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a bad one.
    'Nikias,' Leo said, 'how's my painting of the Banquet of the Gods coming on?'
    Silvia let out a pointed sigh.
    'Fine,' Nikias replied, not raising his eyes from his plate.
    Although theoretically a member of Saunio's team, since he was on sub-contract to the maestro on this job, Claudia disqualified the Corinthian from the BYM category on technical grounds. At thirty-eight, he was too old to be young. With an intensity of expression bordering on the hostile, he was far from pretty. Also, she did not think he was homosexual, either.
    'Still scheduled for completion next week?' Leo persisted.
    'Yep.'
    'And you don't foresee any problems with the deadline on the portrait of my bride and myself above the bed of the new marriage chamber?'
    'Nope.'
    Well, that settled that, then. As silence descended on the group, Claudia took to admiring the dining hall's splendid white marble columns garlanded with deep-blue delphiniums,
    white oleander and sulphur-yellow hibiscus. Aromatic resins crackled in wall-mounted braziers and fragrant oils burned in the dozens of lamps which hung on the walls and from tall silver stands. In this brilliant artificial light, the bronze dining couches gleamed like gold.
    Shamshi took advantage of the lull in conversation. 'Bees,' he announced, in his soft sibilant voice.
    'Bees?' everyone echoed in puzzled unison.
    'I noticed a swarm,' he said, 'travelling east. Coupled with the flight of three pigeons across the sun at midday and the fall of the bones, there is only one conclusion to be drawn.' His dark eyes fixed on Claudia. 'Before a new light is born in the sky, bad news will come over the water.'
    'Ah,' Leo said thoughtfully. 'Will it, indeed?'
    This time a longer silence descended on the diners, and Claudia wondered how much notice Leo paid to the Persian's prophecies. From what she'd seen of him, he seemed a level-headed enough chap. But then he had been resident on Cressia for several years, and on an island where dark deeds figured heavily in its past, superstition found a perfect breeding ground in a race of people isolated by the sea. How much of this hocus pocus had Leo absorbed? And how much of an influence did Shamshi exert on his patron? Leo did not strike Claudia as the imaginative type, so was it the Persian who had planted the idea of training vines in rows like soldiers? To espalier them sideways, instead of dangling them from overhead trellises? Ditto the Villa Arcadia. Architecturally, the mould had been broken here, too.
    Abandoning the traditional concept of four wings round a central courtyard, Leo had expanded the accommodation to cover three wings of the original building and demolished the fourth in favour of a fabulous marble portico lined with friezes and statuary. The trades which used to be contained within the original villa now lay outside in a cluster of sheds, mills, stores and workshops, and he'd built a brand new self-contained bath house, complete with domed roof and gymnasium.
    Volcar's acerbic quote came to mind. 'All he needs now is a smattering of beggars and the odd painted whore, gel, and he's created a whole bloody town. Don't know why
    he just doesn't call the place "Leoville" and be done with it.'
    An old man's bitterness at his nephew's success, while he was reduced to living on handouts? Or sharp insight into a side to Leo's character Claudia had yet to discover?
    'Of course I'm going to bloody well kill it,' Leo said.
    What? She had been so busy daydreaming, Claudia had missed the start of this new conversation. What was he going to kill? A rumour? Volcar had nodded off on the far side of the couch, his breathing in rhythm with his ancient hunting dog, Ajax, snoring at his feet.
    She glanced at Silvia for clues, but the Immaculate One was torn between selecting a roast hazel hen and the squid in coriander. Claudia suspected this was about the toughest decision the woman had ever had to make. Unless, of