her highness, if she starts yelling, that it's my bloody land and I'll protect it how I please. Those men stay until I give the all-clear, understood? I said, do you understand!'

'Yes, sir. I understand exactly what you mean.'

Leo turned to the rest of the men.

'Tonight,' he announced, 'we celebrate a second victory over the pirates. They're nothing but bullies and thugs, and now we've shown them we're prepared to stand and fight, that we won't be run off this island like rats, they'll find weaker targets to pick on. That's unfortunate for the victims concerned, I realize, but that's an issue which will have to be addressed through the appropriate channels in Rome. Tonight, though, it's wine all round, men! Let us toast that glorious goddess, Victory, until our throats are too hoarse to shout!'

The answering cheers would have deafened the dead.

It was late evening. Bats twittered under the eaves. Moths were drawn to the flames of the torches which burned in the formal gardens, illuminating the paths and the statuary. The tall spikes of angelica glowed like robust parasols and, now that the Soskia had slipped away, the air was no longer cloying, but pleasantly redolent with the scent of late-summer flowers. Laughter rang out as the wine flowed like floodwater in the courtyard beyond, but for Claudia, inside the cocoon of tall cypress hedge, the pale-green heads of the hops seemed to nod as though in penitence as they twined up the pillars, night crickets rasped like a saw and she could not shake off a sense of impending doom. It hung like a canopy over the villa.

Before the sun stands thrice more over our heads, a woman shall die.

A tawny owl hooted, and she reassured herself with the touch of hard steel hidden in the folds of her gown and the stiletto strapped to her calf. She could not see him, but Claudia felt the presence of her bodyguard close at hand. Whoever attacked her two nights before wouldn't find her such a soft target next time.

As she strolled the paths, the statuary drew her attention. Despite Nikias's hyperbole, she had expected to find Magnus's work every bit as lacking as the man who had courted a vulnerable woman then allowed himself to be warned off by the ex. Instead, the symmetry and balance of the statues took her breath away. Take the old man reaching up to pluck a ripe peach from the tree in the corner. Not only had Magnus captured the essence of Volcar, but the angle of his outstretched arm mirrored the spurt of the fountain on the opposite side of the path. Any moment, that young mother and her daughters would finish their frozen dance among the alliums and the vervain which grew round their podium, and the tears from the kneeling stone virgin would drip silently on to the grass. All they needed was the warm breath of Jupiter upon their lips and suddenly marble nymphs would giggle aloud -

'The knack is to manipulate height and texture in harmony with their surroundings.'

Claudia spun round. So much for vigilance! But sitting on a marble bench beneath the plum tree, one leg crossed over his knee as he leaned comfortably against its corrugated bark, the stranger posed no immediate threat. Mid, maybe even late forties, with dark hair greying at the temples there was only one person this man could be.

'Magnus?' The Magnus? 'You're the man who looks into souls?' And toys with vulnerable female emotions?

'At your service, ma'am.' Grey eyes twinkled as he gave a faint nod.

'I thought you'd left Cressia.' Did Lydia know?

A long, artistic finger traced a line along the crisp pleat of his tunic. 'Let's call it unfinished business.'

Oh-oh. Lydia's dowry. Silvia's savings. Claudia began to get the strangest feeling that Magnus's bill might not actually have been settled yet. 'Leo owes you, doesn't he?'

'Leo owes everyone.'

Claudia's gaze took in the statuary, the way he had reflected back every nuance of this fabulous island. The blue of the sky, the turquoise of the sea, the perfect gold of the sands. Magnus had taken the seasons one by one and made them prostrate themselves before his chisel and paintbrush, and it was no coincidence that the statue of the Emperor Augustus, resplendent in purple, stood on a podium under which cyclamen and columbine flourished, and where the blaze of gold leaves in the autumn would match the Emperor's crown. Nikias had it wrong. Magnus didn't create lifelike images of his subjects, he bestowed immortality upon them.

'You're wasted on Cressia,' she said bluntly. 'Talent like yours should be in Rome, for everyone to feast their eyes on.'

'We all sell our skills to the highest bidder in the end,' Magnus murmured. 'It's the nature of the beast.'

'Bollocks. You've created a spiritual paradise here.' Any second now, the father would heed the tug of his son's marble hand on the hem of his tunic and bend down to scoop him up. 'That frieze along the portico depicting the adventures of Odysseus-'

But Claudia was talking to thin air. When she turned back, the bench beneath the plum tree was empty and only the swinging of a bramble along the path testified that Magnus had ever been in the garden tonight. That, plus the physical manifestation of his prodigious talent. She blinked. That rearing stallion by the fountain? Did its mane really flicker? She half expected it to snort and gallop off down the path, its hooves kicking up clouds of dust in its wake. She smiled. Trick of the light. Spluttering torches were all that made these figures dance beneath the waning moon. A dozen or so bitumen-soaked reeds set alight. Nothing more.

Then one of them moved.

Slowly, stealthily, silent as death, it backed out of the shadows and was swallowed up by the night. Claudia pushed a strand of hair out of her eyes. How long had the Persian been here, she wondered. How long had he been watching and listening — and waiting?

Before the sun stands thrice more over our heads, a woman shall die.

A cold shiver ran down her back and, not for the first time, she asked herself how much Shamshi manipulated events at the Villa Arcadia.

How far would he go to ensure his prophecies were fulfilled?

Another hour must have passed, maybe more, before Claudia became aware of a man singing and footsteps weaving down the colonnade.

I once had a girlfriend called Vera,

She would not let me near 'er.

I courted a girl called Amanda,

Her father made me unhand 'er.'

The tune was interrupted by a stumble followed by a muffled curse as the singer disengaged himself from a pillar.

'But then I met Alis,

Who liked my big phallus,

We worshipped sweet Venus,

So I-'

'Thank you, Leo, but the dawn chorus doesn't start for another few hours.'

'Claudia.' He lurched over, his eyes dancing with wine and something she couldn't identify. 'What do you say tomorrow, at first light, I take you on a tour of my vineyards?'

'First light?'

'Uh…' He made a deprecating gesture. 'Maybe a little later then, eh?'

She patted the bench for him to join her. A man in his cups and with his defences down? Show me a better time to take a prod.

'Was that the real reason you invited me to Cressia? To look at your wines?'

He tutted as he hitched up his long patrician tunic and sat down. 'Take no notice of my wife. I apologize if she offended you by implying things about you and me, but..

He hesitated. 'My wife says a lot of things she doesn't mean when she's drun- emotional.'

'I'm sure.'

'And Silvia jumps to conclusions, too.'

Never mind them. 'I didn't think you'd invited me here to seduce me,' she said. 'I was asking whether you brought me over to look at your wines… or,' she paused, 'to invest in them.'

Leo roared with laughter. 'My, you don't mince your words do you? Marcus told me you were one shrewd cookie. I didn't appreciate quite how shrewd.'

That's it. Spoil a perfectly good evening by bringing Mr Let's-hear-it-for-the-Security-Police into it.

'I have to come clean, Claudia, I did have something along those lines in mind, but not an investment as such. I was thinking more of a partnership. Proper contracts, drawn up in law, all legal and binding.'

'Do tell me more,' she said softly.

'Well, first off let me confess it wasn't actually my idea,' he said. 'My cousin suggested you might be amenable-'

'Marcus suggested it?' The same Marcus Cornelius Orbilio who'd caught her fixing races by doping the hot favourite and knew she was broke?

'Smart lad, my cousin. He's going places, that boy. Of course, he needs a wife before he can think about a seat in the Senate, they wouldn't take him otherwise. Divorced man with no heirs? Jupiter would turn celibate first, especially after the scandal attached to his marriage.'

'Caused a rumpus, did it, the wife turning the household slaves into cash and using the money to run off with a sea captain from Lusitania?'

Leo shot her a strange look. 'I — er, didn't realize you knew.'

Know your enemy, Leo. And Orbilio, make no mistake, was a dangerous, dangerous adversary. 'Talking of our proposed partnership contract,' she said, 'what do you suppose Lydia meant about life and death breaking yours with the rose-grower's daughter?'

'Can't imagine.'

'Aren't you curious?'

'Not remotely.'

'Strange. Because half an hour ago I could have sworn I saw you talking to your ex-wife over by the cliff edge.' Felt sure I heard you telling her that this was only a temporary arrangement and asking her to bear with you, you'd see her right, on your mother's eyes, I think you swore. 'And didn't I also hear Lydia telling you to go fork yourself — that was the word, wasn't it?'

Leo found a sudden urge to adjust his belt buckle. 'No,' he said. 'Wasn't me.'

Claudia allowed the resulting silence to stretch. 'I met a woman called Clio while I was out walking today,' she said idly. Why should Leo have the monopoly on lies? 'She mentioned you.'

'Clio? Clio?' Leo stuck out his lower lip as though thinking. 'No. Doesn't ring any bells, I'm afraid. Look. Um.' He made a clumsy gesture towards his bladder. 'Need to empty the old wineskin, getting urgent. We'll, er, thrash out those partnership proposals tomorrow, when I show you the pressing house and the vats…'

'Can't wait,' Claudia said, as her host lurched off in the opposite direction to the latrines.

And it was turning into quite a night for dropping eaves, because another familiar figure hove into view. Beads of sweat dotted his forehead and from time to time one trickled down his neck to nestle in the folds of fat. His eyes had been reduced to small black hollows all but lost in a face waxy in texture, grey in colour, and which still bore the porridgey etchings of grief. This man needs to lose weight, Claudia thought. He needs to take time out to sleep. But most of all, Saunio needs to mourn properly the death of his eighteen-year-old apprentice.

'Leo's gone to one helluva lot of trouble,' Saunio murmured, nodding towards the retreating figure, 'for a fourteen-year-old who'll be far too homesick to care.'

Interesting that it was the maestro, of all people, who should be concerned with the bride's welfare. Even Leo only saw the girl in terms of a vessel for siring sons.

'It's one of the reasons he wants the renovations complete before she gets here,' Claudia said. 'To minimize the disruption.'

Actually, it was to minimize the risk of miscarriage, which reminded her. She really must check out that mysterious crystal in Qus's quarters!

Saunio smiled, but the smile did not reach his eyes. 'At least one can't accuse Leo of not being driven by a strong sense of conviction.' He laced his fingers and stared at the waning three-quarter moon through the trees. 'Even if that sense of conviction is distorted.'

'I prefer to see him as a man driven by passion.'

'Saunio hates to contradict a beautiful woman, but that's a load of bollocks, my lovely. He's controlling, stubborn, blinkered, obsessive-'

'Are you always this loyal to those who commission you?'

Saunio let out a soft snort which might have been laughter, or then again might have been undiluted derision. 'Loyalty is worth socks to a man who won't listen.'

So that was it. Stags locking horns. The clash of two brawny egos. 'Leo's problem,' she said, 'is not that he won't listen. It's that he makes snap decisions without thinking things through, and once that course is set, failure isn't an option.'

He'd implemented a revolutionary new method for training his vines, and even though yield was a staggering twenty per cent down with this new method, reverting to traditional ways would smack of failure, so he steadfastly stuck to his guns. Likewise with Jason, Leo believed himself capable of beating the Scythian both in and out of the water, but that wasn't enough. Even though he knew damn well Jason would not set one red leather boot on Arcadia tonight, he'd armed the men in a public demonstration of his superiority over the pirates. Ditto Nanai’. He'd served her noticed to quit, and quit she would have to, once the cottage was demolished and the ground ploughed up afterwards. Leo had to be seen to be successful. The same with Silvia. He had taken so much, but once he'd made up his mind, that was it. The Ice Queen was history. Perhaps that was why Qus walked the fine line that he did? He knew just how far he could push an issue before his master became intractable.

'Do you also justify his obsession for heirs?' Saunio asked.

'The concept of wanting sons isn't new,' she said carefully 'Don't you feel it's a rather dangerous concept, sidelining a wife of eighteen years then building her a house on the edge of the very estate where you've installed the new wife?'

Something was twisting the air here tonight. Stifling, oppressive, it braided the atmosphere, made things appear to move when they hadn't, cleverly concealed those things which did. And that hand that did the braiding was evil. A dark demon hypnotizing them with its spell. Claudia did not wish to be drawn into discussions about Leo and his ex-wife, and yet… and yet… The demon was sucking her in.

'Dangerous in what way?' she asked.

Before the sun stands thrice more over our heads, a woman shall die.

'Emotions are not an architect's plans on a page, my lovely, where a line can be rubbed out here, redrawn over there,' Saunio said. 'Trample hearts into pulp and the backlash is stormforce.'

Around them, bats squeaked, the watercourse babbled and emperor moths spun silent cocoons in the heather. The night air was pitchy from the spluttering torches and voles scuttled beneath a protective umbrella of cranesbills. There was something compelling about this fat little creature with the ring of curled hair round his chin. On the one hand, he was so earnest, so professional, every bit as obsessive as the patron he railed against, and yet every bit as blind. He could not fail to be aware of the rumours. Orgies, unnatural practices, bloodthirsty rituals — how could these have passed him by? Yet Saunio had never once refuted the gossip. Why? Because it was not without foundation?

He'd excused himself from dinner tonight on the grounds that Helen of Troy took priority. He'd barely outlined madame, he'd announced pompously, merely sketched in the landscape, and apparently Paris was a blur, Agamemnon a cipher and the plaster poised at a particularly delicate juncture of dampness. He could not — nay, would not — compromise his art for the sake of his belly and when Claudia saw him later, he was beavering away on Helen of Troy like there was no tomorrow.

Which, of course, for his apprentice there wasn't.

But that wasn't to say he needed to dig himself a grave next to Bulis. And why would a man who lived for his art fritter away precious spare time on the emotional issues of a chap he despised?

'You haven't answered the question, my lovely. Do you, as a woman, agree that a man is entitled to take whatever action he deems necessary, no matter how drastic, when it comes to the question of sons?'

'You're quite right, Saunio. I haven't answered the question.'

His thick Pan-like lips stretched themselves into something resembling a smile. Claudia leaned over and sniffed. No cinnamon. Only a weak metallic odour of malachite pigment.

The small boar-like eyes fixed on a point over her shoulder and for a moment he paused, as though debating within himself. Then the moment was gone. 'You must excuse me,' he said. 'The brushes call, and Saunio must not keep them waiting.'

Alone at last in the garden, Claudia had the strangest feeling the maestro had been trying to impart a coded message and, now she thought about it more carefully, she believed that had also been his intention in the atrium yesterday.

For the life of her, though, she didn't know what that message might be.