Marilyn Todd - Sour Grapes

Very generous, considering it wasn't her house. But then, much as one would like to, one can't go tossing unwanted mothers-in-law into the middens. Even the most venomous ones.

'No doubt you'll be wanting to give my fiance the onceover.' Larentia sniffed. 'Might as well get that over and done with, too.'

'Dodd- Darius is here now?'

'The sooner I get his feet under my table,' Larentia cackled, 'the sooner I get 'em under my mattress! Oh, for heaven's sake, girl, snap your jaw shut. You look just like Flavia did when I said the same thing to her.'

And to think Claudia had castigated the girl!

'What?' Larentia scowled. 'Don't you think old people get consumed by the same urges as you youngsters? Course we do, and when you see my Darius, you'll understand why. Quite the stud, if you pardon the pun.'

Claudia sucked in her cheeks as she followed Larentia towards the atrium. So far the week had been one shock on top of another, but the idea of two wizened bodies writhing in ecstasy in the afternoon sunlight, their toothless gums clacking together like castanets, a sound matched only by the creak of their knee joints, was just too hilarious to contemplate. Good luck to you, Larentia, you poisonous old bat. And power to Darius's doddering elbow!

'You wait here.' Larentia stopped abruptly in the doorway. 'Not another step, understood? I need this threshold purified first.'

Claudia looked round, but the command was for her, not some slave she'd imagined, but by the time she'd turned back to protest, Larentia was speeding down the corridor on feet that were moving twice as fast as someone half her age. Claudia stuck her tongue out at the retreating figure. Heaven knows what gods Larentia imagined her to be offending by stepping over them, but she gave the threshold a bloody good kick anyway. A male voice chuckled as it stepped out from behind a marble pillar.

'I fear Larentia's been taken prisoner by local superstition,' he said, and his voice had enough gravel in it to pave the Forum. 'However, I won't tell, if you won't.'

Claudia studied him as he bowed. Early fifties and whilst not exactly a sculptor's dream with his pepper-and-salt hair cut Caesar-style to cover his baldness, he wasn't gargoyle material either. Lean and tanned, with corded muscles that bulged out the long sleeves of his tunic, his eyes were as hard as granite, and instantly Claudia relaxed. Perfect. Another family member suspicious of their parent's motives! Presumably the eldest son concerned about his inheritance, but either way, someone she could do business with.

'Superstition be damned,' she replied. 'The old trout has never forgiven me for marrying her son at an age when he should have known better. I'm Claudia,' she added. 'Larentia's favourite person in the whole wide world.'

'I know,' he said, with a slight cough. 'I'm Darius.'

As the constellation of the dragon clawed its way slowly over the horizon, Marcus Cornelius Orbilio attempted to define the word ambition. It could, he supposed, be deemed any personal aim or aspiration, however small or unimportant — the desire to learn to swim, for example. To travel, write a poem, or even, for cack-handed hacks like himself, thread a needle. At the other extreme, it translated as obsession. A fixation with hunting down the biggest boar, being the best baker in the city, catching that elusive brown trout before your competitor hooked it. Then again, he thought, ambition could be construed as the pinnacle of personal achievement, the way a charioteer might set his sights on passing the winning post in the Circus Maximus to beat the record, say, or an athlete training for that once-in-a-lifetime Olympic crown.

'Here's that report you sent for, sir.'

Orbilio thanked the scribe, red-eyed from squinting too long over his smoky oil lamp, but left the scroll unopened on his desk as he supposed that ambition could also be classified as the desire to change society, regardless ofthe consequences. Revolutionaries, as he knew only too well, were every bit as driven as politicians, which — he sighed and twisted in his chair — was yet another facet of the word. It was that fervent, some might say fanatical, desire for fame, for power, honour, wealth, call it what you will, but which encompassed all the trappings by which certain types of people measured success.

'Oh, and this is the information you requested on the murder victim,' the scribe added wearily. 'Will that be it for tonight, sir?'

'It will, Milo. Have an enjoyable evening.'

'Thank you, I will. Although if you don't mind my saying so, it wouldn't hurt you to take some time off. "All work and no play," as my great-granddaddy used to say, "makes for one more funeral a day.'"

'In that case, I shall take great care to cheat the undertaker,' Orbilio promised, but even as he spoke, there was no question of him slowing down.

During last year's visit to Gaul, the Governor of Aquitania had been so impressed with the way Marcus had handled that paedophile investigation that he'd offered him a job running his own branch of the Security Police in Gaul. For all the post's kudos, however, he didn't accept straight away, and it was not that he was too young or too ill-prepared for the job, which unfortunately went without saying. As always in life, there are personal complications and his came in the form of a wildcat with dark flashing eyes, rebellious curls and a tongue that could flay skin from a stone.

'Claudia Seferius.' He whispered her name into the night. 'Claudia, Claudia, Claudia. What is it about you?'

Would you believe, he'd actually followed that woman all the way to Aquitania from Rome? Trailed three hundred miles over land, river and sea, just to make an ass of himself? He rubbed his throbbing forehead. When, oh when, will we men learn? He exhaled slowly and realized this was what he'd been coming round to from the beginning, because love was the ultimate definition of ambition. Indefinable, intangible, as elusive as smoke, he questioned its very existence. Sure, there were phases people went through. Searing hot lust, tender affection, he was fully aware of those things. But the churning and yearning that gnawed at his liver? The burning that tore at his guts? Hell no, that wasn't love, so he accepted the Governor's offer. The Aquitanian climate was a hundred times better than Rome, averaging two thousand hours of sunshine a year, and since new trade routes had given a huge boost to their economy, the Gauls had proved excellent allies. Unfortunately…

Tearing his eyes from the dragon's twinkling scales, Orbilio lit another oil lamp and flexed his tired shoulders.

Unfortunately, crime doesn't shrivel with sunshine, murder least of all, and as Aquitania flourished, so too did the frauds and conspiracies. With a heavy sigh, Orbilio picked up the physician's report on the murder victim. Single deep stab wound to the stomach, which, though fatal, did not cause death. Foam found in the back of his throat indicated the poor sod had died as a result of drowning. For several minutes, Orbilio studied the parchment, making notes on the page, writing down questions, then reached for the first report that he'd requested.

Hunches, he believed, were the difference between his almost one-hundred per cent success record and the ratings of the other members of the team. It wasn't that he was cleverer than they were. Just that he'd been given an education and military experience that, as a patrician, the Roman class system denied his lower-born colleagues. Instinct, intuition, gut reaction, hunch, whatever you call it, it still boiled down to nothing more than years of insight and observation encapsulated in an instant, then having the nous to act on it.

He re-rolled the scroll then read through the physician's report for the umpteenth time. More than ever he was convinced that the chief suspect for this murder was innocent, and despite his personal interest in the case, the work of the Security Police isn't always about catching the bad guys. Sometimes it's about making sure a person isn't shoved in front of a bunch of hungry lions for a crime they didn't commit — and if you happen to catch the bad guys while you're about it, then that's a bonus.