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I'm sure.' Leo chuckled, darting an amused glance at Claudia. 'My own atrium,' he mouthed, 'and I'm not allowed to see it!'
    'It's why you commissioned the great Saunio,' the artist replied, running a podgy finger over the little curled beard that encircled his chin. 'To create magic'
    'Modest with it,' Leo murmured.
    'Modesty is for the mediocre.' The great man sniffed. 'Saunio is anything but mediocre. Note, ladies and gentlemen, how in this dining hall I have designed the painted shadows to fall away from the light entering through the double doors behind. This is because when the sun . . .'
    Volcar nudged Claudia in the ribs and nodded at Saunio.
    'I'll wager the old sod's got goat's legs and cloven hoofs under his tunic,' he muttered, slithering an oyster down his stringy throat. 'You've heard the gossip, I suppose?'
    Hadn't everyone? The maestro and his BYMs. Beautiful Young Men. Travelling around the Empire with a team of thirty junior artists, labourers and apprentices as he sold his services to anyone wealthy enough to afford his exorbitant charges, rumours were bound to spring up. Typically Saunio, the gossip could never be less than ostentatious: tales of orgies, unnatural practices, bloodthirsty rituals, the list was endless. Volcar wouldn't be the first person to liken the maestro to a satyr, not when Saunio got his barber to shave his upper and lower lips, leaving just that preposterous narrow band of dyed hair round his chin. But how much of the gossip was fiction? Claudia wondered. How much lies, put about by jealous rivals? While Saunio lectured the assembly on the principles of perspectives, his curls adhering themselves to his forehead with a mixture of perspiration and their own dye, Claudia thought, love him or loathe him, you had to hand it to the little chap, he'd built himself a monumental reputation as an artist, a reputation well deserved.
    'You don't believe those rumours?' she said.
    'Believing's got nowt to do with it, gel. What's the point of having gossip unless it's to pass on?'
    'You, old man, are incorrigible.'
    'At my time of life, I can't afford to wait for discretion to come calling.' He let out a wheezy chuckle. 'These days when I bend down to pat old Ajax here -' he ruffled the ears of the ancient hunting dog chomping on a chop bone - 'I try to find other things to do while I'm down there.'
    'Exactly how old are you?'
    'Put it this way, gel -' Volcar winkled a snail out of its shell with a loud plop - 'when I was a boy, the Dead Sea was only sick.'
    'Something funny over there?' Leo called across.
    'Do share it,' Silvia drawled, dabbling her long slender fingers in the scented water bowl. 'We could use a laugh.'
    Laugh? In six days, Claudia had not seen the Ice Queen so much as smile.
    'Silvia's right,' Leo said. 'We've had enough shop talk for tonight, let's change the subject. Any suggestions?'
    'Pirates,' Volcar said, spearing a prawn on his knife.
    Apart from Nikias, who didn't look up, the others all exchanged glances.
    'Oh, come on, Uncle,' Leo said. 'Surely we can think of a better topic to entertain our guest—'
    'Why?' the old man cut in. 'Seen 'em, haven't we? Prowling the waters out there. Heard 'em, too. That weird wailing's enough to send shivers down a dead man's spine. Like a banshee, it is, howling for blood.'
    Claudia ran her finger round the rim of her wine glass. 'Is piracy a threat?'
    'No,' Leo said, glowering at Volcar. 'We're as solidly defended as any place in the Empire. Take no notice.'
    "Course it is, gel,' Volcar said, pulling a crab claw out of its cracked shell. 'Sure, the mainland which encircles this archipelago is defended, but Rome can't do much to protect the coastline. Too deeply indented, see?'
    'You're scaring her, Uncle. Cressia's a large island and—'
    'Size don't mean diddly, lad, and you know it. In fact, I'm not sure it don't make matters worse, us being right at the head of the Adriatic as we are.' He eased another