'I know the King walks a fine line with his people,' she said smoothly.
Something of an understatement, since half the Histri bitterly resented their Roman overlords and were aggrieved because the King was rolling over before the foreign aggressors. While the other half didn't feel he'd gone far enough in currying favour with the imperialists, not when there was so much trade at stake! Poor old duffer. He must feel like a bone being pulled at both ends by starving jackals.
'Nothing new about that,' Mazares said dismissively. 'And yes, I suppose on the old maps, it would show the capital an hour from here. But Pula's the problem. Pula is new, and Pula is Roman, and many of our people found the proximity intimidating.'
He made it clear that, as far as the Histri were concerned, when their supercilious overlords started laying the foundations of a brand new city within a bow's shot of their historic capital, it was the equivalent of putting a torch to raw naphtha.
'The late King, that was Dol, by the way-'
'He was the invincible one?'
'No, it was Lijac the Invincible. Dol was the just one.' He sidled a glance out of the corner of his eye. 'I take it you find the royal family tree confusing?'
'Let's just say it has more rings than a Persian concubine and leave it at that. What were you saying about the late King?'
'Only that Dol sought permission from Rome to make Gora, in the interior, our new seat of justice.'
And it was granted?'
Rome was celebrated for keeping the closest of tabs on its conquered tribes. How else could they forestall rebellion? A task rendered damn near impossible, surely, if the capital was relocated to the heart of the Histrian interior?
'Not capital. Seat of justice,' Mazares corrected mildly. 'You see, be they from the coastal communities or the interior, there isn't a single Histri who would pledge allegiance to anyone except their own king, and since Rome wishes to maintain order among us barbarians, what better way than to trust the natives to police themselves?'
Provided they toed the imperial line and that taxes were paid in full and on time, foreign rulers were invariably left to their own devices as far as local government was concerned.
The system tended to balance out both ways, since this way Rome steered well clear of the murky waters of local politics. Nevertheless, moving this so-called seat ofjustice inland showed an almost unprecedented level of faith in the late King Dol. It meant Dol was either exceptionally shrewd or They're cunning, they're sneaky and they're all doubledealers, Orbilio had said, and who better placed to know these things than the Security Police…?
'The thing is, madam.' Mazares twirled his moustache in a comical gesture. 'Despite everything you Romans have taught us, we Histri remain a bunch of renegades at heart. The late King, Dol, knew that whatever he counselled, his people would still rise up against this encroachment, same as he knew that, if they rebelled, they'd pay heavily for their stupidity. More than most, our late King understood that, as much as one might wish it, even the gods can't make the sun go backwards.'
Looking at Mazares, Claudia wasn't so certain. Handsome, affable, sure of himself, the King's envoy was as trustworthy as a hooded cobra.
'So, Dol set up a new seat ofjustice in Gora, where — out of sight and out of mind — the Histri could pretend they were in control of their own destiny, and the King could pretend to let them be?'
'It's wise to know your enemy,' Mazares retorted, grinning. 'But even wiser to know one's self.'
He turned away, looping his thumbs in his gold chain-link belt.
'Needless to say, Dol the Just died suitably young, but the point is, Gora was chosen because it's midway between the east and west shores and equidistant between our northern boundaries and the southernmost cape.'
He ushered her on to the galley, where Claudia's blue-eyed, cross-eyed, dark Egyptian cat, Drusilla, was howling protests between the bars of her wooden crate in a manner that was reducing the crew to jelly, never mind the ship's rats.
'We disembark at Rovin and spend the night, before travelling inland,' Mazares said, once the galley was clear of the harbour. 'You'll like Rovin. It's a beautiful little island, rising out of the sea like your Venus rising from the foam-'
'Tell me about Dol's successor,' she said, having no interest in overnight pit stops, but a very keen interest in the man signing up for gallons of wine. 'What's he like?'
Mazares rested his back against the red painted handrail as the flautist piped time for the oarsmen, and folded his arms over his chest. Even over the freshness of the ocean and the tarry smell of the ropes, she caught his cool mountain-fore sty scent.
'Are you asking about the King or about Dol's successor?' he asked.
High on the yards, the crew were unbrailing the sails. With a roar louder than Jupiter's thunderbolts, the canvas bellied out, the ship bucked, and suddenly there was no longer any need for the oars.
'You see, Dol had three sons,' he said, 'of whom Brae was the oldest. Confident — ' he pulled a face — 'some might even say cocky, the elders believed he'd grow into a wise and powerful ruler in the image of his father.'
'But?'
'But.'
Mazares unfolded his arms and concentrated on fiddling with the buckle of his solid-gold belt. It must weigh a ton, yet he wore it as though it was leather.
'Three days before his twentieth birthday, Brae was dead of a fever, leaving the mantle of responsibility to fall on the middle son.'
'Tell me about the middle son, then. The man who wasn't meant to be king. What's he like?'
With studied casualness, the King's envoy turned his gaze to a point over Claudia's shoulder.
'Why don't you answer that question, Pavan? Why don't you tell Claudia what our illustrious King's like.'
His voice was as smooth and velvety as ever, yet beneath it ran an undercurrent of iron. Or was it ice?
The ponytailed general held Mazares's gaze for several long seconds before dropping his hard grey eyes to Claudia.
'That's not for me to comment on,' he growled. 'Ye'd best judge the man for yourself, ma'am.'
And with that, the two men strode off in opposite directions without exchanging another word.
Well, well, well. Claudia leaned her elbows on the rail and watched the prow slice through the glistening waters. Depending on the height of the sun and the tilt of the galley, the sea might be azure, it might be aquamarine, it might be as green as spring wheat after rain. A more perfect mirror of Histrian politics she couldn't imagine. Twisting, turning, constantly metamorphosing, yet all the while the outward picture remained the same. Serene and utterly calm.
She glanced up at the mastheads, where a blaze of flags and pennants fluttered in the mellow breeze. Pavan was annoyed, but was this because he'd been asked to venture his opinion of the King — or pique, at being caught eavesdropping on a private conversation? Also, if Pavan was the King's general, then judging from the deference of the crew, Mazares must be the King's admiral. Which made it moot, just how much piracy this tribe had given up! Sitting low in the water with her single bank of oars, this galley was as fast as she was sleek. Like others of her ilk, her job would be to police these waters on behalf of the imperial navy, but with coastlines as heavily indented as this, and with hundreds of islands able to provide cover, buccaneering was still a thorn in the Roman side. Claudia considered the wide range of gifts the King had sent, and found her thoughts wandering towards galleys, plundering such luxuries from far and wide — galleys which could be in and out before the alarm had been raised..
Were they allies, Pavan and Mazares? Or were they pulling on opposite ends of the political tug-of-war rope? And if so, which of the two was anti-Rome? The General, who controlled an army which had sworn allegiance to the eagle, but had a perfect hothouse for nurturing plots in the new seat of justice in the interior? Or the Admiral, with access to the navy, and thus perfectly placed to burn and sink the Emperor's warships? Equally, a case could be made the other way, though. That trade with Rome would benefit the coastal communities the most, linking isolated towns and villages, generating wealth and lifting social standing to the point where they'd be more Roman than Rome!