Marilyn Todd - Sour Grapes

Which was why she was here, marching across the precinct of the Temple of Fufluns, just as the first drops of rain began to fall.

Up close, the forest of columns that fronted the temple was taller, pinker and infinitely denser than she'd imagined when she stood beside Darius at the top of Mount Mercury squinting down over the valley. What she couldn't see from that distance, either, was that rather than being built on to the hillside, the shrine had been painstakingly gouged out of it in a series of deep and tortuous terraces, and that the columns were actually remnants of the original rock face. Fufluns, she remembered Lars saying, was one of the gods who lived in the earth.

As she climbed the steps, haunting music emanated from the very soul of the temple, beautiful tunes made by strings, flute and tambour, soothing yet at the same time uplifting.

The further she entered, the more lamps that burned, and wild herbs that had been woven into fragrant ropes garlanded every column, wafting out scents of fennel, oregano and thyme that mingled with the fragrant oils that burned in the lamps: mint, lemon balm and sweet clover. The same rich red paint covered these walls as covered those at Eunice's house. Lively, energetic frescoes depicting people dancing, eating, bedding one another with wild abandon, reminding all those who came here that Fufluns wasn't just the Etruscans' god of wine. He was the embodiment of all earthly pleasures.

And to prove it, votive offerings hung from every inch of the prayer rails that lined the steep steps, some asking for the return of a child's health, others put in requests for sophisticated love-making techniques, the majority pleading that the Roman method of watering wine wouldn't catch on. Bronze tubes dangled from the roof to catch the breeze and chime a gentle message from the gods. Prayer ribbons danced, and other offerings to Fufluns lay scattered seemingly at random. Here a bunch of carved wooden grapes, there a set of clay dolls, elsewhere inscribed tablets, food, candles, or cork masks that had also been painted with smiles.

'May I be of help to you, my lady?'

Unlike Roman priests, who dazzled their worshippers in white, Etruscan priests clothed themselves in long red robes, painted the exposed parts of their skin red and wore conical mitres upon their heads, which were also, strangely enough, red. Surrounded by so many soaring pink columns darkened by the unnatural light, he had simply blended into the backdrop.

'I was looking for Tarchis the priest, but I guess he's found me.'

'Truly he has.' He bent his right knee, rested his elbow upon it and placed a clenched fist against his forehead. 'Come forth and welcome in the House of Fufluns, Lady Claudia. May He embrace you in His inestimable peace.'

'You know me?'

Tarchis rose. 'I was acquainted with your husband,' he said in a voice that radiated confidence rather than authority, yet could not disguise the crackle of old age. 'I was a guest at his house many times and was deeply saddened by his passing. Apart from being a good friend, Gaius was instrumental in bringing prosperity to this town.' He smiled. 'A mixed blessing,' he added wryly.

Indeed. A rabid desire for wine and olive oil throughout a burgeoning Empire had generated wealth for Tuscany and improved standards of living in everything from housing to schooling to health. At the same time, though, as Lars had pointed out, Romanization had taken its toll, and where more noticeably than Etruscan religion? Take that old wooden temple on the Via Tuscana, for example, dedicated to the triumvirate of Uni, Tins and Menvra. Who in Mercurium bothered that, these days, they'd become three temples, not one, made of marble, not wood, linked by an art-lined stone portico? Who honestly cared that it was Juno, Jupiter and Minerva who were invoked? Providing their prayers were answered, that's all that mattered.

Unless, of course, you were a priest of the old ways…

'How may I serve you, Lady Claudia?'

'Do you remember my husband's daughter, Flavia?'

'Indeed, I do,' he replied warmly. 'Although I never met the child, I recall Gaius fostering her on to his childless sister shortly after the baby was born. A typically noble, selfless and generous gesture, I always thought, a widower who appreciated only too well how a girl needs a woman to raise her and sacrificed his own happiness… Oh, my dear, what a terrible cough!'

'It's the incense.'

Noble, selfless and generous her arse! As head of the household and free to do as he liked, Gaius dumped a child he didn't want on a sister he didn't like, whether Julia wanted her or not — and she hadn't. Her own marriage, which had been going through a bad patch at the time, promptly plunged to rock bottom and had remained there ever since, the damage irrevocably cemented by the whim of an autocrat and an imperial law that let him do it.

And Orbilio dared to suggest marriage of convenience as a means to thwart Darius?

Claudia cleared her throat. 'The thing is, Tarchis, I realize this might be an odd request, considering Flavia is a stranger to Fufluns, but… '

'You'd like her to perform the Bridal Dance?' The mitre nodded. 'Darius said you might be in contact.'

Oh, goody. Darius is his new best friend now — no wonder Tarchis wasn't exactly overcome with astonishment at seeing her. Sly bastard.

'And did Darius say that before I committed her to such an undertaking, I'd need to know more about it?' Unable to keep the edge out of her voice, she congratulated herself at stopping short of calling it a primitive pagan rite.

'He suggested that you would probably want to satisfy yourself that this was no vulgar instruction into the art of the bedchamber, yes, and indeed you are right to question the morality of our ways.'

His glance automatically flew to the walls, which seemed to be covered in art (most of it of the bedchamber), and most of it energetic, as well.

'However, the days of orgies in the Temple of Fufluns are long past. Today we seek only to initiate young women in the awareness of their bodies in the sense of femininity, elegance and grace, and thus every year on the night of the red-headed moon, thirteen virgins perform the Bridal Dance in front of the idol.'

'Which still makes it a sexy dance?'

'If dancing helps a few graceless pubescent girls — how can I put this? — familiarize themselves with certain aspects of adult life that they might not otherwise acquire, I don't see this can harm them. Sexual awareness is an important part of maturity, for when the heart of the bride is fulfilled, then the heart of the bridegroom is glad and the two halves of marriage become one.' His voice was solemn, but there was a twinkle in his rheumy eye that was no reflection of the flickering lights and Claudia thought that for a man who was forced to juggle two cultures, he was doing a pretty good job.

'Why thirteen?'

'One for each moon of the year, and each has her own costume and characteristics to act out, for self-expression is a very important aspect of the ritual.'

'Which happens to eliminate teenage competition at the same time.'

'Gaius said you were shrewd,' he laughed. 'Now considering the red-headed moon waxes to maturity a mere four days hence, Flavia should commence instruction at once. And though she cannot hope to master every nuance in such a short time, Timi ought to be able to choreograph a simple routine for her to memorise.'

'Timi?'

'Our instructress. Come, I'll introduce you and she can explain what takes place and where, only men aren't allowed near the Bridal Chamber-'

'Tarchis, this is all very obliging.' She followed his cracking pace through the lamp-lit labyrinth. 'But don't you have your full complement of virgins?'

He stopped so abruptly that she cannoned into him. 'As it happens, Lady Claudia, we do not. Vorda, who was to be our little harvest moon this year, sacrificed herself to Fraon, the blue-feathered demon.' He spread his hands. 'Rivermen noticed her amulets piled on top of her neatly folded shawl next to the demon's pool at first light yesterday. When they dived in, they discovered her body tied to a rock.'