Marilyn Todd - Sour Grapes

'Quite the reverse.'

Claudia patted Thalia's arm in the way best friends always pat and led her away from children raucously racing toy chariots and playing tag to the rose arbour, where it was quiet. Several early varieties were already in bud, she noticed, and beneath them pinks and cerastium ran riot.

'You were telling me about Terrence and the pills?'

'Was I? I get so confused, you know, but that's why he says I should take them. After my husband died…' Thalia glanced round over both shoulders to make sure no one could hear. 'Claudia, I've done a terrible thing. To my husband, I mean. Well, when I say did, I didn't do it myself, but I killed him all the same.'

Thank Jupiter! Claudia held one of the fragrant pinks to her nose while her best friend unburdened herself.

'Terrence says it's nonsense. He says I couldn't possibly have murdered him just by willing him dead, but it's true. I wished my husband dead and — pft! — he died the next day, and Tarchis says that if one invokes the Dark Gods, they always answer the call… Oh, Claudia, do you hate me very much? For what I did to my husband, I mean, not the blathering. Although you probably hate me for that, as well… Ooh, look, look! Do you see the magistrate's wife?' Thalia peered through the twining branches. 'She's wearing a grey robe, and I swear it's the same colour as the one Terrence forbade me from wearing because he said it clashed with my hair and made me look pasty.'

'Sadly, Thalia, I think your brother was right.'

'But who cares whether something's suitable or not? Why can't I do something I want for a change, without constantly having to worry about what other people might think? I like grey.'

'So do I, but getting back to your husband…'

'Exactly. He wouldn't let me wear that shade, either, and I'm going to tell Terrence that the magistrate's wife is wearing it and

… and… well, I don't know what else I'm going to tell him, but I think he ought to know!'

And off she swept, leaving Claudia wishing that Terrence would give her a handful of sedatives. God knows five minutes with Thalia was enough to drive anyone crazy. No wonder the banker was grouchy.

As the sun sank, torches and cressets blazed to turn night into day round the villa. This was the cue for the waterwrestling to begin, in which naked, oiled athletes were required to hold their opponents under for a mere count of twelve, which was proving harder than it sounded, since they were constantly slipping out of each other's grasp. On the far side of the terrace, a man clad in a bearskin danced with a live bear, another paraded monkeys dressed in military tunics, while masked actors performed a satire on marriage and a girl wearing a horned helmet twirled a bull-roarer with both hands that drowned out the musician entertaining a crowd with his pan-pipes.

Too much, too much. With all that had gone on since talking to Tarchis yesterday, Claudia's mind hadn't stopped whirling. She needed somewhere to think. Somewhere quiet. And Terrence's maze offered the perfect retreat.

Especially since every dead end resulted in a forfeit of wine!

She collected four goblets, then took them to one of the marble benches that had been placed at regular intervals for weary exit-hunters and thought that that was the trouble with the aristocracy. When you're born in the slums, a sense of direction becomes second nature, every bit as keen as touch, hearing and smell. Terrence's soft-living guests would need every seat he'd laid out!

The throb-throb-throb of a drumbeat pulsed out across the immaculately clipped topiary, and she could almost picture the dancers swirling and twirling to their hypnotic rhythm. Downing the first goblet, she wondered how Flavia was getting on. Timi, the instructress at the Temple of Fufluns, could not have been a day under seventy, yet she was as supple as she was graceful — but best of all, she was strict.

'The girls run through their routines with me until I'm satisfied they're step-perfect,' she'd explained crisply, showing Claudia the rehearsal room. 'Only then do I allow them to enter the god's chamber — ' She'd pointed to a low, narrow door cut into the rock face '- to work on their selfexpression in front of Fufluns. But I warn you: if your stepdaughter thinks it's an hour to skive off, she's in for a shock.

When her time's up, she will be required to dance for me the way she danced for Fufluns, and I can spot instantly if her movements aren't polished through the additional practice.' She snapped her fingers. 'If they're no different, back she goes until they jolly well are!'

A thought occurred to Claudia. 'That's the same for all the Brides?'

'It is,' Timi said, bending backwards to touch her heels.

'So when Vorda finished the night she died, was she step-perfect? You didn't make her go back and practise again?'

The dance teacher straightened up with a scowl. 'Young woman, if you're implying I was responsible for Vorda's state of mind that night, think again! I have no idea what improvements she'd made to her routine, because once the measuring candle burned down, I knocked to tell her and, dear me, she didn't even look at me when she came out. Pushed straight past, which was not like her at all. She was singing like a lark when she went in-'

'No indications at the start of the evening that she intended taking her own life?'

'Between you and me, my lady, I rather hoped in Vorda I was training my successor. She was a natural, that girl. Far better than me at that age, and she loved showing me the various nuances she'd added, and with the red-headed moon approaching, she was as excited as ever. Singing, laughing, eyes bright when she went in, but like Tarchis says, what can you expect when the Herald of Death has summoned you to His hall?'

Inevitability and predestination had its merits, Claudia supposed. People became saddened by death, but not devastated, since all things were the will of the gods… which was fine when you were distanced from it in terms of family and friendship. Rosenna, though, had taken her brother's murder very badly and Claudia couldn't help wondering how Vorda's mother was coping with her daughter's sudden death, either.

'May I?' She indicated the narrow door.

Timi smiled proudly. 'Fufluns will be very pleased to welcome you, my lady.'

With a well-practised gesture of obeisance, she opened the door to reveal a chamber hewn out of rock, whose walls were covered with sensual rather than erotic paintings and in which fragrant oils burned from a handful of strategically placed lamps. Hyssop for purity, oregano for peace, sage for sanctification. The idol inside was life-sized, carved out of wood and realistically painted, right down to the leering expression, and though Lars had warned Claudia that Fufluns had horns, he forgot to mention how many. Or where!

'He certainly seems pleased to see us,' Claudia murmured.

'The Brides' purpose is to arouse their bridegroom, my lady. We cannot have them thinking their husband is disinterested.'

Oh, that effigy was definitely not disinterested!

'Thirteen virgins representing the full maturity of their respective moons marry the earth god on the night of the red-headed moon,' Timi explained. 'Then they dance to arouse His divine passion, that His seed will fructify the precious vines and the cycle of life will continue.'

Claudia walked slowly round the chamber, feeling the rock face as she passed. 'There's only the one entrance?'

'Like Horta, whose soil we turn with our ploughs, Fufluns makes His home in the earth. Even one door is an intrusion into the world of the gods, which is why the opening is kept small and remains locked when not in use.'

Yet the Herald of Death got to Vorda somehow, and he couldn't have been hiding in here. Not for the day or so between rehearsals. Claudia absently sniffed the contents of a bronze chafing pan. Ugh. Catnip leaves. Definitely not Roman! And for heaven's sake, look at that. Something else seemed to have shrivelled and died in that horrid bowl. She moved closer to one of the oil burners and let their sweet fragrance smother the pong.