There-there-of-course-it-will smiles settled upon the faces of his audience and tears of frustration welled up.
‘I will. I’ve been assured on the highest authority,’ Clemens spluttered, his chubby cheeks aflame, ‘I have the dowry to prove it.’ Then, with a gasp, as though he’d said too much, he spun away, his sandals stomping down the track, his long white robe billowing behind him.
‘Anyone else need cheering up?’ quipped the slipper-maker. ‘Our astrologer friend is just the chappie to lift a body’s spirits.’
‘How was I supposed to know he felt so prickly about it?’ Volso snapped. ‘Gemma.’ Good idea. Change the subject! ‘How are your parents this morning?’
‘Now you mention it, I don’t really know,’ she said. ‘Dex and Maria took me under their wing last night, to give me a bit of a breather.’
‘Dexter,’ corrected Maria. ‘His name is Dexter, if you don’t mind.’
‘He’ll be will be all right, won’t he? My dad?’ But it was to neither Volso nor Maria that she addressed her concern. It was to the bookbinder.
‘Of course he will,’ Dexter gently reassured her, ‘providing you don’t expect miracles, Gemma. Your father’s had a breakdown, these things take time to correct and you have to be prepared to be patient.’
She summoned up a thin and grateful smile, and he ruffled her hair. Maria’s eyes rolled heavenward.
‘Has anyone been at my laudanum?’ Titus said, tipping the contents of his satchel over his outspread cloak and rummaging a finger through the drawstring sacks.
‘Dexter doesn’t require flashy gimmicks to sell his skills,’ Maria said, fixing the spice merchant with a glare. ‘Quality will out!’ She turned to Iliona, who was coiling her long, dark ringlets round her long, dark fingers. ‘I could have married the son of a senator, you know. Of course, when I say son, the boy was actually a by-blow, not really what I wanted to introduce into the family, even though he was patrician on his father’s side-’
‘You haven’t seen it, have you?’ Titus asked his wife, who leapt at the chance to help him look for his missing lumps of gum. ‘Now the effects are wearing off, the injured men are jumpy, and I don’t like the look of that ankle. It should have healed better than that, I fear an infection’s set in.’
‘The advocate I could have married had a limp,’ Maria said, sniffing some of the resins. ‘Not that I’d consider for one second a husband with a disability, but he’s done frightfully well for himself, I gather. Grand house on the Palatine, hundreds of slaves and I think, yes, he has a litter with yellow drapes,’ she told the glass-blower. ‘Or are they green?’
Claudia, who during this whole interchange had pretended to remain asleep, could stand it no longer and slunk off for an early morning dip. The pool at the foot of the cascade should look wonderful this morning, a rich opalescent green, foaming white where the waters fell, but quiescent and enticing where the basin levelled out to paint reflections of the aspens and the firs, the glorious yellow flag irises and the silent, unmoving spectre of the heron at the margins. The sky was mottled with white cloud, but the blue background was a distinct improvement on the past few days, and maybe the sun could be coaxed out for a little while today. Maybe if someone pointed out to him that this was, after all, July? She glanced back over her shoulder. Most of the party, exhausted from both the efforts of escaping the headhunting Sequani and the subsequent celebration of the fact that they were still alive, slumbered on, or, if they’d woken up to Maria’s dulcet tones, were careful to maintain the pretence of sleep. Even Drusilla merely let out a faint miaow when Claudia disturbed her.
Arcas, as always, maintained his distance. Nevertheless it came as a surprise when she ran across him on her way to the waterfall. He had lit himself a small fire and was hunkered over it, toasting cheese on a stick.
‘The pool,’ he said, noting her towel, ‘is that way.’
Damn! Yet it was so easy to get lost, the woods, the rivers, these wretched canyons all looked the same, and noises were deceptive here, she found. Like the hoot of an owl, you could never quite place the sound of running water…
About to retrace her steps, Claudia heard a woman say, ‘You surprised me yesterday.’ Incredibly, the voice appeared to be hers.
‘Really?’ Arcas sliced off the melting drips with his knife and held it out to her.
The warm cheese was delicious on her tongue. ‘I thought you’d be enrolling in the Spider’s secret army.’
‘I am a huntsman, not a warrior,’ he replied, his blue eyes raking her curves as she crouched down beside him.
‘Silly me, what made me think you were,’ she said, leaning her elbow on his quiver, bow and sword.
A ghost of a smile softened the stern line of his jaw. He dipped the point of his knife in a cup, speared a dried boletus which had been soaking in beer and covered it with the dripping melted cheese.
‘Ceps, we call them, these dark forest mushrooms,’ he said, holding out the knife to Claudia. ‘You can dry morels, parasols, field mushrooms, earth balls, but always ceps are the best.’
Claudia inhaled the fiery, sweet aroma and let the combination of hot cheese and juicy mushroom dance upon her tastebuds.
‘With these,’ he said, ‘every meal becomes a banquet.’
Then suddenly he was on his feet, throwing out the contents of the cup and kicking over the little fire. ‘I must see to the horses,’ he said gruffly, and before Claudia had even swallowed her second mouthful, he was gone. Striding through the woods to where the mules were hobbled.
She watched his broad, strong back, the mane of white hair tied in a queue at the nape, the band of fox fur on his arm. Why ‘Silver Fox’? Simply because his hair had turned prematurely grey? Or was it more on account of his guile and cunning? When he’d told them about the Spider’s rebel forces fighting under the ancient insignia of red and gold (riches through blood, how barbaric!), his voice had taken on a slightly wistful quality, and yesterday, when he had looked around his little clearing, armed to the teeth and surrounded by dead sheep, Claudia had felt sure he intended to sign up with them. Guile and cunning were surely prerequisites for any insurrection?
And yet…
I’m a huntsman, he’d said, not a warrior. Hm. More Lone Wolf than Silver Fox, she mused, picturing the weather-beaten skin, the easy lope, the musculature straining through his shirt. Maybe his survival instincts earned him his nickname? Arcas was born to these wild tracts of forests, had bonded with them. A hunter, trapper, guide. Whatever was required, he’d turn his hand to, and he knows every inch of this stunning terrain, she thought. Like a young girl knows her lover Lover. She rolled the word around in her head. Lover. Arcas was an enigma, that’s for sure, but any commitment would be as deep as it was permanent.
The very opposite of Clemens! What made him yearn so badly for the job of Jupiter’s Priest? One thing. A smile lit her face, it would thwart the ambition of that weasel who headed the Security Police, and that, she felt sure, was why Orbilio so assiduously coached little Clemens. Anything to spike his boss’s guns.
Meanwhile, it was clear that the Salamander had lured Clemens into smuggling by offering him the money to pay for a dowry to a man desperate enough to want a son-in-law who was Jupiter’s Priest, and that the Salamander also had sufficient clout to ensure the fussy little list-maker got the plum job itself. All Clemens had to do was deliver a certain deerskin pouch.
‘That’s where you’ve been hiding?’ Orbilio’s mouth was smiling, although his eyes were not. ‘Junius was worried, he thought you were going for a dip.’
‘No, I’m taking my towel for its morning constitutional,’ she said, leaving him to make what he could of her sprawled leisurely across Arcas’s weaponry, munching chunks of his cheese. ‘Although I might manage a swim on the way back.’