Marilyn Todd - Sour Grapes

'And friend Felix certainly intends to get away with it!'

If he didn't, he wouldn't be so bloody subtle. Revenge would be reward in itself and he wouldn't give a toss what happened to him.

'Prrrrrr. ' Drusilla clambered up on to Claudia's shoulders and wrapped herself round like a fur collar.

'Yes, poppet, I do realize that nothing horrible has actually befallen Gaius's nearest and dearest. Yet,' she added softly.

Because it was highly unlikely that, simply because Gaius was dead, Felix had decided to abandon his campaign against the sixth witness. Not when Candace turned up out of the blue, casting spells to avert an epidemic of bad luck. Not when Darius appeared on the scene, wanting to marry a woman old enough to be his mother.

'There's only one conclusion, I'm afraid.' Claudia stared into Drusilla's crossed blue eyes. 'Felix and Darius are one and the same.'

In assuming the identity of a bona fide horse-breeder (and had anyone actually checked on the real Darius's whereabouts?), Felix installed Candace to frighten Larentia and make the poor old trout dependent on him.

'Brrrp?'

'You mean those remarks of his at the market?'

'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.'

'Weasel words, poppet.'

Trying to make out he was against Candace, when in reality it was the opposite.

'Can't find out one damn thing about her. Other than the fact that she's Kushite by birth, our lovely sorceress remains a mystery, and mysteries, my dear Claudia, trouble me greatly.'

The hell they did. By shedding suspicion on Candace, he's effectively clearing himself, adding to his own credibility by intimating that there's no point in anyone else checking her out, because if a wealthy horse-breeder can't uncover her past, then who can? And all the while the pressure increases on Larentia to marry him quickly.

'We have Gaius cheering his mother on from the Underworld. Her late husband giving the wedding his seal of approval. Even Darius's cough is supposed to make her feel guilty about keeping him away from his good southern health!'

Claudia's instincts had been right from the outset. The bastard was after taking control, but not purely from the financial angle. Yes, running Gaius's business would be the ultimate in revenge. But once he assumes control, it is total — and imagine the satisfaction of being in a position to marry off his enemy's widow to a three-legged dwarf if it pleased him, or contract Gaius's unworldly daughter to an elderly lecher. As he'd calmly destroyed the brick-maker, the paper merchant, the tavern-keeper's families, so he can sit back and ruin Gaius's impoverished sister and her weak and vacillating husband, pulling his strings on the puppets they were and watching them dance to his tune. With the most lavish portion reserved especially for his enemy's mother.

'You callous bastard,' she whispered into the night.

Leading a vulnerable old widow on, purely to set her up for rejection and humiliation. A man might divorce his wife for infidelity and cruelty, but thanks to Rome's entrenched chauvinism, it was virtually impossible the other way round. Having married Larentia, he could treat her like a dog and she'd have no choice but to endure, and suddenly Claudia recalled the locked gazes between Darius and Candace the night the spirits were summoned. Hard and assessing on both sides.

'Unless I miss my guess,' she told Drusilla, 'this puts the happy pair in partnership.'

How cruel does a heart need to be in order to plan installing the mistress before he's even married the wife? How evil? His voice hadn't just trod the path to Hell, she reflected. The bastard had dragged Hell back up with him.

'Mrp.' Drusilla disengaged herself from Claudia's neck and settled down on the desk with her front paws folded in front of her.

'Make the most of it,' Claudia warned. 'It's only a matter of time before Felix-stroke-Darius tosses you down the nearest well, too.'

'Hrrrrrowl.'

'Oh, don't worry.' She flattened the cat's rising hackles and kissed her firmly between the ears. 'It won't come to that.'

There were many places where hemlock grew wild around here, though Claudia sincerely hoped it would not come to that.

Colchicum was much more painful.

In the dank, dark subterranean caverns where no daylight penetrated and the sighs of the hopeless twittered like moths, Veive fitted three more gold tips on his arrowheads.

Beside him, the winged avenger dipped them in poison.

When Eunice said Terrence threw the most lavish bashes anyone could ever hope to attend, she wasn't kidding. To celebrate the Festival of the Lambs, he'd not only invited the entire town, but he'd filled fountains with wine for their benefit, created wine lakes connected by wine channels in which miniature warships bobbed merrily, and since one ox wasn't enough for this number of guests, he'd slaughtered at least half the world's ox population to turn on the spits. In addition, he'd built a miniature house out of nuts and sweetmeats for the children, and created a magnificent edible Trojan horse in which a snail had been stuffed inside a dormouse, which in turn had been stuffed inside a quail, which had also been stuffed inside something larger, until finally a horse comprising different layers of meats stood proud with a mane of… wait for it… sorrel.

The witticisms didn't end there. He'd hired musicians, clowns, acrobats, fire-eaters, jugglers and mimes to entertain the masses. Gladiators fought in a makeshift arena, wrestlers and boxers competed for honours, buffoons dressed in motleys ran riot — and the most amazing part of it all was that the events didn't just run simultaneously, they ran continuously too.

'I thought the Lamb Festival went rather well, didn't you?' Thalia asked, wringing skeletal white hands that didn't look as though they could kill two birds with one stone, much less a seasoned banker. But then Eunice never suggested Thalia had strangled her husband. His heart gave out at the hot springs, she'd said. Old age, Claudia wondered? Overexertion? A combination of both? And yet even the weakest of hands can drip poison into a glass. It was time to delve deeper into Thalia's mind — a journey, she suspected, that wouldn't take long. There weren't exactly great depths to plumb.

'I thought it went exceptionally well,' she replied, linking her arm with her new best friend's.

'The children looked adorable wrapped in their tiny fleeces,' Thalia said wistfully. 'Though I do believe Lars needed to snarl a bit more in his wolfskin when he chased them, and Terrence perhaps a teeny bit less. Not that there was anything wrong with what he did,' she added quickly. 'No, no, it was only that one little boy who burst into tears. And a couple of the toddlers. Of course, though I expect they were overtired by then… Sorry.' She shot Claudia a tight smile. 'I do ramble on, don't I, and Terrence gets so cross with me-'

'You're doing fine, Thalia.'

'You think so?' The smile that flashed across her face lit up her enormous green eyes. 'Oh, good, because I wanted to say that I thought Marcus got the balance just right, chasing the babies, and my word, Claudia, isn't he handsome!'

'That's the word they use to describe the Emperor, and he's bow-legged.'

Thalia giggled. 'You are wicked, but I don't think he's bow-legged. Marcus, I mean.' The smile dropped from her face and her expression became haunted again. 'Do you see him? The man talking to Terrence right now?'

Claudia couldn't see anyone for Terrence's sandy mop, but said yes anyway. Agreeing is what best friends do.

'Terrence invited him here as a prospective husband for me, but I'm not going to marry this one, and I don't care what he says. Terrence, I mean. Not the bridegroom. Well, yes, I don't care what he says, either… Oh, there I go again. Sorry. Verbal diarrhoea, Terrence calls it, which I think is terribly vulgar, and I keep meaning to ask him to refrain from phrases like that, but then he gives me these little brown pills and then I can't think straight… Am I boring you?'