Sour Grapes

by Marilyn Todd

  ‘No, I don’t, and it was stupid of me to ask. People have to take responsibility for their own lives,’ Larentia announced. ‘The miller should have picked a better ass.’

  ‘So should his sister-in-law,’ Eunice said, and everyone laughed.

  But as the remnants of the main course were wheeled out and fruits and sweetmeats brought in, Claudia noticed once again the watchful look in Candace’s eye, and how Darius managed to bunch his facial muscles into a smile when he chuckled, even though the expression inside was as hard as a stone.

  ‘I think it’s fair to say Rex isn’t coming tonight,’ Larentia sighed, ‘although I think he could at least have had the decency to send a note of apology.’

  Claudia sank her teeth into a juicy red cherry. Rex?

  ‘Trust me,’ Terrence said, ‘if that man hasn’t sent a message, he’s simply running late.’

  ‘I thought generals were supposed to be on time.’

  ‘Maybe that’s one of the benefits of retirement?’ Darius suggested, suppressing a soft cough. ‘No longer bound to the great imperial clock.’

  ‘And he does have to ride over from the far side of Mercurium,’ Lars pointed out in his soft Etruscan brogue. ‘His horse might have thrown a shoe.’

  ‘His loss,’ Larentia snapped, and Claudia was glad to see the dragon’s spleen was still working. ‘The opportunity to commune with lost loved ones doesn’t knock every day and he won’t be butting in after we’ve started. Once Candace has summoned the spirits, that’s it.’

  Claudia glanced at the sorceress, reaching for a wine cake with long, elegant fingers. Tonight, she had crooned earlier in the peristyle. Tonight husband and wife will be reunited, you have my promise on that, the velvety tone of her voice suggesting a close and intimate encounter pledged on the spur of the moment. Huh! Tonight’s ‘walking on winds’ had been planned long in advance, with half of Tuscany participating! But so long as the spider lures its fly, the end no doubt justified the means, and Claudia could only admire the spider’s skill.

  ‘Perhaps Rex is tied up with repairs to his estate?’ Thalia suggested. She turned to Claudia. ‘We had a terrible storm at the weekend—’

  ‘You’ve already told her that,’ Terrence said.

  ‘Have I? Sorry.’

  ‘That was the night Tages the shepherd boy went missing, wasn’t it?’ Claudia asked, ignoring him. ‘Has he turned up yet?’

  ‘No,’ Thalia said, ‘and his poor grandmother’s out of her mind with worry. Of course, when I say out of her mind, I don’t mean possessed like the goldbeater’s uncle they have to keep chained—’

  ‘Good god, woman, you sound like a fishwife,’ Terrence hissed under his breath. ‘For heaven’s sake, can’t you find an interesting subject to discuss, instead of dredging up gossip?’

  ‘Talking of repairs,’ Eunice breezed, ‘did you hear? The wind tore the roof clean off the Temple of Juno in the night.’

  ‘There was no wind,’ Larentia pointed out.

  Eunice shrugged. ‘Be that as it may, darling, the whole inner sanctum was stripped bare, leaving poor Juno gazing up at the stars. Can you imagine? You know how bitterly she resents Hercules being up there!’

  ‘No woman likes to see a bastard son take preference over her own offspring,’ Terrence pointed out. ‘Especially when he’s rewarded with his own constellation—’

  ‘Sorry I’m late, everyone,’ a military voice boomed from the atrium. ‘Brought you a few cheeses, Larentia. Trust that compensates.’

  ‘More than, thank you,’ Larentia called back, explaining to the rest of the company that the sheep on Rex’s pastures produced the finest pecorino in Tuscany. ‘He claims it’s the herbs that grow wild in his meadows. I believe it’s because he personally drills his lambs from the moment they’re born, and I swear they never go baa, only yessir.’

  Larentia cracking jokes? Dear Diana, whatever next!

  ‘Got caught up in that wretched kafuffle in Mercurium,’ Rex explained, bustling in. Bull-necked, beetle-browed and jowly, he was every inch the retired soldier. ‘Scandalous, what. Absolute bloody disgrace.’

  ‘What is?’ Darius asked, squeezing up to make room on his couch for the general.

  Rex kicked off his sandals and joined him. ‘Jupiter’s bollocks, I thought everyone’d heard by now; it’s all over town.’ He paused to take a long draught of wine. ‘When the tiler went up to start on repairs at the temple, he discovered that Juno’s statue had been daubed red like a bloody Etruscan.’ He tipped his head toward Lars. ‘No offence, old man.’

  ‘None taken,’ Lars said.

  ‘Only kids mucking about, I know, but the sooner Rome sorts out this ridiculous Fufluns business, the better—again, no offence, Lars. Which reminds me, Larentia. Hope you don’t mind, but I’ve invited my young nephew along later. Been staying with me for a few days. Asked if he might tag along.’

  ‘Whofluns?’ Claudia asked, but Rex had galloped off on a different tack, something to do with skinning hooligans alive, she believed, and nailing their scalps to the basilica walls. It was left to Lars to explain.

  ‘Fufluns,’ he said, in his soft rolling brogue. ‘Since the might of the Etruscan military was superseded—and isn’t it amazing how few folk remember that we once controlled Rome, not the other way round? Aye, well. So much of our heritage has been absorbed, bastardized or copied by Rome that it’s not surprising our history disappears in the process.’

  ‘Except for Fufluns?’

  When he leaned towards her, she caught a faint whiff of his musky unguent. ‘You take our Menvra, put her in a grand hall of marble and call her Minerva. You take our god of purification and name your month of February after him. And you just kidnap Fortuna and Vesta without even pretending to go through the motions.’ He clucked his tongue. ‘Make no mistake, though. We Etruscans aren’t welded to temples of wood that rot in the winter, and we’re not obsessed with the blowing of trumpets when we’re used to hearing the drums. Between you and me, there’s many things we’re very happy to let slide.’ Without thinking, his fingers went to the amulet that hung from a thong round his neck. ‘But when we lift our eyes to our hillsides and see them covered with the vineyards laid out by our ancestors, we draw a line.’

  Ah. ‘Fufluns is your god of wine.’

  ‘Wine features strongly in his divinity, aye,’ Lars said, refilling her goblet. ‘Except Fufluns represents much, much more. He’s one of the earth gods who make their abode in the south, and as such Fufluns embodies vitality, fertility, merriment, joy and all the other earthly pleasures that can be obtained from the careful nurturing of the vine.’

  Claudia raised her glass. ‘I’m all for keeping happiness sacred.’

  ‘So are the folk of Mercurium, which makes the sacrilege at the Temple of Juno doubly distressing, since we’re approaching the full moon, when the Brides of Fufluns dance in front of their idol.’

  All credit to Rex, Claudia thought, in sticking up for local principles, though surely he had the whole thing back to front? ‘If this was hooligans on the rampage, wouldn’t they have desecrated your god’s statue rather than one of their own?’

  ‘Absolutely.’ Lars nodded emphatically. ‘The defacement of Juno was made to look like an act of wanton vandalism to hasten the integration of Fufluns into mainstream Roman religion.’ He sighed. ‘No doubt we’ll be calling him Bacchus before long, and gone’ll be the goatskins and horns that he wears now, but until that day dawns, I’m afraid nothing’s going to stop us daubing ourselves with red cochineal and paying the most robust homage we can muster to our fine liquid heritage, and in that respect, we have Terrence to thank.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Tell her, Terrence,’ he called over. ‘Tell her how the temple of Fufluns sits on your land, and how ye could have pushed for Romanization any time that you liked and taken the glory among your peers.’

  ‘My family lineage traces back to Romulus and Remus.’ Terrence shrugged modestly. ‘We have enoug
h glory and, compared to the number of locals who stream over my land to worship a god who embodies all earthly pleasures, one feels a metalled path is in order, rather than change. Or modernization, as Rome likes to call it.’

  If there had been humble pie on the table, Claudia would have swallowed it whole. Terrence, she was forced to admit, wouldn’t be the first brother who’d found his baby sister irritating and didn’t bother to hide it.

  ‘Aye, and we unmodernized types thank you for it. The Bridal Dance is an important part of our calendar,’ Lars added. ‘Perhaps the most important event hereabouts, given that most of our other temples have gone Roman. Aha.’ He nodded towards Candace. ‘Curtain up.’

  Entranced by this new perspective on the Etruscans as much as her re-assessment of Terrence, Claudia had failed to notice that the tables had been cleared and braziers positioned carefully around the room. It was only when slaves began closing the folding doors that she realized Candace was about to fulfil her promise and bring Gaius Seferius back into his own dining room a full three years after his bones had been cremated.

  ‘I call for silence,’ Candace intoned, as she began to light brazier after brazier of incense—no wonder she reeked of the stuff. ‘Sit forward, closer please…’ Furniture scraped over the mosaic as couches were drawn together. ‘And link hands.’

  Slipping inside the circle, she picked up the long curved blade that had been placed across a bronze bowl on the table beside a slender bronze rod, then pushed up the flounce of her sleeve to expose the length of her forearm.

  ‘When shades arrive at the edge of the Underworld, they are made to drink from the Pool of Forgetfulness,’ she explained in a slow, honeyed monotone. ‘All memory of life with us is erased, leaving them free then to sail to the Isle of the Blessed untroubled by grief or by pain.’

  She raised the knife. The curved blade glinted in the light.

  ‘Only libations of blood can reawaken their human sensations. My blood, for it is I who must walk the winds that blow over the Elysian Fields, taking care that my feet touch no part of the ground, lest I be thrown into the River of the Damned. Silence, now.’

  Slowly she ran the tip of the blade down her forearm. Blood drizzled down her elbow to drip into the little bronze bowl, and once a small pool had collected, she reached for a cloth and pressed it against the cut. When the bleeding had stopped, she picked up the thin bronze rod and tapped its tip on the floor, as though testing its sound.

  ‘The dead inhabit a world of darkness and quiet,’ she whispered, extinguishing the oil lamps with her unique combination of solemnity and grace. ‘If we want them to return to us, we must recreate an environment where they feel comfortable, though for us, this environment is cold.’

  As the light dimmed, the temperature dropped, and Claudia felt a slight rush of air from behind as the door from the atrium opened.

  ‘There you are, m’boy,’ Rex bellowed, as the last flame died in the room. ‘Thought you were going to miss all the fun.’

  ‘Not a chance,’ a baritone drawled, and as he squeezed on to the couch next to Claudia, she smelled sandalwood over the choking incense as a strong hand slipped comfortably into hers.

  ‘Marcus Cornelius Orbilio,’ she hissed through the blackness, ‘why the hell aren’t you in Gaul?’

  ‘That’s odd,’ he rasped back. ‘I thought the whole point of tonight’s exercise was to bring hell up to us.’

  ‘Quiet,’ Candace snapped, ‘or the dead will not walk. Harpist! Play your music, if you will.’

  It was a measure of her surprise that Claudia hadn’t even noticed a harpist in the room.

  Although, come to think of it, she would have preferred a harpoon.

  *

  The dagger that had taken the toy-maker’s life hung snug inside its scabbard. The knife was not judgmental. Made of steel, it did not differentiate between self-defence and cold-blooded murder, the heat of battle or the skinning of coneys, all of which it had known in its time, along with other applications too exhaustive to list. However, the smith who had forged this magnificent weapon had imbued it with a spirit all of its own. This was normal. Since man first hammered out his first killing machine over the fire, he had been blessed by the gods and endowed with an aim straight and true. The dagger was no exception. Providing it performed well—a feat that could only be achieved with the aid of expert honing and care—who, or what, it was used for was irrelevant.

  And the weapon had had plenty of use.

  Lichas the young toy-maker was not the first person to die at the point of its blade, nor was the hand that had wielded the dagger unpractised. There was no question of this weapon not seeing the light of day ever again.

  So it hung, snug, inside its scabbard.

  And waited.

  *

  Far away in the lands to the west, in that shadowy world between the dead and the living, Veive, God of Revenge, lifted another gold-tipped arrow from his quiver and fitted it into his bow.

  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?’

&
nbsp; ‘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.’