Dark Horse

by Marilyn Todd

  Table of Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty Three

  Forty-Four

  Forty-Five

  Forty-Six

  Forty-Seven

  Forty-Eight

  Forty-Nine

  Fifty

  Fifty-One

  Fifty-Two

  Fifty-Three

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Dark Horse

  By Marilyn Todd

  Copyright 2014 by Marilyn Todd

  Cover Copyright 2014 by Untreed Reads Publishing

  Cover Design by Ginny Glass

  The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.

  Previously published in print, 2002.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher or author, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages embodied in critical articles or in a review. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, dialogue and events in this book are wholly fictional, and any resemblance to companies and actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Also by Marilyn Todd and Untreed Reads Publishing

  I, Claudia

  Virgin Territory

  Man Eater

  Wolf Whistle

  Jail Bait

  Black Salamander

  Dream Boat

  www.untreedreads.com

  Dark Horse

  Marilyn Todd

  For Margot Mitchell,

  my way of saying

  thanks for being a good friend

  One

  Rome was hot.

  So hot, that one flimsy shift was one too many.

  So hot, that if the Tiber began to steam, no one would blink.

  Biting flies moved in, little black things with long proboscises and big brown brutes with even longer ones. The overwhelming stench of sewage was everywhere. There were no festivals to compensate for the sweltering heat. No Games, no processions, no theatres, no nothing.

  But for Claudia Seferius, the Tiber could boil and it would be cool compared to her current predicament. Bastards! Thought they could drive her out of business, did they? Over her dead body! The vegetable market was packing up as she cut a diagonal path across the cobbles. No shade in the market place at this time of day. Shadows would not fall from the Palatine Hill for another four hours and those cast by the Capitol had already passed over.

  'Nice sprig of fragrant mint, lady,' an enterprising trader offered, 'to counteract the river pong?'

  Sweat poured down his face to drip off his chin but not, Juno be praised, on to his herbs.

  'How kind,' she said, sweeping the bouquet out of his hand as she passed.

  Ordinarily, Claudia would have had her litter take her to the Field of Mars, but for the job she had to do today, the less attention drawn to her presence the better. Slip in, slip out, don't get noticed. Impossible in a litter draped in turquoise and silver, shouldered by eight hunks in matching tunics!

  Skirting mushy cucumbers and mouldy marrows, limp lettuce leaves and slimy beans, she made her way to the river. No

  chance of getting noticed down here. The wharves were busier than a wasps' nest being smoked out. Barrels and amphorae rumbled over the flagstones, sacks were tossed down from the gangplanks. Lions in crates, camels in ropes, great blocks of marble were swung on to the dock; ungreased pulleys whined out their protest. Stevedores shouted up to workers in the towering warehouses in an air thick with everything from spices to hemp, cedar to salt fish. The mint came in jolly handy down by the bridge. A dead dog had got stuck under one of the piers, where its bloated corpse was happily being prodded by a group of boys with a stick.

  From the tumult of the quayside, Claudia merged with the crowd heading for the Field of Mars. Official festivities might be thin on the ground, but Rome's entrepreneurial spark was alive and well in the form of privately organized horse races on the flat belt of grassland in the bend of the Tiber. Nothing like the chariot races in the Circus Maximus, of course, but they were no less serious a business. Already rival supporters, their legs and faces painted in their team colours, were goading each other. Fists were only an insult away.

  In the officials' enclosure, vets inspected hooves and ears as grooms plaited the horses' manes and tails and wove in the team ribbons, and flustered clerks shored up last-minute changes to the programme. Who, among the jockeys flexing their joints and pulling on rawhide gloves and the harnessmen adjusting the reins, paid attention to a young woman in a simple pale-grey linen gown? Claudia slipped through to where the horses for the third race were tethered. Easy to pretend you're studying the thoroughbreds as you feed one a handful of grain . . .

  'Now there's a sight I never thought I'd see,' a rich baritone murmured in her ear. 'Claudia Seferius looking a gift horse in the mouth.'

  Above the acid tang of the dung, she smelt sandalwood overlaid with a faint hint of the rosemary in which his long patrician tunic had been rinsed. A.k.a. the scent of the hunter.

  'Beats looking at the other end,' she said airily. 'Still, as I've always said, Orbilio, one good nag deserves another. Here you go.'

  She stuffed the little blue cotton sack of grain into his hands and turned on her heel.

  'Don't leave on my account.' His tone was mild. Particularly for someone who'd stepped in front of her and blocked her exit. 'The second race is barely under starter's orders. Or are you telling me you've given up gambling in favour of opening a stud farm?'

  'Tut, tut, Orbilio. I would have thought that the Security Police know gambling's illegal.'

  His gaze skimmed the betting tables, where coins and bronze vouchers were changing hands like the cards in find the lady. 'Obviously, were I to see evidence of such nefarious activities, I would be duty bound to report it,' he said, and was it the sunshine or was there a twinkle in his eye? 'Oh, look, they're leading the horses out for the third race.'

  'So soon?' Bugger.

  'A group of supporters rushed on to the track during the second race, so the steward's had to abandon it. Why don't we see if this one is as exciting?'

  There was no arguing with the hand which had slipped under her elbow and was steering her firmly towards the c
ourse, a euphemism for the rather rough and ready arrangement of two wooden posts driven into the grass six hundred paces apart. A dozen four-year-old mares were already jostling against the starting rope, fresh, skittish, eager to run.

  'No cheating, no holding back,' the course steward announced through his speaking trumpet. 'Any hint of match fixing results in instant disqualification. Anyone who runs on to the track this time or throws missiles to put the horses off gets an automatic one-hundred-sesterces fine.'

  'Booo!' the crowd yelled, although Claudia noticed that several stones plopped surreptitiously to the ground.

  'White Star to win,' Orbilio said, folding his arms confidently across his chest.

  'Didn't I hear someone say she was the favourite?'

  'Your bookie, probably.'

  Damn right. Owned by Hylas the Greek, White Star would knock spots off the rest. These weren't the top runners you saw in the Circus Maximus, but horses for courses, as they

  say. Today's entrants were trained especially to compete on rough grass rather than a smooth running track, and when it came to breeding winners for these provincial derbies, Hylas the Greek was second to none.

  'What's a bookie?' she asked.

  Up went the rope. Up went the cheers. Up went a cloud of divots and dust.

  'Come on, White Star!' cried the crowd.

  'Come on, White Star!' cried Marcus Cornelius.

  Claudia yawned and pretended to study her nails. Come on, come on, you stupid nag. From under lowered lashes, she followed White Star as the mare thundered up the track, turning at the post neck and neck with her rival, Calypso. Back they thundered, then another tight turn and back up. Faster, you clot, she urged the jockey, what do you think spurs are for? The rest of the field started to trail. Five times they'd turned now. Still Calypso and White Star kept pace. Six laps. Seven . . . Her knuckles clenched white. Only the final length left.

  'Calypso!' the race judge called. 'Calypso by a head!'

  Across the enclosure, she noticed Hylas's thickly greased curls jerk up fast. He muttered something to one of his flunkies. The flunky's eyes scanned the crowd. A finger pointed. To a woman in a pale-grey linen gown.

  'Well, this has been absolutely fascinating,' she said, as Hylas beckoned over a couple of heavies. 'But I really must be off now, Marcus. Things to do, you know, places to go-'

  'People to annoy?' Beside her, the tall, dark patrician with the wavy hair grinned. 'And to think you haven't even asked me what I'm working on.'

  'The usual Security Police heroics, I imagine.' Unmasking killers, rooting out assassins, keeping the Empire stable.

  'Those, too,' he said, falling into step as she pushed her way through the crowd. 'But I'm keeping my eye on a couple of other things at the moment.'

  Me too. They're about six feet five, weigh three hundred pounds each and have muscles where most people have brains. Juno be praised, they had reached the road at last.

  'Litter!

  A shabby green arrangement came running, but it was already taken and trotted straight past.

  'Burglary, for one,' Orbilio said amiably. 'A large number of wealthy patricians have been steadily relieved of their gold and precious jewels in the eight months since Saturnalia, and since ordinary investigations were getting nowhere, my boss thought my blue blood might help shed insight into the matter.'

  'How riveting. Litter!' Oh, thank you, Jupiter. 'The Forum,' she told the head bearer, 'and I'll double your fare if you run.' To Orbilio, she said, 'We really must do this again some time.'

  'I'm free on Monday.'

  'I was thinking of some time in the next life.' Claudia clambered inside and pulled the drapes shut. She would send her scribe to collect her winnings later.

  'I'm working on another case, too,' Orbilio said, as the bearers picked up the litter.

  'Really?'

  'Something which I think might interest you.'

  'I doubt that.' Claudia's sole concern was the two oafs who had been making such singularly fast progress through the crowd.

  'Not even,' he asked, as the bearers adjusted the weight on their shoulders, 'if I tell you I'm investigating race fixing through the doping of horses?'

  A small blue cotton bag appeared between the curtains and dangled in mid-air for a second or two before landing gently in her lap.

  'Yours, I believe,' he said smugly.

  Two

  Two days later, and Claudia Seferius was in no mood for visitors.

  'My cousin said rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb . .

  How could Hylas the Greek have found out where she lived?

  '. . . blah blah divorced and marrying again blah blah blah . . .'

  It was that bloody bookie, wasn't it? She'd kill him. By thunder, she'd bloody kill him. Rip his heart out, feed it to the cat, chop his children into pieces and make meatballs out of them.

  '. . . rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb this magnificent embossed betrothal medallion . . .'

  Once she was free of Hylas's clutches, of course. Dammit, couldn't the man see she was perfectly prepared to apologize? Explain that she hadn't realized the grain she'd fed his horse was doped/a rival breeder put her up to it/pure coincidence Calypso won the race. Oh, all right, twelve pure coincidences if he wants to be pedantic, but the point is, don't these Greeks negotiate? Like a stoat negotiates with a rabbit, according to the scribe who tried to collect her winnings. Adding that in his opinion Hylas was in a less conciliatory, more a break-both-her-legs kind of mood. Shit, there were only so many ways a girl can sneak out of the house when his bullies come calling . . .

  '. . . blah blah these are very difficult times for . . .'

  Then there was the Security Police. Was it coincidence that Marcus Cornelius Orbilio just happened to be hanging around on the off-chance that someone would drug the top runners? The hell it was. Someone tipped him off and suddenly it's

  Saturnalia and his birthday all rolled into one, because some stupid bitch actually hands him the bag of doped grain! What a mess.

  . . rhubarb rhubarb I quite understand if you—'

  'Wait!' Hold it right there, chum. Claudia suddenly began to pay closer attention to her visitor. Mid-thirties, tall, dark haired, well-built with a slight cleft in his chin, Leo was a patrician to boot. 'Say that again.'

  'I said I was so, so sorry to hear about your husband's demise. I met him several times over the course of the—'

  'No, the bit after that.'

  'Uh . . . You mean, when I said how courageous I thought it was of you to take on his business, because it can't be easy, you being so young and a woman as well?'

  'Not that bit either.'

  That was the reason she was in this shit - taking on the bloody business. Dammit, if those bastard fellow wine merchants hadn't banded together to try and drive her to the brink of ruin, she wouldn't be doping horses to raise capital, which meant Hylas the Greek would have no axe to grind and she wouldn't be facing several years in penniless exile because the Security Police had been handed the incriminating evidence in a little blue cotton bag. Which Orbilio had returned, true. But only after conscientiously removing the contents.

  'Didn't you mention something about inviting me to visit your estate in the Liburnian archipelago?' she prompted Leo.

  Orbilio can build up as compelling a dossier as he likes, but if the chief suspect is nowhere to be found, such was Rome's magnetism for criminal activity that it only needed a couple of juicy murders or a really good conspiracy and race fixing would drop right off the end of his scale of priorities.

  Oh come on, it was only a gentle narcotic! A few seeds from a species of chervil given to her by an Armenian for whom she had once done a favour. Not enough to give the horse colic, merely sufficient to render White Star a little unsteady on her hooves and induce a pleasant feeling of equine apathy. (Provided the damn drug had time to work, which is touch and go if the second race ends up being abandoned!)

  'I thought it might take your mind off your grief,' Leo

/>   said, 'if you saw my revolutionary method of training the vines.'

  For all she cared, Leo could use whips and a three-legged stool to train his damn vines. Claudia was packed almost before she'd said yes. Unfortunately, there just didn't seem to be the right moment to confess that the grieving widow wasn't exactly grieving. Not unless it was on account of the inheritance coming in vineyards, bricks and mortar instead of the luscious gold pieces she'd envisaged. I ask you. Who can buy a new gown with half a coppersmith's on the Via Latina? Or take home that delightful little brooch shaped like an owl with a stubby old vine bush or two? But even before her husband's pyre was cold, the sharks had moved in.

  First they'd tried to buy her out, at a price far below the market value.

  Then they'd tried to squeeze her out.

  That did it.

  Her husband, may he rest in peace (and she really must visit his grave along the Via Whatever sometime), had worked hard to build up the outlets for his prestigious Etruscan wines. Goddammit, these sons of bitches couldn't just barge in and take what they wanted for nothing. By hell or high water, or Hylas the Greek, Claudia would not let it go. Not, of course, that she knew the first thing about viticulture. That was what she employed experts for: to save her the bother of having to learn which of those twiddly bits needed pruning, whether it was better to line the vats with pitch or with resin. All she cared about was how it tasted. Because that made the difference between 7 and 10 per cent profit.

  'I promise you,' Leo said, as the sails of the little merchantman bellied in the warm summer breeze, 'you won't regret coming to Cressia.'

  Four hundred miles from Rome, Claudia had no doubts whatsoever on that score. She'd have taken up his offer had it meant spending the summer in the middle of the Libyan desert, providing that certain Greek nationals and the Security Police didn't get to hear about it. But the instant she set eyes on the island rising vertically out of the water, its wooded cliffs

  plunging hundreds of feet into the sparkling Adriatic, Claudia knew Leo was right.

  Through adversity comes opportunity - and it didn't need to knock twice at Claudia's front door. Talk about landing on her feet! The Island of the Dawn, according to one legend. Paradise for Claudia Seferius. Set amid hills redolent with a thousand aromatic herbs, Leo's estate was an idyll of orchid-strewn pastures, oakwoods, pines, olive groves and vineyards, peppered with caves and freshwater ponds.