'Very kind, I'm sure.' Leo chuckled, darting an amused glance at Claudia. 'My own atrium,' he mouthed, 'and I'm not allowed to see it!'
'It's why you commissioned the great Saunio,' the artist replied, running a podgy finger over the little curled beard that encircled his chin. 'To create magic'
'Modest with it,' Leo murmured.
'Modesty is for the mediocre.' The great man sniffed. 'Saunio is anything but mediocre. Note, ladies and gentlemen, how in this dining hall I have designed the painted shadows to fall away from the light entering through the double doors behind. This is because when the sun …'
Volcar nudged Claudia in the ribs and nodded at Saunio.
'I'll wager the old sod's got goat's legs and cloven hoofs under his tunic,' he muttered, slithering an oyster down his stringy throat. 'You've heard the gossip, I suppose?'
Hadn't everyone? The maestro and his BYMs. Beautiful Young Men. Travelling around the Empire with a team of thirty junior artists, labourers and apprentices as he sold his services to anyone wealthy enough to afford his exorbitant charges, rumours were bound to spring up. Typically Saunio, the gossip could never be less than ostentatious: tales of orgies, unnatural practices, bloodthirsty rituals, the list was endless. Volcar wouldn't be the first person to liken the maestro to a satyr, not when Saunio got his barber to shave his upper and lower lips, leaving just that preposterous narrow band of dyed hair round his chin. But how much of the gossip was fiction? Claudia wondered. How much lies, put about by jealous rivals? While Saunio lectured the assembly on the principles of perspectives, his curls adhering themselves to his forehead with a mixture of perspiration and their own dye, Claudia thought, love him or loathe him, you had to hand it to the little chap, he'd built himself a monumental reputation as an artist, a reputation well deserved.
'You don't believe those rumours?' she said.
'Believing's got nowt to do with it, gel. What's the point of having gossip unless it's to pass on?'
'You, old man, are incorrigible.'
'At my time of life, I can't afford to wait for discretion to come calling.' He let out a wheezy chuckle. 'These days when I bend down to pat old Ajax here — ' he ruffled the ears of the ancient hunting dog chomping on a chop bone — 'I try to find other things to do while I'm down there.'
'Exactly how old are you?'
'Put it this way, gel — ' Volcar winkled a snail out of its shell with a loud plop — 'when I was a boy, the Dead Sea was only sick.'
'Something funny over there?' Leo called across.
'Do share it,' Silvia drawled, dabbling her long slender fingers in the scented water bowl. 'We could use a laugh.'
Laugh? In six days, Claudia had not seen the Ice Queen so much as smile.
'Silvia's right,' Leo said. 'We've had enough shop talk for tonight, let's change the subject. Any suggestions?'
'Pirates,' Volcar said, spearing a prawn on his knife.
Apart from Nikias, who didn't look up, the others all exchanged glances.
'Oh, come on, Uncle,' Leo said. 'Surely we can think of a better topic to entertain our guest-'
'Why?' the old man cut in. 'Seen 'em, haven't we? Prowling the waters out there. Heard 'em, too. That weird wailing's enough to send shivers down a dead man's spine. Like a banshee, it is, howling for blood.'
Claudia ran her finger round the rim of her wine glass. 'Is piracy a threat?'
'No,' Leo said, glowering at Volcar. 'We're as solidly defended as any place in the Empire. Take no notice.'
"Course it is, gel,' Volcar said, pulling a crab claw out of its cracked shell. 'Sure, the mainland which encircles this archipelago is defended, but Rome can't do much to protect the coastline. Too deeply indented, see?'
'You're scaring her, Uncle. Cressia's a large island and-'
'Size don't mean diddly, lad, and you know it. In fact, I'm not sure it don't make matters worse, us being right at the head of the Adriatic as we are.' He eased another claw out of its casing. 'We're just one of twelve hundred islands, you see, gel. Them fast pirate ships can dart through the channels, in and out the inlets, and what can the Imperial Navy do? Bugger all.'
'That's not true, Uncle, and you know it. The navy's on patrol-'
'Sod all use that is to the poor sods who've had their crops raided, their livestock stolen, their women and children raped and carried off to be sold. Whole bloody settlements have been torched, the marauders long gone before the first imperial trireme hoves into sight.'
The mainland. So near and yet so far…
'Ignore the old buzzard,' Leo said firmly. 'Volcar, you should have been a cook, you're that good at stirring. And on the subject of cooking, Claudia, I insist you try our local mutton. The salty grass combined with a diet of wild herbs gives it a magnificent flavour and- What? Not leaving already, Llagos?'
'Sorry, yess.' The little priest was shaking his robes as he slipped into his sandals. 'I hef to be up early,' he explained. 'Temple busyness.' He shot an apologetic smile at Claudia. 'Much complicated on Cressia. Because we are island, we worship the Sea God above all the others. Me, I say, Bindus, Neptune, Poseidon, what does it matter in what name we invoke his protection? For Bindus we had only humble stone altar. For Neptune we have magnificent temple now, with gold and marble and a splendiferous statue three times the height of a man. But some — ' his small shoulders shrugged eloquently — 'some peoples here cannot forget the old ways. So tomorrow — ' he made a salute of farewell — 'tomorrow iss one time when I must also serve the old ways, keep everyones happy. But!' He lowered his voice to a comical whisper. 'You must not tell the Romans, heh?'
'Talking of mutton reminds me,' Leo said, barely troubling to wave the priest off. 'Tomorrow, Claudia, I must show you the vineyards. They'll knock your eyes out,' he insisted. 'I got the idea from apple trees, originally. I thought, hell, if you can espalier fruit trees along ropes for good cropping, why not vines?'
'Excuse me?'
'Told you it was a revolutionary technique.'
'You don't seriously grow them sideways?' Even the slowest dunce knows grapes aren't grown laterally. Ask any vintner. They're trained horizontally on a trellis of overhead poles between elm trees.
'Why not?' Leo laughed. 'The soil's pretty poor on Cressia, this way we can manure that more often, the goodness reaches the plants that much faster and it makes it easier to hoe round the roots to keep the soil open. I admit the grapes aren't yielding as well as I'd hoped, in fact they're twenty per cent down on what I was expecting, but still high. It's early days yet and in any case, my wine's pitched at the — well, let's say lower end of the market.'
Produce more, sell for less, and still make a bloody good profit? Funny how the idea of growing them laterally didn't seem quite so stupid all of a sudden…
Looking at Leo, tall, lean, with thick, dark, wavy hair and that attractive dimple in his chin, she wondered why he'd left it so long before finding a wife. Most patricians married in their early to mid-teens. Leo was thirty-six. Scooping up a juicy scallop in rich garlic sauce, she thought, you know catching him at certain angles — say, in profile, when the light is right — he looked a lot like someone else she knew. Someone she'd seen recently, in fact. Except Orbilio's hair was darker, with subtle highlights which glistened in the light. It was thicker and wavier, too, with a fringe that flopped over his face when he was angry. Also, now she thought about it, Orbilio had a funny way of spiking his hair with his fingers when he got annoyed Not that she thought about it, and dammit, that bloody scallop had gone down the wrong way, too. Claudia took a long draught of chilled wine. From now on, she really must check the shellfish. It would not do to find she'd eaten a bad one.
'Nikias,' Leo said, 'how's my painting of the Banquet of the Gods coming on?'