Dark Horse

by Marilyn Todd

  'Only some says Master Leo will have uss for trespassing.'

  Lydia looked down at the brown, limpid eyes of the farrier's stocky twin daughters and smiled. 'This is my land,' she said, helping them out of their coarse linen tunics. 'And as long as I'm here, you are free to come and go whenever you please.'

  'Whoopee!' Hand in hand, the two little girls scampered off to join the others splashing in the warm, translucent waters with the dolphin. She was still watching them when a shadow fell over the hot sand.

  'But how long, Lydia,' a voice whispered in her ear, 'will you be here? That's the question you need to be asking.'

  Nineteen

  Blood had stirred the demon from its slumber, blood had given it fuel. But blood alone wasn't enough.

  From Circe it had inherited the knowledge of centuries, and for a long time it believed the answer to its destiny lay in interpreting the messages jumbled inside its head. How wrong it had been! How much time wasted! Instead of trying to decipher the signals in terms of spells and incantations, the demon should have listened to its heart. To the real message pulsing through it.

  In taking Bulis, it had believed it had followed its instinct, but when it came to the kill, the demon had discovered, to its great surprise, that it was still very much a novice in these matters. Wisely, it stopped, pulled back, and listened to the whisperings of the past.

  Circe had been an enchantress. But Medea's blood also ran in the demon's veins. Don't forget that! Individually, the women were powerful - but together they were omnipotent, and this was the wisdom which had been passed down as it travelled the world and which now thrived in its place of origin. Circe had shown her niece how to create disguises, illusions, how to use the bulb of Colchis to deadly effect, and in return Medea had taught her aunt the black art of calculation. The demon saw them huddled over a cauldron in which perfidy, cunning and betrayal bubbled, waiting to be distilled into ruthlessness.

  At which point it realized that blood was not its life source at all.

  Power was the driving energy.

  Destruction the foundation stone of its strength.

  Once it grasped that basic principle, the demon's potency swelled. To have a human being at your mercy was the greatest power of all. To kill or to spare. To terminate life swiftly - or absorb the victim's vitality slowly.

  Control.

  To have total authority over the situation. To dominate the human spirit as well as the flesh.

  That was the demon's inheritance. That was its destiny. Now it had to set about fulfilling it further.

  Twenty

  In her cottage on the hilltop, Clio lay on her bed, her hands folded underneath her head, and watched a spider make its spindly progress across her ceiling. She had been a fool. A bloody fool to think she could trust the word of a patrician. She rubbed at the throbbing in her temple and wondered what the hell she was going to do now. She had no money. Not so much as a copper quadran to her name. No possessions. Any food she'd needed up till now she had earned by staging peep shows for that buck-toothed runt of a priest from the Temple of Neptune.

  Goddammit, Leo! How could you have reduced me to this?

  Blistering tears welled up behind her closed eyelids, but Clio was not prone to self-pity. She had come here for a purpose, had gambled everything on Leo's assurances and discovered, belatedly, that they were as worthless as marzipan coins. But she wasn't beaten yet.

  There was no breeze inside the cottage and the late afternoon air was sticky and cloying. Her cheeses were starting to smell. The bread would go hard in this heat, the fruit would be rotten by morning. This was no way to live. She rose, pulled on a fresh linen gown, belted it. Defeat did not figure in Clio's vocabulary. There would be a way out of this mess. She just had to find it.

  Following a dusty goat track over the brow of the hill, she set her mind to thinking. And as her feet ate up the ground beneath her, so the sun dipped below the soft rolling Istrian hills across the water, the signal for a million cicadas to start rasping in the rough, dry, spiteful Cressian grass.

  Leo had betrayed her.

  (As men do.)

  But there had to be something Clio could salvage.

  After an hour the track led her back to the cliff path overlooking the island's single wide sweeping bay, where sunset had turned the waters a flat, matt, dusky pink. She settled herself on a rocky outcrop and gazed down at the jumble of stone houses and the wharf populated by human statues Today, the townspeople's lethargy and uncouth manners were no longer a source of amusement for Clio. Things were turning nasty down there, too.

  What had started out as hilarious entertainment - that she was a witch, a sorceress, an eater of human flesh - was no longer funny. A girl, the wife of a fisherman, had died in the night. Her illness began, so the wagging tongues claimed, the day Clio arrived on the island. Now her spirit was gone from her body - and guess who they blamed?

  Yesterday, Clio would have laughed in their faces. Told the townspeople straight out that their kinswoman had died from a wasting disease, any half-wit could tell she must have been ill for some time. But today the eight-year-old son of a carpenter had taken to his bed, and instead of admitting the disease might be catching, a scapegoat was sought. When she had returned from the market this morning, sprigs of whitethorn had been scattered close to her cottage. The bloodied guts of a piglet lay on the path. The message was unequivocal: VAMPIRE KEEP OUT. Call it primitive, call it superstition, call it a straightforward knee-jerk reaction, but if they seriously believed whitethorn warded off those dark birds of the night and that intestines could propitiate bloodlust, then Clio knew it would only need one more victim to fall to the contagion and we'd be talking lynch mob mentality here.

  There was no seeking protection from Leo on this. He'd made his position quite clear when he had called at the cottage shortly after midday.

  'You'll have to leave the island,' he'd told her.

  Commendably, under the circumstances, Clio had held on to her temper. She'd lost it last night. Big mistake. Power comes through control, not through the loss of it.

  'And go where?' she'd asked.

  'Istria,' he'd said, and with a cold thrill of horror she realized he'd been planning something along these lines all the time. The suggestion had tripped too easily off his tongue. He'd been looking to get rid of her from the moment she landed on Cressia. 'I have relatives in Pula,' he'd told her. 'That's less than a day's sail from here. I could easily call on you under pretext of visiting them.'

  'Alternatively, you could send your estate physician to treat the carpenter's child. That would quash the vampire rumours.'

  'Oh, that.' He'd dismissed the accusations with a wave of his hand. 'Ignore the wagging tongues, that'll pass. It's Silvia who bothers me. She knows about us, Clio. She's threatening to blab.'

  'Let her. No one will take a blind bit of notice, not after the names I've been called here.'

  'Clio, you don't understand my position here. I am effectively Governor of Cressia and if Silvia starts talking, it will spell total disaster. I'll be recalled to Rome - I suppose you know my cousin Marcus is attached to the Security Police?'

  'What of it?'

  'Don't play stupid,' Leo had snapped. 'You know damn well what the consequences will be. He's smart, too bloody smart for his own good sometimes, and I can't afford to have him sniffing under stones.'

  She'd slapped his face so hard she'd opened the wound she'd made last night. 'I am not something under a stone.'

  'You know what I mean,' Leo had said irritably, holding a pad to his cheek to staunch the blood. 'Look, the only sensible solution is for you to leave Cressia. Go to Pula. It's a lively city, you'll be happier there, trust me.'

  'Trust you? I don't trust you further than I could throw you,' she'd said.

  'A deal is a deal, Clio. I won't renege. It's just that I've—'

  'Spent my share on that bloody villa of yours.'

  'I've apologized about that. I didn't real
ize how much it was going to cost. Saunio, Nikias, Magnus, these guys don't come cheap. But the rose grower's coughing up a hefty dowry, and once the olives are harvested and the grapes pressed—'

  'I'll still be left with nothing.'

  'You're over-reacting,' Leo had said. 'You'll get your half it's just going to take longer than I thought. Three - well, all right, maybe six months, but if you can hold on that long and be patient, you'll get your money. With interest.'

  Six months. Yes, she could cope with that. Just about.

  'I'll need something to live on in the meantime,' she'd said, and he would never know what it cost her to ask him - a man - for money. 'Call it an advance on my share, if you like.'

  'Agreed. I'll bring thirty gold pieces after nightfall, and you can leave it with me to arrange passage to Pula.'

  'Who said I was leaving?'

  'Clio!'

  'I'm serious. If I have to wait six months for my money, then it will be in a place where I can keep my eye on you.'

  'Croesus!' he'd shouted. 'If Lydia gets to hear about us, or the parents of my new bride! Think about the consequences, woman!'

  'Considering so much hinges on Silvia's loose mouth, why don't you pack her off to Pula instead?'

  Leo had run his hands wearily over his face and suddenly he'd looked ten years older. 'Look, I'm dealing with Silvia,' he'd said heavily. 'She won't be a problem after tomorrow, you have my word on that. But it would still be better all round if you left Cressia.'

  'Better for you.'

  He'd studied her for a moment or two, then cast a caustic glance round the comfortless cottage. 'I know how you earn your food, Clio.'

  'That bastard runt of a priest's been bragging, has he?'

  'You imagine Llagos would own up about his cheap thrills? You're forgetting whose land this is. Clio, I know every damn thing that goes on on this estate. If a bird poops, I know about it.'

  He'd drawn a deep breath.

  'But it doesn't have to be like this. You're not stupid. You know Llagos will start wanting more and more for his money. How low are you prepared to stoop in the name of your goddamned feminine pride? Thirty gold pieces to leave Cressia tomorrow. Nothing if you remain.'

  'You bastard.'

  'I'm sorry,' he'd said, and shit, for a moment she'd almost believed him. 'I'll bring the money two hours before midnight—'

  'Screw you,' she'd spat. 'Keep your bloody money, I'm staying put.'

  Even though it left her with no food, no money and worst of all, no hope for the future.

  Sitting in the gathering dusk, Clio prayed to Nemesis, goddess of vengeance, to strike that loose-mouthed society bitch, Silvia, dead!

  Were it not for her, there'd be no bloody problem. Through the priest, Leo could silence those preposterous vampire rumours, allowing Clio to continue living here, quietly and unobtrusively, until Leo paid her and then . . . And then she would return to her home town in Liburnia a wealthy woman! (See what the mealy-mouthed bastards had to say about that!)

  All those 'ifs', though. All those bloody 'ifs'. Fine for Leo to say he was sorting out the Silvia problem. Clio had a future to consider, and the old proverb drifted back to her: to get a good job done, do it yourself. Dammit, she should never have trusted Leo in the first place. Who knows what else he might cock up on?

  Her clifftop musings were diverted by a sudden burst of activity in the town below. Along the wharf, fishermen had been galvanized into life, abandoning their mending of nets, the checking of lines and lobster pots. Arms were waving about. People jumped up and down. The entire damn community was running here, scurrying there, spilling out of the taverns, shuttering their windows and doors. Children were being scooped up, rounded up, told to shut up or else. Barking dogs reared and strained on the leashes which kept them chained to the houses. Chickens scattered. Craftsmen hustled their wares and equipment inside and battened their shopfronts.

  All except one man. The stranger.

  Clio had seen him this morning, when she was doing her shopping. A head taller than the average islander, there was a presence about this man. She couldn't put her finger on it,

  but like a panther who'd just eaten its fill, the stranger exuded that same sense of understated menace. He might walk around seemingly uninterested in what went on, but he was poised to react at a moment's notice.

  Some said the rebel leader Azan was bearded, others claimed he was clean-shaven. According to who you spoke to, he was Liburnian or Dalmatian, some even said he was Roman, and that was Azan's skill: to move unrecognized as he whipped up insurrection. Was the stranger Azan? Clio wouldn't be surprised, and had felt a thrill of superiority that the islanders didn't even realize who it was staying in their fleapit tavern.

  Hugging her knees, she watched the cause of the town's pandemonium approach without interest.

  Black sails brailed up for lack of wind and powered instead by threescore strapping oarsmen seated two abreast, the Soskia cleaved a persuasive path through the water. Swoosh. Swoosh. Swoosh. Swoosh. You could almost hear the flute which beat time for the oars.

  Out here on Cressia, folk didn't need to damp down their houses, the buildings were, almost without exception, built of stone. Stone didn't catch fire, but it could be looted, smashed and destroyed. But the town was safe enough tonight, Clio noted. The pace of the warship did not so much as dip when she hove into view. Swoosh. Swoosh. The galley cruised passed the wide bay and rounded the headland.

  Only when she'd reached the cliffs below the Villa Arcadia, did the Moth's wingbeats start to slacken.

  By which time Clio knew exactly what she must do to eradicate her problem once and for all.

  Twenty-One

  The islanders watched the sea turn red. Red, like the blood of the sorceress Medea's brother, whose body she'd so heartlessly dismembered. Red, like the flag of war the pirate warship flew. Red, like the pirate captain's leather boots. They had heard the prediction of Shamshi the Persian, and they feared the worst.

  Men barricaded their families indoors and fell to their knees in prayer. Beseeching Mars, god of war, to preserve them in safety and bestow peace and prosperity upon them. Calling upon the goddess Ceres, who protected this gentle month of August, to use all her powers of persuasion to bring concord. Placating Eris, goddess of strife, with offerings of wine that she might turn her attentions elsewhere.

  Right around the town, all across the island, the power of prayer was strong. The question is, was it strong enough?

  Watching the Soskia drop her anchor stone and ship her oars, Claudia experienced a chilling sense of disquiet. Not because of a possible raid. This was not Jason's intention. He had lit torches the entire length of her deck until the little Moth was lit up as brightly as a midsummer noon. Jason was here to show menace. That he could come and go as he pleased and that Rome couldn't stop him. I, he was saying, am all powerful. Fear me.

  The people had every right.

  'What are you waiting for?' Leo yelled to the lone figure standing, arms crossed, on the prow. 'Too scared to take me on again?'

  'Leave it,' Silvia urged. 'You're only provoking him further.'

  'Let's see what you're like pitched against armed men, you bunch of fucking cowards!' Leo shouted down. He had outfitted every man on the estate with a weapon and then lined them up along the cliff in a massive display of strength.

  'For heaven's sake, ignore him,' Silvia hissed, but she was wasting her breath. Leo's tail was up, his blood hot. It made no difference at this time of night that the Medea was out of action, he could not have followed in the dark anyway. Instead, he was daring the brigands to come ashore and prove who was the strongest.

  'Brinkmanship,' Volcar muttered in Claudia's ear. She swatted his hand away from her waist and thought, he knows. The old man knows it's a performance. He knows, as Leo does, that Jason would not fight head to head.

  For two long hours Leo's men stood in silence, gripping their clubs, their swords, their axes, as the lights along the
Soskia's deck glittered on the metal shields which lined the rail and her bronze ram glinted double in the placid sea. By torchlight, the torsion-sprung ballista that she carried amidships oozed menace. Capable of shooting a flaming fireball right into the heart of Arcadia, it could equally loose off a volley of lethal iron bolts. But the most menacing weapon of all was the figure who stood motionless out on the prow. What game was he playing down there?

  Claudia's nerves stretched to infinity and then beyond, and when a screech-owl screamed from a pine, her heart almost stopped. Was it really only a few hours earlier that she had stood on this same spot, watching a pair of blue butterflies chase one another round the hollyhocks as a flycatcher trilled from its perch in the almond? Then, heliotrope and pinks, yarrow and vervain had scented the late afternoon air like a welcome breeze. Now their heavy perfume pulsed through the heat like a drum. Cloying, nauseating, clinging tighter than ivy.

  Before the sun stands thrice more over our heads, a woman shall die.

  Garbage. No woman was going to die, get a grip!

  Except that before the new light was born in the sky, bad news had come over the water.

  Stop it. That creepy, hook-nosed fraud makes it up as he goes along. Cressia's an island, for gods' sake. All news comes over the water. Fifty-fifty chance whether it's good or bad. Shamshi was aware of the passions brewing here in the villa, knew something had to blow soon. Isolation breeds oppression and, just like this throbbing, interminable heat, there's no escape. The tendrils wrap round you, tighter, tighter, drawing you in, drawing you down. A slow, treacly whirlpool, sucking you deeper where no one can hear you scream, because the scream is only inside your head. And the old fraud capitalized on that incestuous whirl of emotions. He'd been present at dinner when Lydia had threatened to blow Leo's marriage plans out of the water, and he'd know all about Nanai's refusal to leave, the landlord's patience running out, Nanai's threats once she could no longer get her own way.