Towards the top of the Arcadian tapestry, nymphs bathed naked in a crystal-clear pool, leaving Claudia to consider Carya, the spirit after whom Pylades named the sacred spring he discovered. The nymph tended so possessively by Mosul the priest that he drove away every acolyte who came here, because Leon wasn’t the first lad he’d beaten black and blue, a dozen others had left Atlantis, their heads hung in shame because they couldn’t meet his exacting requirements. So what, he’d had a run of bad experiences with his novices? Which, combined with his hot temper, had made him unnecessarily perfectionist? For all his faults (and anti-Semitism ranked pretty high), Mosul was devoted to the shrine, the altar was purified twice daily, you’d see no cobwebs in the corners, no dust on the steps, no stale offerings in the grounds and he never turned away a single sick pilgrim.
Satisfied with progress so far, Claudia allowed logic to move along her row of thoughts until it stopped at Kamar. The most you could level at him, Logic said, was incompetence and let’s face it, there are far worse quacks than Turtleface dotted round the Empire. After twenty years of peace, the population was expanding, and what’s more, expanding fast. As more and more people fell sick, the call on doctors’ time became greater, there were simply not enough to go round…and in any case, no physician worth his salt would linger in Atlantis! A special breed was required to toady day in, day out to rich hypochondriacs and here, for all his faults, Kamar came into his own.
Even charlatans prospered, she thought, recalling her surprise at seeing the giant, but then again, why shouldn’t Dorcan come here? A chap who can smell gullible souls like a shark senses blood in the water, a new town like Spesium, right next door to Atlantis, was perfect for business-and Dorcan wasn’t a man who hoarded his takings. He was a born fritterer, his whole philosophy being that life is for living and hell, Claudia could identify with that!
She moved on to Lavinia. Sure, the old girl had a secret, but considering she’d been widowed for thirty years whilst avoiding compulsory remarriage, Lavinia struck Claudia as the sort of woman who’d nurtured secrets all her life, the way some folk collected faience or inkpots. Was it any surprise her servants didn’t conform?
Finally Logic arrived, as it had to eventually, at Tarraco and she was curious. What would Logic make of this handsome chancer, who used his muscles in the bedroom instead of the fields? Well, as a matter of fact, Logic said there was no disgrace in a career which paid in gold, provided him with soft boots and jewels and servants of his own. The choice was his, and if he didn’t mind sucking up to the likes of that stony-faced old boiler who’d so admired Claudia’s harebell gown, who was anyone else to complain?
Inhaling the camphor oil, Claudia closed her eyes. The green tapestry had clarified her thoughts and calmed her fears. Sabbio Tullus? Tch! Such a skitchy-witchy loan, nothing to get steamed up about, she’d have that repaid before too long. A hiccup in the cash flow, that was all, dependent upon sales which would liquidate shortly. Now all she had to do was close her mind. Relax. Unwind with those watery gurgles coming up through the piping. Drift off with those distant, hollow voices floating under the floor from the furnace room.
Claudia’s eyelids grew heavy. In her dream, she was alone in the great banqueting hall and filtered sunlight was streaming in through the upper arches of the sun porch. Claudia was stepping out on to the balcony, plucking a rose and stroking the clipped box giraffes. Her eyes were wandering upwards, to the zodiac ceiling. Where twelve cats hung from twelve nooses Gasping, gulping, Claudia’s eyelids shot open, but when she tried to move, she could not. Except this wasn’t a dream. She was trapped-what the…?
Then she remembered. The Scythian mud preparation. Sweat poured down her face, but the nightmare was only illusion and she listened to the reassuring hiss of the steam, the eerie echoes, the resonance of clogs on red-hot tiles.
But something had changed. Now the green tapestry was no longer suggestive of hazy spring meadows, of waterside ferns and lacewings dancing in the air. The monstrous vision of twelve cats dangling from ropes brought the colour red thundering through her thoughts. Brilliant poppy red, conjuring up visions of battle, blood-drenched soil, of surgeons staunching wounds and stitching flesh.
Of one physician in particular, whose Etruscan forebears painted themselves that same poppy red for their rituals, prayers and sacrifice, and who buried their dead on an island out in the lake. He was a tall man, was Kamar, with hands strong enough to set broken limbs, realign joints-and snap a man’s neck cleanly in two!
Wasn’t scarlet the colour of the awning which sheltered Dorcan’s potions from the sun? He had lied once to her, twice, maybe a third time and affable though he was, let’s not forget every move that big bear made had financial motivation. The figure flitting in the shadows in the early hours as she returned from Tuder’s island was undeniably him, but why? Who had paid Dorcan to spy on her?
Claudia chewed her lower lip. An hour ago, in the dark seclusion of the grotto, a beady-eyed priest had sluiced his hands around in the cistern of a spring discovered on a promontory, which the augurs proclaimed as a miracle. Was it truly visionary-or simply vision? Mosul and Pylades. Both obsessive individuals, both perfectionists, both workaholics. Add a man-made tunnel and cave, what do you have?
One person who knew the answer now lay dead, and somehow the idea of a convenient husband exacting revenge just didn’t ring true, no matter how hard one tried to make the pieces fit. Was Cal a blackmailer? Trading in sex, maybe information, rather than coins?
Damn you, scarlet curtain, damn you! Thanks to a few strands of dyed thread, you’ve twisted my thoughts like those twisted, dead warriors embroidered the length and the breadth of your drapes. You’ve stirred up a blood-red imagination, distorting pictures of a young man cartwheeling down the aisle into a spy listening at keyholes, creeping round caves and skulking down tunnels.
To whom might he have confided his findings? Dorcan? Pylades? Lavinia…?
What the hell is that woman hiding? She’s an olive grower, for gods’ sake, how can her son afford this? From a homestead which boasts just the one field hand and maid, where tallows splutter and mattresses sag? What’s she lying about? Did she, after all, see what happened to Cal? And Lalo. How far would the loyal hand go to protect his mistress’s secret? How far would he go to obey orders? Why had he taken to disappearing for hours on end since he arrived in Atlantis, and where was he, the afternoon Cal was killed? Claudia had already checked with Ruth-she was alone.
‘Hey!’ Claudia called out. ‘HEY!’
After the twentieth bellow, the redhead finally put in an appearance. ‘Is there a problem, madam?’ she asked, casting a professional eye over the mud pie congealing on the slab.
‘I want to come out.’
‘No, no, no, no!’ squealed the horrified attendant. ‘It’ll undo all the good work, the mud inside won’t be set.’
‘Absolutely correct.’ A strong Sarmatian accent threw her weight behind the argument. ‘The mud needs to dry completely on your skin.’ The senior attendant tapped the sarcophagus. ‘About halfway,’ she calculated. ‘Well worth the wait, I assure you.’
‘I have no intention of waiting,’ Claudia snapped. ‘I want-’ Suddenly she recalled something Lavinia had said, and it was as though she’d been transported to the very highest Alps, so cold was the blood in her veins. ‘A woman died having a mud treatment. Was it here?’