Dark Horse

by Marilyn Todd

  Racing across the flagstones in her bare feet, Claudia covered her mouth against the choking fumes and questioned the intelligence which made two grown men scuffle on the steps while the whole damn corn supply went up in flames behind them.

  'Hey!'

  They couldn't hear for the crackle of the flames.

  'Hey!' she called, louder. 'Stop that!'

  From the corner of her eye she saw movement in the bushes. Praise be to Juno, the cavalry was here!

  'Come on,' she called, 'we've got to stop those two and prevent the fire spreading.'

  What was this clot waiting for? A bloody medal?

  'Well, hurry, then!'

  The figure in the bushes backed away. Oh, suit yourself. Spinning round, she raced on down the path. Two seconds later, she heard heavy footsteps thumping behind her. About bloody time! The footsteps were gaining. Even better. Stronger muscles to break up the fight.

  'What the hell?'

  Shit! The muscles were strong, all right. They'd clamped round her in a bear hug.

  'Not me, you idiot. Them.'

  But the vice was tightening. Breathing, heavy in her ear. _He tried to wriggle her arms free, but the lock was tight.

  'Let me go, you bastard!' Squirming, kicking, Claudia tried to wrestle herself out of his grasp. 'Let go of me!'

  The air was being squeezed out from her lungs. She couldn't scream. Could hardly breathe. She tried to dig her elbows back, but there was no room for manoeuvre. What the hell was going on? Was he trying to prevent her breaking up the fight? Or was the motive more personal? Rape?

  'I'll kill you for this,' she hissed, kicking backwards with her heels. 'Your life won't be worth a—'

  The alarm horn blew then - long, low and piercing - and instantly every dog on the estate began barking. As though this was a signal, the grip broke and she found herself tipping forwards through thin air. She put out her hands to break the fall, yelped as her knee grazed the flagstone. Then a shadow fell across the path. Glancing up, she heard a whooshing sound, caught a faint scent of cinnamon, saw something dark scything towards her.

  Suddenly a thousand stars exploded in her head.

  And this time, when Claudia Seferius toppled forward, she didn't get up.

  Six

  Ooh, fank gawd!' The anxious face of one of the maidservants pushed its way into focus. 'When I couldn't wake you, I fought somefing terrible 'ad happened!'

  Hadn't it? Through a thick haze, Claudia tried to piece back the memory. Vaguely she saw two figures. Wrestling on the granary steps. Felt two strong arms round her chest. Huh. Bad dream! She was here, wasn't she? Tucked up in bed. In her room. With one of the maids Leo had hired for his new bride bending over her.

  'Ouch.' Except dreams don't leave lumps the size of onions. Or clash cymbals against your brain. Or smell of - 'Fire!'

  'That's why I was trying to wake you,' the girl said, hauling Claudia up by her shoulders. 'Do 'urry, mistress. Please, mum.'

  What was that dreadful noise? Was that inside her head, too? Then she realized. It was the sound made by feet stampeding down the villa's cool marble floors mingled with screams and shouts, with whimpering sobs and the slamming of doors in a mad clamour for open air. Through the windows, a ghostly grey light was pushing its way through the heavy blanket of sky to the east.

  This, Claudia thought, is one hell of a way to greet a new dawn.

  Holding her head with both hands to prevent it from rolling into a corner, she fumbled her way to the window. How long had she been unconscious? Weeks? Months? It could only have been minutes, she thought. Just a few minutes. Thick plumes of smoke smothered the courtyard and panic was spreading. Fieldworkers from the dormitories knocked one another aside in the rush. Slaves huddled in terrified knots. Children wailed.

  'We're going to die! We're all going to die!' someone shouted.

  'Run for your lives,' cried another.

  Four rooms along, Silvia's imperious tones drowned the rumpus. Any frantic activity on her part had taken on a distinctly more pragmatic note.

  'The jewels,' Silvia ordered her servants. 'Save the jewels.'

  'Please, mistress,' Claudia's maid pleaded. 'You've gotta get out.'

  'Go away.'

  'What?' The girl blenched. 'An' leave you when you're ill?'

  That was the trouble with hired help. Claudia could have brought her own entourage, but the fewer who knew where she was, the safer for all concerned, so she'd only brought the head of her bodyguard.

  'I'm not ill.' If only those castanets inside her head would stop trying to compete with the cymbals . . .

  The maid flung her single heavy plait over her shoulder as a gesture that she was standing her ground. 'You've picked up one of them fevers, that's what you 'ave. If I wrap you up nice and warm, you'll feel better.'

  'You'll feel the back of my hand, if you don't stop fussing.'

  'Now where the devil did I put your long lick woollen wrap? It's bin so 'ot, I honestly didn't fink you'd need anyfing that warm.' The girl scratched her head. 'Perhaps it's in that chest over there . . .'

  She lifted the lid. Claudia slammed it down hard. 'Out.'

  Bundling the girl unceremoniously out of the room, she explored the lump on the side of her head, the bruises round her upper arms where she'd been clamped. She swallowed. Lifted her shift. All right. She swallowed again. Let's see what other violations had taken place . . .

  Juno be praised, she hadn't been raped.

  Across the narrow pathway, orange flames crackled and spat, and shattered the terracotta roof tiles. What the hell kind of twisted mind knocks a girl unconscious then takes the trouble to carry her back to her bed? The burning stung

  her eyes. As she watched, one of the interior timbers let out an ominous crack. Hysteria swept through the crowd like a flash flood. As one, they surged towards the cliff path.

  'Stop.'

  Leo's cultured tones cut straight through the shrieks of the slaves, the screams of the women, even the terrified yelps of the dogs.

  'Everyone remain where they are.'

  This was a voice which was calm, controlled, and brooked no disobedience. Even when a large section of the roof collapsed with an ear-splitting crash, no one dared move.

  'Qus.' He addressed his tall, Ethiopian steward, who had come running. 'Organize buckets, use the water from the bath house. The rest of you, form a chain, each man one arm's span apart - and that includes you, Saunio.'

  'Me?' The maestro threw back his head in a theatrical gesture. 'I am an artiste,' he protested. 'I cannot risk damaging my hands. These hands are my work. My life. My art.'

  'I am told that, over time and given plenty of nursing -' Leo shot a withering glance at the coven of pretty young men clustered around him - 'blisters eventually recover.'

  Saunio looked for another way out. His contract was to design, not to act as a skivvy. 'But your beautiful frescoes,' he wheedled. 'I am barely halfway through the project. If the famous Saunio's hands burn, who will complete his magnificent masterpieces?'

  'The next painter I hire,' Leo barked, 'now jump to it. Listen up, everyone. It only needs one small spark to cross this courtyard and the house goes up with it, so put your backs into it. You too, Silvia. Grab a bucket.'

  Straightening the wrap which covered her embroidered linen nightshift, Silvia tilted her patrician chin and was about to give a sharp rejoinder when she realized that Leo was no longer beside her. With a militant sniff, she stalked across the cobbles in the direction of the herb garden. If he wanted to get himself burned to a crisp, that was fine by her. He was only her brother-in-law, after all. She had no intention of so much as singeing an eyebrow herself. Good heavens, what did the man think slaves were for?

  'Where the bloody hell are you sloping off to?' Leo snarled, spinning Saunio round by his arm. 'I told you. We need every man we can get, which means you and your nancy boys. Everyone pulls their weight in a crisis like this. Everyone, do you understand?'

  'It's
Bulis,' the artist whined. 'I'm worried about the poor boy.'

  'In your shoes, I'd be more worried about me.'

  'You don't understand. I can't find him anywhere—'

  'Bugger Bulis. Just join the sodding chain, before the whole bloody place goes up.'

  Watching the furious activity from the shadows of her bedroom, Claudia wished she'd seen the combatants more clearly. They had been of a same size and build, that much she could tell, but any further detail had been lost in the dark, in the smoke, in the fact that they were locked together. And before she'd got close enough to identify either party, someone had thoughtfully smashed a flowerpot over her head.

  Was that why? To stop her identifying the brawlers? Or to prevent her from breaking up the fight?

  Round her ankles, hackles raised and tail swishing like a scythe through hay, Drusilla yowled obscenities from the back of her throat.

  'I know, poppet,' Claudia whispered, bending down to stroke the spiky fur flat. 'It's too slick, isn't it?'

  Far too slick. Watching Leo striding back and forth across the courtyard, issuing orders in his calm, patrician voice, was like watching rehearsals for some theatrical drama. The slaves and fieldworkers might be terrified, and justifiably so, but not Leo. A fire breaks out, despite the vigilance of a whole corps of nightwatchmen. It catches hold. Becomes an inferno. Not for Leo, though, to be outdoors in his nightshift! There he was, striding around in long, patrician tunic, neatly belted, and he'd even taken the trouble to comb his hair and lace up his boots.

  Drusilla's back arched, her tail stiffened.

  'Exactly, poppet. Think how little time passed before the alarm was raised. Yet here's Leo, immaculately groomed, establishing authority on chaos.'

  It was as though every scene which unfolded had been carefully - if badly - choreographed. In fact, so methodical were her host's actions, a girl could have been forgiven for thinking infernos were a weekly occurrence here at the villa.

  'Leo was prepared for this,' Claudia said. Or at least, something like this, she quickly qualified. The drill was good, but it was far from practised. As though this was the first rehearsal in a play suddenly sprung upon the actors by the theatrical director.

  'If proof were needed, just look how uninterested he is in his nightwatchmen.'

  'Hrrrrr,' Drusilla growled.

  'My sentiments entirely. All those big burly men staggering about holding their heads?'

  Any normal master would have assumed they were drunk and beaten them for falling asleep at their posts. Not Leo. He knew their sleep had been induced by something more sinister. But make no mistake, Leo was angry. Very angry. Witness the stiff back, clenched fists - body language which suggested that, although he hadn't been caught on the hop, this Leo was not a happy lion.

  As dawn began to throw her pink veil across the hills to the east, Claudia's eyes narrowed to slits.

  Just what the hell kind of game was Leo playing here?

  And what was the real reason he'd invited her to the Villa Arcadia?

  Seven

  Bucket by leather bucket, water from Leo's newly constructed bath house subdued the flames and, with it, quickly quenched the danger. Now only a single plume of black oily smoke punched its way through the hole in the roof. Testimony, just like the empty oil jar which lay beneath the stilts, that the fire had not started accidentally.

  'For gods' sake, someone silence those bloody dogs!' Leo yelled. 'And you lot in the chain. Stop slacking, the fire isn't doused yet.'

  Maybe not, but the crisis had undoubtedly passed and the sooty fire fighters, coughing from the smoke, saw no reason to keep up the back-breaking pace. The line of buckets settled into an easy, more manageable rhythm and gradually the barking of the estate dogs subsided, until all that could be heard was the twitterings of Saunio's coven of pretty boys bemoaning the state of their hair, their hands, the damage to their delicate skin.

  In a pale-lemon-yellow gown, Claudia joined the throng in the courtyard. 'Good gracious, what on earth have I slept through?' she trilled.

  A dash of white face powder, a judicious grouping of curls and the lump was almost invisible. To one side of the path, a pot of deep-pink spotted lilies lay in shards, the blooms trampled to mush. An unlikely weapon, Claudia thought. But effective. 'Are you all right?'

  Under the grime she just about made out the earnest features of Corinth's famous son peering deep into her eyes. For what, though? Genuine concern for her welfare? Or to see whether she recognized him from earlier?

  'I'm managing to keep a lid on the panic'

  Trust no one. It was a good rule to live by. One which had served her right the way through from the slums. Nikias didn't look the sort to swan around clonking women over the head, much less the type to go brawling. But if still waters ran deep, then Nikias was an ocean, and who knows what secrets the ocean holds?

  Taciturn as ever, the Corinthian gave a tight-lipped nod before slipping back to take his place in the chain.

  'Dear child, you could have died,' whispered a soft, sibilant voice in her ear.

  Claudia jumped. That was the second time in the early hours of this morning someone had crept up on her. A habit she was keen to break. But soot or no soot, nothing could disguise Shamshi's features. The hooked Arab nose. The distinctive circular mop of hair on top of a head otherwise shaved from temple to nape. That weird, lisping voice.

  'Our host has been most irresponsible,' he murmured, 'not checking your room had been evacuated.' He sniffed. 'In his place, I would have posted servants to make sure your slaves wouldn't ignore any alarm.'

  Claudia imagined the alarm would have had skeletons banging their heads on their gravestones, such was the startle factor of that particular blast.

  'Had I been in any danger, Shamshi, you would have been the first to know.' She declined to take the bait about her bodyguard failing in his duties. 'After all,' she smiled, 'you're the one who sees the future, remember?'

  The Persian did not return her smile. 'I am an augur, not an astrologer,' he lisped. 'I study entrails, observe birds, watch for portents, interpret dreams. The signs I have been shown don't foretell death, dear child. Only -' he paused for effect - 'disaster.'

  Must be a hoot at children's parties, Claudia thought, as he turned away, his trousers flapping round his bony knees. Was Shamshi one of the men tussling on the steps? Thanks to the smoke, she couldn't tell, but there was a man she could well imagine wielding pots of lilies. It was the thought of those skeletal fingers touching her comatose body that didn't bear thinking about!

  Extricating himself from the working party at last, Saunio, strutting like a plump pigeon, despatched a squad of BYMs to locate Bulis.

  'If I find out that wretched boy has buggered off to town again, I'm adding three months to his apprenticeship,' he spluttered. 'I won't tolerate slackness in my team. Not from any one of you, you hear?' The remainder of the BYMs nodded grimly.

  Dawn had turned the Adriatic rosy red, giving definition to what the islanders called Sorcerer's Mountain. This was the high peak on the Istrian mainland, where snow clung to the crevices even in summer. More sinisterly, in superstitious Cressian eyes, was the cap of white cloud which engulfed the peak most of the year. What other explanation than a smokescreen for the sorcerer to work his evil magic? Thus every morning, when they arose, the islanders made the ritual gesture against enchantment. Which was precisely what they were doing now. Slaves from the household, slaves from the fields, slaves who toiled in the outhouses and the workshops, all held up their right hands, the two middle fingers held down by their thumbs, and made the sign of the horns to protect them.

  'Quick, sir,' Qus called out, 'look at this!'

  Alerted by his tone, all notions of ritual gestures were abandoned in favour of looking at Leo's muscle-bound bailiff standing in the blackened grain house door. Necks craned forward as Leo bounded up the stone steps two at a time in response. Avidly the crowd watched as Qus passed his master a moistened linen han
dkerchief to cover his mouth and nose against the smoke. Both men had to duck to pass beneath the smouldering lintel. Where the ground sloped away behind the building, the soil was scarred by runnels of oily black sludge, the after-effects of extinguishing the inferno. The timbers resembled crocodile hide.

  As the crowd waited for the men to emerge, the first bubble of birdsong began to rise. Within seconds, wheatears, whinchats and whitethroats were singing their hearts out from spiky perches out in the scrub, tits and redstarts warbled from the pines and a hoopoe crooned in the distance. Undeterred by

  the acrid air, swallows twittered under the eaves of the villa, dipping and diving as they fetched flies for their ravenous young. Several minutes passed before Leo finally reappeared from the grain store. His expression was grim.

  'I'm telling you this,' he announced in a low voice, 'because I don't want any false rumours bandied about. Qus has . . .' He paused, swallowed, started again. 'Qus has discovered the charred remains of a body inside the granary.'

  A collective gasp rose from the crowd.

  Oh, no, Claudia prayed. Not Volcar. Oh, please, not old Uncle Volcar.

  'Bulis!' cried Saunio. 'I knew it, I knew it. It's my boy Bulis, isn't it?'

  Leo didn't reply for a moment, then slowly he opened his fist. In his palm lay a blackened signet ring. 'It is,' he said, 'if your apprentice wore this.'

  It went without saying that there would be no other way of identifying the remains.

  Saunio's voice cracked. 'Gold?' he asked. 'Set with one single pearl?'

  Leo rubbed the ring on his tunic. For a brief second, his eye held Saunio's, then he gave a bleak nod. The artist covered his face with his hands. The BYMs fluttered round once more to comfort their patron as well as each other.

  'That's not all,' Leo said. 'The corpse - I, mean, Bulis -' he paused, and Claudia felt something cold slither around in her stomach. 'Bulis,' he said, 'was found chained to a pillar.'

  Eight