Marilyn Todd - Sour Grapes

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The Roman villas, glistening white with local stone, would not have been there, of course, nor the straight metalled roads bustling with legionaries, merchants, strolling players and despatch runners, but otherwise Porsenna would have surveyed the same rolling hillsides verdant with olives and vines, the same pasturelands dotted with sheep, and the same waving fields of wheat that fused with forests rich in timber and game in the distance. What's more, every last vista would have been suffused with the same golden glow that was such a feature of this glorious landscape.

Nine tenths of Porsenna's kingdom consisted of hills rising to mountains, from which a thousand streams sprung that merged and compounded until they formed a huge patchwork of rivers that kept his land fertile and green. In some places, water even spouted from the rock hotter than a first-rate bath and bursting with health-giving minerals. But from thermal spa to gently bubbling spring, rushing streams to slow-flowing river, all the waters were holy. To the King, as indeed with every Etruscan, the gods manifested themselves in every aspect of nature, so from the humblest vole to the most magnificent cypress, from fragrant wild sage to the swiftest of hawks, people knew that the gods moved among mortals and employed augurs to interpret their holy will.

Reeds were especially sacred. The reeds whispered the words of the gods and carried them off on the wind, and although the augurs came to decipher the whisperings, the reeds steadfastly clung to their secret.

But now, as the sun climbed high in the sky and warmed the waters in which their roots had taken hold, one particular patch prepared to divulge at least one of its mysteries.

High in the poplars, a flycatcher trilled, and a cuckoo called over the hedgerows. Fish darted in and out of the shallows, unaware of the heron's shadow that stalked them, while spring lambs gambolled across flower-filled meadows.

Deep in the reed beds, the water shimmered and rippled.

After three days' submersion, the gases inside gently raised the body to the surface.

And a seventeen-year-old youth set out on his final journey downstream.

Four

As the cart clip-clopped through the arched stone gateway, Claudia was aware of something different that she just couldn't put her finger on about the villa. At first, she assumed it was the mid-May sunshine bouncing off the walls, making them somehow lighter, brighter, full of radiance. But that was nonsense. The sun was in the wrong direction. Any enhancement to the redness of the roof tiles would come later in the day. So what, then?

Dismounting amid a flurry of slaves rushing out with everything from goblets of elderflower tea to slake her thirst to ox-hair brushes to sweep the dust off her robe, she wondered if it was a trick of the memory. After all, she wasn't the most regular of visitors… but no. The north wing still comprised the slave and estate workers' quarters, the forge still belched out coils of smoke, and the windows of the little bath house still diffused light through their panes of green glass. Claudia picked up the cage containing a growling, howling, hackle-backed demon and marched off round the peristyle to the only room she'd ever shared with her husband. 'Hrrroww www.'

'Yes, I know, poppet.' She flipped the latch on the cage and Drusilla, her blue-eyed, cross-eyed, dark Egyptian cat, shot out as though someone had set fire to her tail. 'I don't want to be here, either.' Nothing but hills, trees and vines; Hades offered better prospects for light entertainment. 'But with this Candace creature charging the most exorbitant prices to convince my mother-in-law that it's perfectly normal to commune with her dead son, what option do we have?' 'RrrrrrowwL'

Unconvinced, Drusilla took consolation in the plate of ham and cold chicken laid out for her mistress. Claudia waited until the cat had finished, then plumped down on the only couch she'd ever shared with Gaius — and how well she remembered clinging to her own side of the mattress.

'Yes, that's another thing. This mattress.' She gave it a good hard prod and lost her finger. It's not only new;, unless I miss my guess it's swansdown.'

'Brrrp?'

Drusilla's ears pricked forward. Swansdown? The indignity of travel instantly forgotten, she jumped on to the bed, nestled into the centre by the pillows and began washing her whiskers.

'Good grief!' Claudia jumped up. 'That's it!'

No wonder the place gleamed and looked so different! Everything had been renovated top to bottom, inside as well as out.

'You're not allowed in here, you know.' A small face peered round the door to the peristyle. It was pale and freckled, and framed by a cap of gold hair. 'I'm Amanda, and this room's out of bounds, and if you don't leave at once, Indigo and me will tell.'

'Very well, Amanda.' She watched a small gleam of triumph light up tiny blue eyes. 'You and… um, Indigo go tell.'

The freckles merged into one humungous brown blob when she frowned. 'But we don't like telling tales, do we, Indigo?' She cupped her hands and whispered into thin air. 'Anyway, Indigo says you're supposed to go when you're told. Can we come in?' She didn't wait to be asked, but ushered her imaginary companion in first. 'Ooh, is this your cat?'

'ReeeowF

'Not very friendly, is she?'

'Not very,' but the child hadn't backed off and Claudia decided Amanda was probably used to being snarled at.

'I say, is this your luggage?' The girl knelt down and unhooked the clip on one of the chests. 'I suppose you're a guest, then, so you won't have to leave, only you must be a pretty important one, if they've given you this room.' Tiny fingers prodded about in the clothes. 'But you want to be careful,' she warned in a wide-eyed whisper. 'Mummy says this is the old witch's room.'

'Oh, Mummy said that, did she? Well, I would really like to meet your Mummy, Amanda.'

'No, you wouldn't.' The girl dragged a scarlet tunic shot with gold out of the chest and held it under her chin. 'Nobody likes Mummy, that's why me and Indigo have to keep moving on. What do you think? Too bright?'

'No, I-'

'Indigo says it's too bright.' She tossed it on to a chair. 'What about this one?'

'Peacock blue matches your eyes.'

'That's exactly what Indigo says.' Amanda pulled the robe over her head and belted it with a silver hair ribbon she picked out of the trunk. 'How do I look?'

'Ravishing.'

'Really?' Tiny eyes turned into dinner plates.

'If you don't believe me, look!' Claudia held up a mirror, in which the child twirled excitedly.

Bored with this girlie stuff, Drusilla wandered off in search of mice to torment, because time might have passed, but she hadn't forgotten where they'd made their holes.

'Indigo wants to know how long you're staying,' Amanda said, rummaging for a pair of emerald-green sandals.

'Tell Indigo she's very nosey.'

'Oh, she knows that, and she's rude and has terrible manners as well. Last night, she ate a whole plate of almond cakes all by herself and then she burped, but guess what? It was me that got a spank. Is this too much rouge?'

'You mean I still have some left in the pot?'

'I'm going to be a hairdresser when I grow up. What about you?'

'I am grown up.'

'No, silly, I meant what do you do? Or are you too important to do anything? Mummy said the witch — that's whose room you'll be sleeping in — Mummy says she's a golddigging cow, but I don't see how, do you? Cows have horns, but you never see them digging with them.' She smeared a wonky red line over her lips. 'I suppose that's why she's a witch, though. When you're a witch, you can do anything you like, even dig for gold with your horns, although I'd have thought a spade would be better.'

'Where is your Mummy, Amanda?'

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