Which was when?
And with what?
Hot-headed as he was, Leo wasn't stupid. He knew damn well he'd been living beyond his means, fully understood the implications that his estate income was insufficient to repay his creditors.
'You're talking to the wrong woman,' Claudia said, tapping on the frame for the bearers to set the litter down. 'It's Silvia whose cosy with your young whippersnapper from Rome, not me.'
Rheumy eyes shot her a sharp glance. 'Think that's a love match, d'you, gel?'
'Volcar, their fate is written in the stars.'
He's Scorpio. She's desperate.
'Y'know, I like having you around. You liven things up, make me feel young again.'
'That wasn't young, you randy old sod, that was my thigh.'
Volcar roared with laughter until his thin chest was wracked with coughs. 'Can't blame the old boy for trying,' he puffed.
'No one is more trying than you, you randy old bugger.'
Claudia alighted from the litter and shook her skirts. 'Don't worry about the future, Volcar. Everyone knows you'll die at the age of a hundred and twenty in bed. Run through by a jealous lover.'
Claudia was just debating whether to get Junius to include one or two of the smaller items of Leo's silver plate in her luggage as well, when a tall shadow fell over the grass where she was sitting. Bugger. She'd rather hoped to have seen the last of the Security Police on this particular island.
'Come with me to the bath house,' the shadow said.
'What kind of a girl do you take me for?' she asked. 'I always insist on at least dinner first.'
'I'll make a note of that,' the shadow said, grinning. 'But for now, perhaps you'd just humour me?'
'Why? Isn't it funny enough, suckering me into coming out here?'
'Mildly,' he said. 'But I knew you'd forgive me once you arrived.'
'Sorry to disappoint you, Orbilio, but Cressia's far too quiet for my exotic tastes. Nothing ever happens — or hadn't you noticed?'
'You could always try doping a donkey to liven things
'Up.'
Claudia had almost forgotten. The more urbane, the more dangerous …
'I'd only make an ass of myself,' she said. 'What's so special about this place, anyway?'
Outside the domed bath house, its white stucco walls blinding in the sunshine and the heat shimmering its red-tiled roof, Orbilio began pacing back and forth. One-two-three-four-five paces back, one-two-three-four-five paces forward, repeat. It took a moment before Claudia realized he wasn't hallucinating on the fresh paint. He was working out where Jason had been standing when he threw his spears. So he knew about them as well, did he? Even in grief, he functioned on a different level that man.
Excepting the bits in his loin cloth.
'In itself, there's nothing remarkable about the bath house ' he said, passing into the vestibule. 'Like the rest of the villa it's been built to the highest of standards.'
A steam room, a hot pool, a plunge pool, dressing rooms plus a room to house the hot and cold water cisterns had been built around an open-air gymnasium which, on any other day, would be filled with slaves playing handball in their break, wrestling, boxing, or working out with the dumb-bells. Inside, soaring arches were covered in opulent frescoes. Statues of the gods, twice the height of a man, stood in niches. The mosaics boasted some of the most complex designs Claudia had ever seen.
'I've always maintained that men are like floors,' she said, tapping her toe on Cupid's mosaic arrow. 'Lay 'em right and you can walk all over them.' She smiled sweetly up at Orbilio. 'But of course, you'd know that, wouldn't you, having spent the afternoon in Silvia's bedroom.'
His neck coloured. 'Don't start,' he growled. 'Just don't start, all right. What you heard back there-'
'Wasn't remotely of interest, Orbilio. I don't give a toss who you marry.'
'Mother of Tarquin! You heard that, too?'
Indigestion. That wretched lamb had given her indigestion. Claudia rubbed at the pain in her chest, but obstinately the pain wouldn't budge.
Orbilio exhaled slowly. 'Look, I'm really sorry — '
You will be, stuck with that icy bitch.
'- that you found out this way.'
They say eavesdroppers never hear anything to their own good.
'I ought to have told you right from the beginning-'
'Sorry, Orbilio, but you're mistaking me for someone who's interested.'
Marching back across the paved yard, Claudia rubbed harder at the pain in her chest and thought, strange. She hadn't touched the sacrificial roast. Pleurisy, then, not indigestion.
'Claudia, please.' Strong hands closed round her wrists, she could feel his warm breath on her cheek. As she inhaled, it tasted of mint on the back of her tongue. 'We've known each other a long time, shared so many adventures.' His voice was barely a rasp. 'I'm not a fool, Claudia; neither are you. Don't insult either of us by pretending there's nothing between us, because there is. God knows there is.'
Someone had squeezed the breath from her body. Taken the bones from her legs. Pleurisy, right?
'You're right, Marcus, I can't deny it.' Was that pathetic croak hers? 'There is something between us.' Shaking her wrists free, she saw that his pupils were black and that a pulse beat at the side of his temple.
'Say it,' he whispered.
The earth seemed to spin, suck her down, she wanted to cry, to laugh, to be somewhere — anywhere — else. She wanted to die. Die in a sandalwood heaven.
'For gods' sake, Claudia, say it.'
'Very well.' She closed her eyes. Dredged up every ounce of her strength. 'I'll tell you exactly what's between us, Marcus. It's.. '
'Yes?'
Claudia swallowed. 'It's a dumb-bell. Someone left it behind after they'd worked out in this yard, and now if you'll excuse me.' She stepped over the weight. 'I have some vineyards to visit.'
Thirty-Three
The demon watched a ray glide through the water. The sea was so clear, every rippling movement of the ray's wings was cleanly visible, even the cloud of small silver fish spiralling alongside, and for a moment the demon envied the sinuous adventurer the freedom to come and go as he pleased.
Other adventurers had come and gone from this island — Jason in his fifty-oared Argo, Odysseus in his black ship from Troy — but nothing had really changed. Should the shades of the heroes return to these thyme-scented hills, they would still recognize the vultures, the snake hawks, the violet-blue coral, the twisted oaks, fragrant pines, the same sandy beaches and white rocky coves on which they had idled their time all those generations before.
Centuries peeled back.
To the day the Argo became trapped in this very gulf by a flotilla under the command of Medea's brother, Apsyrtus. Thanks to the connivance of his treacherous lover, Jason had been able to steal the Golden Fleece from under the nose of her father, but he had not bargained on the ferocity with which the family wanted it back. Nor the revenge they sought on the perfidious bitch who'd enabled him to take it from them.
In its mind, the demon saw the blockade close in. The trap tighten. There is nowhere for the Argo to run.
A plan forms in Medea's mind. Under cover of night she rows ashore. Sends word to her brother that she's been abducted, held captive, raped even. Remorseful (how could he have misjudged her?) Apsyrtus charges in to rescue his sister. Betrayal. She kills him. Dismembers his corpse and throws the body parts into the sea. Medea's plan is successful.
First the fleet must collect the mangled remains, since
Illyrian custom decrees that bodies must be complete to make their journey into the afterlife and there was no way they could let the son of the king down.
Then, leaderless, the flotilla quickly falls into disarray, allowing Jason to sail off with the Fleece, making Medea his wife.