Dark Horse

by Marilyn Todd

  Clio rolled over on to her stomach, butterfly-crawled a few strokes. Where were the hotels, the fountains, the landscaped parks and gardens? Where were the public latrines? Croesus, there weren't even shops on this primitive island! Not even a single shoemaker.

  She changed her swimming to the breaststroke. Merchandise, such as it was, was bought and sold in the open air around the harbour, everything traded and bartered and haggled for. You want a barber? The price is three candles or a cheese or half a flagon of beer. You need dry goods? A bolt of cotton, maybe? Lead? Timber? Pitch? No problem. The trade ship's due in a month - or two, depending. Never get sick. A bow-legged, one-eyed caulker doubled as Cressia's dentist, there wasn't a surgeon, and if you need the island's one and only physician, you'll find him passed out on the floor stinking of booze.

  Fine. Clio could work round that. She wasn't planning to be here for long. Just however long it took. But she so missed the life. The vitality. Some small indication that Cressia wasn't populated by living corpses. Croesus, all you ever saw were human statues! Fishermen sitting round mending their nets. Basket makers weaving the willows. Slowly. Very, very slowly. So slowly they never seemed to move. Zombies.

  What she wouldn't give to see fire-eaters capering over the quayside! She swam to the edge of the pond and perched herself on a rock, like a mermaid. Jugglers would do. Or gaily dressed acrobats, accompanied by musicians cheered on by the masses. She let out a short laugh. Masses? What bloody masses! Dabbling her toes in the water, Clio reckoned you could round up every man, woman and child on this island and still never fill a barrel.

  Mind you. If anybody ever got round to it, Clio would be the first to roll the barrel off a cliff. Good riddance. She despised these filthy islanders. They were impoverished, ill-educated, stank of stale fish and stale sweat and bad teeth.

  Moreover, she was aware of their opinion of her.

  Suspicious and superstitious, their skins wrinkled and leathery from working outdoors in the sun, the islanders could not imagine how a woman past thirty could - by natural methods - retain a complexion like milk and hair which shone like

  damascene. Especially long black hair which fell to her waist, with not a single strand of white to be seen.

  Rumours spread like heath fire. The newcomer was one of the Lamiae. Women who took men to their beds then feasted off their living flesh to keep themselves young. Clio's contemptuous snort startled a small herd of goats grazing in the distance. Lamiae indeed! She waded back to the shore, each leg slowly, sensuously, parting the water. Some young boy decides he's had enough of this island, hitches a ride on the first available ship, and suddenly the dark-haired woman on the hill is accused of eating the poor bugger alive! Were their lives really that narrow?

  Picking up a towel, she blotted off the excess water, spending longer than necessary on her beautiful breasts and the soft insides of her thighs. When she was finished, she knelt on a soft patch of grass and bent over the water, washing her hair with a mixture she'd concocted herself to bring out the shine.

  Combing her dripping black mane through to the ends, Clio knew what had started tongues wagging. She'd arrived out of nowhere, taking over this abandoned stone house on the hilltop without explanation. No servants, no husband, no children. Such a solitary existence was not natural in the islanders' view. And on Cressia, if something's not natural, then it has to be . . . unnatural.

  Sure, the locals took her money in the market, but they made no effort to disguise the sign they made to avert the evil eye. Beauty came at a price, they believed, openly chanting spells and incantations to make sure they weren't the ones to be paying it. Behind her back they called her witch, enchantress, sorceress -and worse. Fine. Let them make the sign of the horns. What did she care? It was only superstition, at the end of the day. And superstition doesn't put food on the table.

  Getting back into her robe to signal that the show was over, Clio heard the two silver coins clink on the hard ground. No trading for her. Strictly cash. There was a rustle in the bushes behind the drystone wall which grew fainter and fainter until only silence remained.

  She scooped up the coins, bit them to test the metal and smiled.

  Sprats tonight!

  Eleven

  Sir Qus's voice was a strained whisper - 'a word before we sail?'

  Behind a pillar in the colonnade, Claudia froze. Her pale lemon-yellow gown was the same colour as the marble, rendering her all but invisible in the early morning light. She held her breath.

  'What now, Qus?' Leo asked tetchily.

  'I found this when I unlocked the bath house this morning.' The Ethiopian was holding a wooden spear adorned with carvings, ribbons, feathers and what appeared to be a dozen clumps of hair. When he shifted position the spear rattled, and halfway up the lance a sheet of parchment was impaled.

  'Embedded in the door,' he said, 'like last time and the time before.'

  'Not quite,' Leo said. 'The previous delivery was lodged in the stables, the first we found impaled in the boat shed.' 'Same thing.' The Ethiopian shrugged.

  'No, there's a pattern, don't you see? Jason,' Leo said, 'has been creeping that little bit closer to the house every time. Now the bastard's turned his terror tactics to arson and murder.' 'Surely you don't think Jason killed Bulis?'

  'Who else?' Leo said. 'Dammit, Qus, his flames have been terrorizing the archipelago for weeks. Sooner or later he was bound to cross the line.'

  Not just these islands, either, Claudia thought. Everywhere, villagers were fleeing in droves from attacks which Rome, their so-called protector, was powerless to prevent. Small wonder the natives were getting restless.

  'Same bloody message,' Leo sneered, pulling the note off the lance. 'Give back what is mine.'

  'I suppose you could always give it to him?' the Ethiopian ventured.

  'I don't have anything belonging to Jason. It's just a ploy to provoke me.'

  But there was a depressing lack of conviction in Leo's denial and a few more pieces of the puzzle started to slot into place. The arson attack, for one. Upping the stakes in whatever game was being played out on this paradise island. It explained the pirate's cool demeanour in the bay - that low insolent bow. It explained why he hadn't simply stormed the place, too. The Villa Arcadia might boast strong defences, but if Jason gathered a small pirate navy, they'd be no match for Leo's resistance and heaven knows there were enough spoils on this site to go round. Whatever it was Leo had and Jason wanted back, it was something Jason couldn't simply come in and take.

  So why didn't Leo simply ignore the ship in the bay? Why bother to go after the Scythian?

  'This remains strictly between ourselves,' he warned Qus. 'No one else is to know about these spears, understood?'

  There was a slight pause. 'Of course.'

  Leo leaned into his face. 'Cross me, boy, and I'll have you demoted to labouring before you can even say "sorry". Do I make myself clear on that?'

  'Absolutely.' Pause. 'Sir.'

  'Good man. Now let's go strip the hide off some pirates!' Flexing his shoulder muscles, Leo grinned and slapped his bailiff on the back. 'Show 'em what fibre we Romans are made of.'

  Maybe it was a trick of the light, but Claudia could have sworn she saw the big Ethiopian flinch.

  Three speared warnings, each creeping that little bit closer than the last, was the classic hallmark of the psychopath as he piled on the psychological pressure. Arson had probably been his original intention last night. So close to the villa, it had been meant as a warning. But then he'd found Bulis wandering about - and Jason didn't strike Claudia as the type to kiss an opportunity goodbye. Wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time, poor sod, Bulis had been a matter of simple expediency. By killing the young apprentice, Jason's warning could not possibly be ignored.

  And Leo, the blockhead, had taken the bait.

  Every piece of ornamentation on that Scythian lance was a symbol of the warrior's courage and skill. The rattles represented the swiftness of h
is horse's hooves. The carvings reflected the tattoos on the warrior's skin: totems to protect him. The feathers were the feathers on his arrows, those deadly instruments of death that even Rome's finest bowmen couldn't match. The yellow ribbons exemplified the rays of the sun god. And the clumps of hair? Actually, they symbolized nothing. These were trophies pure and simple.

  Scalps of the men the warrior had killed.

  Sweet Janus, who did Leo think he was tangling with here? Hadn't he learned any lessons from history? You just do not mess with these people!

  Scythia was the vast and rugged country to the north and west of the Black Sea. No matter what Rome had thrown at her over the years, Scythia had withstood every attack, had repulsed every advance, not an inch of territory had been conceded. Pity. Because Scythia controlled trade and shipping; a nice little earner for Imperial coffers if the country had fallen. But the point was, if the whole might of the Roman Empire couldn't defeat these superlative warriors, what hope had Leo in the Medea?

  This, remember, is the race who scalp their enemies and use their flayed skins to cover their quivers. The race who gild the skulls of their enemies and use them as ceremonial goblets. The race where human sacrifice is still practised. . .

  Leo, dammit, had not only chosen to go head to head with one of these barbarians but to hell with anyone caught in the crossfire.

  Claudia slipped quietly through the gate which led to the herb garden, where the the apple fragrance of camomile mingled with the scents of mint, coriander, thyme and spicy basil. Sun, shining through the feathery fennel, dappled the lemon balm, and bees buzzed around the hyssop and the lavender. Same old Silvia, she thought. Immaculate and unruffled, regardless of the crisis, be it fire, pirates or - hefting pots of lilies? Her fair hair gleaming in the early morning light, she was sitting on a bench while an oriental

  slave girl sang about unrequited love as she gave her mistress a pedicure.

  'You do know there's a pirate ship in the cove?' Claudia asked.

  'The captain's a Scythian and his name is Jason.' Silvia indicated to the girl to continue singing. 'Apparently his mother's an Amazon and he gets his looks from her.'

  Claudia imagined Jason would get looks from hundreds of women.

  'Aren't you worried about a galley full of barbarian thugs on your doorstep?' she asked. Dammit, this woman was a mother of three. She couldn't always be this detached, could she?

  'He's just taunting us,' Silvia said, holding out her other slender foot for attention.

  'Maybe so, but your brother-in-law has taken the bait.'

  'Then he's a fool.' Silvia picked up the tortoiseshell lyre on the bench next to her. 'Water is Jason's element and Leo should know better than to charge off making a fool of himself.'

  She wasn't serious? 'A boy's dead, Silvia. He's bound to feel passionate about exacting revenge.'

  'Revenge!' Silvia began to strum softly. 'No individual can possibly take on Jason single handed and win.'

  'You're not suggesting Leo lets him get away with this outrage?'

  'Don't be silly, dear.' She might have been talking to a small child. 'We're merely saying it's high time our brother-in-law used his head for a change. Or more pertinently, his family connections.'

  'Trust Leo to have a naval commander in the family.'

  'No, no. His cousin Marcus is attached to the Security Police—'

  'What?' Some spiteful Cressian god is playing tricks with my ears. 'Orbilio is Leo's cousin?'

  'Know him, do you?'

  'We may have met.'

  Silvia adjusted the tension on the second string. 'Well, then, you'll know that with Marcus's clout, we could get troops, boats, artillery, whatever is necessary to rid the Gulf of these desperadoes.'

  Dammit, Claudia should have paid more attention that day Leo

  came calling! Vaguely (now!) she recalled him mentioning that his cousin Marcus had suggested he pay her a visit, but come on - there are an awful lot of Marcuses in Rome and besides she'd been too busy wondering how Hylas the Greek had traced her so fast and worrying what size of dossier the Security Police had been compiling on her doping activities to venture into family histories. Stupid cow! Claudia ground her heel into the camomile. Croesus, she'd even remarked on the family resemblance. Same tall build, same lean physique, same thick, dark, wavy hair. No dimple on the chin, of course, but instead of putting a simple two and two together, she'd been too busy digging an escape tunnel from Rome. Shit! Orbilio had counted on that, dammit. That's how he'd sprung his trap.

  'Younger than Leo by a decade,' Silvia drawled, 'but twice as handsome and ten times as ambitious. Has his sights on the Senate, you know.'

  'Actually I do know.'

  And guess who's his fast track? Given that the more results a man can clock up, the closer it takes him to the Senate, think how much faster his travel when the perpetrators conveniently hand over the incriminating evidence themselves!

  'If only Leo were not so obstinate on the issue of assistance.' Silvia laid the lyre on her lap and fixed her big blue eyes on Claudia. 'Given the laurels he'd win for ridding the Liburnian Gulf of marauders, Marcus would not be sole to resist the challenge.'

  Much less if his cousin got himself killed out there this morning! Dear Diana, a snapping turtle could sink that pathetic little crate, never mind a seasoned warship. What on earth was Leo thinking of? The only good thing that could possibly come out of it was that the death of his cousin at the hands of a bunch of pirate rebels would fire a crusade so strong, so fierce in his proud patrician breast, that Orbilio would comb every inch of this secretive landscape until he had the Scythian at bay. What's more, he would have the backing of the whole damn Roman Empire behind him, there would be nowhere for them to hide.

  But for heaven's sake, there had to be a better way of making the seas safe than through Leo's martyrdom! Which, of course, there was. Provided Claudia could think up a way to prevent Leo from sailing.

  Twelve

  The demon yawned, stretched and, had it been a cat, it would have purred. Like a leech, it had grown fat on the blood upon which it hadfeasted last night, but blood was this island's birthright. Why should it not be the demon's, also?

  Of all the islands in the Adriatic, Cressia's history was the darkest. Inextricably linked with one of the most famous exploits of all time, that of Jason and the Golden Fleece, it was here, at the head of the Adriatic, that the Argo had dropped her anchor all those years ago.

  Opinion on the Fleece itself was divided. One school of thought had Jason sailing through the Hellespont and round the Black Sea until he reached the land of Colchis on its south-west shores. The hypothesis was sound. Alluvial gold washed down from the Caucasus was still collected today by laying fleeces along the river bed in spring. Therefore to scholars in this camp, the Golden Fleece was exactly what it purported to be. A fleece of pure gold.

  Colchis, others claimed, was Greek for Kolikis, a stronghold of the Liburnian tribes on the mainland north of Cressia and once an important station along the amber route which, in those days, ran pretty much in a straight line from the Baltic to the Aegean. This suggested Jason was more trader than raider, and that the Golden Fleece was that ultimate status symbol of wealth: a sheepskin cloak studded with thousands of tiny beads of amber.

  But whether Jason was a gold-digger or an amber merchant was irrelevant to the demon. Cressia's dark history wasn't about Jason. It revolved round a woman.

  Medea.

  Voluptuous, beautiful, she was a princess of Colchis. She

  seduced Jason, stole from her people, double-crossed her own father, murdered her brother, dismembered his corpse and threw his body parts into these very waters.

  Perhaps the old Greek historians were right in that the goddess Athena refused to allow Medea to leave with her brother's blood on her hands. Then again, perhaps the Argo's crew simply refused to take her on board without her repenting. Either way, before Medea could sail with Jason, she was forced to seek purificat
ion on this island, the Island of the Dawn, where Circe the enchantress dwelt in a sumptuous palace.

  Except Medea did not repent. Her wickedness was never expunged. History records how she went on first to kill King Pelias, before butchering the king of Corinth and then how, when Jason wanted to divorce her, Medea burned her love rival alive and later went on to poison her own children. What made this story particularly interesting was the poison she'd used. Colchicum. The bulb of Colchis. From whom could she have learned such a skill? The demon knew the answer full well. Circe was the King of Colchis's sister, whose powers as a sorceress were well documented. She could tame wild beasts, turn men into hogs, conjure up the winds with her spells. And the bulb of Colchis flourishes all over this island.

  The demon saw a very different scenario to the theory about Medea needing repentence. It saw this as a smokescreen, whereby she could engineer a call on the aunt who had been exiled by her father, the king. It saw two like minds, plotting and scheming far into the night. Medea, we know, sailed away with new skills, but Circe? What became of the king's sister?

  The demon knew the answer to that conundrum, as well.

  After Medea sailed away with her Jason, the Trojan hero Odysseus had been so captivated by the enchantress's beauty that he stayed seven years as her consort. She had borne him three sons and with each generation, that knowledge had been passed down. Fresh. Undiluted. Pure in its wickedness and guile.

  For much of the time, the evil remained dormant. But every now and again the dark demon stirred.

  Bulis had been a good start.

  Thirteen

  Psst!'

  Claudia beckoned her bodyguard round the side of the weaving shed, and that was another thing she'd picked up about the Villa Arcadia. So many perfect places for someone to lurk with pots of lilies.