Marilyn Todd - Sour Grapes

Candace didn't smile. Her features remained wooden, her eyes distant and, trapped in her memories, her mind travelled forwards. To the time when she was too old to continue as a source of childish amusement and was sold on again, this time as a slave. Do this, do that. I'll pinch you again if you don't do it quicker. Ah, yes, but slaves earn money… Some more than others, admittedly, it didn't matter. In addition to her upkeep, she was entitled to a small sum of pocket money to spend as she liked, and the crystal was her very first purchase. A lump of native rock on sale in the market at a price she'd had to pay for in six monthly instalments, but once she had it — once she clutched it to her breast — that shining glass would surely bring back her homeland. It would bring back her mother, her father, her brothers, her sisters. All the memories the old King had killed along with their persons.

But as the past stubbornly failed to materialize, so Candace could see the future…

Not through visions in the rock. She saw how she might use its reputation, for if others had tried to see the future and failed, surely it was because they weren't Kushite? The same instincts that had guided her as a child to keep her mouth shut during The Terror guided her then. She hadn't gone straight to her mistress. She began to convince other slaves that she could see their future, bland predictions that were nonetheless straws to clutch in a world where you owned nothing, not even your own soul. Word rippled up through the ranks until one day she was summoned. Basically, through rhetoric she had practised and gestures she'd rehearsed, it boiled down to nothing more than the Mistress encountering troubles and tribulation, but rising above them like migrating cranes. As the stupid bitch lapped it up, so Candace became a pampered pet with her own quarters, her own slaves, and slowly perfected her act. For a start, she made it clear that she couldn't 'see' every day. It was the crystal that imparted the sight; she was merely the instrument of prophecy. Picking and choosing these times gave her control, and by studying the ancient oracles, Candace mastered the art of juggling ambiguity, guesswork and gossip with the well-heeled's insatiable insecurity. As her reputation grew, so did her money chest… and her contempt for them and their class.

Once she'd saved enough to buy her own freedom, she adopted more sophisticated techniques to separate them from their money. The forces of the supernatural are all around us, my child. I am merely their instrument. So why hang on to this empty block of glistening glass? Why keep this crystal which shows neither future nor past?

Like the prism itself, Candace had no answer. Instead, she brought her mind back to the present, demanded silence, for lights to be extinguished, for incense to be lit to propitiate the dead.

'I remind you. The shades of our ancestors inhabit a world of darkness and quiet. If they are to walk again, even for one night, an atmosphere must be created in which they feel comfortable, even though for the rest of us, it will feel cold.'

She bade the assembly link hands, cautioning them to ignore the chill and concentrate on the rhythm of the harp. Let the music fill their minds, she intoned, for the harp was the gateway to the Afterlife.

'Through the circle you form,' she picked up a blade and shook back her sleeve, 'and the blood that I sacrifice,' she broke off while it splashed into the little bronze bowl, 'we create a dark demi-world in which the dead live and the living are dead, and now I cover the sacred Crystal of Kush that time may be as frozen as the air that sweeps over us from the distant Isles of the West.'

In the dark, the gold thread of her veil shimmered like sunlight on water as she threw it over the table.

'O Vanth, Demon of Death, who has eyes on her wings and sees everything, I summon you to walk among us tonight.'

Three loud raps reverberated round the dining hall, echoed by gasps from Eunice and Larentia.

'O Leinth, who waits at the Gates of the Underworld and drinks of human tears, I call upon you to turn your faceless face to the stone and approach.'

Three more knocks.

Candace drew a long breath and deepened the pitch of her voice.

'By the Falcon of the Sun, by the Vultures of the Moon, I bid ye spirits enter.'

'By the Falcon of the Sun, by the Vultures of the Moon,' Candace had said, 'I bid ye spirits enter.'

And enter they bloody well had. In their droves.

From a marble bench by the gate in the courtyard, Claudia watched the moon rise over the roof of the stable block and thought, no sooner had Candace summoned the dead than the dining hall had filled with a thousand moaning, groaning, whispering echoes. Smoke seemed to come from all four corners of the room, swirling, choking, bringing with it the foul smell of Hades.

'Stop them, Candace,' Thalia had quavered. 'M-make them go b-back where they came from.'

'She can't,' Larentia said, and her voice was no steadier. 'She's fainted.'

'Then for gods' sake don't anyone break the bloody circle,' Rex growled, 'or the bastards might never go back.'

'Rex?' The voice was gentle and cooing. 'Rex, my darling, is that you?'

'Honoria?'

But as soon as he called out his wife's name, she was gone, and then swishing sounds filled the air, a flute trilled close to Claudia's ear and she'd felt the soft brush of a hand against her shoulder. When the gold shawl that Candace had thrown over the table lifted clean into the air, Thalia screamed and tried to pull free. Claudia tightened her grip on the girl's wrist, and felt a squeeze of reassurance in her other hand. How sweet of Darius to care…

And that was it, wasn't it? Everything in the end came back to Darius. Evil was proving as slippery as he was shrewd.

'Pale moon doth rain, red moon doth blow.

And dear me, not only had the sorceress summoned the dead; she had also conjured the devil.

'White moon bringeth neither deluge nor snow.'

He sat down on the bench beside her, and she smelled a combination of cough drops and balm of Gilead above the floral scents that dominated the courtyard. So help me, if you're any kind of healer, she told Apollo, your divine powers will ensure both have gone off.

'I suppose that's why you wait to prune the vines,' Darius rumbled. 'So warm breezes can blow the frost away.'

That's it, Felix. Keep on pretending you're not from these parts.

'Frankly, I neither know nor care,' she retorted. 'I'm a city girl, which means that where I come from, gazing up at the moon is reserved for drunks in the gutter.'

'Are you saying you don't like Tuscany?'

'How can one like nothing? Because Jupiter knows, there's enough of the bloody stuff around here. Hills, trees, rivers, fields — good grief, the nothingness never ends, and if you think Rome's noisy, Darius, it's small fry compared to the commotion that starts here at dawn.'

'I think you're lying,' he said gently. 'I think you like this place very much.'

'And suppose I say I don't care what you think.'

'Then,' he laughed, 'I'll know you're lying.'

It was tempting — oh, god it was tempting — to stuff Terrence's ring under his nose and wipe the smile off his face. But if Claudia was to savour the moment, truly savour it, she had to ensure the timing was right. It wouldn't be fair to steal Larentia's thunder,' she'd told Terrence with her prettiest pout. We should wait until she and Darius have announced their betrothal before announcing ours. ' That was the time to watch the smile freeze on his smug, vengeful features! To flash her sapphire triumph into his face. When he's standing in front of a crowd of compatriots, secure in the knowledge that he's finally taken control of his enemy's business, his enemy's mother, his widow, his sister, even his enemy's naive teenage daughter. Oh, yes, Felix Musa. That's the moment for you to realize you're standing on quicksand.