Marilyn Todd - Sour Grapes

'Suggestible?'

'Susceptible,' he corrected with a dry chuckle. 'If I may speak bluntly, Claudia, Candace is the main reason I'm pushing Ren to fix a date for the wedding. More and more, your mother-in-law is becoming dependent on that woman's visions and spells, and I'm not convinced that's a healthy development.'

'I doubt there's a woman yet who hasn't consulted some kind of fortune-teller, astrologer, soothsayer or quack when she's about to get married.'

'Are we men such ogres?' he asked, sidestepping a crate of grey hazel hens. 'Seriously, though.' He shook his head. 'Try as I might, I can't find out one damn thing about

Candace. Other than the fact that she's Kushite by birth, our lovely sorceress remains a mystery, and mysteries, my dear Claudia, trouble me greatly.'

Claudia wondered what his opinion was when it came to pots calling kettles black.

'Where did Larentia find her?' she asked.

'Ah, well, that'll teach me to go back home on business.' He gave a rueful cluck of the tongue. 'It was even my treat, you know, packing Ren off to the hot springs for a few days of luxury and pampering, because what happens? I check on my horses, I tie up a few deals and when I come back, she's addicted to spells, spirits and magic, and the quicker she's away from Candace's influence, the better. Without our lovely sorceress, Ren's a strong, funny woman — in fact, you and she have a lot in common.'

'I do not take that as a compliment.'

'I wish you would, because you're more alike than either of you think, and you like each other more than you care to admit. And I'll bet that's another bitter pill for you to swallow.'

'I don't take medicines, Darius. The cure is invariably worse than the problem, and if it's true that men marry women who remind them of their mothers, shoot me now.'

'See what I mean? Funny.' He broke off as another dry spasm wracked his chest.

'And while we're on the subject of medicines, are you taking anything for that cough?'

'Everything,' he sighed, dodging a porter balancing three sacks of grain. 'Horehound, coltsfoot, mullein. Janus, I'm a walking herbalist's half the time, which is another reason I'm pushing for an early wedding. Since I arrived in Mercurium, my throat and chest haven't let up and, Claudia, I care for your mother-in-law deeply, but you have no idea how my lungs yearn for their homeland.'

'Campania?'

His face brightened. 'Do you know it?'

Never been. 'Intimately. Particularly Naples, Capua and the peninsula out by Capri.'

'Stunning, isn't it? My farm's further south, on the plains of Salernum, but Naples is handy for shipping the beasts in and out. Do you know anything about horses?'

'Only that my last one is still running.'

'Then it's not one of mine. I only breed winners, and you have no idea how satisfying it is, watching wobbly foals turn into sleek racers, although sadly the credit is not mine to claim. As you employ specialists to oversee your vines, I employ trainers who do all the hard work.'

'Could you spare one for Flavia?'

'Only if you want her lapping the posts of the Circus Maximus,' he retorted. 'But if you're worried about the girl, seriously, why don't you sign her up for the Dance of the Brides of Fufluns?'

'You've lost me.'

'I doubt that,' he rumbled. 'But come.'

Instead of following the flow of the market, Darius turned into a side street and followed the steep path to the summit of Mount Mercury. Like the seven hills of Rome, the air up here was cleaner and fresher, trees lined the squares — laurels, plane trees and cypress — and from their branches birds serenaded the white limestone fronts and blood-red roof tiles of the villas of the well heeled. Facing west, these sumptuous villas overlooked the soft rolling landscape and sat in perfect alignment for catching the refreshing sea breezes during the baking hot Etruscan summers. Claudia followed the point of Darius's index finger to a hill to the south that was fronted by a forest of salmon-pink columns.

'That's the Temple of Fufluns down there,' he said. 'Have a word with Tarchis the priest. See if he can't help Flavia to grow up.'

If he could, Claudia thought, it would be the only miracle to take place around here.

Including last night's shenanigans.

When Augustus triumphed over Cleopatra and Mark Anthony, he united the Empire and promised his people an end to the carnage of war, but his peace came with a price tag. In return for safe highways, better living standards and grain in your granaries, he told the vanquished nations, you pay tax to Rome and abide by Roman law. It's all right, you can keep your customs, your clothes, your obscure religions, we don't mind. In fact, your culture enriches ours. But cross me, he warned, and your soil will be stained red with blood for a decade. Which path do you choose?

Too many lives had already been sacrificed, too much lost, for the tribes to challenge the might of the Romans. He knew full well that they'd bow to the inevitable, then try to squeeze as much as they could out of the deal — which was all very fine, but left Augustus with something of a dilemma. Given the peace that had settled over the Empire, what was he going to do with seventy legions, now that most of them had nothing to do?

Augustus was nothing if not shrewd. Rumours had abounded for years about how he'd offered himself as Julius Caesar's catamite to advance his own cause, and whether those rumours were founded or not, it was the nineteen-year-old Augustus who inherited the Divine Julius's crown. No one else! So the administering of territories stretching from the eastern shores of the Black Sea to the Oceans of Atlantis was nothing short of child's play for the Emperor. By replacing amateur conscripted farmers with a force of hardcore professional volunteers, the army's efficiency multiplied. Within two years he'd reduced seventy legions to fewer than thirty, allotting the redundant veterans generous pensions as well as parcels of fertile land in the conquered territories to those that wanted them, while opportunities naturally flourished within his elite and restructured army.

The father of Publius Peregrinus Macedo might well have bought his son's original commission, but there was no disguising the lad's military genius. Nicknamed Rex on account of his imposing stature, he was the youngest legate to march into Gaul and the first to fully appreciate the importance of civilian support on campaign, the so-called 'Second Army' of carpenters, engineers, musicians and blacksmiths, orderlies, veterinarians and scribes.

Waiting in the general's office, Orbilio scanned the gleaming collection of weapons, armour and other trophies of war that obliterated most of Rex's walls and was flooded with memories of his own tribuneship. Hardly the happiest time of his life. The marriage he'd been contracted into prior to his first posting hadn't got off to the finest of starts, and being absent from home for the best part of two years did nothing to bolster the relationship. Add on his refusal to follow the proud ancestral tradition and take up law once his stint was up, opting for what his family considered to be some grubby, poorly paid post in a demeaning little backwater of the Administration, and it was no great surprise that his wife ran off with a sea captain from Lusitania, causing a scandal that still clung to him like a wet shirt. He peered at the battle-scarred helmets, the rows of pierced shields, an Egyptian corselet still stained with blood. No matter how hard or how often he tried to explain, not so much as one distant third cousin had grasped the fact that enforcing the law was infinitely more important that practising it, especially since the object of defence was to get the accused off and never mind that the bastard was guilty!