Marilyn Todd - Widow's Pique

'My Lady?'

Considerably more Minotaur than Taurus, Mazares escorted Claudia to the high table where, as the King's guest, she was seated in the centre. The chair was no different to dozens she had at home. High-backed, well stuffed, finely upholstered, elaborately carved, but there was something wrong with the cushioning. She wriggled as delicately as her gown would permit as liveried slaves set out silver salvers of food on the table, and then wriggled some more.

'Perhaps a throne is not to milady's taste?' a voice murmured in her left ear.

Seated beside her was a stranger. Dressed in silver, as Juraj the Moon God, he wore a silver mask over his face that distorted his voice. To her right, Mazares had taken off his heavy bull headdress and was leaning across Pavan to converse with Drilo, ostensibly unaware that introductions had not been made. On the other side of the stranger, the Sun God was trying his damnedest to run his hand up the Goddess of the Night's thigh. The only thing that prevented him was the presence of a white cat sitting squarely between them. Miaow.

Cheerfully ignoring the stranger's remark, Claudia clapped as a rope-walker balanced his pole and set off above a line of the balefires.

'Or are you perhaps entertaining us with a demonstration of some quaint Roman ritual?' the stranger persisted, seemingly unaware of the crowd's collective gasp as the rope-walker wobbled.

'How strange,' she mused, as a plate of veal seasoned with oil and herbs was brought to the table, 'that human beings possess such a capacity to bore, yet the trait is lacking in all other creatures.'

The eye holes in the mask glittered.

The rope-walker made it safely to the other side. The crowd sighed with relief. Claudia resisted the urge to squirm on the uncomfortable cushion.

Lobster, shrimp, asparagus, truffles, pomegranates, roast kid and game were passed round, as acrobats began to juggle flaming torches in the air.

'Who's Marcus?' the Moon God asked, applauding the tumblers' daring precision.

The prawn on Claudia's knife slithered into her lap.

'Isn't he the bandy-legged fellow down there dressed as a stag?'

The mask leaned forward and peered. 'And you called out his name when they carried you home from your fall?'

This time it was her wine that spilled over.

'I think you'll find I was so grateful at being rescued that I actually said "marvellous".'

'Ah.'

'Long live the King!' someone yelled, as the first slices of roast ox were carved off. Dammit, this seat was uncomfortable.

'Long live the King's bride!' Mazares shouted.

Something deep inside the silver mask growled.

Claudia lifted her own glass. 'Long live Histria!'

The toast was met with thunderous cheers.

'In Rome, we don't celebrate Zeltane,' she proclaimed loudly, 'but we do have our own tradition.'

She rose from her seat and looked down on their upturned, eager faces.

'On the night of the new moon closest to May Day, we down as many cups of wine as years we hope to live.' She raised her goblet to the crowd. Salzi vol!'

There was, of course, a certain irony in toasting the good health of hundreds of people who, because of her, were likely to experience anything but!

'Salzi vol!' came the jubilant chorus. 'Salzi vol, Claudinoki! Salzi vol!'

'I didn't know about that particular custom,' Mazares drawled. 'Did you?'

The question was directed at the Moon God, whose response was to upend his glass.

'Nope,' he replied, leaning back and crossing his soft yellow boots at the ankle. 'But I like it.'

'So do I!' shouted Kazan.

'It has my vote,' said Marek (or was it Mir?).

'Mine, too,' added Mir (or was it Marek?). 'And I intend to live to a hundred!'

Claudia sat down again and considered the paradox of this deceptively handsome young lout who wanted to be a long-liver, but whose liver would not live that long.

'Salzi vol!'

Mighty Jupiter, King of Olympus, make them all want to be octogenarians, would you — because how could she possibly escape with the conspirators sober?

She fluttered her fingers at a particularly sweet little woodpecker she'd befriended earlier and felt a warm glow as the woodpecker waved back. But before it was time to pluck his lovely green feathers, she needed to walk a tightrope far more hazardous than the entertainer who'd performed for the crowd earlier. Mazares's cunning was not to be underestimated. So, despite having no appetite to dine among cold-blooded killers, the honoured guest forced herself to eat, even using several tiny flat flour cakes to mop up the mushroom and garlic sauce that her smoked pork had been cooked in.

To Marek and Mir she simpered and tittered. She batted her eyelashes at Kazan, nodded solemnly at Drilo's predictions of a fruitful harvest followed by drought, complimented Rosmerta and laughed at Mazares's jokes. In truth, that part wasn't difficult. Mazares was a born raconteur with an easy wit and an ability to win people over.

'… so I said to him, look, man, it's better to be mad and not know it than be sane and have your doubts.'

At his feet, the two Molossan wolfhounds alternated between snoozing and stretching, although from time to time they deigned to take snippets of roast ox and other delicacies from their master's hand. The three of them together. A pack, she reflected, that was merely at rest.

'… I tell you, the louder that Venetian merchant proclaimed his integrity, the faster we counted our silver.'

'My father told me to beware of only three things in life,' the Moon God murmured behind his mask, as she applauded yet another of Mazares's witticisms. 'One, the kick of a mule. Two, the tusk of a boar. The third was the smile of a beautiful woman.'

'I'm surprised you've experienced the latter,' she replied, 'but what astonishes me even further is that you actually knew who your father was. Do excuse me.'

He stood as Claudia rose, and dipped his head politely.

'Well, that's one thing my father didn't warn me about. To expect all three together.'

Younger than Mazares, and as tall, but a soldier. You could tell by the muscles that bulged through his robes, by the strength and breadth of his hands. The Moon God who, according to his waxing and waning, sees everything, sees part or sees nothing…

Among the revellers, the festivities were going well. People passed her barley cakes shaped like wheels to toss into the flames in appeasement of the Fire God and hymns were sung to Perun, to his wife Perunika, to the King, to the Motherland, to Rome, to Svarog the Sun God, to Kikimora the Cat Goddess, in fact to every living creature that moved.

Her toast, god bless it, was working.

Eyes followed her progress. Pavan's seemed especially sharp, but maybe this was merely the reflection of so many fires, though she'd noticed his hand hadn't strayed far from his scabbard tonight. Four, five, six times she returned to the table, flirting and feasting, listening and nodding, only to excuse herself once more in a desire to confer good health and prosperity upon the revellers, throwing more barley wheels into the flames and secure in the knowledge that a combination of music and laughter drowned any whispered words that might be thrown a bashful young woodpecker's way.

'Dance with me, Claudia! Dance with me, and lift my heart with your smile, and sweep me off my feet with your beauty!'

Drink affects people in different ways. It had made Kazan merrier, more effusive, more charming, and as Claudia cavorted between the bonfires, it was difficult to imagine this impossibly handsome creature as a schemer. A dreamer, Pavan had called him. Ah, but what else are dreamers if not idealists — and idealists can be ruthless in pursuit of their goals. What a spoiled child wants, a spoiled child gets, but how far would this liquid-eyed charmer go to get what he wanted, and, more to the point, what would he gain by destroying the King and eliminating his allies and bloodline? She had no time to think. Kazan swept her clean off her feet and danced as though she was an armful of lilies.