Widow's Pique

Sixteen

'My dear, what a wonderful surprise!'

The tints in Salome's hair glistened like rubies beneath the blazing sun.

'And you've saved me a trip to Rovin, as well.'

Leading Claudia away from her armed escort, she took her to a cool shed packed with a fragrant display of oleanders, pinks, larkspur and hibiscus, orange blossom, lilies and orchids, all arranged with breathtaking artistry.

'The day after Zeltane and in celebration of the Earth Goddess Maija, Histrian women pack flowers into the baskets that they've spent all winter weaving, which they then give away. This tradition is known as the Goodwill Basket and the idea is to distribute luck and good fortune to those who need it the most.'

There were scabious and verbena, sweet periwinkle, heads of fluffy, white peonies…

'Tobias's handiwork?'

'That's the beauty of the men who choose to stay on,' Salome said. 'They stay, because they fall in love with this land.'

The thought of the scowling Tobias in love was hard to imagine. Lean and wiry, with a head of thick, springy hair, he struck Claudia as a young man tormented by demons, not angels. But who knows? Perhaps he exorcized them in horticultural perfection?

'Teamwork,' Salome explained. 'Tobias produces these beautiful blooms, Lora fashions them into works of art.'

Lora: the girl with the cascade of waves that fell to her waist, who helped Salome in the treatment room. The same Lora who'd thought to add a remedy for the battered wife's bruises to the preparations she'd been asked to make up. Who'd tickled the chin of a playful grey kitten and stroked a snoozing tomcat. And whose elfin face set like cement when Salome said, Lora, this is Claudia, who's come all the way from Rome to consider the King's proposal of marriage…

'It's a generous gesture,' Claudia said. 'Perhaps the locals will think better of you after this.'

'Bigots are like leopards, they don't change their spots,' Salome replied. 'But in any case, I can't afford to give them the opportunity. Money's far too tight to simply give away such an expensive crop. No, my dear, these are for you to distribute.'

'Me?'

'Mazares thought you might like to continue the May Day tradition of sending Goodwill Baskets to those who might need them…'

'Jarna, for instance?'

Salome smiled. 'You're learning!'

She fixed a chaplet of tight pink rosebuds, pale blue nigella and some feathery white flowers over Claudia's hair, slipped a sprig of myrtle into her own foxy mane, then pursed her lips.

'Just a suggestion, my dear — and this is entirely up to you, of course — but now that you're aware of the custom, have you considered presenting one of these baskets to Mazares?'

'What a splendid idea. Which one contains the poison ivy?'

She diffused her barb with a smile and selected a sumptuous arrangement of yellows and golds with a splash of purple iris thrown in.

'I hope he paid you the full market price,' she added, changing her mind in favour of a display of dazzling blues.

'Better than that. He sent us a pig.'

'Did you say pig?'

'Plump and spotted, not a bit like the crusty old boars you find in the hills, this one's gentle and funny, an absolute darling, and just what I've always wanted. Come along, I'll introduce you.'

'I must be losing my sex appeal,' Claudia grumbled. 'In the past, people introduced me to eligible bachelors.'

'Isn't that the same thing?' Salome giggled.

'It is in Mazares's case,' Lora rasped, stomping in with another basket of blooms under her arm. 'He paid with a pig, because he is a pig.'

'Lora, please.' Salome looked as though she'd been kicked.

'What? I can't speak my mind now? You said it yourself, only a few men can handle the concept of equality and Mazares is not one of them.' Elfin features rounded on Claudia. 'A point you might want to consider, since you'll be marrying King Chauv-'

'That's quite enough, Lora.'

Salome's tone didn't change, but the steel was unmistakable. The girl shrugged one finely plucked eyebrow, laid down her basket then swept out of the shed. In the silence that followed, dust motes danced in the sunshine and bees, spoilt for choice, buzzed industriously round the fragrant displays.

'I apologize for Lora's outburst,' Salome said at last, 'but there's something you need to understand.'

Outside, an army of young girls milked goats and churned cheeses, spun wool and chopped vegetables, while others drew game birds or plucked poultry, and an old woman ground mustard grains with a pestle and mortar. Salome paused to give orders regarding the preparation of dyes and the sharpening of ploughshares before leading her visitor to a seat on the terrace at the back of the house. Shaded by cool, fragrant pines, a fountain gurgled contentedly, butterflies fluttered between urns of valerian and small birds twittered in the canopy above. Across the way, a bed of commercial lilies wafted their scent on the gentle warm breeze.

'Lora labours under the misapprehension that it's because of her that the King's taken against what I do here. It isn't, or, more accurately, it's only part of the problem, but the trouble is — ' the Syrian fixed her green eyes on a gap through the trees to where the sun glistened like diamonds on the sea in the distance '- Lora was married to the King's son, his only heir, you remember. After her husband was killed in the hunt, she came here.'

'Ah.'

Imagination didn't need to stretch far to picture the chauvinistic Histri's reaction to their widowed princess labouring in a commune of women!

'In tribal law, just like Roman law, women belong to the men,' Salome continued. 'Lora had become the prince's chattel upon marriage and in her mind the unrest is down to the simple question of the Histri wanting her back.'

'Do they?'

'Of course. Nothing's changed in that respect, but this farm is Roman and they wouldn't dare launch an aggressive action, though you must have noticed by now that the Histri are a boneheaded bunch. Nothing I say makes a scrap of difference to that woman's viewpoint, although — ' she dabbled her hand in the fountain — 'having said that, she was mighty glad to see you."

'You could have fooled me.'

'Lora's young, and I can't say her manners have improved since she's been here, hence her outburst. I can promise you that won't happen again, but it's troubled her from the day of the funeral that she might be forced into marriage with the King. It wouldn't be the first time this has happened in this country and, as you know, youth always hides fear with aggression.'

Claudia thought of all the scandals that had wracked Rome and decided that none compared to this tiny kingdom. Square foot for square foot, the city just couldn't compete!

'You see, my dear, even the present incumbent of the throne was forced to marry his dead brother's widow.'

'Brae's wife?'

'Exactly. Delmi was the eldest daughter of the King of the Ispydes, a wealthy tribe who, as you know, are outside the Empire but who are nevertheless allies and an important link on the amber road which runs through here to the Baltic.'

She went on to explain. Delmi had been married to Brae for just over three years when the prince died of a fever, but such was her family's power and influence that Histria dare not break the political alliance. Bereft as he was at the loss of his heir, Dol had no choice but to decree that his second son marry Brae's widow, even though the boy was only fifteen at the time.

'Did he mind?'

And more to the point, how did poor Delmi feel, being passed from pillar to post?

Salome shrugged her elegant shoulders. 'The King has always put his country before himself

'There's something I still don't understand,' Claudia said. 'You say Lora believes herself to be the cause of all your rape and pillage, yet she's still here.'

If there was one quality the aristocracy were born with, it was obligation. Duty was the first word they uttered.

'I repeat, boneheaded.' Salome grinned. 'Ultimately, though, it's her choice whether she stays or goes, my doors are open to everyone and, believe me, there's more than enough work to go round!'

The two young widows set off on a slow tour of Amazonia, taking in everything from the spotted pig, snorting happily around her brand-new sty and showing imminent signs of producing piglethood, to the shed where wheat was threshed, to the flock of tiny, dark-brown sheep with arching horns, whose fleeces were in the process of being plucked, not shorn, using special antler combs. Again, the riot of colour on this farm took Claudia's breath away. Yellow lupins, pale blue flax, fields of bright green wheat, but…

'No bonfires, I notice.'

Was that a falter in Salome's step, or just a stone beneath her shoe?

'We don't celebrate Zeltane here, since it's purely a Histrian event.'

Claudia's thoughts drifted to Rome, to where the Festival of Flora was being celebrated over seven days, in which theatres and amphitheatres put on non-stop shows. And every one featuring fire and light… As they looped back towards the farmhouse, goats with shaggy, raggy coats came skipping from the milking shed, bees buzzed round their woven wicker skeps and cattle raised purely for hides lowed softly in the meadow.

'How about May Day?'

Salome's green eyes danced. 'I told you, my dear, I observe all our Roman festivals. As a matter of fact, we are holding our May Banquet tonight. You'll join us, I trust?'

How smoothly her lies unfolded. Claudia studied the sprig of myrtle in Salome's hair, a herb strictly forbidden on May Day, and said nothing would please her more.

'But you must have joined the celebrations out on Rovin?'

'Regrettably not.' Salome stopped to test the bar on a gate. 'Between sowing the millet and fumigating the byres, we're planting and pruning round the clock, cutting the vetches, heaven knows the weeding is endless, and of course we're still breaking in our new bullock, so rather than embarrass myself by falling asleep before the first sacrifice, I find it simpler to collapse into bed.'

Claudia returned her smile, and remembered the nymph in blue tossing purifying herbs into the Fire of Life. The nymph had been heavily veiled, but there was no mistaking that single, loose strand of hair. It was long, and shining — and unmistakably red. Mazares had noticed the wayward strand, too. He had stood there and watched her, his expression quite blank, then he'd taken Claudia's hand and the grip had been firm.

Harbouring the King's widowed daughter-in-law would certainly account for the frisson that rippled between Mazares and Salome the night they bumped into each other. But there was something else. Something deeper. Darker. Of words unspoken, of secrets not told …

Back on the terrace, Claudia stared out at the glittering Adriatic.

Take one clear, calm sea bordered by golden beaches and rocky coves. Add an island of white stone standing sentry over an evergreen archipelago. Mix in one or two blue lagoons, a smattering of coral, a handful of dolphins, and bake under a cloudless sky. Finally, top with two handsome people, who are both charismatic and kind, and you have the recipe for perfection.

Set on the west coast of the Histrian peninsula, by rights this ought to be the Garden of the Hesperides, peopled by gentle, hard-working folk and protected by the invisible walls of imperial rule. Yet Claudia had never felt so alone and so vulnerable.

Or felt the breath of danger so close on her neck.

Orbilio stared at the parchments laid out before him on the inlaid writing desk, each scroll anchored top and bottom with a weighted wooden rod. To the left of the reports was heaped a pile of statistics compiled assiduously by His Imperial Majesty's bean counters and scribes, and, on the right, a stack of wax tablets containing Orbilio's own calculations, which, for once, didn't differ greatly from official figures.

Damn.

His stylus beat a lethargic tattoo on the desk as he stretched his long legs out beneath the table and leaned back in his chair. He had volunteered for this assignment. He had convinced his superiors that to act on evidence that consisted of little more than tittle-tattle, innuendo, jealousy and spite might well lay the Security Police open to charges of incompetence (or worse) if the charges eventually proved false.

His boss, oily little bastard that he was, saw credit either way in taking his advice and holding back, and Orbilio glanced at the report lying uppermost on the pile, a copy of the original sent to none other than the Emperor himself. Whether Augustus had time to read it, given the amount of guff that came his way, was moot, but the point is, the charge had been raised in sufficiently high places that, if proven, it would shower laurels upon the Head of the Security Police and if not, would still be interpreted as another fine example of his conscientiousness. Naturally, it went without saying that Orbilio's name wasn't mentioned: there's no room for two in the stratosphere of glory. Straightening out the parchment, he read the report through again, his eyes automatically picking out the parts that mattered.

Allegations have come to my attention concerning a serious and concerted attempt to destabilize the Empire… fraud on a totally unacceptable scale… undermines the fundamental principles of.. which, if true, will overturn every value dear to… ultimately challenging the whole economy…

Unfortunately, his boss was not exaggerating. The numbers didn't lie, and if this case did come to court, it would attract the highest profile of any seen before in Rome. Such would be the passions raised that civil unrest would be unleashed, sweeping through the city, the suburbs, the whole bloody Empire, with unimaginable — and unpredictable — consequences.

It was absolutely right that the matter be drawn to the Emperor's personal attention, just as it was necessary to be absolutely certain before charging in head first, and he was right to volunteer for the job of gathering the evidence. Even his boss agreed, albeit reluctantly, that his patrician blood made him the best man to do it.

But Orbilio had a bad feeling about this case.

A very, very bad feeling about this case.

The body of the royal physician had been carried back to Gora with as much pomp and ceremony as was possible with a corpse that was missing seven fingers, one left foot and half its thigh bone. Despite the ravages of foxes, lynx and crows, identification was made possible by the distinctive gold amulet still wrapped around his arm, and also by the scattering of medical instruments and personal possessions recovered later from the ravine by the army, the operation overseen by a tribune from Rome in his first year of overseas service.

The tribune might have been young, but he was conscientious. He made a thorough inspection of the valley, of the slope, of the slippery scree at the top of the hill, examined the breaks and fractures of the dead man's bones and then made his report.

It was obvious, he concluded, that, while on his way to Rovin, the royal physician had lost his footing, either in the dark or in the rain, and had tumbled down the forested hillside, sustaining injuries that, if they didn't kill him outright, would have rendered it impossible for him to crawl back up for help. Without access to his own medications and without appropriate clothing (the tribune made a special note of the drop in temperature at night in the interior this time of year), the royal physician's death was ruled a tragic accident.

The tribune also took the opportunity to emphasize in a postscript the dangers of people travelling alone.

And that would have been that, had it not been for an equally young, equally conscientious member of the royal physician's team. He, too, concluded that the bone breaks were consistent with a fall down a hillside, and that such injuries could cause coma and death, assuming exposure hadn't claimed the victim first. But the young doctor had a keen eye. He noticed that the distinctive little bone in the throat called the hyoid was broken. There was no reason to suggest this hadn't happened during the physician's tumble. A root or branch slamming into his adam's apple. Equally, though, this injury was consistent with strangulation, and a far more likely scenario, in the young doctor's opinion.

The question is, who could he tell?

Nosferatu couldn't give a stuff.