Sour Grapes

Seven

'Come,' Candace drawled. 'Draw closer, my friends, for it is cold.' The sound of her chafing arms could be heard in the darkness, even over the jangling of her jewellery. 'But I ask you to ignore the chill in the air and to concentrate on the music. Listen only to the strings of the harp. Feel the restful beat of the rhythm.'

The audience duly obeyed.

'The music of the harp is the gateway to the Underworld,' she intoned in her dark velvet voice. 'Through this gateway we will pass together, entering the domain of the dead, walking where no living person has trod. Is there any amongst us who wishes not to enter this world?'

Claudia expected Thalia to back out, but either her brother had a strong grip or she had a genuine interest in staying, because nobody made any effort to move.

'Good,' Candace crooned. 'Because now I will begin the journey that takes me from this warm, physical plane to the cold winds that blow over the Fields of the Blessed.' She cleared her throat and the pitch of her voice deepened. 'O Vanth, Demon of Death, who has eyes on her wings and sees everything, hear me. Accept this gift of my blood — '

The unmistakable sound of liquid splashing on to the floor made Claudia's stomach clench.

' — to enrich the senses of those whom we summon.' Three metallic raps tapped the mosaic, the same taps that she'd tested the bronze rod with earlier.

'O Leinth, who waits at the Gates of the Underworld and drinks of human tears, I call upon you also, that you might turn your featureless face to the stone.'

Three more raps of the bronze rod.

'By the Falcon of the Sun, by the Vultures of the Moon, I bid ye spirits let me enter.'

The knock that was returned didn't come from any slender bronze rod. It reverberated from the ceiling, from the walls, rose up through the floor. Knock. Knock. Knock.

'Enter, sorceress,' a voice echoed from everywhere and nowhere. 'Enter the Dark Kingdom and be welcome.'

At first Claudia was unaware of the smoke. It was only when Darius's dry cough erupted that she realized coils of grey had intruded through the blackness, to be joined by a smell of sulphur, odious and repulsive, that mingled with the incense then was gone.

'I am…' Candace's voice faltered. 'I am crossing the threshold,' she finished weakly, followed by the unambiguous thud of a body collapsing in a dead faint on the floor.

It was as though a winter wind blew down from the Alps. Claudia felt it round her neck, round her ankles, she felt it creep into her marrow, and now the smoke was back, curling, swirling, spiralling horizontally around the room. She could see nothing. Simply blackness and smoke, and the only sound was Darius's intermittent cough and the hypnotic strum of the harp. Time stood still. Nothing happened, then …

'Claudia, my dove,' a male voice chuckled. 'How the devil are you, my sweet?'

The breath caught in her throat. Only one man had ever called her his dove. 'G-Gaius?'

'Don't sound so worried, my pet. I've never left you, not for a minute.'

As if to prove it, she felt a soft brush against her arm.

'I am always watching over you,' he said tenderly, 'have no fear of that, and if it's of any comfort, I am delighted with the way you've handled the business. With the Guild of Wine Merchants snapping at your heels, it was never going to be easy, but I am proud of you, my little angel. I am proud of how you've handled my daughter's affairs and — ' Claudia swore she felt a soft pat on the head '- I'm proud of the way you've taken care of my family.'

The cold intensified. She clasped her hands to stop them from shaking.

'And you, Mama.' A droll chuckle echoed from every corner of the hall. 'I'm proud of you, too. At your age, you minx! Have you two love birds set a date, yet?'

'Well, um, no…' Larentia sounded embarrassed.

'Then you should, Mama! You must! The Ferryman rowed me to Hades before my allotted span. Who's better placed than I to know how important it is to make the most of one's time on earth?'

'What do you say, Ren?' Darius asked through a throat full of gravel stones. 'Why not set a date right here and now?'

'I… er… '

'Why, Mama, someone else wishes to speak with you.'

'Renni,' a coarse voice croaked. 'How are yer, gel?'

'Husband?'

Claudia sensed, rather than saw, her mother-in-law shoot upright in her seat. Still the harpist's fingers continued to strum.

'Right first time, gel, but then you always was a good guesser. Missed yer, I must say. It's been bloody cold here without yer to warm me at night, but the boy's right, love. Grasp the nettle, while you've got strength to hold it.'

'But what about when… when, I… you know, cross over myself?'

'Things is different this side, yer'll see. There's no envy nor greed nor jealousy down here. We're one big happy family us, so don't yer go worrying yer pretty head about that. Enjoy yerself, gel. You deserve it.'

Other things followed. Rex talked to the wife he'd lost twenty years before, almost reducing the old soldier to tears. Lars had a quick word in Etruscan with a school friend who'd died in childhood. While Eunice steadfastly declined to speak to her cousin, claiming that the odious woman had refused to bother when she was alive, she could jolly well go hang herself now she was dead. Then Thalia piped up, wondering if she might make contact with her late husband as there was something important she wanted to tell him, but unfortunately the husband was unable to come through. The gateway, it seemed, was starting to close.

And once it did, it closed with a crash.

When the brazier in the east corner toppled out of its holder, everyone jumped and even the harpist missed his string. But before anyone had mustered enough breath to speak, a vase of cornflowers by the door smashed on to the floor. Someone gasped. Claudia thought it might have been her.

'Sweet Janus,' Eunice breathed, as sulphur engulfed the room.

'What's happening?' Thalia shrieked. 'What's going on?'

'Th-this… this has never…' Larentia's voice was unrecognizable under the fear.

Suddenly the jug of wine on one of the tables raised itself high in the air and hurled itself across the room, yet even before it hit the wall a stool overturned and figurines of ivory, onyx and silver began flying off their display.

Then it was gone.

The smoke, the cold, the smell of sulphur, suddenly they were gone, and the room lapsed back into a silence broken only by the drip-drip-drip of wine down the wall and the soft strings of the harp, though even their hypnotic cadence had been broken.

'Lights!' Rex was the first to speak. 'Someone light the bloody lamps, for gods' sake!'

Terrence, being closest to the door, fumbled his way across the room, cursing as his shin cracked against an overturned chair. Instantly, light from the atrium flooded the dining hall and slaves rushed forward to light the wicks, their open jaws betraying the destruction that confronted them. Glass, water, flowers, furniture, the desecration was everywhere. Stillrocking ornaments littered the mosaic. Wine drizzled like blood down the exquisite frescoes. Lumps of incense resin glued themselves to the woodwork.

Thalia's scream was like nails down a blackboard. 'Candace!'

Overtaken by events, the sorceress had been completely forgotten.

'Oh my god, Terrence! Look at the blood! Terrence, she's dead!'

'No, she's not.' Orbilio placed his finger on the pulse in

Candace's neck, and Claudia saw that it was only the blood she'd let splash on the floor that had seeped into her robes where she had fallen. Beneath the heavy embroidery and gold thread, the sorceress's breast rose and fell.

'Candace, speak to us.' Larentia leaned over and gently slapped the girl's cheeks. 'Candace!'

'Would ye look at that, now,' Lars exclaimed softly.

'Jupiter's bollocks!' Rex leaned over for a closer inspection. 'In all my years on the battlefield, I've never seen anything like it. It's healed. The wound on her forearm has healed.'

'Someone open the doors to the terrace,' Orbilio ordered, scooping her up in his arms. 'Quickly, please.'

Claudia was the closest and outside in the fresh air Candace's eyelashes began to flutter and her unfocused eyes rolled as he set her down in a chair. Whatever words she muttered, the language was not Latin.

'Drink this.' Orbilio coaxed a few drops of water past her trembling lips.

'Did… did they come?' she asked thickly. 'The spirits. Did they come through?'

'They came through all right,' he assured her. 'Can you stand?'

'I… think so.'

She was wrong. The same legs that came right up to her armpits wobbled precariously when left to their own devices, and two muscular slaves were entrusted to escort the sorceress back to her room. In the dining hall, Larentia seemed mesmerized by the stains on the wall, Thalia was sobbing silently from the shock, and though Eunice comforted her by rubbing her shoulders, you could see from her white face that she was shaken herself, while the men stood with their feet planted squarely apart staring down at the floor, the walls, their own feet — anywhere, in fact, but at each other.

Out on the terrace, Orbilio took ten paces away from the house, clasped his hands behind his back and stared up at the star-studded sky.

'I have to hand it to you, Claudia Seferius. You lie, cheat and steal, you fiddle your taxes, you make fraudulent deals, you forge signatures, documents and seals — plus you gamble, which is also against the law. But

He began to rock on his heels. Maybe he'd been shaken by tonight's events more than he let on, because in the light of the three-quarter moon it seemed as though his shoulders were shaking.

'But no one can ever accuse you of not throwing a bloody good party.'