Sour Grapes

Ten

Bad luck, Larentia called it. An epidemic of bad luck was sweeping the town, but praise be to Candace's spells, it had passed over her and spared the estate, the villa and its slaves. No blight, no rust, no vine weevil, she'd said, and she was certainly right about that. Claudia had examined every single leaflet and since that was what bailiffs were for — ensuring such plagues were kept at bay — she'd sent for him the minute Orbilio had ridden off.

And wasn't remotely surprised to hear the bailiff express astonishment (if not downright bewilderment) that the Mistress should even mention blight or rust, much less weevil. Everything was exactly as he'd detailed in his monthly reports, he'd insisted, adding that — ask anyone — weather conditions had been perfect for the vines this winter and spring, and throwing in a baffled scratch of his head for good measure. The Mistress mustn't fret, he assured her firmly. The customary precautions had been, and would continue to be, taken. Seferius wine would continue to uphold its prestige and reputation.

Claudia had returned to her room, changed into a robe of pale lilac linen and pinned up her hair. Either Candace's spells were so powerful that she'd ended up protecting half of Italy, or viticulture remained a skill, not a lottery!

'Clemens the driver says he's waiting to take you to Mercurium,' a small voice piped up.

'Clemens talks too much.'

'So do I.' Amanda made herself comfortable on the bed and began to unpick the tasselled fringe on the coverlet. 'Mummy says.'

'Mummy's right.'

'No, she's not. I heard her tell someone that the old witch arrived yesterday, but it's only you here, so what does she know?' Little blue eyes rolled upwards in disdain. 'Anyway, Indigo and I are going to Mercurium with you.'

'Are you?'

'Yes, we're all packed and we have enough cheese and sausage to last us to Rome.' She held up a package that wouldn't last a mouse to the end of the driveway.

'Rome, you say?'

'Indigo and I are going to live with my father, and though we don't know who he is yet, we know we'll find him in Rome. It's a very big place.'

'All the more reason not to find him, don't you think?'

A lot of cupped hands and whispering into thin air followed. At which point, Amanda announced with a sniff that Indigo said that was so negative, but could Claudia say whether Rome was as far as from here to Mercurium and back, or maybe a little bit less?

'Are you sure you want to run away today?' Claudia asked. Amanda had already abandoned the tassels in favour of a lump of black sausage. 'Wouldn't you rather wait, say, until after the Beating of the Bounds?'

'That's ages off.'

Twelve days probably was ages off when you're only six years old and running away from home with just a small chunk of pecorino cheese and a badly gnawed sausage.

'Yes it is, but in between we've got the Lamb Festival, the Parade of the Trumpets as well as the Dance of the Brides of Fufluns on the full moon, and you tell Indigo that the Beating of the Bounds is well worth waiting for. There's feasting and singing, you can dance, dress up in costume-'

'Children aren't allowed at the ceremonies.'

'Oh, but this is a holiday for everybody, Amanda. Children, grown-ups, poor people, animals-'

'Animals! You mean rats and snakes have a holiday, too?'

Claudia meant beasts of burden, but she supposed snakes deserved a day off now and then.

'And… we get to dress up, me and Indigo?'

'Like the Queen of Sheba with bells on.' Another robe down the drain!

Amanda wrinkled her nose then called a Council of War with her friend. 'All right, we'll wait till after the beater thing to run away, but only because we like lambs and the trumpet parade's fun, but Indigo says we're still coming with you this morning.'

Did she indeed?

'Very well.' Claudia dug a copper quadran out of her purse. 'Heads or tails?'

Childish freckles merged into a single brown mass of a frown. 'Huh?'

'There's only room for one person beside me in the cart,' Claudia said briskly. 'So the fairest thing is to flip a coin to see whether it's you or Indigo who gets the spare place.'

Several seconds passed while Amanda thought this through, and Claudia imagined it was the first time anyone had taken her make-believe friend seriously.

'We've decided we'll both stay,' Amanda declared at last, 'because we need to tell all the animals that they're going on holiday soon.' And off she skipped, leaving Claudia wondering why Mummy hadn't had a nervous breakdown. Bitch or not, the woman deserved at least one.

'I want to take a detour,' she told Clemens, once the cart was clear of the estate.

She was no physician, but epidemics don't go unchecked and last night's theatricals suggested a distinct escalation in whatever game was being played out here. Certainly, the show hadn't been staged for her benefit. Candace's communion with the dead had been planned well in advance — hell, she'd all but sold tickets! — and Claudia intended to find out why, and in particular where Larentia's obsession with bad luck fitted in.

'Pull up here,' she instructed the driver.

Until recently, this converted grain store had been used by a local paper merchant until fire had swept through, destroying his stock. Claudia studied the blackened walls and a courtyard that was already being reclaimed by weeds. Fires were common in Rome, the threat of it constant, and it was not unusual to see the night sky glowing orange as a tenement went up here, a warehouse caught fire there, especially in the winter, when portable stoves were all too easily overturned and burning logs jumped out of their baskets. More than one paper merchant in Rome had suffered the same fate. But twice? In six months?

'The brickworks next,' she told Clemens.

And as the mule clip-clopped along, she mulled over the profits to be made from construction, now that peace had settled over the Empire. With a whole generation having grown up without the spectre of civil war looming over them, one could not emphasize too strongly the effect this peace had had. The tombs that lined the main roads into cities were being filled with the bones of old men, not young warriors, and a massive influx of prisoners of war had brought about a prosperity the Empire had never experienced. Thanks to this slave labour, the land produced a glut of foodstuffs, which could then be exported, plus there was mineral wealth to be mined — again by slaves or convicted criminals — and industry was flourishing as never before. Warehouses, bath houses, shops and apartments sprang up like groundsel. Temples, basilicas, bridges and roads became the backbone of Augustus's new Empire, along with aqueducts, sewers, theatres and gates, race courses and triumphal arches, and it was the Emperor's boast that he inherited a city of brick and would leave it a city of marble. In such an economic climate, how on earth can a brick-maker go bankrupt?

Claudia stared at the business that had been snapped up for a pittance by one of the insolvent brick-maker's competitors. It wasn't as though he'd set up his works too far from Mercurium and overreached himself with transportation costs, and in any case it was a small-scale operation. Claudia counted forty, fifty slaves — no more — and, watching the bricks being tipped out of their moulds, reflected on Larentia's explanation that his kiln had been cursed by the gods, or why else would his fires keep going out?

Fire…

'Thank you, Clemens. That's all here.'

One man gets too many fires, while another gets too few…

Yet not all this so-called bad luck could be laid at the door of a capricious arsonist. There was the miller's donkey that dropped dead in its prime. The tavern-keeper whose wine turned to vinegar and whose axle then broke, costing him several gallons of wine. Listening to Larentia — and Claudia freely admitted that she'd got lost among the clouds of detail — she vaguely remembered somebody's well going sour, livestock keeling over somewhere else, crops failing, and all sorts of personal difficulties erupting at once. Quarrels, death, divorce, and wasn't it the miller's brother's wife (dammit, why are these relationships always so complicated?) who'd walked out recently, taking the children with her to Rome? The brother was a blacksmith, Claudia recalled. And don't blacksmiths have forges?

With fires?

Bad luck… or simply bad character? There was no denying that a lot of bad things had happened round here, but coincidence? Uh-uh. The sun would have to rise in the west before Claudia accepted that. Sabotage was almost certainly behind the poisoned well, the spiked wine, the fires at the paper merchant's warehouse, the damping of the brick-maker's kilns. And just as it was a human hand, not a divine one, that was orchestrating these disasters, so it was a human hand that stabbed Lichas and dragged him — still twitching and gushing blood — across the field and calmly tipped him in the water.

Larentia might call it a run of bad luck.

Claudia called it unadulterated evil.

Now she needed to track this evil back to its lair, because Tages the shepherd boy still hadn't come home and she had personally endangered the life of another seventeen-year-old youth.

And if evil thought it was going to get its hands on young Orson, evil had another think coming.

In the dark, sulphurous caverns between the living and the dead, Veive strode upright and proud. His was no life to be spent gazing endlessly into the Waters of Prophesy or poring bent-backed over the Runes of Adversity among the sorcerers and necromancers of the netherworld. Like Terror and Panic, twin sons of black-winged Night, and their sisters Discord, Deception and Strife, the God of Revenge was constantly on the move. Always alert, ever dispassionate, it was Veive's role to answer the calls of those who invoked him. To ensure that his aim was true.

'Forgive me for intruding.' With great reverence he approached the Goddess of Shadows, who guarded the Mirror of Life. 'But I wish to track the progress of my arrows.'

'There is no intrusion,' she whispered, and her voice was a thousand echoes as she unveiled the Mirror. 'You are always welcome in my house, dear friend. Tell me, what do you see?'

'I see fires. I see death. I see desecration,' he told her, and his heart neither rejoiced nor saddened, for it was not Veive's role to apportion sorrow and blame. It was for other gods to move among the reeds and take the shape of birds to impart their wisdom to mortals, just as it was their task (should it please them) to even out the distribution of health, wealth and happiness and administer justice.

'Is that all you see?' the goddess asked.

'No,' he replied truthfully. 'I see your sisters Ruin and Greed walking amongst the devastation, but equally I see Success, O Wise One.'

Every arrow that had been loosed from Veive's Bow of Vengeance had found its rightful target.

'But hark! My name is being invoked even while we speak. Forgive the brevity of this visit, O Wise One, but I fear I must leave. My work, it seems, is not finished.'

Beside him the Goddess of Shadows laughed softly. 'Our work is never finished, dear friend, but I bid you call again soon.' She closed the veil over the Mirror. 'You are always welcome in this house.'

Market day in the Roman Empire fell every eighth day, and in Mercurium the narrow, twisting streets were packed with sacks and stalls, trestles and trays selling everything from needles to fleeces to honey in little red-painted pots. There had been talk of building a proper marketplace at the foot of the hill between the basilica and the Temple of Saturn, but so far the plans remained nothing more than outlines on parchment. What was the point? The townspeople were never going to change their ways, and maybe it was the sense of community — jostling through lanes clogged with donkeys laden with panniers or carts piled high with fruit, hides and chickens — or simply a sense of security, being packed into so tight a space, but since their ancestors had raised the first walls round this town, this was how markets had been held and this was how markets would continue to be held.

Which made trade both effortless and impossible at the same time.

The same jugs of wine that enticed shoppers with their bouquet banged against elbows and stained clothes with their careless drips. The same wreaths that hung from ropes pegged across the street to lure matrons into decorating their homes tangled in their neatly coiffed hair. No forehead was safe against dangling poles, swinging baskets, protruding cauldrons or muslins and mugs. Reactions were universal. Some laughed at their misfortune, others groused, some cursed, some scolded, while there were always those on both sides of the commercial fence who thrived on exaggerating the damage. It drew attention and bolstered their sense of importance, they argued, little realizing that it had the opposite effect.

'Thimbles!'

'Goose eggs!'

'Who'll buy my tasty veal pies?'

Another time Claudia would have enjoyed browsing among the bolts of brightly coloured cottons that sat cheek by jowl beside cucumbers, mackerel and pitch as she nibbled on hot, flaky pastries washed down by dark Tuscan wine. Today, though, her mind was on murder and sabotage, and a man bent on taking over her business…

His motives didn't concern her. She'd known men who were richer than Croesus, who still wanted more money. Greed, covetousness, a mere itch they wanted scratching… who cared?

You might want to ask yourself how best to get round the problem of him assuming control of your estate once they tie the knot.

She might also want to ask herself why the Security Police working a murder case in which a family friend was the chief suspect would concern himself with a man who was nothing more than a bit of hot gossip, but Orbilio had a point. If Larentia went ahead with her marriage to Darius (and at sixty-eight, this was her last chance for happiness, so why wouldn't she?), how could Claudia stop him taking power over her business?

Sauntering through the crush, patting piglets in their crates, examining some very odd-shaped roots in a basket and overhearing how the wheelwright's eldest had come down with a ringworm and kindly passed it round the whole family, she wondered where Candace fitted into the puzzle. Orbilio seemed confident that Claudia would work out how the sorceress pulled off that stunt yesterday evening, but she wasn't so sure, and whilst well within her right to turn her out of her house, she felt it was far better to keep an eye on this walker of winds and see where her ambles led.

Turning the corner at the basket-weaver's stall, Claudia felt a light tap on her shoulder. 'Terrence!'

'I was finalizing the arrangements for the Lamb extravaganza when I happened to notice you.' If he'd been rattled by last night's performance with Candace, he masked it well. 'Perhaps when you come to the party you could set aside a little time to talk privately?' he suggested. 'There's a little business matter I would like to discuss

… Oh, for pity's sake, Thalia!'

'You… you don't like it?' His sister's pale face blenched even whiter as she smoothed the robe that hung over her arm. 'The dressmaker assured me that these pleats are the latest fashion, is… isn't that right, Claudia?'

'It's not the dressmaker's word that's at issue, Thalia. The Lamb Festival is supposed to be a celebration of new life, not a bloody wake.' Terrence rolled his eyes. 'What on earth made you buy grey, for gods' sake?' He turned to Claudia. 'I'm sorry, I'm going to have to sort this out while the dress maker still has time to run up a new gown. But remember what I said. Come early. Please.'

He grabbed Thalia's new robe and almost pushed his sister back in the shop. Thank Juno, Claudia had never had siblings! Pushing on through the market, she noticed a familiar Caesar-cut outside the silversmith's shop.

'If Larentia told you she's pregnant,' she quipped, 'she's hooked you under false pretences.'

Replacing the perfume flask he'd been admiring, Darius turned his eyes to her. 'Oh?' They were amber brown like quartz, she noticed. And every bit as hard. 'I thought that was her granddaughter's device.'

Claudia wondered what other family secrets Larentia had been pressed to divulge. 'Like any healthy teenage girl, Flavia is discovering life's rich tapestry,' she trilled back. 'It's simply unfortunate that she makes progress one stitch at a time.'

'Don't you think maturity will remain out of her reach, so long as you persist in shielding her from things such as last night's events?'

Claudia had forgotten how much gravel he kept down his throat. 'As a matter of fact, it was her choice not to attend Candace's summoning of the spirits.' Communing with her dead father was all very well, but… 'She and Orson opted for whispering sweet nothings under the stars instead.'

Darius's lips parted in what he must have presumed was a smile. 'Ain't love grand.'

'You should know.'

'I do.'

He started to cough, that same dry, unproductive cough that Claudia hoped was his conscience, and when the spasm was over, his voice was softer.

'I don't expect you to believe this, and you've every right to be sceptical, but I've grown very fond of Larentia during the past few months. I won't lie to you. She's not the love of my life and she knows it, but neither of us are in the first flush of youth and, since I have no family, companionship does have its merits.'

'As does a profitable wine business.'

'With all respect, Claudia, my stud farm turns three times the profits your vineyards make, and even that income pales into insignificance when set against the rents and profits from my property investments and, as I am sure you know already, my not inconsiderable inheritance.'

At first, she mistook the rumble at the back of his throat for another cough.

'Holy heralds,' he said, shaking his head. 'In all my life I never imagined asking permission for my bride's hand in marriage to a girl young enough to be my own daughter.'

Claudia chewed her lip and thought there was only one way to get round the problem, and that was to discredit the bastard. 'Larentia is happy,' she said.

The laugh deepened. 'Did it hurt very much to say that?'

'Yes.'

'Good. Because now, perhaps, we can be friends.' He picked up a silver mirror. 'Do you think Ren would like this?'

'Darius, the woman's sixty-eight. She's not going to appreciate being shown her reflection by a man twenty years younger than she is.'

'See?' He exchanged the mirror for the silver perfume flask he'd been examining earlier and didn't haggle over the price. 'I knew we'd be friends.' He handed the bottle to Claudia with a bow. 'Please accept this as a token of my undying gratitude for being spared a hideous embarrassment.'

A genuine gesture? Or a trinket to bribe her round? Darius was proving difficult, she realized. The more she knew of him, the less she understood. This was not as straightforward as she had hoped. But then discrediting wealthy respectable breeders of horse flesh was never going to be easy.

Down one of the side streets, a creaking cart loaded with timber graunched painfully and Darius excused himself a moment to push his way through the produce and livestock to run after it. Curious, Claudia followed.

'You want to grease those bloody wheels!' Darius was shouting out to the driver.

'Oh, yeah.' The waggoner sneered. 'And what's it to you?'

'Me? Nothing. To the oxen, it makes a whole world of difference.'

The driver spat insolently into the gutter. 'Give me one good reason why I should worry about them, when they sure don't worry about me.'

'Because if nothing else, they'll live longer and save you money,' Darius snapped, adding 'poor buggers' to Claudia under his breath.

'Talking of living longer,' she said as they rejoined the swaying crowd, 'I notice you didn't ask to speak to any of your loved ones last night.'

'For one thing, I have no loved ones to call upon,' he said, raising his voice to make himself heard, 'and for another, I believe in keeping communications with the dead to a minimum.'

'You surprise me.'

'May I ask why?'

'The way you accept Larentia's confidence in Candace's spells. "Taken prisoner by local superstition", I believe you called it.'

Darius stopped and looped his thumbs into his belt. 'Acceptance isn't the same as approval,' and once again she thought, this was indeed a voice that had trod the path to Hell. 'But somehow Ren's got it into her head that this town has been jinxed, which is absolute bullshit. However, I have to respect that Larentia's buried one husband plus three out of four children, and that old age is also creeping up. She's bound to be… what's the word?'

'Suggestible?'

'Susceptible,' he corrected with a dry chuckle. 'If I may speak bluntly, Claudia, Candace is the main reason I'm pushing Ren to fix a date for the wedding. More and more, your mother-in-law is becoming dependent on that woman's visions and spells, and I'm not convinced that's a healthy development.'

'I doubt there's a woman yet who hasn't consulted some kind of fortune-teller, astrologer, soothsayer or quack when she's about to get married.'

'Are we men such ogres?' he asked, sidestepping a crate of grey hazel hens. 'Seriously, though.' He shook his head. 'Try as I might, I can't find out one damn thing about

Candace. Other than the fact that she's Kushite by birth, our lovely sorceress remains a mystery, and mysteries, my dear Claudia, trouble me greatly.'

Claudia wondered what his opinion was when it came to pots calling kettles black.

'Where did Larentia find her?' she asked.

'Ah, well, that'll teach me to go back home on business.' He gave a rueful cluck of the tongue. 'It was even my treat, you know, packing Ren off to the hot springs for a few days of luxury and pampering, because what happens? I check on my horses, I tie up a few deals and when I come back, she's addicted to spells, spirits and magic, and the quicker she's away from Candace's influence, the better. Without our lovely sorceress, Ren's a strong, funny woman — in fact, you and she have a lot in common.'

'I do not take that as a compliment.'

'I wish you would, because you're more alike than either of you think, and you like each other more than you care to admit. And I'll bet that's another bitter pill for you to swallow.'

'I don't take medicines, Darius. The cure is invariably worse than the problem, and if it's true that men marry women who remind them of their mothers, shoot me now.'

'See what I mean? Funny.' He broke off as another dry spasm wracked his chest.

'And while we're on the subject of medicines, are you taking anything for that cough?'

'Everything,' he sighed, dodging a porter balancing three sacks of grain. 'Horehound, coltsfoot, mullein. Janus, I'm a walking herbalist's half the time, which is another reason I'm pushing for an early wedding. Since I arrived in Mercurium, my throat and chest haven't let up and, Claudia, I care for your mother-in-law deeply, but you have no idea how my lungs yearn for their homeland.'

'Campania?'

His face brightened. 'Do you know it?'

Never been. 'Intimately. Particularly Naples, Capua and the peninsula out by Capri.'

'Stunning, isn't it? My farm's further south, on the plains of Salernum, but Naples is handy for shipping the beasts in and out. Do you know anything about horses?'

'Only that my last one is still running.'

'Then it's not one of mine. I only breed winners, and you have no idea how satisfying it is, watching wobbly foals turn into sleek racers, although sadly the credit is not mine to claim. As you employ specialists to oversee your vines, I employ trainers who do all the hard work.'

'Could you spare one for Flavia?'

'Only if you want her lapping the posts of the Circus Maximus,' he retorted. 'But if you're worried about the girl, seriously, why don't you sign her up for the Dance of the Brides of Fufluns?'

'You've lost me.'

'I doubt that,' he rumbled. 'But come.'

Instead of following the flow of the market, Darius turned into a side street and followed the steep path to the summit of Mount Mercury. Like the seven hills of Rome, the air up here was cleaner and fresher, trees lined the squares — laurels, plane trees and cypress — and from their branches birds serenaded the white limestone fronts and blood-red roof tiles of the villas of the well heeled. Facing west, these sumptuous villas overlooked the soft rolling landscape and sat in perfect alignment for catching the refreshing sea breezes during the baking hot Etruscan summers. Claudia followed the point of Darius's index finger to a hill to the south that was fronted by a forest of salmon-pink columns.

'That's the Temple of Fufluns down there,' he said. 'Have a word with Tarchis the priest. See if he can't help Flavia to grow up.'

If he could, Claudia thought, it would be the only miracle to take place around here.

Including last night's shenanigans.