Marilyn Todd - Widow's Pique

'You have no idea.'

Kazan slumped against the side of the pit as the first hot raindrops started to fall.

'You have no idea what it's like to have a brother strutting around like some puffed-up cockerel, telling me how he's got the best of this, the biggest of that, while pointing out how worthless and useless I was, an unwanted afterthought, nothing but the runt of the litter.'

As droplets became heavier, Claudia grasped a new side to Dol. One in which duty came first as he oversaw everything himself, leaving his sons to grow up without him. The eldest compensated by becoming a braggart and a bully, leaving the youngest to be overindulged by his mother. Only the middle son learned by avoiding their mistakes — then made one of his own by following his father's example.

'It was a good way to go,' Kazan said.

The rain was drumming, turning the red mud to orange sludge.

'Fevers creep up, until all sense of logic is lost. Brac died in his sleep. Crumbs, it was obvious to me, even at the tender age of fourteen, that Mazares was head and shoulders the best man to take over from Father. Brac didn't want the job. He didn't give a stuff about Histria, all he was bothered about were his pecker and his belly. No, Mazares was the caring one. He was the best-looking of us, too, clever at schooling, and Brac's bride wasn't just a stunner, Delmi was a princess. As a mere second son, Mazares would only have qualified for a chieftain's daughter, same as me, so, if you like, you could say I was doing both my brothers a favour.'

An interesting viewpoint, but one which Claudia doubted many would share, and Brac least of all.

'What about Rosmerta?' she asked.

'Yes, well, knowing what I know now, I'm doubly sorry that wig was so thick, and as for that incompetent idiot of a mule doctor…'

Another one who'd underestimated the doctor's abilities, it seemed, because when Kazan slipped what he believed to be an overdose of painkiller down his wife's throat, he was merely putting her into that recuperative sleep.

'I hate her, Claudia, I've always hated the bitch. The look of her, the touch of her, it's revolting, and can you imagine how much I ground my teeth doing what I had to, until I'd sired those boys?'

His sodden hair shuddered.

'She stifled me. One sniffle and she'd have me covered in mustard poultices. She was bossy, domineering, always made me feel less of a man and, sure, I made light of our separate lives, but hell, that isn't marriage.'

No, it isn't, Claudia thought. But it takes two to settle into that kind of arrangement.

'Then Vani told me she was pregnant and that changed everything. Mir knows full well it isn't his, he hasn't touched her in months, and it's not as if she loves the lad.'

So it was Mir the athletic Vani was married to, was it? Claudia tried to picture which of the two sons had restrained the mastiff on its short leash and which one then released it. Either way, both were guilty of murder, and this time they wouldn't escape the smell of roasted man-meat. The flesh on the fire would be theirs.

'So, you wanted Rosmerta out of the way to marry Vani?'

Oh, Kazan. Don't you listen to any of your women? Don't you understand a single one? For better or worse, Vani had nailed her colours to the marital mast. Adultery was one thing, but divorce was out of the question. She tried not to think how it was for Delmi, lost in grief and looking for consolation in the handsome lover with the slow hand, only to find emptiness in both.

'Vani and I are good for each other, you've seen that, but more importantly, that's my child she's carrying.'

Love, protection, affection, Claudia could understand all that. But…

'Why didn't you divorce Rosmerta?'

The puzzlement in his eyes was her answer and Claudia instinctively edged back a pace. He'd stifled his brother and got away with it. With his wife, it hadn't occurred to him to do anything else, and no wonder there had been a look of such deep concern on his face when he realized the assault hadn't proved fatal. He was worried Rosmerta had seen him, so he tried to finish her off with the poppy draught. Like a rogue tiger, she thought, he'd acquired the taste. Kazan had become a rogue male…

'What are you going to do?' he asked quietly.

Claudia drew a deep breath.

'Nothing.'

She lifted the last remaining item from her basket and balanced it on the edge of the boat builder's grave. It was a small phial of green glass that, until this morning, had sat on the shelf in Salome's treatment room. The papyrus label proclaimed it as hemlock.

'We must each take responsibility for our own destiny, Kazan.'

Murderers weren't allowed to rest in this holy precinct, but that was presuming somebody knew.

'Only you can decide whether you want your soul at the mercy of shroud-eaters and to never find rest, or whether you would rather lie here, with your brother and father.'

The rain drummed out Kazan's reply.

The boat-thronged harbour ebbed away into the distance.

Slowly, the scent of the islands was replaced by the tang of the ocean, and the white hill that was Rovin, rising out of the foam like Venus, Goddess of Love, grew smaller and smaller until it was no more than a spot on the horizon.

The great striped sail billowed and shook as Claudia rested her elbows on the red-painted rail and rested her chin in her hands. Strange, but she would miss these crystal-clear waters, the pebbly beaches and golden coves, the eternal beauty of this evergreen archipelago. Histria was not at all how she'd imagined, but the biggest surprise was how hard it had been to say goodbye to this heavenly oasis of pines and vines, a land full of contrasts, of ancient secrets and wisdom. She would never return. Too much had happened, but there was an emptiness at knowing she'd never inhale the herbal aromas of Salome's treatment room again, or watch fleeces being combed instead of shorn, or listen to the Amazons squabble and sing as they worked in the fields, their skirts kilted up to their knees. Nor would she know how Broda's emotional scars would affect her as she grew into adulthood, or whether Raspor would be re-buried in Gora or left in peace where he was.

'Copper quadran for your thoughts,' a baritone murmured in her ear, and suddenly sandalwood was blotting out the smell of pitch and salt. With just a hint of the rosemary that his patrician tunic had been rinsed in.

Claudia turned. What could she say? That she had been gazing at the land as it blurred into blue on the horizon, conjuring up Nymphs of the West singing lullabies in gardens full of apples of gold, which had been walled by mighty Atlas himself… before she remembered how Histria was a land of two halves. That werewolves roamed the dark side of the collective imagination, as well, alongside shroud-eaters, vampires and fire-breathing monsters, and that arch-ghoul with the lolling head, Nosferatu.

'I was just thinking how a girl can't even catch a boat nowadays without it swarming with Security Police.'

Orbilio grinned. In fact, now she came to think of it, he'd been grinning like an idiot since he boarded this ship.

'You have to agree, though, that when it comes to swarming, I'm up there with the best of them.'

'No, Marcus, that's smarming, and you owe me a quadran.'

'I owe you an apology, too.' His expression became grim. 'I ought to have taken your concerns seriously, only, so many deaths seemed.. well, absurd.'

Also, she thought, he was too close. He'd known Mazares a long time, and if Mazares himself was convinced that his family was jinxed, that conviction would have no trouble transferring itself to others. Orbilio couldn't have changed one damn thing. But she would let him work that out in his own time, not hers. She hadn't forgotten who'd palmed her off like an old vase in the first place!