Widow's Pique (5 page)

'Mazares,' she called. 'This contract with the King.'

'What about it?'

The wind billowed out his white shirt and stirred the aureole of glossy curls that framed his face as he crossed the deck.

'Well, I was wondering how much he'd need per annum.'

The deep crevices around his eyes narrowed into canyons. 'How much what?'

'Wine, of course.'

That irritatingly lazy twinkle returned to his eyes. 'Are you implying our King's a dypsomaniac?'

'Mazares, I don't give a fig whether the old duffer's a drunkard, a dilettante or a down-and-out degenerate. He invited me to Histria to supply him with wine and I—'

'Wine?'
Mazares threw back his head and laughed. 'WINE?'

In fact, he laughed so long and so hard, that he had to rub a muscle in his side that went into spasm.

'Have you actually stopped to look at the land that we're passing?' he wheezed. 'Because, if not, I suggest you take a look now.'

Something solidified in Claudia's stomach.

'This kingdom, My Lady, is wall-to-wall forests bursting with game and dotted with rivers, lakes and streams that are absolutely chock-full of fish.'

Not barren and scrubby, then . . . ?

'Our bright-orange soil gives us everything we could ever need in terms of grain, cattle, pigs and sheep, and it provides us with more fruit and vegetables than we can eat.'

Not poverty-stricken, either, if they can export.

'The climate is perfect for apples, cherries, figs, pears and plums, for nut trees of every kind, and the boughs of our olive groves sweep the ground because the yield is so heavy.'

Not even a
tiny
bit of ferocious summer sun that bleaches the rocks white . . . ?

'So, naturally, we have vines.'

His hand made a sweeping gesture.

'Miles upon miles of rolling vineyards, Claudia, that produce robust reds on the coast and whites so fine that they are the favourite of a great many high-ranking Romans. Including, I might add, the Lady Livia.'

Who was, as it happened, the Emperor's wife . . .

'Alas, My Lady.' He wiped his streaming eyes. 'The King didn't bring you all this way in order to execute some paltry little commercial deal.'

'He ... ' She cleared her throat and started again. 'He talked about drawing up a contract between us.'

By now, every eye on the ship was on her, though only two seemed to bore straight through. They were hard and they were grey, and she didn't trust herself to return Pavan's gaze. From the recesses of her memory, she recalled how foreign military commanders were forbidden to wear weapons and uniform unless in times of war or for ceremonial occasions.

What a stupid, stupid time to remember. She focussed on a family of dolphins leaping joyfully alongside, and knew that she would always associate them with this terrible moment.

'Yes, but . . .' Mazares composed his face into a mask of politeness. 'I'm sorry if you are under a misapprehension, My Lady, but His Majesty isn't interested in your wine,' he said gravely. 'It is unfortunate that he was too ill to travel to Rome to make his request in person, but . . .'

Dammit, the bastard actually had the nerve to pause for impact.

'. . . but the King invited you to Histria to ask for your hand in marriage.'

The hell he did.

The sun was sinking, and the galley's crew were hauling up the canvas and setting out the oars. The sky, a brilliant sheet of copper, was mirrored on the surface of the Adriatic, fusing the horizon in a blaze of burnished metal. Gulls wheeled lazily overhead, crying out like ghosts to one another, fish darted like quicksilver through the translucent shallow waters, and the broad-chested, weather-beaten, long-haired tiller turned his massive steering oar towards the shore.

The island of Rovin was exactly as Mazares had described it. Part of an otherwise flat green archipelago, her whiteness rose out of the ocean like Venus rising from the foam, only, instead of being surrounded by cherubs and nymphs, fishing boats clustered at her rocky feet, tilted on one side as though asleep, their nets spread wide to dry beside them.

'There was nothing in that letter about marriage,' Claudia told Drusilla.

Mistress and cat were sitting beneath the galley's stern post - which was carved in the shape of an appropriately firebreathing dragon - eating lobster and scallops and sardines stuffed with herbs.

'Nothing at all.'

'Hrrrr.' Drusilla took time off from a prawn to agree. 'Admittedly, I skipped several large chunks.'

Claudia was nothing if not objective.

'But only because he was such a pompous old windbag.' Dammit, she wished now she'd brought the letter with her,

rather than leave it for her steward to show to her creditors. But the whole point of that exercise was that no one hustles a supplier to royalty for money. Including Arabian moneylenders!

'Nevertheless, I think I would have noticed a marriage proposal nestling among all those titles and dreary "begats by".'

They're cunning, they're sneaky and they're all doubledealers.
Weren't they just.

Drusilla's attention was distracted by the boy responsible for disposing of the ship's slops. Ordinarily, he'd toss them over the stern, but today his task was hampered by a growling, arching, cross-eyed monster as ferocious as anything the Argonauts had had to face.

'Hrrowwwww.'

The boy revealed latent leadership qualities by tossing the contents of his buckets over the starboard wale. A stream of curses from four angry oarsmen didn't discourage him. Backing nervously away, he was more than happy with his decision.

'Have you ever heard of anything more preposterous?' Claudia said, stroking Drusilla's hackles flat. 'The King of the Histri asking the widow of a wine merchant for her hand in marriage - and the widow a pariah at that?'

'Prrrr.'

'Absolutely, my poppet. Jupiter would turn celibate first and the sun would set in the east.'

There was a distinct smell of fish in the air and it wasn't coming from Drusilla's sardine!

So, what was the King's game? That letter was genuine enough, so, could it be a simple case of mistaken identity? That a distance of 300 miles, together with a hiccup in Latin translation, resulted in his request being delivered to the wrong Claudia? Yes, and that ham curing nicely over my kitchen chimney will sprout wings and fly over the Forum! No, no, it was the right Claudia who'd been inveigled into Histria's political tug-of-war, stuck in the middle along with the King. But why her?

'It doesn't make any sense.'

As Drusilla scampered off in search of a nice fat rat to sink her fangs into, or failing that, a nice juicy ankle, Claudia stretched, adjusted the pleats of her pale green cotton robe, and considered her plan of action. Because, whatever the King's game, she had no intention of being the ball!

'Will milady deign to walk on them this time?' Mazares said, grinning wolfishly. 'Or does she intend to swim ashore with her maidservant clamped between her teeth just to prove her independence again?'

He indicated the rolls of carpets lined up on the deck. Somewhere Claudia could hear a grinding sound and had a feeling it wasn't so much the anchor ropes as her own teeth.

She thought back to the last time she'd seen those rugs, when they were being rolled out over Pula's cobbles. That went a long way to explaining Mazares's behaviour, she supposed. First, Histria's honoured guest charges down the gangplank in what could only be perceived as a snub to the fanfare and rugs. Then she insults no less than the Commander of the Royal Histrian Guard. Rounding it off with a hat-trick, she then humiliates the King's envoy in public.

This was probably not the time to ask if Mazares was a man who bore grudges . . .

'I think I'll go for option two,' she breezed, adding that she was sure he'd understand, her being just a shy, retiring girl at heart.

'Yes, I'd noticed.'

She glanced across to the prow, where Pavan stood, hands on hips, his grey eyes fixed on the approaching island, and contrasted his steely remoteness with Mazares's easy charm. Was the lazy sparkle in those catkin-green eyes fired by amusement - or, as she very much suspected, scorn? Derision, with a smidgen of the I-know-something-you-don'ts.

'These islands are some of my favourite places,' he said, and for the first time she actually believed what he said.

And why not? Rocky coves and golden beaches unfolded one after the other, and the scents of cypress, fir and juniper

wafted on the warm, early-evening air. From the branches of the fragrant pines that swept down to meet the limpid waters, songbirds proclaimed their nesting territories and crickets throbbed among centuries-old olive groves that had provided shade for countless generations of sheep.

Bathed by the blood-red setting sun, it was hard to see where the hilly outcrop that was Rovin left off and the sea began, but the island appeared to be separated from the mainland by a deep, though narrow, channel across which a ferry operated on ropes. Away from Pula, and thus from overt Roman influence, it was easy to imagine Rovin as a throwback to the wooden shanty-towns inhabited by a rough, backward society who had turned their backs on their foreign masters' customs in favour of the old ways. The island was anything but. The closer they approached, the more it became clear that this was a forward-looking, sophisticated, highly developed community with a group of luminaries waiting at the harbourside to greet them.

'So, this is the lovely Claudia!'

An impossibly handsome individual with liquid dark eyes and hair that was every bit as long, dark and glossy as Mazares's leapt aboard instantly to kiss her hand.

'My brother, Kazan,' Mazares introduced, somewhat unnecessarily. The resemblance was unmistakable.

'Delighted.' The brother was in no hurry to release her as he led her down the gangplank. 'Absolutely delighted.'

Kazan's eyes weren't quite so closely set as Mazares's and his hair was straight, rather than curly, a combination that, coupled with his easy smile, gave him an innocent, almost boyish appearance, even though he was probably straddling forty.

'You've no idea how much we've been looking forward to your visit.'

His voice had the same husky pitch as his brother's, but there was something else in it, too. An adulterer's voice, she decided, matched by the adulterer's light in his eyes.

'And I thought Mazares was the charmer of the family,' she declared. 'Is this your wife?'

She smiled at the sporty creature who'd stepped forward in what was no doubt meant to be some form of Histrian curtsy, but whose lithe athleticism turned it into a full-blown gymnas-tical manoeuvre. A well-matched couple, indeed. Kazan, the boy who never grew up, married to a sprightly filly who made sure he never had to. All she needed was a quiver on her shoulder and you had a living, breathing Diana of the Hunt. What bet her thighs could crush the juice right out of a melon?

'Vani? Good heavens, no, Vani's my daughter-in-law,' Kazan laughed, 'She's married to my eldest boy, for her sins! No, my—'

'Why, Lady Claudia!'

A booming voice elbowed the ruddy-cheeked Vani out of the way.

'I do so hope that the next time we welcome you to these shores, it will be as Your Majesty.'

'This
is my wife,' Kazan said, rolling his eyes. And will someone please fetch a trowel for her to lay on the flattery?'

'My name's Rosmerta, dear—'

If he was aware of the contemptuous look his wife threw him, it didn't show.

'—and I wish you nothing but happiness and fulfilment during your visit.'

Her Latin was perfect, even though the flat facial features and almond slant to her eyes testified to a heritage on the far side of the Dolomites, but where Kazan was lithe, athletic and shared his brother's dashing dress sense, Rosmerta was something else. Big, of course, can be beautiful, but sadly this adage had bypassed Rosmerta. As tall as her husband, she was at least twice his girth, and in a bid to keep up with the very latest in Roman fashion, a preponderance of pleats and a dearth of flounces simply emphasized her size. Overweight, overdressed and overbearing was bad enough, but who on earth persuaded her that such a ridiculous froth of false blonde curls was becoming?

'These are my sons,' she said, proudly beckoning forward two strapping youths. 'Marek and Mir.'

She didn't specify who was who, nor elaborate on which son was married to Vani, but it didn't really matter, because, having bowed to the newcomer and mumbled a perfunctory greeting, they immediately turned their attentions to where the wine might be stashed on this godforsaken island.

Rosmerta's pinched lips stretched into an indulgent smile, as if to say,
Boys!
and Claudia thought,
Interesting.
Two young men made in their father's image, yet it was from their mother that their characters were drawn.

'This is Drilo, our high priest,' Kazan said.

Bearded and strong-featured, Drilo stepped forward. He smelled of the incense and myrrh that was burned in supplication to his strange gods, and amulets of electrum encircled each wrist.