Sour Grapes

Twenty-Two

The only thing different at the Temple of Fufluns was that, instead of rain clouds gathering overhead, the sun streamed down, turning the sacred pool to shimmering glass and inciting the temple kittens to even greater levels of skittishness. Lyres and flutes produced the same haunting music that penetrated every nook. Herbal garlands still wound up every pink column, bronze chimes pealed softly, the same lamps burned in their thousands. Lars had laughed when Claudia mentioned last night how the soothing atmosphere was in contrast to the energetic scenes depicted in the frescoes.

'To appreciate all that fine wining and dining and bedding you see on the walls, we Etruscans need to step back. Relax. Unwind. Cast aside our day-to-day worries. Then, once our souls are refreshed, our offerings laid and our prayers asked, we lift our eyes. Remind ourselves what Fufluns stands for — and then we binge, gorge and bonk ourselves stupid.'

Stupid? The Etruscans were anything but stupid. Her footsteps resonated down the vaulted stone corridors, and once again she was struck by the dedication it had taken to excavate this subterranean maze. Darius must have visited here. What thoughts as he drew deeper inside this tunnel of rock? Was he jittery, fearful of another stripe on his back? Or was it the other way round? That, seeing this sacred place where sanctity was mined, rather than ore, would it have hardened Felix's resolve? 'Ah, Tarchis! Just the chap!'

She needed to know exactly how much this red-hatted blabbermouth had been tattling about the Felix connection — and to whom.

'On that subject, Lady Claudia, my lips have been sealed,' Tarchis assured her, once he'd got his come-forth-and-welcome speech out of the way. 'The winged avenger has already been unleashed on the wicked. No useful purpose can be served alerting those whom Thufltha has targeted, much less broadcasting His retribution across the whole town.'

'You fear panic will spread?'

'The commandments of the gods are unequivocal, my child. When vengeance is Their will, Their will must run its course and warning the wicked can only compromise divine justice.' The old man leaned forward on his desk and laced his fingers together. 'Suppose, for example, I were to tell the miller that he is the target of Veive's vengeful arrows and the miller, realizing how his iniquity has brought his family low, then commits suicide?'

'Aren't priests the gods' messengers?'

'Holy Horta, my dear!' From his expression, you'd think Claudia had propositioned him. 'The augurs scour the skies, the signs of nature and the organs of sacrificial animals in a bid to interpret Their holy wishes,' he said. 'It is my task to impart them, then counsel my flock if they fall by the wayside.'

'Not to prevent them from falling?'

'That,' Tarchis said with a benevolent smile, 'is for the gods to determine, not for me.'

Don't stop them sinning. Just tell them afterwards how wicked they were. 'Suppose someone asks you for help?'

'Again, it is to Fufluns, not me, that supplication must be directed, for I am a vessel, passive and humble. Priests, Lady Claudia, cannot change fate.'

Really? What about Thalia's guilt over wishing her husband dead? Did Tarchis console her? Did he hell. Invoke the Dark Gods and they answer the call, he had told her. By sitting on his skinny backside in this underground cavern, he changed fate by doing nothing. And was that why a thirteen-year-old girl took her own life? Because the poor little cow had no one to talk to? Or had Vorda come to him and been rebuffed?

Claudia smiled radiantly. 'You haven't talked to Terrence about Thufltha?'

Terrence and Tarchis were finger-crossing close, Darius had said, and through Terrence, Darius would have picked up most of his information.

' As usual, Terrence and I discussed the forthcoming Bridal Dance and how, between us, we can keep local interest high.'

'Is it waning?'

'When so many traditions are being swallowed up by your culture — and I admit our proximity to Rome doesn't help — there's a very fine line between the old ways and the new.' The priest took off his mitre, rubbed his forehead where the band had dug in, then replaced it with care. 'I do not understand how you Romans can trivialize your gods. With us, every single aspect of life is spiritual. The gods move among us, speaking to us through the language of nature, and we supplicate ourselves before them, whereas you,' his voice harshened, 'you Romans treat them with appalling disrespect. "Make the noses of my hunting hounds keen and I'll give you this ring",' he mimicked. '"Give me a bumper crop of beans this year and this onyx flask will be yours." That is not worship, Lady Claudia. That's horse-trading!'

'Which is no more or less successful than your way.'

He looked down his thin nose at this uppity creature who clearly didn't know that her place was in the kitchen. 'Maybe,' he grunted in a manner that conveyed the opposite, 'but without Terrence backing Fufluns, the paintings on these walls would be plastered over. This shrine would close in favour of a glistening marble edifice to someone called Bacchus.' He almost spat the name out. 'Then there'll be no more dancing, no more brides — and I warn you, young woman, Fufluns will curse you for turning your back on Him. Without His seed to fructify the earth, your vines will shrivel and your hillsides turn barren.'

'Then we must take care not to reject Him,' she said sweetly, distracting his tirade by pretending to have an itch on her calf and giving him a flash of her shapely ankle. 'Going back to Felix, you said he was stripped of his assets… ' Word association helps, too.

'Every penny,' the priest said, delighted that her itch was persistent. 'Even the house he'd built for his parents in Mercurium. The State confiscated the lot. Turned the old couple on to the street in full view of the populace, and the very next morning Felix's father fell on his sword with the shame of it.' His wrinkled face creased up in recollection.

'His mother drank poison, I think. Or maybe she drowned herself. It's such a long time ago; I don't recall all the details. The point is, they were a decent freeborn family who could not live with the dishonour their son visited upon them.'

'What about Mariana, his wife?'

Tarchis shook his red-painted head. 'Sad. Very sad,' he said. 'She was a lovely girl and no one had an ill word to say about her, yet the instant sentence was pronounced, her family disowned her. Treason does this, of course. It taints those it touches, and the stain is ineradicable. One thus understands their desire to disassociate themselves from imperial wrath, as one empathizes with the pain it undoubtedly caused them in renouncing her.'

'Maybe Felix should have thought about that before he dipped his sticky fingers in the Treasury.'

'Surely you are missing the point, Lady Claudia?' The priest leaned back in his chair and studied her with dark, glittering eyes. 'For Thufltha to be invoked and justice served, there has to be a guilty party to punish. If Felix Musa has called on the gods and his plea has been heard, he has stood in front of the Mirror of Truth and been judged by the purity in his heart.'

You can't have it both ways, you sanctimonious bastard. Felix is either dead and innocent. Or he's alive and guilty as hell!

'Mariana was pregnant,' Tarchis said wistfully, 'and such is the suddenness of fate. One day, she is radiant at carrying their first child, the next she's tossed in the gutter like a broken cook pot with little more than the clothes she stood up in. Somebody took the girl in, of course. Once again, I cannot recall who, but Mariana was much loved in Mercurium.'

Claudia began to understand why Felix had embarked on his campaign of vengeance. It might be misguided, but the passion was real enough. Felix Musa wanted the families of those who had wronged him to suffer the way his own loved ones had suffered…

'Where can I find Mariana, Tarchis? I realize twelve years have passed, but I really need to talk to Felix's wife.'

'Finding her is easy, Lady Claudia. Talking to her, less so.' A sad smile settled over the old man's face. 'Mariana died giving birth to Felix's stillborn child.'