‘I’m so glad you are able to join us, Mistress Seferius.’ The voice was cultured and deep, imbued with natural authority. With his thumbs looped into his belt, he was tall, well built and, under other circumstances, Claudia would have described him as handsome with his thatch of blond hair and distinctive patrician attire. Beside her, white as a ghost, Erinna had hauled herself into a kneeling position on the fleece cloud.
‘My apologies for the rude form of transportation.’
The kidnapper was leaning almost nonchalantly against a stack of soft, bulging sacks and, although Claudia could not make out the colour of his eyes, she recognized triumph dancing in them.
‘Unfortunately, I’m not sure a direct invitation would have been accepted, and-’ he indicated Claudia’s head ‘-I must apologize, too, for my boys’ manners. They can be a little over-enthusiastic at times.’
The air was dry and dusty and she wanted to sneeze. Instead, she lifted her chin to face him.
‘Who are you?’ she demanded. ‘What do you want with me?’
But even as she asked the question, she knew it wasn’t for ransom.
And in the end it wasn’t the kidnapper who answered.
‘His name,’ Erinna said quietly, ‘is Sextus Valerius Cotta and it’s not you he wants. Is it, Senator?’
*
Autumn. The air was sticky. Leaves hung limp on the trees surrounding Cotta’s estate in the Alban Hills. Amber. Scarlet. And rust. Over the horizon to the east, the sun was just starting to rise. Soft, golden and mellow. A few birds sang, magpies chattered and an old boar snuffled for acorns. Rabbits scampered over the clearings as the first slanting rays of liquid gold penetrated the patchwork canopy, and the air was ripe with the scent of beechnuts and sweet chanterelles. Crashing through the undergrowth, the Digger noticed none of the season’s sultry beauty. Fear gave wings to her heels. Any second now, the news would break. They would set the dogs on her. The human kind, as well as the estate hounds, and she remembered what happened last time she tried to break free.
It had been different then.
For three years, Erinna had worked with the old man as he concocted his recipe for the Elixir of Immortality. Like the Senator, she thought it was nonsense, but the old man was defiant and besides, he would argue, if not life everlasting, then another half century would suffice. Fifty years? Was he serious? He was bent and crippled as it was, his chest wheezed like a pair of ancient bellows and his eyes were rheumy and dim. In five years, never mind fifty, he’d be blind, shrivelled and bed-bound and what life was that? But Erinna had grown fond of her master and knew the old man cared for her in return. For a slave, a kind master is all you can ask for.
‘The Poseidon Powder is the key,’ he would cackle merrily. ‘Once I’ve cracked that, I’m immortal.’
Saltpetre, this strange salt of Petra, was apparently the only substance which could adequately dissolve the vermilion cinnabar crystals, which in turn were crucial to the fabled elixir, and it was for just one pouchful of this precious white powder that he had scoured the earth and shelled out a small fortune. What he had bought, though, rendered him almost delirious with delight and he was happier than Erinna had seen in a long time at the prospect of finally fulfilling his dream. That fateful afternoon, Erinna and the old man had been experimenting with the ingredients as usual.
‘Are you sure about this, master?’
This wasn’t the first time she’d questioned his formula. Recent chest pains had prompted him to start taking shortcuts. Erinna worried, and with good reason. White nitre hadn’t been named after the Earth-Shaker for nothing.
‘Oh, stop fussing, gel, and pass me the honey.’
He had given up trying to dissolve the red grit a fortnight before. Either the formula was incorrect, he said, or the whole thing was a hoax, and the old man hadn’t given credence to the latter. The Orientals possessed the secret of eternal life, this was a fact, and after many years of experimenting, he was absolutely certain that he was finally on the right track.
‘This’ll make your fortune, gel,’ he would tell her. ‘When I die, you receive your freedom under the terms of my will. You can sell the formula and be rich.’
Watching the chemicals bubble and fizz, Erinna knew she would never be rich. But freedom…? That was another matter entirely. Around his room, this self-styled laboratory sited as far from the domestic area as his son could organize without insult, bowls and jars, phials and philtres cluttered every available shelf space and table. The Senator claimed he kept the laboratory clear of the house because of the smell, which was pretty noxious, Erinna had to agree. Personally, she tended to think that the Arch-Hawk was ashamed of his father’s eccentric dabblings.
‘Are you sure you’ve roasted the iron pyrites correctly?’
‘Yes, master,’ she’d replied patiently. ‘And I collected the vapour and recrystallized it according to your exact instructions.’
No wonder they called it fools’ gold! But with each pain in his chest, each wheeze in his lungs, the old man grew progressively tetchy, and his hands were no longer steady enough to hold a spoon to his own mouth without spilling. For three years, Erinna had undertaken the intricacies of his chemical experiments that his failing body could not.
‘Hmph.’ A bony finger tapped impatiently. ‘Then I don’t know what’s wrong.’
This was a regular exchange, and Erinna saw no more reason to pay particular attention that afternoon to his grumblings than to any of its predecessors.
‘Maybe that Arab didn’t give us the true salt of Petra,’ he suddenly said. ‘That’s it! I’ve been swindled, this isn’t Poseidon Powder at all. That dirty wog bastard has diddled me!’
‘Calm down, master.’ He was getting overexcited again. Any moment and another claw would rip at his heart. ‘The Arab didn’t cheat you, you watched yourself when he scooped up the powder.’
But the old man was beyond listening. ‘I’ll have to test it,’ he said. ‘Light that brazier, gel.’
‘Let’s test it tomorrow,’ Erinna suggested.
She hadn’t liked the look of the old man’s colour, but knew he wouldn’t have the estate physician near his laboratory, not after the names he had called the elixir, and the master was a proud old duffer, for all that.
‘Now! I’m going to test it now,” he said shrilly. ‘If the powder burns with a purple flame, then it’s genuine. If not, I’m going back to Petra and have that Arab’s intestines strung out on a clothes line.’
Slaves cannot argue with their masters. They can only render the place as safe as possible. Leaving him poring over his brew of realgar, honey and sulphur above a brazier which she hadn’t yet lit, Erinna scooped up the limewood box, the only orderly apparatus in the room, and took it away for safe keeping in his bedroom. Accidents had happened before. Acid burns, fires, small explosions inside the cauldron. They could laugh about it now, but at the time it wasn’t funny, having your eyebrows singed ginger and watching your dinner explode. Senator Cotta had no idea of the amount of furniture that had been quietly smuggled out in smouldering pieces.
Returning from his quarters, Erinna was walking along the shade of the portico when she was blown backwards off her feet. The old man, too impatient to wait for her return to test out his powder, had lit the brazier himself.
Poseidon, the Earth-Shaker, had spoken.
Even as the dust rained down on her head, Erinna was astute enough to realize that, had she not removed the lime-wood box, she and the whole house would have blown up. Hundreds of lives would have been lost. Very little saltpetre, she had learned, was required to create an explosion. It was the combination of the ingredients which rendered them volatile. That, and the fact they were mixed in a small, metal container. When the container exploded, so did everything round it, and paradoxically, the smaller the container, the greater the explosion.