Sour Grapes

by Marilyn Todd

‘By the Falcon of the Sun, by the Vultures of the Moon,’ Candace had said, ‘I bid ye spirits enter.’

  And enter they bloody well had. In their droves.

  From a marble bench by the gate in the courtyard, Claudia watched the moon rise over the roof of the stable block and thought, no sooner had Candace summoned the dead than the dining hall filled with a thousand moaning, groaning, whispering echoes. Smoke seemed to come from all four corners of the room, swirling, choking, bringing with it the foul smell of Hades.

  ‘Stop them, Candace,’ Thalia had quavered. ‘M-make them go b-back where they came from.’

  ‘She can’t,’ Larentia said, and her voice was no steadier. ‘She’s fainted.’

  ‘Then for gods’ sake don’t anyone break the bloody circle,’ Rex growled, ‘or the bastards might never go back.’

  ‘Rex?’ The voice was gentle and cooing. ‘Rex, my darling, is that you?’

  ‘Honoria?’

  But as soon as he called out his wife’s name, she was gone, and then swishing sounds filled the air, a flute trilled close to Claudia’s ear and she’d felt the soft brush of a hand against her shoulder. When the gold shawl that Candace had thrown over the table lifted clean into the air, Thalia screamed and tried to pull free. Claudia tightened her grip on the girl’s wrist, and felt a squeeze of reassurance in her other hand. How sweet of Darius to care…

  And that was it, wasn’t it? Everything in the end came back to Darius. Evil was proving as slippery as he was shrewd.

  ‘Pale moon doth rain, red moon doth blow,’

  And dear me, not only had the sorceress summoned the dead. She had also conjured the devil.

  ‘White moon bringeth neither deluge nor snow.’

  He sat down on the bench beside her, and she smelled a combination of cough drops and balm of Gilead above the floral scents that dominated the courtyard. So help me, if you’re any kind of healer, she told Apollo, your divine powers will ensure both have gone off.

  ‘I suppose that’s why you wait to prune the vines,’ Darius rumbled. ‘So warm breezes can blow the frost away.’

  That’s it, Felix. Keep on pretending you’re not from these parts.

  ‘Frankly, I neither know nor care,’ she retorted. ‘I’m a city girl, which means that where I come from, gazing up at the moon is reserved for drunks in the gutter.’

  ‘Are you saying you don’t like Tuscany?’

  ‘How can one like nothing? Because Jupiter knows, there’s enough of the bloody stuff around here. Hills, trees, rivers, fields—good grief, the nothingness never ends, and if you think Rome’s noisy, Darius, it’s small fry compared to the commotion that starts here at dawn.’

  ‘I think you’re lying,’ he said gently. ‘I think you like this place very much.’

  ‘And suppose I say I don’t care what you think.’

  ‘Then,’ he laughed, ‘I’ll know you’re lying.’

  It was tempting—oh, god it was tempting—to stuff Terrence’s ring under his nose and wipe the smile off his face. But if Claudia was to savour the moment, truly savour it, she had to ensure the timing was right.

  ‘It wouldn’t be fair to steal Larentia’s thunder,’ she’d told Terrence with her prettiest pout. ‘We should wait until she and Darius have announced their betrothal before announcing ours.’

  That was the time to watch the smile freeze on his smug, vengeful features! To flash her sapphire triumph in his face. When he’s standing in front of a crowd of compatriots, secure in the knowledge that he’s finally taken control of his enemy’s business, his enemy’s mother, his widow, his sister, even his enemy’s naïve teenage daughter. Oh, yes, Felix Musa. That’s the moment for you to realize you’re standing on quicksand.

  ‘Tonight there were no conversations,’ he said. ‘Gaius didn’t come through for either you or Larentia. No one did. It was pure mayhem that Candace unleashed in that room.’

  Claudia tried not to think about the shawl wafting about of its own accord, the crystal hurling itself on to the floor, the sniggerings from everywhere and nowhere.

  ‘Rex’s wife called him,’ she said.

  ‘And was quickly suppressed, if you remember. Claudia…’ Darius moved his lean, hard body close to hers. ‘Claudia, I have to get Ren away from this. It’s dangerous.’

  You’re telling me. ‘What do you have in mind?’

  ‘I don’t know, that’s the problem. I thought maybe if I talk it over with you, we might come up with a solution between us.’

  Like Indigo said. Clever.

  ‘If I suggest whisking her off to my stud farm, she’ll only want to bring Candace with her, and holy heralds, what can I say? Should I refuse, I come over as some domineering, chauvinist pig, and if I agree, the problem persists.’

  ‘Damned if you do, damned if you don’t?’

  ‘Precisely.’

  Bless him, he’d never said a truer word. Evidence was mounting that would eventually unmask the monster beneath, and already—thanks to the tavern-keeper and Darius himself—Claudia could track his campaign back to its start.

  Passing himself off as the suave, horse-breeding patrician, Felix begins by reconnoitring the area, touring Mercurium and its environs to re-familiarize himself with the geography, the culture, the people in order to tailor his vengeance. It was no lucky guess on her part, suggesting Darius might have called in at the tavern. The pine over the vermilion lintel gave it away. Oh yes, pine, my suave clever friend. That greenery obliterating the door planted an idea in your head, reminding you of the old wives’ tale that pinewoods filter germs and keep the lungs healthy. Why not take it a step further, you thought, and have them filter bad luck?

  Also, as part of the ‘Establishing Darius’ process, Felix would unquestionably have spent time at the hot springs, if only for the gossip he was bound to pick up. Gossip about Eunice and Lars, for example, which set another train of ideas in motion. Whether he’d known Gaius personally was moot, but one self-made man quickly identifies with another—and he’d know Gaius’s mother was nobody’s fool. Wandering around Lavernium, ideas would have bubbled like the hot springs themselves, and in a town where charlatans abound, Candace’s reputation would have preceded her…

  Having tracked down his sorceress, Felix’s campaign was free to shift from theory to practice. While sabotaging the livelihoods of five of his victims and destroying their families, their finances and their peace of mind, ‘Darius’ befriends Larentia—and friend is the operative word. Nothing overt. No flowers, no gifts, no poetry, no moonlight. Keep it light, keep it friendly, but for gods’ sake keep it going. Once that friendship has been established, though, he contrives for a message to be delivered, calling him back to the stud farm on business, but (kind heart that he is) he arranges for Larentia to be pampered at the hot springs in his absence where, surprise, surprise, she meets Candace.

  Larentia does not suspect any overlap—why should she?—and astute though she is, she’s still working class at heart, filled with working-class superstitions. All it takes is a few crystal gazes, a few walks on the winds, and she’s swallowing that guff about the town being cursed like a man in the desert gulps water. Candace becomes her ally. She can help her. She can cast spells to counter the misfortune, but for these to be effective, Larentia must purify herself up in the hills and filter out the bad humours. Naturally, while she’s filtering away, a letter arrives from dear, darling Darius saying that, as a special treat, he’s renovating the villa while she’s gone. Allowing him to not only make whatever changes he wants to his future home, it enables him to install those all-too-important folding doors. Yet here he is now, cool as a cucumber, trying to convince Claudia that he wants rid of the woman he installed in her house in the first place.

  ‘If you could have a think about how we can put paid to this dangerous nonsense, I’d be grateful,’ he said, then rubbed his hands together briskly to change the subject. ‘Tarchis tells me Flavia’s progressing famously.’

  ‘Does he really
?’

  ‘Ah.’ He scrunched his jaw sideways in the manner of someone who’s just realized he’s put his foot in it. ‘I’m sure our Red Priest will get round to telling you, only he and Terrence are like this—’ he crossed his fingers ‘—and given Terrence’s reputation for hospitality, the old boy becomes somewhat garrulous after a few glasses. Indeed.’ He grinned. ‘He and Thalia seem well matched when it comes to the exchange of gossip.’

  And naturally Felix would want to cultivate someone with his finger on the local pulse. Through Terrence, he had access to as perfect a pair of fishwives as one could hope to meet in society, and small wonder Tarchis made the connection between the victims so fast. He’d been talking about them often enough.

  ‘That’s how I came to hear about the Bridal Dance…’ Darius was saying.

  Liar. You knew about it because you married Mariana.

  ‘And why I thought it might help Flavia.’

  Felix’s message, dammit, was clear. Cast aspersions on the paragon of virtue that I’ve created, and no one in this town will believe you. He was right, too. All the evidence she had amassed—the disguise, the persona, the pine—was circumstantial and wouldn’t stand up to close scrutiny. Even if Candace confessed and Claudia could prove every point, it amounted to nothing more than malicious reprisals on the men who had sent him to jail. Hardly the sort of crime to jolt the authorities into action. Naturally, they would demand restitution for the victims, but if Felix should happen to go on the run, the State was unlikely to hound him down. Far quicker to close the case by compensating the victims, no harm done, good public relations and all that. Unfortunately, for justice to be served, Claudia needed to place the knife that killed Lichas and Tages in Darius’s hand, and for this she needed someone who knew Felix from the old days. Someone who could see beyond the Caesar-cut and altered mannerisms to expose him for the impostor he was.

  In short, she needed Mariana!

  ‘How’s Orson coping with his sweetheart’s absence?’ Darius asked.

  Claudia looked at the moon, no different in colour from any other moon as far as she could see, and sighed deeply. ‘With his customary practical sense, I’m afraid. Bored with a life of luxury, our young carpenter has taken his skills into town, where Rosenna provides him with board and lodging.’

  ‘Rosenna? You mean the toy-maker’s sister?’

  Something congealed in her stomach. Dammit, she’d forgotten how dangerous Felix was. Drop your guard, even for an instant, and the tiger gets you to lead him to another tethered goat…

  ‘It’s only temporary,’ she said swiftly. ‘Until the Brides dance for Fufluns.’ But the damage was done.

  Now it was no longer a question of needing hard evidence against him.

  She needed to find it before another boy died.

  Twenty-Two

  The only thing different at the Temple of Fufluns was that, instead of rain clouds gathering overhead, the sun streamed down, turning the sacred pool to shimmering glass and inciting the temple kittens to even greater levels of skittishness. Lyres and flutes produced the same haunting music that penetrated every nook. Herbal garlands still wound up every pink column, bronze chimes pealed softly, the same lamps burned in their thousands. Lars had laughed when Claudia mentioned last night how the soothing atmosphere was in contrast to the energetic scenes depicted in the frescoes.

  ‘To appreciate all that fine wining and dining and bedding you see on the walls, we Etruscans need to step back. Relax. Unwind. Cast aside our day-to-day worries. Then, once our souls are refreshed, our offerings laid and our prayers asked, we lift our eyes. Remind ourselves what Fufluns stands for—and then we binge, gorge and bonk ourselves stupid.’

  Stupid? The Etruscans were anything but stupid. Her footsteps resonated down the vaulted stone corridors, and once again she was struck by the dedication it had taken to excavate this subterranean maze. Darius must have visited here. What thoughts as he drew deeper inside this tunnel of rock? Was he jittery, fearful of another stripe on his back? Or was it the other way round? That, seeing this sacred place where sanctity was mined, rather than ore, would it have hardened Felix’s resolve?

  ‘Ah, Tarchis! Just the chap!’

  She needed to know exactly how much this red-hatted blabbermouth had been tattling about the Felix connection—and to whom.

  ‘On that subject, Lady Claudia, my lips have been sealed,’ Tarchis assured her, once he’d got his come-forth-and-welcome speech out of the way. ‘The winged avenger has already been unleashed on the wicked. No useful purpose can be served alerting those whom Thufltha has targeted, much less broadcasting His retribution across the whole town.’

  ‘You fear panic will spread?’

  ‘The commandments of the gods are unequivocal, my child. When vengeance is Their will, Their will must run its course and warning the wicked can only compromise divine justice.’ The old man leaned forward on his desk and laced his fingers together. ‘Suppose, for example, I were to tell the miller that he is the target of Veive’s vengeful arrows and the miller, realizing how his iniquity has brought his family low, then commits suicide?’

  ‘Aren’t priests the gods’ messengers?’

  ‘Holy Horta, my dear!’ From his expression, you’d think Claudia had propositioned him. ‘The augurs scour the skies, the signs of nature and the organs of sacrificial animals in a bid to interpret Their holy wishes,’ he said. ‘It is my task to impart them, then counsel my flock if they fall by the wayside.’

  ‘Not to prevent them from falling?’

  ‘That,’ Tarchis said with a benevolent smile, ‘is for the gods to determine, not for me.’

  Don’t stop them sinning. Just tell them afterwards how wicked they were. ‘Suppose someone asks you for help?’

  ‘Again, it is to Fufluns, not me, that supplication must be directed, for I am a vessel, passive and humble. Priests, Lady Claudia, cannot change fate.’

  Really? What about Thalia’s guilt over wishing her husband dead? Did Tarchis console her? Did he hell. Invoke the Dark Gods and they answer the call, he had told her. By sitting on his skinny backside in this underground cavern, he changed fate by doing nothing. And was that why a thirteen-year-old girl took her own life? Because the poor little cow had no one to talk to? Or had Vorda come to him and been rebuffed?

  Claudia smiled radiantly. ‘You haven’t talked to Terrence about Thufltha?’

  Terrence and Tarchis were finger-crossing close, Darius had said, and through Terrence, Darius would have picked up most of his information.

  ‘As usual, Terrence and I discussed the forthcoming Bridal Dance and how, between us, we can keep local interest high.’

  ‘Is it waning?’

  ‘When so many traditions are being swallowed up by your culture—and I admit our proximity to Rome doesn’t help—there’s a very fine line between the old ways and the new.’ The priest took off his mitre, rubbed his forehead where the band had dug in, then replaced it with care. ‘I do not understand how you Romans can trivialize your gods. With us, every single aspect of life is spiritual. The gods move among us, speaking to us through the language of nature, and we supplicate ourselves before them, whereas you,’ his voice harshened, ‘you Romans treat them with appalling disrespect. “Make the noses of my hunting hounds keen and I’ll give you this ring”,’ he mimicked. ‘“Give me a bumper crop of beans this year and this onyx flask will be yours.” That is not worship, Lady Claudia. That’s horse-trading!’

  ‘Which is no more or less successful than your way.’

  He looked down his thin nose at this uppity creature who clearly didn’t know that her place was in the kitchen. ‘Maybe,’ he grunted in a manner that conveyed the opposite, ‘but without Terrence backing Fufluns, the paintings on these walls would be plastered over. This shrine would close in favour of a glistening marble edifice to someone called Bacchus.’ He almost spat the name out. ‘Then there’ll be no more dancing, no more brides—and I warn you, young woman, Fufluns
will curse you for turning your back on Him. Without His seed to fructify the earth, your vines will shrivel and your hillsides turn barren.’

  ‘Then we must take care not to reject Him,’ she said sweetly, distracting his tirade by pretending to have an itch on her calf and giving him a flash of her shapely ankle. ‘Going back to Felix, you said he was stripped of his assets…’ Word association helps, too.

  ‘Every penny,’ the priest said, delighted that her itch was persistent. ‘Even the house he’d built for his parents in Mercurium, The State confiscated the lot. Turned the old couple on to the street in full view of the populace, and the very next morning Felix’s father fell on his sword with the shame of it.’ His wrinkled face creased up in recollection. ‘His mother drank poison, I think. Or maybe she drowned herself. It’s such a long time ago; I don’t recall all the details. The point is, they were a decent freeborn family who could not live with the dishonour their son visited upon them.’

  ‘What about Mariana, his wife?’

  Tarchis shook his red-painted head. ‘Sad. Very sad,’ he said. ‘She was a lovely girl and no one had an ill word to say about her, yet the instant sentence was pronounced, her family disowned her. Treason does this, of course. It taints those it touches, and the stain is ineradicable. One thus understands their desire to disassociate themselves from imperial wrath, as one empathizes with the pain it undoubtedly caused them in renouncing her.’

  ‘Maybe Felix should have thought about that before he dipped his sticky fingers in the Treasury.’

  ‘Surely you are missing the point, Lady Claudia?’ The priest leaned back in his chair and studied her with dark, glittering eyes. ‘For Thufltha to be invoked and justice served, there has to be a guilty party to punish. If Felix Musa has called on the gods and his plea has been heard, he has stood in front of the Mirror of Truth and been judged by the purity in his heart.’

  You can’t have it both ways, you sanctimonious bastard. Felix is either dead and innocent. Or he’s alive and guilty as hell.

  ‘Mariana was pregnant,’ Tarchis said wistfully, ‘and such is the suddenness of fate. One day, she is radiant at carrying their first child, the next she’s tossed in the gutter like a broken cook pot, with little more than the clothes she stood up in. Somebody took the girl in, of course. Once again, I cannot recall who, but Mariana was much loved in Mercurium.’