'I give you my dance,' she told the idol. 'I give you my past for his future.'
Her glance fell on the silver platter on which a goblet of rich, dark wine sat, and a note.
Drink, sweet bride. Drink of my love while I drink of your beauty. Drink deeply, my love.
Claudia picked up the goblet and swirled it. The way it clung to the sides suggested the wine wasn't cheap, and in true Etruscan style it hadn't been watered, but the smell indicated that it had been poured out too long. Let a good wine breathe by all means, but like a fish out of water, it dies for lack of its appropriate element. But this was not the moment to start offending the earth god. Claudia tossed it back in three gulps.
As the music swelled, she took a deep breath, unpinned her hair, then began to dance the way she used to dance for the sailors. She had vowed never to do it again. Under no circumstances, she'd said. Yet slowly, erotically, she peeled off her clothes and with each layer that she discarded, she felt lighter. Not simply from the weight of the clothes, but her mind, her head, her thoughts all grew lighter until there was nothing but the dance. The heat increased inside the chamber and, swaying, twining, tossing her hair, she gyrated round the idol as she'd gyrated round the tavern a lifetime ago, exciting the earth god with the thrust of her breasts, the swing of her hips, the tongue pushed through half-parted lips. This was no virgin dancing for Fufluns, but this god embodied all earthly pleasures, and if trembling, shivering, arching and gasping had aroused half of Genoa, surely it would arouse him?
Round and round she swirled, caressing her skin with teasing sensuality, until the faces on the wall merged with the face of the idol, winged horses appeared, angels, blue-feathered demons, and now all the faces she had ever met crowded round her, applauding, cheering, egging her on. Her mother was there, her father, her husband. Orbilio, Felix, even his pinch-faced ex-wife. It was like a drug. The more she danced, the hotter she grew, and the hotter she grew, the lighter she became, until nothing mattered but the pulse of the rhythm…
Drugs.
She halted abruptly and the room kept on spinning. Drugs were at the centre of everything. Drugs were control, and control… Sweet Janus! Faces! She grabbed a chafing bowl with one hand while the other rammed two fingers down her own throat. Dear god, she had it all wrong. Yes, Felix was Darius, who'd tossed sewage down a well, set fire to the warehouse and led Larentia on with his courting. But Felix wasn't scared. Even with a knife pressed to his throat, he hadn't been scared — because Felix had no reason to be.
The drugged wine came up in a flood. Winged horses and demons galloped away. The faces receded into the mist. Barely pausing for breath, Claudia stuck her fingers down her throat a second time.
When a man's been sentenced to ten years' hard labour for a crime he didn't commit, then loses everything he loves in the process, you might think nothing can touch him. But Darius did care. He cared about Amanda's reliance on her imaginary friend. He cared about a stranger's creaking cart, and the strain on his oxen. He cared enough about Larentia to force the man who'd sent her flying to come back and apologize. So if that man still had feelings after all he'd been through, yet wasn't scared of a knife at his throat — and worse, didn't turn it on his attacker once he'd disarmed her — it was because that man had faced every terror he had ever needed to face.
Felix, goddammit, hadn't stolen the State gold at all.
Retching, sweating, Claudia spat out of the last dregs of the drugged wine and wiped her face with her discarded veil. Control. She'd known all along it was about control…
With her palms flat on the floor as she gulped for breath, she asked herself the obvious question. If the six men who testified at his trial believed they'd seen Felix taking heavy sacks from the clerk and the gold was found in his saddlebags, who set him up? She already knew the answer. Those hazel eyes appeared smaller because of the jealousy and resentment that drove her. The same emotions that had pinched her face and made her old before her time — and the reason she was so happy to talk about the past was so she could relive her triumph. Suddenly Claudia understood the astonishment in Aurelia's eyes when she came face to face with her ex-husband. The bitch thought he was dead. She believed she had killed him by crushing his spirit in punishment for casting her off, but, as always, she had underestimated her man.
From the outset Aurelia was determined to make Felix hers, by feigning pregnancy to trap him in marriage. He'd grow to love her, she told herself, but instead it had the opposite effect. Once he realized he'd been tricked, he turned cold, throwing his passion and energy into oysters. Oysters! Not even another woman! Just some cold little molluscs down in the south, leaving Aurelia with nothing but her pride and a large empty house. No wonder money meant nothing to her. Felix made her wealthy, but money did not buy his love. She consoled herself that at least she was still his wife.
And then, wham! Out of the blue he falls in love. Not a mistress. Not another business venture. It's the real deal this time and she knows it. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and having spent fifteen years exhausting every possible means to hang on to her husband, Felix was taking the only thing she had. He was giving his name to somebody else.
He had to pay.
How clever to pretend she didn't mind! While the divorce went through, Aurelia smiled, and oh, how hard she must have smiled. Why not, she would have said. She was young, pretty, this was an opportunity for them both to start over. While all the time in her heart she was wishing him dead! When Mariana fell pregnant so quickly, that bitterness must have known no bounds. Claudia didn't know the details — how could she? — but she could imagine, and as she staggered to her feet inside the god's chamber, the tavern-keeper's words echoed back.
'Always rode the same sorrel mare, did our Felix… wore a gold headband to keep his curls out of his eyes… What did set him out from the crowd was that, unlike most free men, Felix didn't favour white tunics. Bright blue was his colour. Wanted folk to see he'd risen up through the ranks, and though he'd been promoted to equestrian status like your late husband, Felix only tended to wear his purple-striped tunic on state occasions.
It wasn't hard to picture the barren, rejected Aurelia hiring herself an actor. Dressing him up in blue tunic, headband and wig and sneaking his mare out of the stables. Arranging for him to string the treasury clerk along, then transferring the gold to Felix's saddlebags after staging the handover in a public enough place to ensure sufficient men of impeccable standing and character were around to witness his treachery.
Because Felix had to stand trial for treason.
Revenge for his own filthy betrayal.
Claudia reached for her tunic and belted it tight. Which meant, she thought, pushing tendrils of damp hair back from her face, Felix hadn't killed Lichas at all. Nor Tages. Felix wasn't a killer, and it wasn't Felix who'd sent thirteen-year-old Vorda to her death. It was Fufluns. She leaned against the idol to catch her breath. How did you do it, you bastard? The room's locked, Timi's outside standing guard like a dragon. How did you get in here?
She hurled the chafing pans on to the floor. That's why the little moons were so worldly. Alone and unchaperoned, they came in here, shut the door, then drank the drugged wine, which made them light-headed, and inhaled catnip and other concoctions, which induced hallucinations. And while they were confused and befuddled, you painted your skin red, put on a pair of ram's horns and then you bloody well raped them. Worse, you told them it was the god's will. She reeled at the very arrogance of a man raping these children time and again, whilst brainwashing the girls into believing it was their fault. It was the purpose of their dance, wasn't it? To arouse the god's passion? They had succeeded and so — her stomach lurched — pleasuring Fufluns was their reward!