Widow's Pique

Twenty-Seven

Nosferatu had to be stopped, the question was, how? How could Claudia possibly hope to stop the carnage that was tearing this kingdom apart without help?

Clouds had begun rolling in from the east, turning the clear azure sea to grey sludge and trapping the heat under their soft, downy blanket, but the mounting excitement meant that nobody on Rovin gave a hoot about any downturn in weather. The noise was deafening, with everyone shouting at once as fathers strutted impatiently, virgins clustered together like newly hatched chicks and bidders inspected the goods. Claudia could only imagine how rich the pickings would be for those light-hands gliding artfully through the throng. The auction had attracted crowds from as far afield as Liburnia, Dalmatia and Venetia, and to jolly things up musicians in fringed jerkins played the pipes, acrobats tumbled and a thickset Illyrian danced a bored-looking bear. Claudia was dressed in keeping with local tradition, because, wouldn't you just know that in a country where men wear pants instead of tunics and have no use for a barber, they'd be contrary to the end and marry in black? Her hair also hung loose down her back and, since jewellery was banned (oh, please! — such baubles must not be allowed to influence a man's choice of bride!), at least she had no fear of being robbed.

But not all contracts today were for marriage. In the shade of the fountain, salt sellers negotiated deal after deal as their assistants hacked lumps off the block. A Phoenician in ruby-red slippers hawked mirrors, an Armenian ivory carver touted bangles and combs and a long queue stretched back for the visiting oculist, who was dispensing the same remedy for night blindness as for eyes that were discharging pus.

'Thought I might find you down here.'

Claudia smelled the sandalwood before she turned. He was back in his long, patrician gown, she noticed, and wore the toga as a mark of respect for the occasion.

'How did you recognize me?'

'Easy,' Marcus breezed. 'Like picking out a horse. First, one discounts distinguishing features, such as blondes, redheads, fat girls, slouchers-'

'Picking out a horse?'

'Would you have preferred it if I'd said cows?'

Further along the quayside, a cloth merchant from India rolled bale upon bale of jewel-coloured cottons over the flagstones, drawing gasps with each imaginative dye, and an Arabian sea captain tossed back a flagon of wine. You could always tell the Arabians. They shaved the whole of their head, apart from a circular mop on the top. Tough luck, she supposed, if you were an Arabian who went bald. The captain tossed back another full flagon — he was obviously on for a bet — and now the auctioneers were taking their place on the bench with the King, fortifying themselves with a glass of strong wine before the haggling started in earnest.

'I presume your intention was to mingle unobtrusively?'

Claudia said nothing, since to state the obvious was to waste breath.

'Black suits you,' he said. 'Plus, you don't look half so ballsy with your hair down.'

'Black makes me look like a crow,' she retorted, 'and I look ballsy with my hair up or down. And now that we've dispensed with the flattery, can we cut to the chase, please?'

There was something different about him this morning, she decided. He looked… well, not like when he retreated to the house at day break, that's for sure! Then, his brows were knitted tighter than the stitching on a saddle blanket and he seemed bowed by the cares of the world. But now, within the space of a couple of hours, no prisoner given a last-minute stay of execution could have a broader grin etched between his ears. Orbilio seemed younger, happier, taller, lighter — as though he was floating on air for some reason and, though it was an odd thing to say about a man built like a gladiator and towering several inches above her, he looked weightless this morning. Dear Diana, if she lived to be a hundred, she'd never understand aristocrats.

'Two things,' he said. 'One, I thought you might be interested in hearing Orbilio's Great Hypothesis concerning the young physician and Rosmerta's encounter with a roof tile.'

'You thought wrong.'

'No, please, I beg you to curb your impatience, madam! But before I let you prise my conclusions out of me-'

'Prize conclusions from the Security Police is a contradiction in terms.'

'-I want to talk about something you said when you were declining the King's proposal last night.'

'News travels fast.'

'Not as fast as it travels when one listens at keyholes, but that's not the point. I-'

'Attention, please.'

The order was amplified thanks to a bronze trumpet which had been sawn off half a cubit up from its mouth.

'Would all remaining brides gather in the area outlined in chalk.'

Claudia snorted. Whatever you call it, it was still a cattle pen.

'That means you, dear,' the trumpet added.

Claudia looked over her shoulder.

'Yes, you, miss. Come along.'

She still couldn't see who they meant. Then her shoulder-blades received a jolt.

'Don't be shy, dearie,' an old hag cackled, shoving her forward. 'Yer a pretty gal, someone'll soon snap yer up.'

'Me?'

She spun round, but there was no spotless white toga in sight, and now she was being propelled through the crowd at such speed that her feet were barely touching the ground.

'Let go of me, you son-of-a-bi-'

'Mistress Seferius.'

Mazares's smile was more wolfish than ever.

'I hadn't expected you to indulge so wholeheartedly in our customs, but since you've decided to join us, perhaps we could start the bidding this morning with you?'

'Dammit,' she hissed. 'He put me up to this.'

Twin fireballs scorched the spotless patrician tunic sitting beside him. Orbilio grinned happily while the girl who had been deemed the prettiest of the prospective brides glowered daggers at the interloper who was now setting off the auction instead of her, snapping up the richest husband for herself, the scheming bitch.

The auctioneer's hammer tapped twice. 'Any bids?'

'Three thousand sesterces,' Orbilio said, as the steward dragged Claudia into the arena and paraded her like a prize bull.

'Three thousand?' the crowd gasped.

They were used to dealing in hundreds.

'Three thousand?' Claudia protested.

Sweet Janus, his tailoring bill cost less than that.

'Quite right,' Marcus told the auctioneer. 'Make it two thousand five hundred.'

The crowd laughed.

'So help me, Orbilio, I will kill you,' she vowed under her breath.

'Believe me, it's for your own safety,' he hissed back through his grin.

'This is degrading, humiliating and utterly outrageous.'

'Agreed, but not dangerous. Oh, very well,' he called across to the auctioneer. 'Two thousand, but that's my final offer.'

The whole quayside had doubled up and were wiping their eyes.

'Stop!'

The laughter stopped abruptly and all heads turned towards the woman who had grabbed the trumpet from the unsuspecting flunky's hand and was marching purposefully into the square.

'Mazares, I insist you stop this monstrous ritual at once!'

The speaker was dressed head to foot in white robes, but it wasn't her protest that made people draw breath. Rather that her features were elfin and her hair fell down her back in walnut cascades.

'Lora!'

Mazares was off the podium and into the plaza in the blink of an eye.

'Lora, how are you, my dear? Are you well? Are you happy?'

His reaction completely wrong-footed his daughter-in-law. The set of her chin suggested she'd been expecting anger and reproach, a fight to avoid the armed guards, yet the King's sole concern was for Lora's welfare, and it occurred to Claudia that, for all her rantings against him, what that girl wanted to do was throw her arms around Mazares and hug him. But rebels have an obligation to their cause and, behind her, a whole swarm of women in white were pushing their way through the astonished crowd. Plump smiling Naim was among them, Claudia noticed, and freckle-faced Mo, and the Nordic beauty was there, too. Bonni, the girl with white hair and black fingers, which Claudia now knew to be ink stains, thus making her the forger in Salome's racket. And amazingly, surging forward with purpose, there was Jarna, the tanner's wife, the fresh bruising round her eye clearly the catalyst for her change of heart. Noting the frowns of uncertainty which had begun to ripple over her followers' faces, Lora cleared her throat and spoke authoritatively into the trumpet.

'These archaic auctions cannot go on,' she announced. 'It's time we women had a say in our own future and I say, it's up to us, who we choose for our husbands. It's us who decide who's good enough to sire our sons…'

In the riot that erupted, Claudia found it very easy to slip back into the crowd as Lora urged women to stop being door mats, to accept that they had rights equal to their menfolk, and to damn well start using them.

'Don't let yourselves be sold off to useless lumps of gristle and fat, just because they happen to be rich! Don't sacrifice love because it's what your mothers did and their mothers before them! Now is the time to stand up for yourselves, girls! Take what's yours by right and say no to this abomination that passes for marriage!'

'Hisssssss.'

'Hurrah!'

'Booooo.'

'And what might a young grieving widow's opinion of those sentiments be, I wonder?' a baritone rumbled in Claudia's ear.

'I condemn them entirely,' she replied tartly, because he was still the Security Police, and the Security Police, as everyone knows, never sleep.

'Just as I thought.'

Mazares was doing his best to calm the upsurge that had gripped both sexes with passion, but, King or no King, he lacked the tactical advantage of Lora's metal trumpet, meaning it was his daughter-in-law's exhortations that rang over the crowd.

'I say no to being sold off like cattle! No to being herded like sheep!'

'It's a funny thing,' Orbilio murmured, 'but I could have sworn I saw a flash of lemon cotton beneath the black when you bit that steward back there.'

'Tch, and you'd think the aristocracy would teach their children not to swear.'

'I would do more than swear, if I thought you were trying to sneak off the island.' He stepped in front, blocking her progress. 'This is a dangerous game being played.'

'Really? Because last time it was all in my mind.'

'You intend going to Amazonia, don't you?'

With Pavan, Kazan and Drilo stuck here for the auction, a ritual that not even the Terrible Twosome, Marek and Mir, would dare miss, there was no better time to go visiting, and although Claudia's money was still on Pavan as Salome's accomplice (or vice versa), she couldn't take chances at this stage. If she was to confront the lioness in her den, now was the moment — an opportunity made even more attractive, seeing that Lora had depleted the Amazonian workforce.

'Certainly not!' she retorted. 'It was a long night, I'm tired and I just want to lie down.'

Something came from his throat that sounded like hrrumph.

'Honestly, Marcus,' she said, and there was enough honey in her voice to drain a beehive. 'The combination of that fall down the stairs, the run-in with thugs at Salome's farm, and now Raspor's body washing up, has given me a terrible headache.'

He might be lighter than air this morning, but his scepticism remained firmly rooted.

'I have no intention of doing anything more strenuous than resting for a couple of hours in my bedroom,' she persisted smoothly. 'And since Mazares insisted on posting an armed guard at my door, I'm quite safe, and frankly, Marcus, the best place for you to be is at the King's side. He's in far more danger than I am.'

Another hrrumph, but at least this one seemed to be in a mood of concession.

'You promise?'

'Cross my heart.'

'Very well,' he said grudgingly. 'I'll stick with Mazares.' He turned, then turned back. 'But you give me your word?'

Claudia shot him her most radiant smile.

'Would I lie about something as serious as this?' she asked, frantically signalling behind her back for the ferryman on the other side of the channel to cross over.

The third hrrumph was somewhat reluctant, but finally, urging her to take care and trust no one, Orbilio fought his way back to the King, leaving Claudia to marvel at the aristocracy's ability to dish out advice which they themselves had no intention of taking.

Amazonia was eerily quiet, but the riot of perfume and colour was as explosive as ever. Herbs for remedies, flowers for market, trees for fruit, vegetables for the table. The fecundity of the farm bounced off in waves, and again she was struck by the deep sense of serenity that pervaded the land. They say it's a woman's touch that turns a house into a home. Imagine, then, the effect of several hundred women. Happiness and harmony pulsed from the soil and dripped from the blossoming trees. Claudia checked the dagger hidden deep in the folds of her pale lemon gown and the thin blade strapped to her calf.

Tethering her horse at the gate, she worked her way round to the farmhouse. Several fields were horribly blackened, the crops all but wiped out, but the majority of the land was remarkably unscathed, proving that Salome's Amazons had been well trained in their fire drill, and although the thatches on many of the storehouses had burned through, Tobias was busy sawing timbers to make a framework for tiles, not thatch, thus ensuring the buildings could not be destroyed so easily in the future.

He was, of course, assuming that this farm had a future.

She watched him, stripped to the waist, scowling as his saw rasped through the wood, and the muscles in his arms were corded and strong, and the flesh on his back tight and tanned. He would probably be handsome if he only smiled, and she moved on before he turned round to measure the next section of timber.

The thatch on the pigsty hadn't been touched. It lay where it had collapsed, but the black spotted sow didn't mind. She had used the scorched grass for her bedding and lay sprawled on her side, oinking away as five tiny pink piglets suckled and squeaked, blissfully unaware of the dark clouds that gathered above.

'Clever girl,' Claudia whispered, and suddenly she was gripped by an uncontrollable shuddering as images of that night came surging back.

Screams. Flames. The sow crashing against the walls of her sty in blind panic, resulting in stillborn piglets that she would have eaten the minute she'd birthed them, and rage shot through every inch of Claudia's body. How dare they? How dare they set fire to crops, destroy buildings, rape virgins, for no motive other than bigotry? Inflicting pain and destruction simply to exert some kind of control? The rapists were dead, the arsonists shunned, but their chauvinism had not been erased, and no wonder Lora fought so passionately for what she believed in. Rosmerta said Lora had loved Delmi like a mother. Claudia gave an affectionate tweak to the pig's ear and patted her spotted rump. Lora and Delmi. Two women who had been contracted into loveless alliances would have much in common, and if Lora picked up that baton when Delmi died, her zeal would have been further fuelled by Salome's obsessive commitment to equality. This would have escalated into contempt for the King's tolerance of what she considered cold, heartless practices, firing a desire to turn the situation about.

'What it is to be young,' Claudia murmured to the donkeys grazing the lush grass in the orchard. 'To have ideals you still believe are worth fighting for.'

Even if elfin-faced Lora didn't understand the finer points of anarchy! Such as how the King and Mazares are one. Bound by duty, the two are inseparable, and if Lora had loved Delmi, it was obvious that, in spite of herself, she adored Mazares as well.

'Ah, but the passion,' Claudia told the geese dabbling on the fringes of the pond. 'What passion beats in young hearts!'

Croesus.

She stopped short, watching bees buzz round the yellow iris on the margins, listening to the frogs croak in the shallows.

That was it!

Passion!

Passion was the key to this mystery.

Passion was at the heart of it all.

Her instinct had been to assume the killings were in aid of an uprising against Rome, but this was wrong. She saw now that this carefully planned elimination of anything and anyone who stood in Nosferatu's way was because Histria wasn't Roman enough. Stuff independence! Nosferatu was after closer links with the Empire, not fewer, and although the arch-ghoul would probably call it 'siding wholeheartedly', it was only by sucking up to Augustus that the country's influence and supremacy could grow at the speed Nosferatu was after.

Passion.

Passion for glory, passion for control, passion for Rome and all things Roman, like law, like trade, like progress.

But most especially, passion for power…

Oh, yes, Nosferatu sighed, it was passion all right. Passion for glory, passion for control, passion for Rome and all things Roman.

Like law.

Like trade.

Like progress.

But especially passion for power.

Sweet Janus, it was just a hair's breadth away, too…