Sour Grapes

Now somebody… oh yes somebody… had to pay.

'Get up, you bastard!'

Darius pulled at the coverlet, but it was already in a heap on the floor.

'I said get up, you murdering coward.'

'Claudia?' Fresh from sleep, his voice held even more gravel. 'What's the matter?'

As he propped himself up on one elbow, she could see the stubble on his head where the hair needed shaving to keep up the pretence of baldness.

'What's the matter, he says, like he hasn't heard about Rosenna's settling of scores!' In a flash she was across the room, holding a knife to his throat. 'The girl's spitting nails, apparently, since one out of three is bad odds in her book.'

According to the temple guard who was first on the scene, Rosenna believed that by stabbing Orbilio, she'd improve her chances of killing Hadrian and then, while Rex was finally understanding how it felt to lose someone he loved, she would complete her mission and bring peace to her dead brother's soul. What happened to her didn't matter, she told the guard as he carried her away. But now, because she'd cocked up, the louse and its nit would go free. Remorse, it appeared, was not high on Rosenna's priorities.

'Do you know the penalty for stabbing the Security Police with a skinning knife?' Claudia pressed the point of her own into Darius's throat. 'Cruci-bloody-fixion.'

And Rosenna didn't damn well deserve it. She was as much a victim as Lichas, because, in killing her brother, Darius put that knife in her hand.

'I had nothing to do with that.' He wasn't frightened. Concerned, yes. But not scared. He should be. 'Ask Larentia. Ask Terrence. I was at the front with them when she struck.'

It took every ounce of restraint not to plunge that blade into the artery that throbbed in his throat.

'And where,' Claudia hissed, 'was Felix Musa?'

He blinked rapidly. 'Felix Who-sir?'

Still bluffing, eh? Even now, you're still trying to bullshit your way out?

'Felix,' she whispered, leaning so close that she felt the heat from his body, 'is the scumbag who sees the six upright citizens who witnessed him pocketing bags of Imperial gold as members of some kind of conspiracy, which they supposedly concealed by framing him.'

That got his attention.

'Felix,' she said, 'is the scumbag who spent ten years down the silver mines, making his heart as hard as the rocks he was breaking. And when his time was served, this scumbag visited the same suffering upon the witnesses as had been visited upon those he himself had loved, grinding them down by heartache and fear, making sure their assets were eroded as his had been taken, their lives ruined beyond salvation.'

'And what? You think I'm this Felix character?' His Adam's apple moved up and down, but his voice, though characteristically rusty, remained even. 'Claudia, I know you're upset about Marcus, but

'You want to take this argument public? Explain why you shave your head? Why your cough sounds like every other poor sod's who's served time down the mines, because their lungs have been scoured raw with the dust? Or will you just whip off the tunic that you cling so coyly to at the hot springs, to prove there are no lash marks scarring your back?'

'I keep my clothes on because I'm shy and… Look, I don't have to justify myself.' It's not easy to smile with a knife pressed to your throat, but he made a pretty good try. 'You're bound to fear the loss of control if I marry Larentia, it's natural, but you can keep the wine business, I don't want it, I don't need it… '

'Save your excuses for the Ferryman. I thought Candace must have been subsidising you, but now I realize you'd been skimming off some of the ore and salting it away while you worked. Perhaps you had a guard in on the scam, I don't know, but one thing's for sure: stealing from the State is a capital offence. There'll be no second chance for you this time.'

If she didn't know better, she'd almost believe she read relief in his amber-quartz eyes. 'You don't understand.'

'Wrong. I don't care, but you should know this, Felix Musa. So help me, I will see you in Hell if he dies.'

There. She had said it.

If. He. Dies.

But he must not. He cannot. She would not allow it. A pain welled up, the likes of which she'd never known. It happened so quickly, that was the thing. Laughing one minute, on the banks of the River Styx the next, and the worst part was, she hadn't even known until it was over. So busy watching some stupid dance…

She blinked back the tears and beneath the tip of the blade, Darius shuffled. 'They deserved what they got,' he rasped. 'The sour wine in the tavern, the fire at the parchment warehouse… '

'Don't sell yourself short, Felix! You didn't just torch it the once, you made sure the merchant could never trade from that building again, like the kilns you so persistently sabotaged, the well that you poisoned, the donkey you killed, the old woman you led on, the axle you patiently sawed through-'

'Oh, for goodness' sake!'

As he jerked up in protest, the knife pricked his skin and a dribble of blood ran down his throat. He didn't seem to notice — or care.

'I admit I took advantage of certain incidents, helped them along a bit, but Larentia's right. Bad luck does breed bad luck. I set fire to the warehouse, I doused the kiln, but only the once, and when you're down on your luck, bad things follow as sure as sun follows the rain.'

He had a point. Pessimism does engender negativity, and in retrospect maybe she had attributed too many misfortunes to him. Accidents happen, calamities occur naturally. He couldn't have been responsible for everything on her list. Only the ones that really mattered.

'I'm not responsible for sloppy maintenance or clumsy practices,' he said and she'd forgotten how persuasive these conmen can be, 'and I sure as hell don't go round killing animals. All right, it is a nasty thing to do, leading Larentia on then dumping her at the altar, but Seferius was the only man smart enough of those six to organize the conspiracy, so it's only right his mother gets a taste of her son's medicine, and there's a difference between tossing sewage down a well and sawing through axles where somebody might have got hurt. You check. I'll bet that was rotted right through and quite honestly it served the penny-pinching bugger right. In fact, I don't care if they all go bloody bankrupt.'

How he must have punched the air seeing their despair lead to neglect.

'Except financial ruin wasn't enough for your greedy cold soul. You wanted emotional destruction, as well.'

'Wouldn't you? Claudia, those bastards set me up to cover up double dealings of their own.'

'And exactly what double dealings would those be?'

'How the hell should I know? I've been in prison!'

'You don't know? Suddenly, and with all those long, lonely years in which to think about it, you… Let me hear that again. You don't know. Let's fall down on our knees and give praise for paranoia.'

'I swear on my life those bastards set me up.'

'I can swear I'm the Queen of Sheba, but people still won't call me Your Highness. Because of you, Vorda risked condemning her soul to immortal obscurity-'

'Who's Vorda?'

'You cut short the life of a shepherd boy-'

'This is ridiculous. Now you're painting me as some kind of monster!'

'Am I? Sorry. But it's a mistake anybody could make when the person they're addressing has destroyed livelihoods, quality of life, peace of mind, and the pain has torn families apart… Oh, and did I mention the part where you inflicted such a protracted, painful, terrifying torment on a young man that his sister becomes maddened with grief and lashes out at the wrong people in her misguided quest for revenge? And guess what? This idea of the Furies pursuing the innocents on behalf of the guilty? It's bullshit. Drama for playwrights, Felix. Grist for the zealot's mill.'

The silence was deadly.

'You cannot prove I'm not Darius,' he said at length. 'By the time you send for the evidence I'll be gone, so if you're going to kill me, I suggest you do it now.'