Sour Grapes

Sixteen

When Eunice said Terrence threw the most lavish bashes anyone could ever hope to attend, she wasn't kidding. To celebrate the Festival of the Lambs, he'd not only invited the entire town, but he'd filled fountains with wine for their benefit, created wine lakes connected by wine channels in which miniature warships bobbed merrily, and since one ox wasn't enough for this number of guests, he'd slaughtered at least half the world's ox population to turn on the spits. In addition, he'd built a miniature house out of nuts and sweetmeats for the children, and created a magnificent edible Trojan horse in which a snail had been stuffed inside a dormouse, which in turn had been stuffed inside a quail, which had also been stuffed inside something larger, until finally a horse comprising different layers of meats stood proud with a mane of… wait for it… sorrel.

The witticisms didn't end there. He'd hired musicians, clowns, acrobats, fire-eaters, jugglers and mimes to entertain the masses. Gladiators fought in a makeshift arena, wrestlers and boxers competed for honours, buffoons dressed in motleys ran riot — and the most amazing part of it all was that the events didn't just run simultaneously, they ran continuously too.

'I thought the Lamb Festival went rather well, didn't you?' Thalia asked, wringing skeletal white hands that didn't look as though they could kill two birds with one stone, much less a seasoned banker. But then Eunice never suggested Thalia had strangled her husband. His heart gave out at the hot springs, she'd said. Old age, Claudia wondered? Overexertion? A combination of both? And yet even the weakest of hands can drip poison into a glass. It was time to delve deeper into Thalia's mind — a journey, she suspected, that wouldn't take long. There weren't exactly great depths to plumb.

'I thought it went exceptionally well,' she replied, linking her arm with her new best friend's.

'The children looked adorable wrapped in their tiny fleeces,' Thalia said wistfully. 'Though I do believe Lars needed to snarl a bit more in his wolfskin when he chased them, and Terrence perhaps a teeny bit less. Not that there was anything wrong with what he did,' she added quickly. 'No, no, it was only that one little boy who burst into tears. And a couple of the toddlers. Of course, though I expect they were overtired by then… Sorry.' She shot Claudia a tight smile. 'I do ramble on, don't I, and Terrence gets so cross with me-'

'You're doing fine, Thalia.'

'You think so?' The smile that flashed across her face lit up her enormous green eyes. 'Oh, good, because I wanted to say that I thought Marcus got the balance just right, chasing the babies, and my word, Claudia, isn't he handsome!'

'That's the word they use to describe the Emperor, and he's bow-legged.'

Thalia giggled. 'You are wicked, but I don't think he's bow-legged. Marcus, I mean.' The smile dropped from her face and her expression became haunted again. 'Do you see him? The man talking to Terrence right now?'

Claudia couldn't see anyone for Terrence's sandy mop, but said yes anyway. Agreeing is what best friends do.

'Terrence invited him here as a prospective husband for me, but I'm not going to marry this one, and I don't care what he says. Terrence, I mean. Not the bridegroom. Well, yes, I don't care what he says, either… Oh, there I go again. Sorry. Verbal diarrhoea, Terrence calls it, which I think is terribly vulgar, and I keep meaning to ask him to refrain from phrases like that, but then he gives me these little brown pills and then I can't think straight… Am I boring you?'

'Quite the reverse.'

Claudia patted Thalia's arm in the way best friends always pat and led her away from children raucously racing toy chariots and playing tag to the rose arbour, where it was quiet. Several early varieties were already in bud, she noticed, and beneath them pinks and cerastium ran riot.

'You were telling me about Terrence and the pills?'

'Was I? I get so confused, you know, but that's why he says I should take them. After my husband died…' Thalia glanced round over both shoulders to make sure no one could hear. 'Claudia, I've done a terrible thing. To my husband, I mean. Well, when I say did, I didn't do it myself, but I killed him all the same.'

Thank Jupiter! Claudia held one of the fragrant pinks to her nose while her best friend unburdened herself.

'Terrence says it's nonsense. He says I couldn't possibly have murdered him just by willing him dead, but it's true. I wished my husband dead and — pft! — he died the next day, and Tarchis says that if one invokes the Dark Gods, they always answer the call… Oh, Claudia, do you hate me very much? For what I did to my husband, I mean, not the blathering. Although you probably hate me for that, as well… Ooh, look, look! Do you see the magistrate's wife?' Thalia peered through the twining branches. 'She's wearing a grey robe, and I swear it's the same colour as the one Terrence forbade me from wearing because he said it clashed with my hair and made me look pasty.'

'Sadly, Thalia, I think your brother was right.'

'But who cares whether something's suitable or not? Why can't I do something I want for a change, without constantly having to worry about what other people might think? I like grey.'

'So do I, but getting back to your husband…'

'Exactly. He wouldn't let me wear that shade, either, and I'm going to tell Terrence that the magistrate's wife is wearing it and

… and… well, I don't know what else I'm going to tell him, but I think he ought to know!'

And off she swept, leaving Claudia wishing that Terrence would give her a handful of sedatives. God knows five minutes with Thalia was enough to drive anyone crazy. No wonder the banker was grouchy.

As the sun sank, torches and cressets blazed to turn night into day round the villa. This was the cue for the waterwrestling to begin, in which naked, oiled athletes were required to hold their opponents under for a mere count of twelve, which was proving harder than it sounded, since they were constantly slipping out of each other's grasp. On the far side of the terrace, a man clad in a bearskin danced with a live bear, another paraded monkeys dressed in military tunics, while masked actors performed a satire on marriage and a girl wearing a horned helmet twirled a bull-roarer with both hands that drowned out the musician entertaining a crowd with his pan-pipes.

Too much, too much. With all that had gone on since talking to Tarchis yesterday, Claudia's mind hadn't stopped whirling. She needed somewhere to think. Somewhere quiet. And Terrence's maze offered the perfect retreat.

Especially since every dead end resulted in a forfeit of wine!

She collected four goblets, then took them to one of the marble benches that had been placed at regular intervals for weary exit-hunters and thought that that was the trouble with the aristocracy. When you're born in the slums, a sense of direction becomes second nature, every bit as keen as touch, hearing and smell. Terrence's soft-living guests would need every seat he'd laid out!

The throb-throb-throb of a drumbeat pulsed out across the immaculately clipped topiary, and she could almost picture the dancers swirling and twirling to their hypnotic rhythm. Downing the first goblet, she wondered how Flavia was getting on. Timi, the instructress at the Temple of Fufluns, could not have been a day under seventy, yet she was as supple as she was graceful — but best of all, she was strict.

'The girls run through their routines with me until I'm satisfied they're step-perfect,' she'd explained crisply, showing Claudia the rehearsal room. 'Only then do I allow them to enter the god's chamber — ' She'd pointed to a low, narrow door cut into the rock face '- to work on their selfexpression in front of Fufluns. But I warn you: if your stepdaughter thinks it's an hour to skive off, she's in for a shock.

When her time's up, she will be required to dance for me the way she danced for Fufluns, and I can spot instantly if her movements aren't polished through the additional practice.' She snapped her fingers. 'If they're no different, back she goes until they jolly well are!'

A thought occurred to Claudia. 'That's the same for all the Brides?'

'It is,' Timi said, bending backwards to touch her heels.

'So when Vorda finished the night she died, was she step-perfect? You didn't make her go back and practise again?'

The dance teacher straightened up with a scowl. 'Young woman, if you're implying I was responsible for Vorda's state of mind that night, think again! I have no idea what improvements she'd made to her routine, because once the measuring candle burned down, I knocked to tell her and, dear me, she didn't even look at me when she came out. Pushed straight past, which was not like her at all. She was singing like a lark when she went in-'

'No indications at the start of the evening that she intended taking her own life?'

'Between you and me, my lady, I rather hoped in Vorda I was training my successor. She was a natural, that girl. Far better than me at that age, and she loved showing me the various nuances she'd added, and with the red-headed moon approaching, she was as excited as ever. Singing, laughing, eyes bright when she went in, but like Tarchis says, what can you expect when the Herald of Death has summoned you to His hall?'

Inevitability and predestination had its merits, Claudia supposed. People became saddened by death, but not devastated, since all things were the will of the gods… which was fine when you were distanced from it in terms of family and friendship. Rosenna, though, had taken her brother's murder very badly and Claudia couldn't help wondering how Vorda's mother was coping with her daughter's sudden death, either.

'May I?' She indicated the narrow door.

Timi smiled proudly. 'Fufluns will be very pleased to welcome you, my lady.'

With a well-practised gesture of obeisance, she opened the door to reveal a chamber hewn out of rock, whose walls were covered with sensual rather than erotic paintings and in which fragrant oils burned from a handful of strategically placed lamps. Hyssop for purity, oregano for peace, sage for sanctification. The idol inside was life-sized, carved out of wood and realistically painted, right down to the leering expression, and though Lars had warned Claudia that Fufluns had horns, he forgot to mention how many. Or where!

'He certainly seems pleased to see us,' Claudia murmured.

'The Brides' purpose is to arouse their bridegroom, my lady. We cannot have them thinking their husband is disinterested.'

Oh, that effigy was definitely not disinterested!

'Thirteen virgins representing the full maturity of their respective moons marry the earth god on the night of the red-headed moon,' Timi explained. 'Then they dance to arouse His divine passion, that His seed will fructify the precious vines and the cycle of life will continue.'

Claudia walked slowly round the chamber, feeling the rock face as she passed. 'There's only the one entrance?'

'Like Horta, whose soil we turn with our ploughs, Fufluns makes His home in the earth. Even one door is an intrusion into the world of the gods, which is why the opening is kept small and remains locked when not in use.'

Yet the Herald of Death got to Vorda somehow, and he couldn't have been hiding in here. Not for the day or so between rehearsals. Claudia absently sniffed the contents of a bronze chafing pan. Ugh. Catnip leaves. Definitely not Roman! And for heaven's sake, look at that. Something else seemed to have shrivelled and died in that horrid bowl. She moved closer to one of the oil burners and let their sweet fragrance smother the pong.

'Did anyone come in while Vorda was dancing?'

'Lady Claudia!' Timi's face was a picture of outrage. 'Lady Claudia, this is a bridal chamber. The girls dance before their bridegroom in absolute privacy. I stand guard outside myself and no one — I repeat, no one — may intrude upon this sacred space while the girls rouse Fufluns' passion!'

Claudia tried to picture Flavia arousing anyone's passion, much less a veteran godly seducer, but contented herself that whatever rabbits Timi managed to pull out of the hat, at least Flavia would learn discipline in the process, and god knows she needed it. Her foster parents had overindulged her and their authority had grown lax, enabling Flavia to give them the slip and meet Orson on the quiet.

Orson!

Bugger.

Between arranging for Flavia to dance on the full moon and sorting out the Darius affair, Claudia had completely forgotten about Orson! In the quiet of the maze now, she prayed to Justice and Fortune that the ugly lug had got that preposterous notion of helping Rosenna out of his head, because forget what Orbilio said — evil had already tapped two seventeen-year-old boys on the shoulder. And two was more than enough…

Reaching for the second goblet, she wondered just how much evil there was around here. Lichas was dead. Tages was in danger. Vorda had taken her own life. Moreover, five men had been brought to the brink of ruin through hardship or emotional distress, sometimes both, their families dragged through hell with them. Now the descendants and dependants of the sixth witness were about to be put through the same mill, and what could Claudia do?

She couldn't alert the authorities. Without proof, they'd laugh her out of the barracks — and, dammit, if the five men who were responsible for Felix's conviction don't recognize him, how on earth was she going to prove they were the same man? The fact that Darius doesn't look anything like Felix is immaterial, but the authorities wouldn't see it that way. They would agree with her that any man who intended coming back to Mercurium to wreak vengeance on those who had wronged him was hardly likely to announce himself — but they'd be expecting Felix to adopt a disguise by growing a beard or something else obvious, something that could be denounced immediately. Darius was far more subtle.

Indigo says Darius is clever.

Through the mouths of babes, Claudia thought. Through the mouths of babes!

What was it Amanda asked, peering closely at the razor in his room? Why does Darius shave his head?

At the time, Claudia dismissed it as a childish mistake, but now she realized it was no error. No doubt ten years down the silver mines hones revenge to the sharpest of points, but who'd have thought that by shaving his head and combing the rest of his hair over it, Caesar-style, it could pass as a disguise? Darius wasn't balding at all. He just pretended to be — and what were the odds that Felix had had a thick head of hair? Curly hair, too, because Darius kept his closely cropped. She could not use his cough as proof of working the silver mines any more than she could show he took balm of Gilead buds as a painkiller against the bad back that ten years' hard labour had undoubtedly bequeathed. Since the leaves were a well-known remedy for unproductive coughs, who's to say an apothecary hadn't muddled the physician's prescription? Dammit, everything about Felix was different.

Ten years of swallowing dust had left him with an unrecognizable gravel voice.

Ten years of wielding a pickaxe had bestowed on him an athlete's body.

Ten years of shifting rocks had changed the way he walked, his gestures, even his nature.

But take this to the authorities and they'd see nothing more than the bleatings of a self-seeking widow whose stepfather was about to wrest control of a business which, as a woman, she shouldn't be running anyway — and besides! She's already had her two years of state-allocated mourning. Doesn't the law decree she should re-marry?

That was one jar of worms Claudia had no intention of opening up — and, dammit, she couldn't confide her suspicions to Larentia, either. Not without concrete evidence to prove Darius was a monster who had nothing but hardship and humiliation lined up for his bride! The fact that he'd packed no cameo of his late wife surely showed admirable tact and discretion for a man about to be married. A lack of personal mementoes reveals a simplistic nature, a trait the parsimonious Larentia would admire. And how can you say he's spent all this money on the villa to feather his own future nest, when there's no proof he's not the real Darius? No, no, the minute Claudia started to discredit her suitor, Larentia would view it as mischief-making and go running to Darius.

Can't have that. If Darius thinks the game's up, his most likely course of action is to run. Five out of six ain't bad, he could argue, and he'd disappear into the mist before you could say 'retribution and justice'.

'You're not going to get away with this, you bastard.'

Not when so many people have suffered so horribly for his petty grudge, and right now he's proud of his achievements. Devastation has rippled round their families like an earthquake, leaving death and destruction in its wake, while not so much as one finger of suspicion points back at him. What better time to attack than when he's sure of himself?

But to attack, Claudia needed weapons — weapons she didn't have, because the best way to attack this man was through facts and either Larentia was unaware of Gaius's involvement at Felix's trial (women not being privy to men's business) or she'd forgotten it, because she certainly hadn't connected the epidemic of bad luck to the other witnesses. Why should she? In all her years at the villa, she'd mixed with the same people, led the same narrow life, and even though she'd started out as the wife of a common road builder, she'd risen far enough through society not to mix with the likes of millers and tavern-keepers. And if the paper merchant and the brick-maker viewed their calamities as nothing more than misfortune, all the more reason to place her faith in Candace. Were Claudia to broach the subject of Felix's trial with Larentia, it was more than likely the old bat would ask Candace to contact him the next time she walked with the spirits. Sod that.

Realizing the second goblet was empty, Claudia reached for a third.

Undoubtedly, the best source of information had a rich baritone voice and carried a faint hint of sandalwood around with him, but she couldn't go to Orbilio, either. As much as the newly installed head of the Aquitanian Security Police would love the credit for solving a case involving treason, even he couldn't take too long an extended furlough. He was close to cracking this business of Lichas's murder, which meant he'd be heading back to Gaul in the middle of his investigations into Felix, thereby dumping the case back on to the local authorities — and, excuse me, haven't we been through this already?

Shit. Claudia drained the glass and hurled it into the laurels, where it smashed into a thousand satisfactory smithereens. Overhead, stars twinkled brightly, with no hint of the clouds that had left such a deluge overnight. She watched them tramp slowly round the heavens and thought, fine. All these are things I can't do about Darius.

Let's work on the things that I can.

The God of Revenge simply laughed.