Widow's Pique (17 page)

'Remind me to lend you a ruby,' she breezed. 'If you hold it next to your eye, all things become magnified. An excellent aid for short sight.'

'Apart from you, then.'

Easy. The Histri were underhand, they were sneaky, they were all double-dealers. Even without the conspiracy angle, they'd managed to convince Rome that they were perfectly capable of governing themselves without intervention. Doubtless they were right, and although Gora probably bristled with imperial flunkies, such was the propaganda they'd been drip fed for so long that it wouldn't have occurred to any Roman to be on the invitation list for local festivals.

'I have no idea,' she replied, helping herself to a piece of succulent lamb. 'Why don't we ask Mazares?'

The rumble under the mask was reminiscent of the sound Drusilla made when she heard a strange noise in the night. Two minutes passed, in which the Moon God tapped his fingernail on the table.

'I don't suppose you'd care to dance with me, would you?'

He supposed right.

* * *

It was only as the sun began to sink again and the exhausted revellers collapsed to watch the
Zeltana
- the play in which Winter (dressed in grey) battled Summer (all in green) - which ended in a comic turn, with Summer setting fire to Winter's tail and Winter running down the island howling at the top of his voice - that Claudia wondered whether she hadn't been looking at this problem the wrong way round.

Clearly, there was no way she could steal away from this island ... so why try? Why not let them think she'd escaped and lie low until the heat had died down? She couldn't be sure it was 'them' and not 'him', just as she couldn't be sure Mazares was spearheading this campaign, but who else had the patience, drive and grit to execute a plan that would take
years
to come to fruition? As a soldier, Pavan certainly had the ability and tactical knowledge, but no general worth his salt would sit back for that long. Were Pavan the lone orches-trator, he'd have acted swiftly and decisively, and would undoubtedly have come unstuck long ago. Kazan was too selfcentred, Drilo too self-important, Marek and Mir too immature and self-absorbed.

She watched as archers fired volley upon volley of flaming arrows at the setting sun in a last-ditch attempt to keep the light alive, and thought, yes indeed. Smoke and mirrors, that was all it was . . . yet it was enough to reverse nature for the duration of the Zeltane Festival. Why not make smoke and mirrors work for her?

All she needed was the right spot in which to go to ground.

'My dear, what a wonderful surprise!'

The tints in Salome's hair glistened like rubies beneath the blazing sun.

'And you've saved me a trip to Rovin, as well.'

Leading Claudia away from her armed escort, she took her to a cool shed packed with a fragrant display of oleanders, pinks, larkspur and hibiscus, orange blossom, lilies and orchids, all arranged with breathtaking artistry.

'The day after Zeltane and in celebration of the Earth Goddess Maija, Histrian women pack flowers into the baskets that they've spent all winter weaving, which they then give away. This tradition is known as the Goodwill Basket and the idea is to distribute luck and good fortune to those who need it the most.'

There were scabious and verbena, sweet periwinkle, heads of fluffy, white peonies . . .

'Tobias's handiwork?'

'That's the beauty of the men who choose to stay on,' Salome said. 'They stay, because they fall in love with this land.'

The thought of the scowling Tobias in love was hard to imagine. Lean and wiry, with a head of thick, springy hair, he struck Claudia as a young man tormented by demons, not angels. But who knows? Perhaps he exorcized them in horticultural perfection?

'Teamwork,' Salome explained. 'Tobias produces these beautiful blooms, Lora fashions them into works of art.'

Lora: the girl with the cascade of waves that fell to her waist, who helped Salome in the treatment room. The same Lora who'd thought to add a remedy for the battered wife's bruises to the preparations she'd been asked to make up. Who'd tickled the chin of a playful grey kitten and stroked a snoozing tomcat. And whose elfin face set like cement when Salome said,
Lora, this is Claudia, who's come all the way from Rome to consider the King's proposal of marriage . . .

'It's a generous gesture,' Claudia said. 'Perhaps the locals will think better of you after this.'

'Bigots are like leopards, they don't change their spots,' Salome replied. 'But in any case, I can't afford to give them the opportunity. Money's far too tight to simply give away such an expensive crop. No, my dear, these are for you to distribute.'

'Me?'

'Mazares thought you might like to continue the May Day tradition of sending Goodwill Baskets to those who might need them . . .'

'Jarna, for instance?'

Salome smiled. 'You're learning!'

She fixed a chaplet of tight pink rosebuds, pale blue nigella and some feathery white flowers over Claudia's hair, slipped a sprig of myrtle into her own foxy mane, then pursed her lips.

'Just a suggestion, my dear - and this is entirely up to you, of course - but now that you're aware of the custom, have you considered presenting one of these baskets to Mazares?'

'What a splendid idea. Which one contains the poison ivy?'

She diffused her barb with a smile and selected a sumptuous arrangement of yellows and golds with a splash of purple iris thrown in.

'I hope he paid you the full market price,' she added, changing her mind in favour of a display of dazzling blues.

'Better than that. He sent us a pig.'

'Did you say pig?'

'Plump and spotted, not a bit like the crusty old boars you find in the hills, this one's gentle and funny, an absolute darling, and just what I've always wanted. Come along, I'll introduce you.'

'I must be losing my sex appeal,' Claudia grumbled. 'In the past, people introduced me to eligible bachelors.'

'Isn't that the same thing?' Salome giggled.

'It is in Mazares's case,' Lora rasped, stomping in with another basket of blooms under her arm. 'He paid with a pig, because he
is
a pig.'

'Lora, please.' Salome looked as though she'd been kicked.

'What? I can't speak my mind now? You said it yourself, only a few men can handle the concept of equality and Mazares is not one of them.' Elfin features rounded on Claudia. 'A point
you
might want to consider, since you'll be marrying King Chauv—'

'That's quite enough, Lora.'

Salome's tone didn't change, but the steel was unmistakable. The girl shrugged one finely plucked eyebrow, laid down her basket then swept out of the shed. In the silence that followed, dust motes danced in the sunshine and bees, spoilt for choice, buzzed industriously round the fragrant displays.

'I apologize for Lora's outburst,' Salome said at last, 'but there's something you need to understand.'

Outside, an army of young girls milked goats and churned cheeses, spun wool and chopped vegetables, while others drew game birds or plucked poultry, and an old woman ground mustard grains with a pestle and mortar. Salome paused to give orders regarding the preparation of dyes and the sharpening of ploughshares before leading her visitor to a seat on the terrace at the back of the house. Shaded by cool, fragrant pines, a fountain gurgled contentedly, butterflies fluttered between urns of valerian and small birds twittered in the canopy above. Across the way, a bed

of commercial lilies wafted their scent on the gentle warm breeze.

'Lora labours under the misapprehension that it's because of
her
that the King's taken against what I do here. It isn't, or, more accurately, it's only part of the problem, but the trouble is -' the Syrian fixed her green eyes on a gap through the trees to where the sun glistened like diamonds on the sea in the distance '- Lora was married to the King's son, his only heir, you remember. After her husband was killed in the hunt, she came here.'

'Ah.'

Imagination didn't need to stretch far to picture the chauvinistic Histri's reaction to their widowed princess labouring in a commune of women!

'In tribal law, just like Roman law, women belong to the men,' Salome continued. 'Lora had become the prince's chattel upon marriage and in her mind the unrest is down to the simple question of the Histri wanting her back.'

'Do they?'

'Of course. Nothing's changed in that respect, but this farm is Roman and they wouldn't dare launch an aggressive action, though you must have noticed by now that the Histri are a boneheaded bunch. Nothing I say makes a scrap of difference to that woman's viewpoint, although -' she dabbled her hand in the fountain - 'having said that, she was mighty glad to see
you."

'You could have fooled me.'

'Lora's young, and I can't say her manners have improved since she's been here, hence her outburst. I can promise you that won't happen again, but it's troubled her from the day of the funeral that she might be forced into marriage with the King. It wouldn't be the first time this has happened in this country and, as you know, youth always hides fear with aggression.'

Claudia thought of all the scandals that had wracked Rome and decided that none compared to this tiny kingdom. Square foot for square foot, the city just couldn't compete!

'You see, my dear, even the present incumbent of the throne was forced to marry his dead brother's widow.'

'Brae's wife?'

'Exactly. Delmi was the eldest daughter of the King of the Ispydes, a wealthy tribe who, as you know, are outside the Empire but who are nevertheless allies and an important link on the amber road which runs through here to the Baltic.'

She went on to explain. Delmi had been married to Brae for just over three years when the prince died of a fever, but such was her family's power and influence that Histria dare not break the political alliance. Bereft as he was at the loss of his heir, Dol had no choice but to decree that his second son marry Brae's widow, even though the boy was only fifteen at the time.

'Did he mind?'

And more to the point, how did poor Delmi feel, being passed from pillar to post?

Salome shrugged her elegant shoulders. 'The King has always put his country before himself

'There's something I still don't understand,' Claudia said. 'You say Lora believes herself to be the cause of all your rape and pillage, yet she's still here.'

If there was one quality the aristocracy were born with, it was obligation. Duty was the first word they uttered.

'I repeat, boneheaded.' Salome grinned. 'Ultimately, though, it's her choice whether she stays or goes, my doors are open to everyone and, believe me, there's more than enough work to go round!'

The two young widows set off on a slow tour of Amazonia, taking in everything from the spotted pig, snorting happily around her brand-new sty and showing imminent signs of producing piglethood, to the shed where wheat was threshed, to the flock of tiny, dark-brown sheep with arching horns, whose fleeces were in the process of being plucked, not shorn, using special antler combs. Again, the riot of colour on this farm took Claudia's breath away. Yellow lupins, pale blue flax, fields of bright green wheat, but . . .

'No bonfires, I notice.'

Was that a falter in Salome's step, or just a stone beneath her shoe?

'We don't celebrate Zeltane here, since it's purely a Histrian event.'

Claudia's thoughts drifted to Rome, to where the Festival of Flora was being celebrated over seven days, in which theatres and amphitheatres put on non-stop shows. And every one featuring fire and light ... As they looped back towards the farmhouse, goats with shaggy, raggy coats came skipping from the milking shed, bees buzzed round their woven wicker skeps and cattle raised purely for hides lowed softly in the meadow.

'How about May Day?'

Salome's green eyes danced. 'I told you, my dear, I observe all our Roman festivals. As a matter of fact, we are holding our May Banquet tonight. You'll join us, I trust?'

How smoothly her lies unfolded. Claudia studied the sprig of myrtle in Salome's hair, a herb strictly forbidden on May Day, and said nothing would please her more.

'But you must have joined the celebrations out on Rovin?'

'Regrettably not.' Salome stopped to test the bar on a gate. 'Between sowing the millet and fumigating the byres, we're planting and pruning round the clock, cutting the vetches, heaven knows the weeding is endless, and of course we're still breaking in our new bullock, so rather than embarrass myself by falling asleep before the first sacrifice, I find it simpler to collapse into bed.'

Claudia returned her smile, and remembered the nymph in blue tossing purifying herbs into the Fire of Life. The nymph had been heavily veiled, but there was no mistaking that single, loose strand of hair. It was long, and shining - and unmistakably red. Mazares had noticed the wayward strand, too. He had stood there and watched her, his expression quite blank, then he'd taken Claudia's hand and the grip had been firm.