Sour Grapes

Two

'Don't be ridiculous.'

Claudia pushed her stepdaughter out of the road, where the girl was single-handedly causing a jam of donkeys, handcarts, wheelbarrows and sheep. Not that Claudia had any particular aversion to gridlock. But the ears of that mule suggested it wasn't going to take much more of the driver's switch stinging its rump, and guess who was closest if it decided to kick?

'Your grandmother can't possibly be mooning over some man-'

'I didn't say mooning.' Flavia had to shout over the bleating of lambs. 'I said she was in love. It's serious.'

'There you go, then.' Claudia steered the girl down a side street lined with balconies that were fragrant with potted hyacinths and narcissus. 'I always said the old bag was soft in the head and this proves it. Now for heaven's sake, pick your feet up or the ceremony will be over before we've reached the wretched bridge.'

Dear Diana, this girl would come last in a snail race, she thought, hooking left at the goldsmith's, and it wasn't as though Flavia was the only lumpy, frumpy, dumpy creature on the marriage market. Rome was teeming with girls every bit as sullen, and they were being snapped up faster than a lizard catches flies. Ducking between the pepper warehouse and a marble store, she thanked Fortune that her late husband had had the good grace to foster Flavia on to his sister when his daughter was born. Inheriting Gaius's entire estate was one thing. Being stuck with this dozy dollop quite another.

'I don't know why we're bothering with this stupid ceremony.'

Typical Flavia. Gripe, gripe, gripe. Moan, moan, moan. Devoted to the great god, Me.

'Because consigning twenty-seven sacred effigies into the Tiber is a solemn religious occasion,' Claudia replied briskly. 'It's high time you stopped thinking of yourself all the time and started thinking of your duty to Rome.'

Or in this case, three hundred sesterces and, as she hastened her pace down the Aventine, Claudia reflected that there was no point in having double standards if you can't live up to both. That bookmaker on Tuscan Street had been taking bets as far back as last Sunday as to which of the Argei would be first past the next pier downriver. It was something to do with the current, she supposed, but Twelve had never failed her in the past.

'Now do stop slouching,' she said, yanking Flavia's shoulders back. 'You're giving hunchbacks a bad name.'

Ahead of them, the river shone silver in the afternoon sun, the reflections of its tree-lined banks rippling gently in the wake of the barges, though the plod of the oxen that pulled them was drowned by the crowds streaming down to the Sublician Bridge.

'I suppose you'd better tell me about your grandmother's latest act of folly,' Claudia said, elbowing her way through the crush for a better view.

Terrible thing, senility, she thought, and Larentia's problems were escalating fast. But how on earth do you reason with a mother-in-law who's got it into her head that there's a jinx going round and, fearful of catching it, takes herself off to the hills on the principle that if fir trees can filter germs and prevent people from catching a cold, why can't they stop someone from catching bad luck? Unfortunately, Larentia's faculties weren't fading so fast that she returned home any less waspish, but when a straight-talking, straightforward, cantankerous old battle-axe announces that she's installing a sorceress called Candace to cast spells to protect her, Claudia felt it would be like kicking a puppy to throw the charlatan out.

'Who do we need to apologize to for your grandmother's unwanted attentions?' she asked, as the Vestal Virgins lined up against the parapet.

A flute began to play, and twenty female acolytes dressed in white were joined by the Priestess of Jupiter, bringing the tally of celebrants to twenty-seven. With great solemnity, each was handed a small white effigy, little doughboys who had been baked hard and dusted in flour, and who were now set to propitiate Old Man Tiber. Claudia concentrated hard on Number Twelve as the effigies were released. Swim, three hundred sesterces, swim…

'They're not unwanted,' Flavia said, her perpetually turned-down mouth turning down even further. 'Some old fogey called Darius has asked her to marry him.'

Fifteen, Eighteen and Twenty-Two smashed on impact, Three, Five and Ten washed up on the bank, while numbers Twenty-Three to Twenty-Seven had already sunk to the bottom.

'Nonsense.'

Claudia's knuckles gripped the wooden rail. Two, Four and Seven were stuck in an eddy, Six and Eight were turning to mush. Come on Number Twelve! You can make it!

'Who on earth would want to marry your grandmother? She has no money.'

Claudia had inherited every copper quadran of her husband's estate and frankly the old bag was lucky to get an allowance. It had been open warfare from the day Gaius introduced his pretty, witty trophy wife to his mother — the only difference was, wars usually end.

'Who cares?' Flavia shrugged. 'Darius is rolling.'

Nineteen, Twenty and Twenty-One were caught in the weeds. It was the mid-runners, as usual, swirling downstream, although Number One might yet pull a surprise from the left.

'Then good luck to them,' Claudia said as Sixteen and Seventeen bumped heads and span off in separate directions. Down to six little effigies left in the running, one of them worth three hundred sesterces.

'Luck has nothing to do with it, according to Candace.' Flavia was more interested in chewing her nails than watching the race. 'It was the spirits that brought the two love birds together, she says, and she says my father's given the wedding his seal of approval, as well.'

Twelve gods on Olympus, it has to be lucky. Come on, come on, Number Twelve!

'Flavia, sweetheart, your father's been in his grave for three years. He can't possibly give the marriage his blessing.'

A swirl in the current put paid to Number Nine. Five little doughboys remained.

'Oh, yes, he can! Candace has spoken to him. She walks the wind and communes with the dead, and she's even let me talk to Papa myself. He's terribly well, honestly, and very happy where he is.'

Number One, the outsider, hit a dead cow floating down. It was neck and neck between Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen and Fourteen.

'And where exactly is your father, did he say?'

Only someone in the last throes of senility couldn't see through this Candace fraud. Correction. Only someone in the last throes of senility and a sulky teenage brat!

'Never thought to ask, but he sends you his love.'

'Does he indeed?'

Things were looking good. Eleven had sunk, while Fourteen snagged in the current and was starting to come back upstream.

'You know, Flavia, I think I might just go up to Mercurium and have a cosy chat with your father myself.'

Communing with the dead, my eye, and besides, it was high time Claudia looked in on those Tuscan vineyards. She was, after all, a wine merchant. Wouldn't hurt to see where the stuff came from, she supposed… And now it was just Twelve and Thirteen neck and neck. Yes, definitely something to do with the current.

'If you think I'm coming with you, you're mistaken. It's boring.'

'Nonsense, you'll have your father to talk to.'

'You only want me up there so you can palm me off on some dreary old fart in the country, where I'd just die.'

'Trust me,' Claudia assured her. 'That's not what I have planned, and since your foster mother's stuck in Naples looking after her sick cousin, you're in my care and what I say goes… Bugger.'

Thirteen had sailed straight under the bridge, and where was Number Twelve? Splattered all over the bloody pier, that's where it was, having crashed at the very last turn. Claudia felt a hole well up inside where three hundred sesterces should have been as the remnants of her effigy were devoured by six hungry ducks. How was she supposed to pay off her creditors now?

'You've gone green,' Flavia observed cheerfully. 'Is it something you ate?'

'No, that's just the taste of dreams being swallowed.'

Dreams of not being permanently in debt. Dreams of not having to constantly look over her shoulder. Dreams of freeing the shackles once and for all…

One by one, the crowd began to disperse, until only stepmother and stepdaughter remained peering into the thick, muddy waters. Oh, well. Claudia's fortunes might be dashed on the piers and the soothsayer might well be a fraud, but thanks to Doddering Darius, Larentia was one burden Claudia would no longer have to shoulder — and shortly, Fortune willing, the weight of financing her stepdaughter and funding the girl's sponges of foster parents would also be lifted from her.

'Flavia, there's something I need to talk to you about.'

'If it's about picking my nose in public, Aunt Julia's already worn her tonsils down on that one.'

'Yes. Well. We'll discuss that endearing habit another time.' Claudia took hold of the girl's hand, because this was no time to have the silly cow run off. 'The thing is, we — that is, your foster parents and I — have found the perfect husband for you, um, darling. His name is…' Wait, it would come to her. 'His name… Anyway, the point is, he's a wonderful boy.'

Bit gangly perhaps, and maybe his front teeth did cross a tad, though quite honestly it was hardly noticeable unless he laughed. But the law was the law. If a woman was of childbearing age, she was obliged to marry and bear children and the State was unequivocal. Choose a husband yourself or have one appointed for you, and despite being the daughter of a prestigious wine merchant, Flavia was rapidly running out of options. Every time the family identified a suitable candidate, she'd fob him off until it reached the point where her maidenhood was the only thing that kept suitors knocking on her door. For once, virginity could not be underestimated.

'He's honest, reliable, not at all the type to sleep around, drink or gamble, and everyone agrees that he'll make you an admirable husband.'

'Nope.'

'He's wealthy, his parents are extremely nice people, you'd have your own house here in Rome, where your babies can be reared in comfort with the help of the very finest physicians-'

'No, no, no, no, and in case you're not getting the message, no.'

'All right, it mightn't be a match made in heaven, but — ha, ha, ha — even in those marriages the day-to-day maintenance is done here on earth.'

'Don't care.' Flavia snatched her little fat hand back. 'I'm not having Honest-and-Admirable's babies and that's final.' She crossed her arms over her chest to prove the point. 'I'm having Orson's.'

'Are you, indeed. And who's Orson?'

'Honestly!' Flavia rolled her eyes contemptuously. 'He's the boy who made me pregnant, of course.'