Faster than she could blink, he'd caught her wrist like a manacle. She couldn't hold on. He twisted. The knife clattered harmlessly into the corner.
'It doesn't matter,' she told him. 'I never had any intention of killing you; I just wanted to get your attention.'
A slice through the jugular was too fast. She wanted lions and fear and a really slow build-up.
'Though, as it happens, I can prove you're not Darius. You see, after we had that cosy little chat in the plaza this morning, I took a ride to the coast. To Cosa, as it happens, and I brought back a souvenir.'
She called out and a pinched-faced woman looking a decade older than her forty-six years slipped into the room.
'Remember Aurelia, Felix?' Claudia paused. 'Remember your first wife? The one you were married to for fifteen years? Because if you don't, she sure as hell remembers you.'
Twenty-Nine
There was no way she could remain under the same roof as that bastard. The very thought of it made her sick. Equally, though, she could not hang around while Fortune juggled her ball of chance over Orbilio. Had to do something. Anything. Fortune was fickle. Fortune had let so much blood spill in the precinct, far too much for one person, yet he was alive. Just. Clutching grimly to a thin thread of life, while the Fates stood poised to snip when given the order. Not yet, not yet! Claudia clenched her fists until the knuckles turned white. Let him grow old. Let his hair turn white and his skin crinkle before you cut that damn thread. Give him… Oh, pray to every Immortal up on Olympus, please grant Marcus his life. Her nails dug gouges in the palms of her hand. Too much tragedy already. Too many deaths. Too many lives ruined. Let it stop. Here. Now. She swung herself back on her horse. Isn't it enough that I've failed? Fine, I've exposed Felix for the monster he is, but the bastard's got away with it and that's not right. Please, I beg you, don't make it worse.
She turned the horse towards the gates.
All right, he was unlikely to harm anyone else, while Larentia had at least been spared public humiliation and the State would probably reimburse the five witnesses to keep a lid on the fact that they'd allowed a convicted criminal to return to Mercurium, wreak havoc and walk free. But she'd failed, because Felix escapes justice, and yes the money will help, but will it bring the blacksmith's children home from Rome? Already it was too late for the brick-maker, his business has been taken over and the paper merchant's storehouse is beyond repair. But, tragic though those stories were, they were nothing compared to the real victims. Lichas, Tages, Vorda and now… and now…
Don't think about it. Don't even consider it. He's alive. Hanging on by the skin of his teeth, but — praise be to Juno — alive.
Once out in the open, she kicked the horse into a gallop. The look of astonishment on Aurelia's face when confronted with the husband she hadn't seen for sixteen years had been priceless. Claudia lifted her own face to the wind. Since there was no question now of Felix denying his past, she supposed there was at least a crumb of satisfaction to be gained from that, and she couldn't in all conscience regret tracking Aurelia down, though heaven knows it hadn't been hard. She still lived in the same house that she'd shared with Felix in Cosa and which he'd gifted her as a divorce settlement. Neither had she remarried.
'I'm part of a new generation of women,' she'd explained, inviting Claudia to join her in grapes, cheese and wine. 'Women who cherish their independence.'
Reclining on a couch upholstered in clean but faded damask, Claudia studied her hostess. Her hazel eyes were small and unblinking, and seemed even smaller set in a thin, pointed face that had more lines than it should for middle-age. Her hair was streaked silver, dull and dry, a sign of too much time spent indoors, which also explained her pale complexion. A homebody, she thought, with no one to keep home for, and the independence Aurelia so desperately cherished had turned her into a recluse. Yet she seemed happy enough to talk about the past — though not curious — openly admitting that she wasn't wealthy, not by a long chalk, but that money meant nothing to her, since she hadn't known it before she met Felix, it wasn't what she married him for, and she'd had little use for it since.
Claudia hadn't confided the reason she'd wanted Aurelia to return to Mercurium with her, only that it was a matter concerning her ex-husband, and was surprised that Aurelia was happy to make the return journey with her there and then. But as her horse's hooves ate up the road, she realized her mistake was springing Aurelia on the cold, callous bastard who had divorced her. Claudia had acted on impulse because of Orbilio — doing something was better than nothing — only she'd blown it, through hot-headed recklessness, not thinking it through. She wondered what on earth had given her the idea that Darius would confess? Oh no! There's my ex-wife, who'll testify I'm Felix! You d better lead me straight to the lions!
Stupid, stupid, stupid, the hooves echoed. Stupid, bloody stupid.
A look on a man's face once he'd been unmasked wasn't enough to convict him of murder. All Claudia had done was expose him, which meant she had failed. She'd failed Lichas and Tages, Vorda and Orbilio, and because she'd been too bloody arrogant to confide her suspicions about Darius, Rosenna had done her damnedest to kill the wrong man. A good man. A man who did not deserve to die…
Suddenly the air seemed too thin. She couldn't breathe. Panic uncoiled in her breast. Suppose she never saw that slanting smile again? Never heard that wicked chuckle? Suppose that thick, dark mop never fell carelessly over his forehead again, or his eyes never crinkled up at the corners?
There was no sign of activity at the temple. No acolytes filling oil lamps, no sweepers of floors, no purifiers of altars. Even the temple kittens were crashed out in a heap, a tangle of twitching pink paws and white whiskers. She approached the physicians' quarters with her stomach cramping. No one had been allowed in except temple staff. When she'd left at dawn, they'd been scurrying like rabbits. Now only one or two assistants were gliding silently back and forth, carrying bowls, bandages, pills, and avoiding her eye.
'Can I see him yet?' she asked the guard standing with his arms implacably folded outside the entrance to the medical quarters, and her palms were ridiculously damp.
'The Lord Tarchis says no visitors, milady. Will you wait?'
For ever, my darling. For ever.
'I'll wait.'
In the red, flickering labyrinth nothing stirred. The faces on the frescoes kept their same inane grins, the floral ropes round the pillars didn't slide or shed petals, the irises on the ceiling didn't wilt. Yet in continuity there was comfort, and the deeper she penetrated this underground cavern, the more comfort she gained. She looked back at the offerings — the plaques, the ribbons — and thought I have nothing to give you, Fufluns. Nothing to offer… Nothing except… Slipping off her sandals, she ran through the labyrinth to the god's private chamber. The only sounds that intruded were the occasional spit from a torch set high on the walls and the strange, ethereal music that emanated from the depths of the temple. Lyres, flutes and tambour.
'I have nothing to offer you, god of wine, god of pleasure,' she whispered, 'except this.'
Closing the little door quietly behind her, it was as though Fufluns had been expecting her. Oils burned, fragrant and calming, in braziers around the painted walls. Catnip smouldered in the chafing pans, along with something equally sour and unpleasant, but this was not about her. Claudia studied the god. Red, horned, proudly erect. Tarchis called it horsetrading but if trade makes the human world tick, why not the divine — and what else could she exchange for a life? No amount of riches would tip the balance, for if Orbilio, who had enough in the bank to make King Midas jealous, didn't have sufficient gems and precious metal to save himself, what chance did she have? Suggesting human life wasn't measured in riches…