Dark Horse

Four

Paradise is all very well, with its forests of laurel, cypress and beech, its wild ginger, sandy beaches and bottomless freshwater lakes, but paradise is also prone to serpents.

'Touch me up once more, you odious little pusboil,' Claudia said, 'and I don't care how old you are, you'll be chewing your own chitterlings for supper.'

Beside her on the dining couch, Volcar's rheumy eyes shone like twin beacons. 'Now, now, gel. Surely you wouldn't begrudge an old man one final walk down mammary lane?' 'Remind me again how you spell "yes".'

'Trouble with you, young lady,' he chortled, 'is that you have no sense of indecency.'

'Trouble with you, old man, is that now you've discovered where the grass is greener, you're too old to climb the bloody fence. This lawn's private property.'

Volcar had heard about the notion of a man's four score years and ten — and had promptly spat in its eye. Shrivelled, bent and with a face like a pickled walnut, his appetite for life was undiminished. Rumour had it, the furthest he had ever been from a drink in his life was twenty paces.

'Can't blame a fellow for trying,' he said, smacking gums as hard as mussel shells as liveried slaves filed in with the first course of baked eggs, cheeses, asparagus and truffles. 'They say a man's only as old as the woman he feels, and at my age so long as I can feel something, I know I'm still alive.'

'You'd feel something, if you try to scale my fence again.' 'Y'know, I like you,' Volcar said. 'You've fire in your belly, gel, and I've always had a hankering for women with spunk. Not like that frosty faced fossil over there.'

He used an asparagus spear to point to Leo's sister-in-law, the exquisite, immaculate, glacial Silvia, whose age was the same as Claudia's — twenty-five — whose plucked eyebrows arched in perfect symmetry. And whose honey-coloured ringlets wouldn't dare to droop, no matter what the circumstances.

'Wouldn't think, would you, seeing them tiny tits, that Silvia was a mother of three? Here's another thing I'll bet you didn't know.' Volcar lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. 'For all her airs and graces, madam there daren't show her pretty face in Rome.'

Didn't show it much round here, either. In the week that Claudia had been on the island, she'd barely exchanged a dozen words with the only other female in the villa. 'Because…?' she asked.

'Don't know, and to tell the honest truth, gel, don't care to know more about the prissy bitch. To listen to her, though, you'd think she owned the bloody place. Huh. Gets right up my nozzholes, does Silvia.' He chewed on a succulent white truffle. 'Mind, if I were to hazard a guess, I'd say, wouldn't you, that abandoning her children might have a bearing on the scandal.'

'You, Volcar, are a wicked old man.'

'One who's too old for flattery, gel. Why don't you just let me feel your bum instead?'

The small man sitting next to Silvia leaned over to his host's couch, tapped him lightly on his forearm and mumbled something Claudia couldn't hear.

'Oh, not again!' Leo muttered. He turned to Volcar. 'Llagos tells me you're up to your old tricks again, Uncle.'

'Me, lad? Never laid a finger on the lassie.'

Scepticism expressed itself in a twist of the lips. 'Sorry I've left you to the randy old sod's mercy,' Leo told Claudia, as the dishes for the first course were cleared away. 'Only as the wedding draws ever closer, conversation tends to be more progress report than witty repartee.'

Looking round the couches, Claudia tried to imagine any of the assembled party being remotely amusing. Silvia? Too selfabsorbed to waste her energies on exploring the philosophies of the meaning of life. Saunio? The fat, pretentious but brilliant artist reserved his animation for his work, while Nikias, the famous Corinthian portrait painter, would never use one word when none would do. Llagos the priest might be capable of levity, but his accent was invariably too heavy to follow and in any case, when he laughed, his protruding front teeth had a tendency to spit. Which just left Shamshi, Leo's personal astrologer-cum-augur. And the less that man said the better!

Persian by birth, Shamshi retained the traditional garb of knee-length baggy trousers and shoes which tied in a bow. Like most of his people, he wore thick bands of gold in each ear, though Shamshi went one stage further and drew attention to his earrings by shaving the whole of his head apart from a small cap of black hair right on the top. What really made the hairs of Claudia's neck stand on end, though, was the way his soft, sibilant, girlie voice seemed to caress every inch of her skin. With Volcar, you knew where you were: he was forthright, outrageous and funny. Whereas Leo's human channel to the future was as slimy as you can get without leaving a trail.

'So if I'm neglecting you, I apologize,' Leo told Claudia as the main courses were ferried in on steaming silver salvers. 'But I'm concerned the building work won't be completed in time for the wedding. Any idea when the atrium will be finished, Saunio?'

'Tomorrow,' Rome's most illustrious artist announced pompously. 'Tomorrow you may go in and have a look at the finished artistry, if you wish.'

'Very kind, I'm sure.' Leo chuckled, darting an amused glance at Claudia. 'My own atrium,' he mouthed, 'and I'm not allowed to see it!'

'It's why you commissioned the great Saunio,' the artist replied, running a podgy finger over the little curled beard that encircled his chin. 'To create magic'

'Modest with it,' Leo murmured.

'Modesty is for the mediocre.' The great man sniffed. 'Saunio is anything but mediocre. Note, ladies and gentlemen, how in this dining hall I have designed the painted shadows to fall away from the light entering through the double doors behind. This is because when the sun …'

Volcar nudged Claudia in the ribs and nodded at Saunio.

'I'll wager the old sod's got goat's legs and cloven hoofs under his tunic,' he muttered, slithering an oyster down his stringy throat. 'You've heard the gossip, I suppose?'

Hadn't everyone? The maestro and his BYMs. Beautiful Young Men. Travelling around the Empire with a team of thirty junior artists, labourers and apprentices as he sold his services to anyone wealthy enough to afford his exorbitant charges, rumours were bound to spring up. Typically Saunio, the gossip could never be less than ostentatious: tales of orgies, unnatural practices, bloodthirsty rituals, the list was endless. Volcar wouldn't be the first person to liken the maestro to a satyr, not when Saunio got his barber to shave his upper and lower lips, leaving just that preposterous narrow band of dyed hair round his chin. But how much of the gossip was fiction? Claudia wondered. How much lies, put about by jealous rivals? While Saunio lectured the assembly on the principles of perspectives, his curls adhering themselves to his forehead with a mixture of perspiration and their own dye, Claudia thought, love him or loathe him, you had to hand it to the little chap, he'd built himself a monumental reputation as an artist, a reputation well deserved.

'You don't believe those rumours?' she said.

'Believing's got nowt to do with it, gel. What's the point of having gossip unless it's to pass on?'

'You, old man, are incorrigible.'

'At my time of life, I can't afford to wait for discretion to come calling.' He let out a wheezy chuckle. 'These days when I bend down to pat old Ajax here — ' he ruffled the ears of the ancient hunting dog chomping on a chop bone — 'I try to find other things to do while I'm down there.'

'Exactly how old are you?'

'Put it this way, gel — ' Volcar winkled a snail out of its shell with a loud plop — 'when I was a boy, the Dead Sea was only sick.'

'Something funny over there?' Leo called across.

'Do share it,' Silvia drawled, dabbling her long slender fingers in the scented water bowl. 'We could use a laugh.'

Laugh? In six days, Claudia had not seen the Ice Queen so much as smile.

'Silvia's right,' Leo said. 'We've had enough shop talk for tonight, let's change the subject. Any suggestions?'

'Pirates,' Volcar said, spearing a prawn on his knife.

Apart from Nikias, who didn't look up, the others all exchanged glances.

'Oh, come on, Uncle,' Leo said. 'Surely we can think of a better topic to entertain our guest-'

'Why?' the old man cut in. 'Seen 'em, haven't we? Prowling the waters out there. Heard 'em, too. That weird wailing's enough to send shivers down a dead man's spine. Like a banshee, it is, howling for blood.'

Claudia ran her finger round the rim of her wine glass. 'Is piracy a threat?'

'No,' Leo said, glowering at Volcar. 'We're as solidly defended as any place in the Empire. Take no notice.'

"Course it is, gel,' Volcar said, pulling a crab claw out of its cracked shell. 'Sure, the mainland which encircles this archipelago is defended, but Rome can't do much to protect the coastline. Too deeply indented, see?'

'You're scaring her, Uncle. Cressia's a large island and-'

'Size don't mean diddly, lad, and you know it. In fact, I'm not sure it don't make matters worse, us being right at the head of the Adriatic as we are.' He eased another claw out of its casing. 'We're just one of twelve hundred islands, you see, gel. Them fast pirate ships can dart through the channels, in and out the inlets, and what can the Imperial Navy do? Bugger all.'

'That's not true, Uncle, and you know it. The navy's on patrol-'

'Sod all use that is to the poor sods who've had their crops raided, their livestock stolen, their women and children raped and carried off to be sold. Whole bloody settlements have been torched, the marauders long gone before the first imperial trireme hoves into sight.'

The mainland. So near and yet so far…

'Ignore the old buzzard,' Leo said firmly. 'Volcar, you should have been a cook, you're that good at stirring. And on the subject of cooking, Claudia, I insist you try our local mutton. The salty grass combined with a diet of wild herbs gives it a magnificent flavour and- What? Not leaving already, Llagos?'

'Sorry, yess.' The little priest was shaking his robes as he slipped into his sandals. 'I hef to be up early,' he explained. 'Temple busyness.' He shot an apologetic smile at Claudia. 'Much complicated on Cressia. Because we are island, we worship the Sea God above all the others. Me, I say, Bindus, Neptune, Poseidon, what does it matter in what name we invoke his protection? For Bindus we had only humble stone altar. For Neptune we have magnificent temple now, with gold and marble and a splendiferous statue three times the height of a man. But some — ' his small shoulders shrugged eloquently — 'some peoples here cannot forget the old ways. So tomorrow — ' he made a salute of farewell — 'tomorrow iss one time when I must also serve the old ways, keep everyones happy. But!' He lowered his voice to a comical whisper. 'You must not tell the Romans, heh?'

'Talking of mutton reminds me,' Leo said, barely troubling to wave the priest off. 'Tomorrow, Claudia, I must show you the vineyards. They'll knock your eyes out,' he insisted. 'I got the idea from apple trees, originally. I thought, hell, if you can espalier fruit trees along ropes for good cropping, why not vines?'

'Excuse me?'

'Told you it was a revolutionary technique.'

'You don't seriously grow them sideways?' Even the slowest dunce knows grapes aren't grown laterally. Ask any vintner. They're trained horizontally on a trellis of overhead poles between elm trees.

'Why not?' Leo laughed. 'The soil's pretty poor on Cressia, this way we can manure that more often, the goodness reaches the plants that much faster and it makes it easier to hoe round the roots to keep the soil open. I admit the grapes aren't yielding as well as I'd hoped, in fact they're twenty per cent down on what I was expecting, but still high. It's early days yet and in any case, my wine's pitched at the — well, let's say lower end of the market.'

Produce more, sell for less, and still make a bloody good profit? Funny how the idea of growing them laterally didn't seem quite so stupid all of a sudden…

Looking at Leo, tall, lean, with thick, dark, wavy hair and that attractive dimple in his chin, she wondered why he'd left it so long before finding a wife. Most patricians married in their early to mid-teens. Leo was thirty-six. Scooping up a juicy scallop in rich garlic sauce, she thought, you know catching him at certain angles — say, in profile, when the light is right — he looked a lot like someone else she knew. Someone she'd seen recently, in fact. Except Orbilio's hair was darker, with subtle highlights which glistened in the light. It was thicker and wavier, too, with a fringe that flopped over his face when he was angry. Also, now she thought about it, Orbilio had a funny way of spiking his hair with his fingers when he got annoyed Not that she thought about it, and dammit, that bloody scallop had gone down the wrong way, too. Claudia took a long draught of chilled wine. From now on, she really must check the shellfish. It would not do to find she'd eaten a bad one.

'Nikias,' Leo said, 'how's my painting of the Banquet of the Gods coming on?'

Silvia let out a pointed sigh.

'Fine,' Nikias replied, not raising his eyes from his plate.

Although theoretically a member of Saunio's team, since he was on sub-contract to the maestro on this job, Claudia disqualified the Corinthian from the BYM category on technical grounds. At thirty-eight, he was too old to be young. With an intensity of expression bordering on the hostile, he was far from pretty. Also, she did not think he was homosexual, either.

'Still scheduled for completion next week?' Leo persisted.

'Yep.'

'And you don't foresee any problems with the deadline on the portrait of my bride and myself above the bed of the new marriage chamber?'

'Nope.'

Well, that settled that, then. As silence descended on the group, Claudia took to admiring the dining hall's splendid white marble columns garlanded with deep-blue delphiniums, white oleander and sulphur-yellow hibiscus. Aromatic resins crackled in wall-mounted braziers and fragrant oils burned in the dozens of lamps which hung on the walls and from tall silver stands. In this brilliant artificial light, the bronze dining couches gleamed like gold.

Shamshi took advantage of the lull in conversation. 'Bees,' he announced, in his soft sibilant voice.

'Bees?' everyone echoed in puzzled unison.

'I noticed a swarm,' he said, 'travelling east. Coupled with the flight of three pigeons across the sun at midday and the fall of the bones, there is only one conclusion to be drawn.' His dark eyes fixed on Claudia. 'Before a new light is born in the sky, bad news will come over the water.'

'Ah,' Leo said thoughtfully. 'Will it, indeed?'

This time a longer silence descended on the diners, and Claudia wondered how much notice Leo paid to the Persian's prophecies. From what she'd seen of him, he seemed a level-headed enough chap. But then he had been resident on Cressia for several years, and on an island where dark deeds figured heavily in its past, superstition found a perfect breeding ground in a race of people isolated by the sea. How much of this hocus pocus had Leo absorbed? And how much of an influence did Shamshi exert on his patron? Leo did not strike Claudia as the imaginative type, so was it the Persian who had planted the idea of training vines in rows like soldiers? To espalier them sideways, instead of dangling them from overhead trellises? Ditto the Villa Arcadia. Architecturally, the mould had been broken here, too.

Abandoning the traditional concept of four wings round a central courtyard, Leo had expanded the accommodation to cover three wings of the original building and demolished the fourth in favour of a fabulous marble portico lined with friezes and statuary. The trades which used to be contained within the original villa now lay outside in a cluster of sheds, mills, stores and workshops, and he'd built a brand new self-contained bath house, complete with domed roof and gymnasium.

Volcar's acerbic quote came to mind. 'All he needs now is a smattering of beggars and the odd painted whore, gel, and he's created a whole bloody town. Don't know why he just doesn't call the place "Leoville" and be done with it.'

An old man's bitterness at his nephew's success, while he was reduced to living on handouts? Or sharp insight into a side to Leo's character Claudia had yet to discover?

'Of course I'm going to bloody well kill it,' Leo said.

What? She had been so busy daydreaming, Claudia had missed the start of this new conversation. What was he going to kill? A rumour? Volcar had nodded off on the far side of the couch, his breathing in rhythm with his ancient hunting dog, Ajax, snoring at his feet.

She glanced at Silvia for clues, but the Immaculate One was torn between selecting a roast hazel hen and the squid in coriander. Claudia suspected this was about the toughest decision the woman had ever had to make. Unless, of course, it was deciding which frock went with which emeralds. On the couch opposite, Shamshi was busy picking his hooked Arab nose, no help there, and Saunio sat stroking the pretentious beard that encircled his chin, while Nikias's face was, if that were possible, even more of a blank. He seemed more intent on pushing a sardine round his plate with the point of his knife, as though teaching it how to swim in the thick mustard sauce.

'I'm right, aren't I, Claudia?' Leo asked.

'Absolutely — ' she began, then noticed that the sardine had stopped moving — 'not,' she finished firmly. The sardine continued smoothly on its course.

'You disappoint me, Claudia, really you do. I'd thought better of a fellow wine merchant and estate owner.' Leo snorted. 'It's only a bloody fish, for gods' sake.'

'A dolphin is not a fish,' Nikias pointed out, steering his sardine east to west now and avoiding an anchovy amidships. 'It's an animal, and a very intelligent creature at that. It's harmless, gentle, the children adore it-'

'That's the whole point.' Leo's fist thumped the arm of his couch. 'The entire town loves that — fish. Ooh let's swim with it, ooh let's play with it, ooh let's sit on its back,' he mimicked. 'Thanks to that fish, half the island's tramped over my land. The point's one of the few places round here with easy access to a beach and you ought to see it, Claudia. So much ground's been churned up, it looks like a bloody battlefield. They're scum, that's what they are. Thoughtless, ill-mannered scum, and the mess they've left is disgusting.'

'It's only scrubland that's been disturbed,' Nikias murmured. 'Try asking them to take their litter home.'

'I don't need to ask a bloody thing,' Leo snapped. 'This is my property and these people, goddammit, are trespassing.'

The Corinthian ran his tongue slowly under his upper lip. 'You've heard the stories of invalids being healed after swimming with dolphins? That crippled boy in the town? The cobbler's son?'

'Cobblers is right.' Leo waved his chicken bone in emphasis. 'It's all in the mind. If they think they'll be cured, then the superstitious sods will be. Good luck to them, I say. Just don't expect me to put up with their blasted mess a moment longer, and since it's my bloody land they're trampling-'

'Actually, it's my bloody land they're trampling,' slurred a voice from behind. 'And I've given them permission.'

The woman swaying in the great double doorway was in her early thirties, no great beauty, but striking. With clothes well cut and hair well styled, she exhibited all the grooming and bloom of her class. As all eyes turned on the newcomer, Claudia noticed Saunio slipping quietly out through a side door.

Volcar suddenly snorted awake. 'This'll liven up the evening,' he murmured, smacking his gums with relish.

'Who is she?'

'Don't y'know?' the old man sniggered. 'That's the wife!'

Volcar wasn't with it. He'd woken up too soon, was still dreaming, poor old duffer. 'Leo hasn't actually got married yet,' Claudia pointed out gently. That was the whole point of these costly renovations. 'He's fetching a bride over from Rome in a couple of weeks, a rose-grower's daughter or something.'

Volcar's chuckle was positively ribald. 'Didn't tell you, then, the crafty bugger? Not surprised, frankly. Should be ashamed of himself.' He leaned closer, but this time it wasn't to touch her up. 'All of a sudden, just like that, he upped and divorced her. Said Lydia wasn't giving him children, so he made a scything motion with his hand — 'end of marriage.'

No. Not Leo. Surely not?

'Tossed the poor cow out on her ear,' Volcar whispered. 'Built her a crummy little house on the point and — oh, sssh, sssh. I want to hear this.'

'Lydia, you're drunk,' Leo said. The word 'again' all but hung in the air. 'Go home. Please.'

'But this is my home, Leo. Or at least the improvements are mine.'

'You're talking gibberish, woman. Go back. Sleep it off.'

'Gibberish is better than bullshit, which is what you gave me, Leo. Bullshit — and no baby.' She suppressed a small burp. 'Now you're using my money to pay for a few pretty pictures, a new bath — and for what? To impress a man who grows roses, for gods' sake. Oh, those drapes are new.' She staggered over to finger the elaborate tapestries which graced the arches. 'At least you're putting my dowry to good taste.'

Leo's face coloured dangerously. 'This is neither the time nor the place to discuss the financial settlement, Lydia. I'll get someone to escort you ho- back.'

'Who says I'm going "back"?' Lydia retorted. 'Who says I might not decide to spend the night here? In one of the- how many bedrooms are we up to now, Leo? Ten?' She leaned over and helped herself to Claudia's wine. 'Ooh, you're new, too,' she purred. 'But you're out of luck, darling. If it's his money you're after, there is none. He lost it in those bloody vines, despite what he tells everyone, and he lost in half a dozen other hare-brained ventures, as well. Now the bastard's spent my divorce settlement on his wonderful refurbishments, so I'm in debt, too. God, I hate you, Leo. How I didn't see through you years ago I don't know!'

'Lydia, please,' Leo cajoled. 'You're embarrassing yourself.'

She turned her wine-laden breath upon Claudia once again. 'You're too old for him, sweetie. You're young and you're beautiful, but darling, you've got breasts. Has he told you how old she is, his little prepubescent bride? Thirteen. Can you believe that, sweetie?' Her laugh was bitter. 'Now if we'd had children, how do you think Leo would have felt about some middle-aged pervert taking his thirteen-year-old daughter to bed?'

'Enough!' Leo jumped to his feet. 'I will not have you inferring I'm some kind of depraved monster, simply for wanting an heir. It's a man's right, dammit, to continue the bloodline, and the girl hails from good breeding stock.'

'Stock. Yes. How sensitive you are, Leo, seeing her in terms of a prolific foaler.' Lydia staggered between the dining couches until she was eyeball to eyeball with Leo. 'Eighteen years,' she hissed. 'Eighteen years I put up with your boorish behaviour, your insufferable arrogance, and how am I repaid? I'm put out to pasture, while you fuck a child in my bed.'

Teetering, she knocked the table sideways, sending a salver of honeyed peaches slithering over the mosaic floor. The smell of split fruit exploded into the air. No one moved. All eyes were riveted on Lydia.

'Well, fuck you, and fuck the rose-grower's daughter. You're not my concern any more. I came here tonight to talk about Magnus.'

'Who's Magnus?' Claudia whispered, but Volcar flapped a hand to silence her.

'What did you tell him, Leo? What did you say to frighten him off? Or did you bribe my little marble man away?'

When she tried to laugh, it came out a throaty, unstable rumble. As though Lydia's tenuous hold on her emotions would give way any second to a stream of unstoppable tears.

'That would be the ultimate insult, wouldn't it? You buying off my suitor with my own money?' She waved her hand in weary dismissal as he opened his mouth. 'Oh, spare me more of your lies, Leo. I don't care what you told Magnus, it doesn't matter, really it doesn't. I don't want a man who can be bought off or bullied.' She paused for breath. 'But you went too far, Leo. Now it's my turn.'

'I'm trembling.'

'Mock all you like, but I'm still putting a stop to your marriage.'

'Impossible. I'm already wearing her betrothal medallion.

We exchange wedding rings on the girl's fourteenth birthday. Even you can't break the contract.'

'I don't intend to,' Lydia said, and there was a glint of triumph in her glazed eyes. 'You'll be the one doing the breaking.'

'That contract's sealed in law. No one and nothing can break it.'

'What if I say, "life and death", my dear darling husband? Life and death cut straight through signatures and seals.'

'Bollocks.'

Lydia let out a soft snort of contempt. 'Don't say I didn't warn you, Leo. Didn't I tell you I wasn't prepared to stand by while you wrote me out of your life like some cheap playwright editing a character out of his script?' She pounded his chest with two feeble fists. 'Dammit, I'm entitled to something, you bastard.'

'This isn't the-' he began, but at that point, Lydia's heel caught on a peach and, skirts flapping wildly, she tumbled backwards in an inelegant heap, landing on the low dining table and sending everything flying. Nikias gallantly lent a hand hauling her upright.

'Lydia!'

This was the first time Silvia had spoken since the visitor had burst in, and her voice was imperiously cold. She made no attempt to disguise her revulsion at the combination of bad language, bad behaviour and the food mashed into Lydia's clothes.

'Lydia, you're tired, you're obviously overwrought and… and it doesn't appear you've been eating properly,' she added in venomous euphemism.

'And since when have you been interested in my welfare, you self-centred cow?' Lydia snarled, ungraciously shaking off Nikias's arm. 'You bugger off without a word, you don't write, the family have no idea whether you're dead or alive, and suddenly wham! Up you turn, four years later, out of the blue. And where do you set up camp, you snobby bitch? With me, your darling long-lost sister? Or with Leo, because his house is grand and comfy?'

Claudia wondered whether anyone, above this furious interchange, had heard her gasp of astonishment. Silvia and Lydia were sisters? She knew, of course, that Leo was Silvia's brother-in-law, but she had blithely assumed the connection was on Leo's side. But yes, now you looked closer, you could see the family resemblance. Even though Lydia was ten years older and a brunette, the nose and high forehead were the same, as were the hands.

'Well, you've made your bed, baby sister, you can bloody well lie in it,' Lydia sneered. 'I just hope what you're giving him in it is worth it.'

'Right!'

Leo's tolerance finally snapped and grabbing Lydia roughly by the upper arm, he dragged her through the wide double doors on to the terrace.

'Qus!' he bawled, and his tall Ethiopian bailiff came running. 'Qus, will you please escort my lady wife home.' He closed the double doors firmly on Lydia's profanities. 'Messy things, family feuds,' he said to Claudia. 'I'm really sorry you had to be party to that ugly scene.'

'What did she mean,' she asked innocently, 'about only life and death being able to break a contract?'

That Leo had behaved so abominably was bad enough. That Claudia hadn't realized he was capable of such callous behaviour was unforgivable.

Silvia, her lips white, patted her immaculate ringlets and ran a finger over each elegantly plucked eyebrow. 'Vitriol always flows when my sister takes to the wineskin,' she said. 'Take no notice of Lydia.'

That, thought Claudia, wasn't the question. And you weren't the one I was asking. She glanced at Leo, his head tilted on one side, and wondered why Silvia had answered for him. And why he had let her. There was an undercurrent running between them. She had noticed it several times since her arrival. An undercurrent which was anything but sexual.

'For heaven's sake,' Leo snapped, 'let's have some music in here!'

Flautists and harpists launched into a cheerful tune, and an Indian girl clacked castanets as she danced.

'Come on, Shamshi, Nikias. Clap along,' Leo said, but his voice was strained, his jaw clenched. Why? Because be was embarrassed that his ex-wife had aired the dirty laundry in public? Or had it got to him that Lydia might, just might, be in a position to queer his forthcoming marital pitch?

Having dropped one stone into the pool and created a few ripples, Claudia tried another wee pebble for size. 'Who was this Magnus character Lydia mentioned?' she asked, adopting just the right air of disinterest. 'A marble merchant, didn't she say?'

'Sculptor,' Nikias corrected.

'Not,' Claudia's jaw fell to the floor and bounced twice, 'not the Magnus?'

'I only hire the best,' Leo said.

'Magnus doesn't simply recreate a superficial likeness,' Nikias said. 'Next time you stroll through the garden, read the expressions on the figures he's sculpted, see how his subjects carry themselves, the way they look back at you, and you'll find yourself looking at their hopes and aspirations, their virtues and their faults, their energies and frailties. Take a long hard look at them, Claudia. Get to know the people Magnus captured. Because by looking at his sculptures, you're staring straight into these people's souls.'

The stunned silence which followed was broken only by the clack-clack-clack of the dancer's castanets. No one had ever heard Nikias speak for so long. Or with such passion.

Leo cleared his throat. 'Yes. Well. If you kiddies will excuse me, I'm for an early night.'

He made a circuitous loop round the central table, as though by avoiding the piles of overturned seafood, the mangled poultry and splattered peaches he could somehow pretend Lydia's visit had not taken place.

'Given that I have to spear a fish in the morning,' he added.

'You're making a mistake, Leo.'

Leo faltered. Perhaps having thought the taciturn artist had shot his bolt, he was surprised to find himself mistaken. Or perhaps he was just not used to people standing up to him in this way.

'Are you threatening me, Nikias?' He chuckled.

'Nope.' Nikias leaned back on his couch and stared at a point on the ceiling. 'But I'm not prepared to let you butcher a tame dolphin, either. Not when it means so much to the children.'

'They'll forget soon enough,' Leo said, dismissing the notion with a wave of his hand. 'Isn't that right, Shamshi, old man?'

The Persian laced his bony hands together and locked his dark eyes on Claudia's. 'I've said everything I have to say,' he lisped quietly. 'Before a new light is born in the sky, bad news will come over the water.'

The last click of the castanets died away in an echo.

'When the gods speak,' Shamshi whispered, 'only a fool covers his ears.'