Marilyn Todd - Sour Grapes

Claudia could not in all conscience disagree.

Vorda stared at the deep pool in the river and watched the reflection of the waxing moon in its stillness. According to her mother, the pool was created when Nethuns, the river god, fought with Fraon, the snake-headed, blue-feathered demon who wanted this stream for his own. During the course of the battle, which lasted two hundred years, a huge bowl was gouged out of the riverbed, and whilst the sky gods didn't mind, the gods who lived in the earth couldn't sleep for the noise. So they intervened in the battle and partitioned the territory themselves.

The clear, flowing waters that burst through rocks high in the hills then slowed to feed the lush pasturelands, would be the realm of the river god. Fraon the demon had to be content with the deep bowl that filled up with water once the skirmish was over.

It was said that those who fell into Fraon's domain were sucked straight down to the Abode of the Dead, instead of passing through the Hall of Purification, where their souls could be cleansed and the heaviness of their hearts lifted. And because the bodies of those who fell in were not seen again, the Guardians of the Graves would have no place to stand, so their souls would be denied immortal protection.

Vorda's mother felt very strongly about such matters. Vorda's mother would have none of those wicked Roman ideas. There was only the One True Religion, and unless man obeyed the will of the gods, disease would visit the sinner, their limbs would become weakened, their spine twisted, they would go blind and lose the use of their tongue. Vorda's mother knew this for a fact, because when she was a young girl, she'd witnessed the gods' wrath descending on the poulterer's wife, who lived next door.

'Right as rain when she went to bed, but when she woke up the following morning, why, the whole of her left side had shrivelled up and died in the night.'

According to Vorda's mother, the poor woman dribbled and babbled from that moment on.

'Spoon-fed like a bairn till the day she expired, and let that be a warning to you.'

So as Vorda stood beside the pool, watching the reflection of the scudding clouds in its waters, she had no illusions when it came to divine retribution. When the augurs read the entrails and inspected the livers, she knew the sages to be right. Even though she was only thirteen summers old, she understood what it meant when magpies flew in a circle, why clouds in the north-west were bad omens, why she should swallow beans when a cow with a crooked horn stumbled in front of her.

'Human deeds must be consonant with the will of the gods,' the priests insisted. 'If we stray from the Code, lightning will strike and flatten our cities, the seas will rise and cast a flood over the land, and the earth will be shaken by whirlwinds.'

Vorda didn't want to be responsible for the destruction of the universe.

Whenever a half moon rose with a pale-blue halo, she'd place white stones round her bed for Zirna to shine down on and stop Vorda from riding the night mare. When an owl hooted thrice two times in succession, she'd pour a libation to Fana, to ensure the morning's bread would still rise. Every week without fail she'd leave offerings of grain beneath the alder for the smiling Goddess of Plenty.

But what happened tonight…

'The Dance of the Brides is a holy ritual,' her mother had told her, giving her cheek an affectionate pinch. 'You're privileged to be taking part, that you are, lass. You'll be doing the family proud on the red-headed moon.'

Proud? How could she feel pride in what happened tonight?

Listening to the grate of the crickets and the rasping of toads, Vorda strained for a sign from the gods. She strained and she waited, but no omens appeared. The sky held no portents, the earth offered no comfort, and why would they? Vorda had sinned.

No tears dribbled down her bloodless cheeks. She was too exhausted, too drained, for that.

Her mother would insist that what happened was the will of the gods. The priests would agree this was the will of the gods. Even the gods, speaking through the entrails of sacrifices and the clouds in the sky, would confirm this had been their divine will. But in her heart, Vorda knew she had sinned. She knew because she felt dirty and cold, and no amount of scrubbing could make her feel clean. She had tried. Heaven knows she had tried, and her skin was rubbed raw from the scouring, but the sense of pollution would not go away. She felt dirty and sullied, and whether this was her own transgression or the will of the gods, she wanted no part of it.

None at all.

Tying a rope round the stone that she'd rolled to the edge, Vorda picked up the rock and threw it into the pool. Her body did not make so much as a splash.

Face towels!'

'Skin softeners!'

'Gifts for the river god!'

This could have been Mercurium yesterday, such was the crush round the hot springs. The instant Claudia's gig passed through the archway, vendors in braided tunics and long pointy shoes descended like blowflies on a carcase, offering the new arrivals everything from hotel rooms to pancakes to castor-oil purges (guaranteed to work in less than two hours) and swamping them with ointments and amulets.

'Not sure I'd have come, if I'd realized you were bringing that witch along with you,' Rex muttered, pushing through the clamour to help Claudia dismount.

'She's my mother-in-law; I could hardly refuse.'

'Not Larentia. Her.'

He pointed to where Candace was shaking the creases from her embroidered robe and dazzling the eyes of the traders with the number of gold bands clamped to her skin. Never a smile, Claudia noticed. At least not one that ever made the journey up to her eyes. Always watchful and catlike. Was it because our lovely walker of winds was cold and calculating through to her marrow? Claudia followed her slow, feline glance in Darius's direction. Or was the sorceress simply cautious?

'You'd think the bitch would have realized she's caused enough trouble,' Rex was expounding.

Flanked by her Hebrew servants, Judith and Ezekiel, Candace swept off to the bath house as though she owned the establishment, and from the corner of her eye Claudia noticed that, although Darius was helping Larentia down from the gig with solicitous chitchat, his expression was harder than granite as his eyes followed the trio inside. So then, he hadn't missed that evaluating glance! But then everything happened at the hot springs, she reflected. Everything happened here…

'By trouble you mean…?'

'Raising the dead.' Rex's military bearing cleaved a path through the hawkers. 'Contacting the likes of our spouses is one thing, but where does it lead? Will we end up talking to shopkeepers next? Suppose she conjures up ghosts of men slain on the battlefield? What then, eh? Are we going to see headless Dacians prancing round? Let sleeping dogs lie, that's what I say, but not that witch. It's the only reason she's come to the thermal springs.'

'To allow the dead a mud bath and massage?'

His mouth twisted politely at Claudia's joke, but Rex's hobby horse was off on a gallop. 'They call this place Lavernium, meaning Underworld. See the river that gushes out of the rocks over there?'

Claudia could hardly miss it. Hot and steaming, it reeked of sulphur.

'Peasants used to think it was an entrance to Hades, and mark my words, that's what's brought that black-hearted witch out here today. She's looking to get in touch with the dead through that gateway, and you want to watch your back with her.' He wagged a forceful finger as he marched off. 'That bitch is trouble.'

'I, um, I'm afraid my father gets rather carried away sometimes.'

Claudia spun round and found herself looking into the face of a man who had the word 'weak' all but tattooed on his forehead. Fair hair turning to ginger didn't help, nor did pale eyelashes, a pallid complexion or the soft line to his chin, but many men had overcome such disadvantages and gone on to become consuls, magistrates, legates and kings.