Sour Grapes

Twenty-Five

Boom, boom, boom-a-doom-a-dum-dum.

The pounding of the drums, soft and insistent, cut through the night like a heartbeat.

Boom, boom, boom-a-doom-a-dum-dum.

There was no blare of trumpets, no clashing of cymbals to signal that the transition from the day spent rejoicing in Etruscan heritage had become the night when Fufluns was worshipped. Just the lazy brush of stick against stretched animal skin.

Boom, boom, boom-a-doom-a-dum-dum.

Over and over again.

A hush descended on the sanctuary. A thousand people fell silent. The flames on the torches were dimmed. Sacred incense wafted over the precinct, a heady blend of frankincense, cedar, cinnamon and juniper, and in the Pool of Plenty, where moths fluttered round the floral garlands that wreathed the marble satyrs and nymphs, the moon reflected silver and proud. As the drumbeats continued to pound, a procession emerged from the darkness. Priests in mitres descended the steps, followed by acolytes in soft caps, and now chanting filled the air from the choir, soft, wordless, like a gentle exhalation of musical breath. A whisper. A blessing. A boon. His long robes swishing the ground, Tarchis stepped forward, raised his hands to the heavens and made the sign of the cross.

'Today the powers of Zirna have proved greater than Her brother Aplu's,' he pronounced, 'for the Moon Goddess has sent His clouds scurrying and captured the stars for Her own.'

These were good portents, he added solemnly, not just for the Bridal Dance, but for the fruit of the vineyards and the fruitfulness of the earth.

'Through Silver Zirna, the sky gods have given the Marriage of Fufluns Their blessing. Let the ceremony begin.'

In a finger-snap, reverence gave way to revelry as the musicians upped tempo, the choir lifted their voices and the whole crowd began to clap, cheer and stamp their feet. Sulphur was sprinkled on to the torches and, as the flames flared, a gilded litter appeared at the entrance to the temple. On the litter sat the famous red idol of Fufluns, so heavy it required a score of muscular bearers to manoeuvre it down the steep steps.

'By the Falcon of the Sun, by the Vultures of the Moon,' Claudia whispered, 'I know how you do it.'

'What do you know, my child?'

There it was. That deep, rich smile that never quite made the journey to her eyes. Was it the smile of a cold, scheming bitch, milking the gullible for all they were worth? A smile tempered by caution, lest human emotions betray the facade? Or was Candace hiding something? Even — possibly — scared? Claudia thought back to that first night she'd summoned the spirits and the feline look she'd held with Darius. She remembered the hot springs and the long, evaluating glance she'd given him from the corner of her eye, and to his granite gaze as she swept into the bath house, flanked by her silent servants. Claudia was wrong. Candace wasn't his mistress…

'I know you extinguish the lights, burn a tree full of incense resin and employ a harpist to enter the gateway to the afterlife,' she said.

'I create an atmosphere where the dead can feel comfortable, yes.' Candace nodded. 'The perfume and the music honour them.'

'Actually, they mask any foreign smells brought into the room by your accomplices and drown any sounds they might make.'

The sorceress swivelled her head to look down on her. 'Whether you are a believer or not, the forces of the supernatural surround us all. I am-'

'Merely their instrument.' Claudia shot her a radiant smile. 'Just like your harp. Just like Judith and Ezekiel are your instruments, too.'

Thirteen virgins skipped down the steps in time to the boisterous music. Each bride wore a different costume but each had her skin stained with the same cochineal… Correction. Twelve virgins came skipping down. The third from the back lumbered like an arthritic carthorse. Good old Flavia. Always stands out from the crowd. Claudia cheered her stepdaughter on as the brides formed a semi-circle round their carved, leering groom, but when Tarchis stepped in to the ring, the mood switched back to one of solemnity.

Boom, boom, boom-a-doom-a-dum-dum.

'I know about the folding doors,' she told Candace.

And while the priest blessed each moon in turn that she would fulfil her promise of richness and plenty for the forthcoming year, Claudia spelled it out. How Darius had hired her. Arranged for her to meet Larentia at the hot springs. How Candace had persuaded the poor woman to take herself into the hills to filter the epidemic of bad luck that was going around. She ran through how, during Larentia's absence, Darius set about his renovation work, which, after consulting with Candace, included the installation of pipes leading up from the villa's boiler room. Because there was only one place where a surge of smoke could escape in puffs on command: the dining hall, which sat directly over the furnace. And since such pipes required considerable demolition work, Darius had no choice but to go the whole hog and knock out a wall. With the miracle of folding doors, who would notice the additional plasterwork all round the sides?

Boom, boom, boom-a-doom-a-dum-dum.

'That's how the smoke got into the room, the sulphur, the voices — and there was no cold air.'

Only an illusion created by constantly referring to the chill that descended and rubbing her arms. And the loved ones? Only someone close to the bereaved would be able to draw out pet names and that's why the conversations were brief. Keep it going too long, and whichever dupe Candace had targeted would quickly pick up on the odd speech and mannerisms of their dear departed. Oddities that she couldn't guarantee would be smoothed over by constantly passing them off as Stygian errors!

'Then there's the touchy-feely business,' Claudia said before the sorceress had time to interrupt. 'It bothered me that not only was smoke and sulphur infiltrating our lovely linens, or even that our loved ones were chatting to us as though they were in the next room, but that they could see us.'

Which, of course, they could. Not in the dark, but that's why Candace gathered the group in to such a tight circle. So her accomplices could run round the room, having practised beforehand and in the sure and certain knowledge that every piece of furniture was where Candace promised it would be. She'd taken care to make any adjustments — straightening chairs, moving tables — while lighting the incense burners, so that, dressed in black and with their skins blackened with soot, Judith and Ezekiel were invisible as they crept up from the furnace room through a trapdoor beside the folding doors. They trained so regularly that every movement was synchronized, each knowing what the other was thinking, so while one imitated Rex's late wife or, say, Larentia's dead son down in the boiler room, the other moved around the dining hall, brushing a shoulder, an arm, a hand as they passed to reinforce the presence of the spirits.

Boom, boom, boom-a-doom-a-dum-dum.

Once they were together in the dining hall, they were no longer able to project their voices, using sighs, sobs, whispers, sniggers to make it seem the spirits were everywhere and nowhere, and now of course they were free to hurl vases, overturn figurines, pick up Candace's gold-thread shawl and shake it, co-ordinating their well-rehearsed routines with precision.

'If this is true,' Candace said stiffly, 'then I am as much a victim as anybody else. Remember, I was in a dead faint every time.'

'Victim?' The crowd hissed for her to shush when Claudia laughed. 'The only victim here was the plant you ripped up to prepare your potion, and I'm guessing it was black hellebore.'

They grew in abundance up in the Apennines, inducing the deepest of sleeps which could be regulated by the dose.

'Your cynicism falls off me like rain from a palm leaf,' Candace drawled, though Claudia noticed there was a tighter set to her jaw than when their conversation started. 'I know my powers.' In the artificial light, the skin on her unscarred forearm gleamed as she held it out, clenching her fist in defiance.

'That?' Claudia snorted. 'You doused the lamps before rolling your sleeve up, and all you cut through, Candace, was a piece of black vellum containing a small bladder of pig's blood.'

'Then where was it?' The velvet contempt still carried conviction. 'If Judith and her brother daren't risk entering the circle, who cleared away this mysterious patch?'

'Oh, Candace, give it up!' Claudia was getting cross now. 'Darius took it, who else? For gods' sake, can't you see that it's over? It's not just what I know, it's why. Why Felix impersonated Darius.' That shook the bitch. 'Why he hired you, why he's destroying the lives of so many people. Hell, I even know why you crop your bloody hair!'

To control it. Just as the hot springs were central to the actors in this sordid charade, so was control. It was why Candace kept her springy fuzz short and why she smelled of the incense she burned. Not because she used so much, but to control a different smell. A balm of Gilead smell. One whose painkilling properties would not only help a miner's bad back, but would ease other problems, emotional problems, because control was everything here.

'And drugs. Mustn't forget them.'

Drugs were also a form of control, though god knows everyone used them in one form or another. In homes and in temples, lavender oil was used to calm, mint to stimulate, lemon balm and chamomile to refresh, but the effect was no different. They were intended to alter another person's mood, generating that transition without that person's knowledge or consent, though for the most part the change was as benign as it was well-intentioned and welcome.

'Have you noticed how everyone uses them?' Claudia clapped as the holy sacrament of marriage between moon and earth was blessed with wine. 'Terrence on Thalia, Darius on himself, you on Larentia to keep her happy.'

One finely plucked brow rose in disdain. 'I cast spells to protect your mother-in-law. I am not responsible for her state of mind.'

'Wrong again. Without you slipping her happy pills — and this time my guess is lime flowers dried, crushed and added to her wine — Darius would have come unseated at the very first bend of the racetrack.'

Candace tossed her head dismissively. 'Your mother-inlaw laughs because her spirits are high. She jokes because she is at ease.'

'Would she be at ease if she knew her suitor was Felix?'

Candace swallowed. 'Felix has done some bad things, but he is not a bad man.'

'Then you're even more callous than I took you for, you miserable bitch, or doesn't murder count as a "bad thing" in Kush?'

Feline eyes narrowed. 'Don't talk to a Kushite about murder! I could tell you tales that would freeze your blood and turn your hair white, and what if Felix is tortured by memories? What if he is tormented by the fate that befell his wife and his family? This has only come about through the injustice of a conspiracy involving your own husband, and don't pretend to me Gaius Seferius was an angel.'

'If you must know, Candace, he was a bastard.'

Ruthless and brutal in his business dealings, while socializing meant touring the child brothels in search of small boys. Claudia hadn't shed tears for her husband. But in many ways Gaius was an honourable cove, and the idea of him raiding the Imperial treasury seemed anomalous to the point of incredulity. Also, if he and the other five had been co-conspirators, his mother would have made the connection… and so would they.

Darius, Claudia realized, wasn't as smart as he thought…

'But at least Gaius was an uncomplicated bastard,' she told Candace, 'while you, my little wind-walking fraud, have been used. Played like the harp you use in your charades — and I suppose he conned you into funding his exploits?'

Candace laughed. 'See? You know nothing! What I earn is mine. Mine!' She held out her arms to reveal the welter of gold, and yes, always gold. Maybe that's why she took balm of Gilead? To counter the pain of carrying so much weight. 'I told you on Market Day, no one can take this away from me, not Felix, not a thief, not even your State, so there will never be any question of my breaking the law.'

With a crash of cymbals the marriage ceremony was brought to an end, thousands of tiny candles were lit round the idol and the tempo changed again. With wild music and free-flowing wine, the Bridal Dance was about to begin. In the reflection of the sacred pool, the moon rippled silver and full.

'This is about more than money,' Claudia said. 'More than just control.' There was something Candace still wasn't telling.

'I have lived through things I should not have lived through, endured what no living person should have endured,' the sorceress hissed. 'Gold paves the road to freedom like no other. Never more shall I be enslaved!'

The passion exploded like a ripe melon, and suddenly Claudia saw the reason for Candace's mask. How do you preserve your own identity when you have none? You create it. By surrounding herself with mystery and magic, then portraying herself as an instrument of the supernatural, slave becomes master at last.

'Except somewhere along the line, morals become blurred, ethics fade and compassion dies like a thirteen-year-old girl with a rock tied round her waist.'

As the crowd surged forward, eager for a better view of the virgin moons, a child was sent flying and began to cry.

'How dare you!' Candace pressed her nose to Claudia's and the light in her eyes was pure fire. 'This gold is not for the pursuit of avarice. This gold assures our future

'Whose future? Lichas'? Tages'? Vorda's?' The child's crying was closer now, and more harrowing for its insistence. 'Whose freedom are you buying with the blood of their innocence?'

But the answer was not the one Claudia expected, nor did it come from Candace's mouth.

'Mummy, Mummy, Indigo's hurt! Someone trod on her and she's bleeding,' a tiny voice sobbed, stuffing a grazed elbow under Candace's nose. 'Kiss it better, Mummy! Kiss it better!'