Moving on to where fire walkers drew both gasps and silver from their flabbergasted audience, she was distracted by a soft tug on her sleeve. Turning round, fully expecting a beggar child or perhaps a vendor at her elbow, the last thing she expected to see grinning back was the unctuous smile of Marcia's short, fat Indian soothsayer.
'If you're going to tell me I'm about to meet a tall, dark, handsome stranger,' she told Padi, 'I've already bumped into him this morning. He was tall, he was dark, he was handsome, and he was stranger than you'll ever know.'
'That is not what the rods spoke of,' he replied in his soft, sibilant voice, and again Claudia was reminded of a snake slithering through the long grass. 'The Great Mistress asked me to cast them for you, and to consult the Stones-That-Talk, that I might be able to divine your future.'
'Is it good?'
'Indeed, Mistress Claudia.'
'Am I blessed?'
'Exceedingly.'
'Are there any nasty surprises in store?'
'Oh, no, no, no.' Padi placed his plump pink palms together and bowed. 'The rods speak of long life and perfect health. The Stones-That-Talk cannot lie and they tell of riches and happiness, a husband who adores you, children who will live to their full span. Come, I will show you how they fell, and in any case the Great Mistress wishes to speak with you. She is curious to know how your soil tests are coming along.'
So that’s why Claudia was invited up to the villa. The devious bitch wanted to plant her own vines over these Santonian hills! Until Claudia's arrival, no one had even considered planting grapes here, but, shrewd businesswoman that she was, Marcia had sniffed a new market, and rather than waste her own money on analysing conditions why not let an expert do the job for her and then bleed her dry?
'The soil tests aren't looking good,' Claudia said solemnly. 'Perhaps you can cast your rods for me, Padi? See what the future holds for my vines, only the experiments we've conducted so far are depressing in the extreme.'
Blatant little fraud that he was, he was hardly likely to go against a specialist's assessment, now was he? And I ask you, what sweeter way for Marcia to discover that her potential new money-spinner was a non-starter? Which, now Claudia came to think about it, and bearing in mind what little she knew about vines, might not actually be the case. The conditions, she suspected, were absolutely perfect for growing the little beggars and the knowledge surprised her. She'd obviously picked up more about viticulture than she'd supposed… and something fluttered under her ribcage.
'Come,' Marcia said, when she joined her. 'I want to introduce you to some of my suppliers.'
'Exactly what business are you in?' Claudia asked.
'Anything, everything. I told you before, there's no embarrassing way to get rich, and there's money to be made in times of conflict.' When she leaned close, Claudia could smell the balm of Gilead she rubbed into her skin, so rare, so expensive it had been the Queen of Sheba's gift to Solomon. 'An awful lot of money,' she confided. 'But I wasn't talking about business. I want you to meet the merchants who supply me with textiles. You see, I have what I believe to be the finest cottons shipped in from the Indus Valley and the highest quality of linens that come out of Egypt, but we are somewhat out on a limb in Aquitania.'
'And you'd like confirmation — ' not as an introduction to good fabric merchants or a second opinion on girlie issues, but as someone who lived in Rome and who'd know about these things — 'that you're not getting fobbed off with second-grade rubbish?'
'Exactly.'
Well, Marcia didn't sell charm as one of her character traits, so she could hardly be accused of double standards…
'Meat pie, anyone?' Claudia breezed, as a hot-food seller approached wheeling his barrow. 'Marcia? Padi? Tarbel?'
'Tarbel doesn't eat between meals, the Indian takes his meat raw-'
'Really?' Claudia turned to the soothsayer, who nodded in smarmy confirmation.
'… and I need to watch my figure. I say, you! Yes, you over there!' Her masculine voice stopped half the traffic and one of the fire eaters nearly did himself a mischief. 'That vellum you sent round.'
The merchant in question flushed crimson as people turned to stare.
'I specifically asked for kidskin and, mother of Heaven, that stuff you sold me was mutton on its last legs. It's too late to return, I've already used it, but if you think I'm paying full price for that inferior junk you're mistaken. Five per cent is the most I will go and that's final.'
The merchant was torn. His reputation publicly shredded, was it better to fight and risk further humiliation, or accept her unreasonable terms and melt quietly away? He opted for the latter, and Claudia wondered if that hadn't been Marcia's plan all along. She had no doubts whatsoever that the merchant's vellum was top grade. He just happened along in the wrong place at the wrong time, because Marcia was forty years old, her beauty was hanging by the most slender of threads, but, most of all, she was alone. Despite her outward denials, these things mattered very much to her and the void they left had to be filled somehow, regardless of who got trampled along the way. This incident showed the whole town that she was as rich and powerful as ever, and, since this was also the capital of Aquitania, she'd ensured the whole of western Gaul knew who they were dealing with.
'Tell me about your husband,' Claudia said, as a rope walker balanced his pole above the Great Fire. 'Do you miss him?'
Marcia's sneer could have extinguished the flames. 'Let me tell you how we met,' she said, 'then you decide. I was twelve years old when one of your soldiers snatched me as I was walking home one cold December afternoon. The next thing I knew, I was being sold to a dealer.'
Claudia's maths weren't the fastest, but even she knew that if you subtract twelve from forty, then you're left with twenty-eight. And twenty-eight years ago, Rome was no longer making examples of rebellious Gauls by enslaving them as prisoners of war.
'Rome and the Santons had a peace treaty going by then,' she pointed out.
'My dear girl, a legate and his entire army were slaughtered! Regardless of pieces of paper, there was — and remains to this day, I might add — hostility on both sides, leading to all manner of atrocities, and, let me stress again, by both parties. Invariably, it is the innocents who are caught up in the backlash.'
'Of which you were one?'
'Not for long!' Her hard eyes glittered. 'Do you have any idea what it's like, being thrown into a Massilian brothel at that age? No, of course you don't, nobody does until it happens to them, but you could say I was lucky. Shortly after I joined, a man comes along. He takes a shine to the little girl with blonde hair and no breasts and decides to keep her as his personal pet. This man is rich, he's Roman, and, though the girl's lost her innocence, there are times when knowing the tricks of the trade comes in handy. One night, when she's brought this pig to the brink of ecstasy, he agrees to marry her.'
No. Claudia didn't suppose you would miss a husband like that. 'How did he die?' she asked.
'Slowly. During which time I learned a lot about the money that can be made from the black market.'
Bitter, lonely — but, Janus, was this girl a survivor! As the fire walker was applauded, there was one thing Claudia did not understand.
'Why come back?'
'Why not?' Marcia shrugged. 'It's my home.'
'But you've distanced yourself from your people in favour of the very people who sold you out?'