Marilyn Todd - Sour Grapes

'Honestly?' she asked, examining the four shrines that dominated the atrium. East was garlanded with laurel, the herb of prophesy, South with white-petalled, yellow-bearded Etruscan irises, while a small flame burned on North's shrine and verbascum was on West's as defence against sorcery. She studied the frescoes of Lars's gods and goddesses, in which some wore helmets and carried spears, others went naked and winged, while at least half had assumed animal features in one form or another. Vultures' heads, horses' ears, cloven hoofs, feathers… Right through the room, though, light mingled with dark, death with rebirth, air with water, healing with joy to create an effect that was sinister, exhilarating, uplifting and strange. 'Don't tell anyone,' she whispered to Eunice, 'but I like it.'

'Not too pagan?'

'I think it's safe to say your husband isn't letting go of his heritage, certainly. Who's this?' She pointed to a child rising out of a ploughed field with two snakes for legs. Beside him, priests seemed to be scribbling down the boy's every word.

'The son of Genius, who first decreed that all things on earth must be in accordance with the cosmos and let it be known to mortals that their every action is controlled by the gods.'

'I see. Genius tells us that we're nothing more than mindless puppets and so, being mindless puppets, we accept it.'

Eunice laughed. 'Either you've just pinpointed the reason why we Romans prefer our own system of worship or I haven't explained myself very clearly, but perhaps you start to see why the Etruscans place so much faith in the power of amulets, touchstones and rites.'

'Is that what this is?' Claudia nodded towards a giant phallus in the corner. 'A touchstone?'

'Please don't get me started on what that stands for, or I'll need a bucket of cold water thrown over me! The thing is, darling, fertility lies at the very heart of Lars's religion, which is why you see so many paintings of trees dripping with fruit and fields bent with ripe waving corn, and why half our own walls are covered with olive trees whose branches sweep the ground from the weight of the harvest and goblets overflowing with… Good gracious, where are my manners!' Eunice passed across a glass filled with wine and the two women chinked rims. 'To health, happiness and… Great heavens, darling! Are you all right?'

'This wine…' Claudia gasped for breath '… is very… strong.'

The glint in Eunice's eye danced, as she clapped her guest on the back. 'Another local custom I've thoroughly enjoyed taking to. Not watering Mercury's milk!' She summoned a slave and called for water, then blinked when Claudia tipped it straight into her goblet. 'And here's me thinking it might cure your cough,' she laughed.

'Water's perfect when taken in the right spirit, and this was the right spirit. The proof is that my cough has completely disappeared.' Claudia paused. 'Which is more than Darius's has.'

'Indeed, the poor man.'

Eunice ushered her into a cosy dining chamber laid out with platters of roast venison and pork alongside steaming spiced mushrooms, prawns, peppered parsnips and succulent new season asparagus.

'Our damp northern winter really got to his chest and the cough simply won't budge, though I've finally convinced him that a trip to the hot springs is just what he needs. If they can't cure the wretched thing there, nothing will. You're coming, of course?' Eunice broke a hot roll into small pieces with dreamlike abstraction. 'The waterfall's warmer than a hot bath, there are dozens of bubbly warm pools to wallow in, mud packs that'll take ten years off you at least, and even the river runs hot.'

The hot springs. Where Eunice met Lars, where Lichas met Hadrian, where Darius packed Larentia for a few days of pampering, and where Larentia hooked up with Candace.

'I'll be leaving claw marks in the rock as they drag me away.'

'Splendid, and do bring your young man with you. Young Marcus looks like he could use a spot of relaxation.'

'Orbilio is not my young man,' Claudia said through gritted teeth.

'Of course not, whatever you say,' Eunice replied cheerfully. 'Only remember that dashing young aristocrats don't stay single for long.'

'I think you'll find he's divorced and none to keen to repeat the experience.'

'Nonsense.' Eunice popped a morsel of venison into her mouth. 'Men hate being alone and you two-'

'Are from different classes,' she pointed out evenly. 'He's patrician, I'm-'

'There you go again!' The older woman shook her head. 'You will keep going on about class, when anyone with half an eye can see that Marcus Cornelius isn't the type to worry about nonsense like that. Which reminds me — I invited Terrence over to dinner tonight, but it seems he's tied up with whatever it is that rich landowners get tied up with, which means Thalia won't be allowed out either, which is ridiculous. He's far too over-protective with that girl, when what her nerves need is more social intercourse, not less. Did you know she even told me once that she'd killed her husband?'

Claudia reached for a pastry containing a thin strip of chicken marinated in wine, then coated with a paste of walnuts, honey and mushrooms before being rolled in its melt-in-the-mouth blanket. 'Maybe that's why Terrence keeps her on such a tight leash.'

'Stuff and nonsense.' Eunice dismissed the notion with a wave of her hand. 'I agree, it was an absolutely ghastly marriage. Hubby was a banker, much older than her, and they were constantly at each other's throats, with Thalia never able to remember what the quarrel was about, while he could never forget.'

The concept of Thalia at anybody's throat seemed decid edly at odds with the nervy, harassed creature Claudia had met, but if the girl had enough backbone to stick it out while Candace walked the winds above the Isles of the Blessed, there was obviously more to Terrence's sister than met the eye. But then, couldn't the same be said of everybody?

'But Hubby is dead,' she pointed out.

'Yes, but it was his heart, darling. Gave out at the hot springs while I was there, and like I said, he was old. Perfectly straightforward business.'

The hot springs again. Everything happens at those hot springs…

'Yet Thalia sat through the opening of the Gateway,' Claudia said, 'and even asked to speak to her husband.'

'I have to confess last night's experience shook me.' Eunice shuddered. 'Watching Candace slice her arm open, watching the blood drain into a bowl, then seeing her skin smooth and unscarred afterwards. I'll be honest, that's the real reason I didn't want to be alone this evening, but dear me, I'm a big girl, I'll get over it. How is Candace, that's what I want to know?'

'Spent the day recovering in bed, apparently.'

I target every ounce of energy on Larentia, who knows only too well how walking with the spirits drains me.

'I'm not surprised.' Eunice speared one of the parsnips. 'Have you any idea what angered them?'

'Who?'

'The spirits. I mean, everything was going swimmingly — well, if you can call talking to the dead a good thing — then crash! The whole room exploded and, I don't mind admitting, I've never been so frightened in my entire life.'

Could this be an act she was putting on for Claudia's benefit? Right now, everything pointed to Eunice being a victim of a money-grabbing gigolo, but this affair had more twists than the serpents in Medusa's hair.

'Did I ever tell you about that goats' wool merchant who came courting me before I married Lars? What a horror! Never saw the wretched man sober, but I'm sure you know the type. Never went to bed with an ugly woman, but certainly woke up with a lot.'

Claudia laughed. 'Eunice, you are an incorrigible gossip.'

'Baloney. Secrets are merely things to be passed on to one person at a time. Now tell me honestly, darling.' Eunice sighed, as a plate of wine cakes and honeycombs was laid out for dessert. 'Isn't this a simply heavenly end to a simply heavenly day?'