Dark Horse

by Marilyn Todd

  '. . . there was a child,' Silvia's sexy damaged voice was saying.

  'There was what?' The baritone ceased being a rumble.

  'A boy,' she began, but at that moment, Orbilio turned and saw Claudia on her knees at the open door. She knew what he'd do. He'd shoot her a glance which was both admonishing and amused. She'd indicate her sandal as though to say look, stone in my shoe. His left eyebrow would say like hell there

  was and, then, with a twinkle in his eye and a twitch at the side of his mouth, he'd close the door ever so gently in Claudia's face.

  Which he did. Closed it, that is. But there was no amusement on his face, only a look like thunder, and he did not shut the door gently, either. He slammed it so hard, the hinges feared for their lives.

  'You sent for me, madam?'

  In daylight, Junius's injuries looked even worse. His left cheek was up like a puffball, the eye half closed and purple. My, my. That was some punch Leo had packed.

  'It's just as well you don't work here,' she told him, clicking her fingers for him to follow her into the herb garden. 'Leo would have had you sold at the auction block for clashing with the estate livery.'

  Was that a smile which flickered at the corner of his lips, or a grimace of pain from the place where Leo's punch had connected? You couldn't tell with the Gaul, enigmatic wasn't the word. High, wide and handsome, the bodyguard did a bloody good job, keeping tight to his mistress as though expecting an assault on her life any moment. Yet you couldn't accuse him of being over zealous. Conscientious, but in an intense, absorbed sort of way. Any other chap, of course, and Claudia might have suspected him of carrying a torch, the way his blue eyes fixed on her with an expression of solemnity bordering on pain. But good heavens, Junius must be four years younger than her - and what boy of that age lusts after mares, when there's a whole paddock of fillies out there?

  'Now then.' Stripping leaves from a hyssop, she mashed them with water from the fountain and rubbed it into his bruises. 'Your honest opinion, Junius. Do you think you can row us to the mainland in the dark?'

  The Gaul puffed out his cheeks. 'It's got to be at least fifteen miles,' he said, 'and after this latest attack, there's no guarantee the villages will be lit at night to act as a guide. So, no, madam. It's far too dangerous and I really wouldn't care to risk it.'

  Clearly, if a girl wants an honest opinion she's going to have to give it to him herself!

  'Moonrise at the cove it is, then. Be there, or I'll row off without you.'

  How hard can it be, pulling on two lumps of wood for fifteen miles?

  'In the meantime, I have another little job for you. Er, did I just see your shoulders slump?'

  'Me? No, madam. Certainly not.'

  'Then why are you frowning?'

  'Squinting, madam. Against the sun.'

  'You're standing in the shade, but it doesn't matter, Junius. You are still going to do it.'

  'Do what?' he whispered hoarsely, and look how fast the hyssop poultice worked, because even the swelling had turned pale. 'With respect, madam, I've already picked a fight with an aristocrat and sawn a hole in his ship.'

  'Yes, and now you're going to search Orbilio's room.'

  'Why?' he rasped.

  Leaning her hip against the white marble sundial as a scramble of white roses offered up their fragrance in a perfumed libation to Apollo, Claudia thought that was pretty obvious. 'Because I want to know how much he's got on me, of course.'

  'No, madam, I meant why me?' Through the gate, the young Gaul glanced nervously across to the portico, where Marcus Cornelius had returned to stare at the marble frieze of the Odyssey. 'If he catches me, a common slave, searching not only a patrician's belongings, but Security Police papers as well—'

  'He's too busy thawing icicles to bother about that,' Claudia assured him, 'and excuse me, I won't have it bandied abroad that any of my slaves are common! Now chop, chop, Junius. I'd do it myself, only I have to check something out before we go.'

  'Dawn would be less chancy, madam.'

  'No wonder Rome conquered Gaul. The place is teeming with wimps. Now, if you could just take my trunk down to the cove? Plus my leather travelling satchel, a couple of blankets in

  case it turns cool, some cushions to sit on, don't forget Drusilla - she'll be hard to round up if you wait until vole time - and that golden statuette in the atrium.'

  Which ought to sort out four, if not five, angry creditors.

  'Statuette, madam?'

  'Next to the left-hand pillar as you go in, the one with Persephone holding a pomegranate in her outstretched hand, but you're right. Bring that gold unicorn with you, as well.'

  That should keep another three sweet.

  'Unicorn . . .'

  'Leo specifically wanted me to have it. He said, and I quote, if anything happened to him . . . Anyway, while you're about it, you might pack a light picnic for the journey. Half a dozen meat pies would be nice. Two or three cheeses. A chicken. Ham. One of those big smoked liver sausages I saw hanging from a hook in the kitchens. Some wine and honey cakes would go down well, one of those big crusty olive loaves, and I saw them stuffing dates with almond paste yesterday, so you can pick up ajar of those as well. Yes, and don't forget we'll need a jug of wine. Oh, and Junius?'

  'M-madam?'

  'Close your mouth, please. You look like a goldfish.'

  Thirty-One

  On the grassy shores of a small island many leagues south of Cressia, Jason lay on his back, his shirt open to the waist, one knee raised, the other ankle resting on it. His hands were laced across his eyes to shield them from the fierce rays of the sun, and a wolfhound snoozed at his side. Music and laughter floated out from a tavern in the village beyond, but not so loud that they drowned the splash of terns diving into the shallow lagoon or the snoring of the taverner's dog.

  He lay there, chewing on a leaf of the mint which rampaged across the island, and considered the tall and graceful woman who had given birth to him thirty-three years before. Nearly five years had passed since he'd seen her, and although the High Priestess had insisted the cough had been curable, his mind would not be at rest until he saw for himself. Sixteen hundred miles away, all he could do was pray to the moon goddess, Acca, to keep her devoted priestess safe and well -and make sacrifices to Targitaos, the sun god, that her warrior son would acquit himself well in her name.

  Targitaos had listened to his entreaties. Thanks to his offerings, the sun god had kept the warrior in the peak of good health, made his muscles strong, his mind a powerhouse and, had he not been cheated out of what was rightfully his, Jason would be back home in Colchis already.

  Boots crunching over the gravel set the wolfhound growling. 'Easy boy,' Jason said. 'It's only Geta.' He'd know that rolling gait anywhere.

  'Since you ain't coming in to join the revels,' the big helmsman said, 'I brung you some food. Oh, and this.'

  He tossed a wineskin next to the cloth in which sausage, pastries and a whole ham had been wrapped.

  'Dunno about you,' he said, sitting beside his captain and ripping off a chunk of spicy red sausage, 'but I were getting mighty sick of fish.'

  As his eyes scanned the lagoon, as blue as the turquoise for which his homeland was so famous, a heron glided effortlessly across the water margins. Geta's trained eye evaluated the small puffs of white clouds which had appeared on the horizon, but they were no threat and he took a long draught of the wine.

  'Y'know,' he said thoughtfully, 'if that Roman Emperor ever do send his warships after us, them villagers back there'll squeal like virgins in an Arabian whorehouse. I ain't so sure we shouldn't slit their throats before we leave.'

  'If Augustus sends in the navy,' Jason said, cutting into the ham with his dagger, 'I can't see the locals being too keen on telling Rome they took rebel money in return for food, wine and the favours of their womenfolk.'

  'Ah.' Geta chomped on the sausage, feeding titbits to the dog to stop it from drooling on to his trousers. 'So what was
you so deep in thought about, then, when I come up? Raiding Dalmatia, like what I suggested?'

  'Actually no,' Jason said. 'I was thinking about my mother.'

  When the redheaded helmsman laughed, sausage spluttered over the grass. 'Take it from a bloke whose clan totem is the emblem of the love goddess herself,' he said, tapping the serpent tattooed on his chest, 'you need a woman, son. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that if you're thinking about your old momma when there's a dozen bare-breasted scrubbers gagging for it just a few feet away, you need a woman bad!'

  The captain sat up and sorted out a warm pastry stuffed with honey, raisins, apples and cinnamon. 'I wouldn't argue with that diagnosis.'

  'The fat one with the ring through her nose ain't much to look at,' Geta said, scratching his armpit, 'but she ain't half a goer. Wears yer bloody dick out, her.'

  'Isn't that a good reason to avoid her?' Jason laughed. 'But no.' Out in the shallow lagoon, the Soskia looked strangely top heavy. It was because the land was flat here, he decided, no

  hills. Made things look smaller and out of perspective. 'That's not the kind of woman I meant.'

  The helmsman picked a bit of gristle out of his teeth and frowned. 'What other kind is there?'

  Jason stared down at the blue tattoo being warmed by the rays of Targitaos, the sun god, on his own chest. The tattoo of the bull. His clan totem.

  'The kind of woman,' he said slowly, 'one finds at the Villa Arcadia.'

  Thirty-Two

  Hop in, gel.' A wizened face peered round the damascene curtains of the litter. 'Need to talk to you.'

  The litter bearers exchanged glances. Halfway up the precarious cliff face wasn't their first choice for unbalancing the load and it damn well wouldn't be Claudia's, either. One slip, and she and Volcar would end up as fish bait. Not such a disaster at his age, but personally, she was rather looking forward to fifty more glorious years.

  She was on her way back from the stocks. Junius had done a good job on the Medea. Several planks had to be cut out and replaced and the shipwrights wouldn't even be able to start caulking for another two days. Oh, yes, a wonderful job. Thanks to his mistress, hundreds of people were now stranded on Cressia at the mercy of Azan's thugs until reinforcements arrived from the garrison at Pula, two maybe three days down the line. Claudia hoped the dolphin was grateful.

  'Whatever you want to discuss, old man, it doesn't need your hand resting there when you say it.'

  'Sorry.'

  'Or there.'

  Volcar let out a wheezy chuckle. 'Can't blame a fellow for wanting to recapture his youth.'

  'Tell me when and where he escaped, and I'll send out a search party for you.' Claudia wedged three large cushions between herself and him, and sat back to enjoy the ride. She had a feeling it was going to be bumpy in more ways than one. 'What did you want to talk about?' she asked.

  'The will, of course.' He smacked his gums in derision. 'Only two things matter when you get to my age, gel, health and the future. Well, I'm as robust as I was when I was

  fifty, but I need to know what's going to happen to me now Leo's dead.'

  'If it's your fortune you're wanting told, try asking Shamshi.'

  Volcar snorted. 'Don't trust that smarmy git any further than I trust that other bunch of poofs. Something rum about the lot of them, if you ask me, but that ain't the point. You have the ear of that young whippersnapper from Rome. What's he found in Leo's will?'

  'Let me see if I've got this right? Your nephew was discovered less than six hours ago skewered like a scallop on the atrium door . . . and all you're worried about is what he's left you?'

  'Who said he was my nephew?'

  'Silly me. I assumed that when he called you "uncle", it was because you were his uncle.'

  'Clan breeds like swamp flies,' the old man retorted. 'Find me an aristocrat who isn't related to another and I'll find you laughter in Hades. Leo? I think I was his great-uncle by a second marriage or something, but the boy had no blood of mine, I assure you.' He spat out the side of the litter. 'None of my kin would swindle an old man out of his life savings.'

  Janus, Croesus, Leo. How many other people have you 'borrowed' from in your obsession for heirs? And what the hell did it matter whether the atrium had pillars of marble -or stone?

  'Leo would have paid you back,' she told Volcar.

  Damn you, Jason, damn you to hell, for leaving so much business unfinished.

  'Bollocks,' Volcar said. 'D'you really think that with just a few paltry sacks of olives and a couple of barrels of rough wine, this was enough to repay Lydia, Silvia, me, everyone else he'd diddled out of whatever money he could?'

  'You're forgetting the rose-grower's dowry.' But niggles were starting to multiply.

  'Still don't get it, do you, gel?' Volcar said, scratching at the parchment-thin skin of his cheek. 'Unless Leo made provision for me, which I doubt, I have nowhere to go and no money to pay my way if I did. The bastard's thrown me to the wolves and now you know why I don't give a

  bugger about him or how he died. I have my own future to look to.'

  Malice twisted the air inside the drapes. So much bitterness from such a small, shrivelled shell, so much venom and self-centred spite. Or was it? For a man like Volcar, for whom life is no less precious despite his advanced age, fear for the future could easily become magnified out of proportion.

  Besides, Leo wasn't the type to coolly swindle an old man out of his last days of comfort, any more than he intended to cheat his sister-in-law and Claudia was certain that he'd been equally determined to do right by Lydia, too. I'm not quite the bastard you think. Magnus isn't the man for my wife, he's out of her class and in more ways than one. I'm taking no chances, Qus, post six men round my wife's house. Did that sound like a man who threw old men and ex-wives to the wolves?

  He'd made no bones that if Lydia had given him a child, divorce would not have entered his mind. The house he'd built for her out on the point, small and stone-built, had an air of impermanence about it, suggesting that the instant funds were in Lydia's dowry she would be repaid, allowing her to return to Rome where, still a handsome woman in her thirties, she would have no trouble hooking a second husband for herself. Wasn't it more likely that Leo had brought Volcar to the Villa Arcadia so that the old boy could wallow in luxury until he was able to repay the debt?

  Which was when?

  And with what?

  Hot-headed as he was, Leo wasn't stupid. He knew damn well he'd been living beyond his means, fully understood the implications that his estate income was insufficient to repay his creditors.

  'You're talking to the wrong woman,' Claudia said, tapping on the frame for the bearers to set the litter down. 'It's Silvia whose cosy with your young whippersnapper from Rome, not me.'

  Rheumy eyes shot her a sharp glance. 'Think that's a love match, d'you, gel?'

  'Volcar, their fate is written in the stars.'

  He's Scorpio. She's desperate.

  'Y'know, I like having you around. You liven things up, make me feel young again.'

  'That wasn't young, you randy old sod, that was my thigh.'

  Volcar roared with laughter until his thin chest was wracked with coughs. 'Can't blame the old boy for trying,' he puffed.

  'No one is more trying than you, you randy old bugger.'

  Claudia alighted from the litter and shook her skirts. 'Don't worry about the future, Volcar. Everyone knows you'll die at the age of a hundred and twenty in bed. Run through by a jealous lover.'

  Claudia was just debating whether to get Junius to include one or two of the smaller items of Leo's silver plate in her luggage as well, when a tall shadow fell over the grass where she was sitting. Bugger. She'd rather hoped to have seen the last of the Security Police on this particular island.

  'Come with me to the bath house,' the shadow said.

  'What kind of a girl do you take me for?' she asked. 'I always insist on at least dinner first.'

  'I'll make a note of that,'
the shadow said, grinning. 'But for now, perhaps you'd just humour me?'

  'Why? Isn't it funny enough, suckering me into coming out here?'

  'Mildly,' he said. 'But I knew you'd forgive me once you arrived.'

  'Sorry to disappoint you, Orbilio, but Cressia's far too quiet for my exotic tastes. Nothing ever happens - or hadn't you noticed?'

  'You could always try doping a donkey to liven things

  up.'

  Claudia had almost forgotten. The more urbane, the more dangerous . . .

  'I'd only make an ass of myself,' she said. 'What's so special about this place, anyway?'

  Outside the domed bath house, its white stucco walls blinding in the sunshine and the heat shimmering its red-tiled roof, Orbilio began pacing back and forth. One-two-three-four-five paces back, one-two-three-four-five paces forward, repeat. It took a moment before Claudia realized he wasn't hallucinating

  on the fresh paint. He was working out where Jason had been standing when he threw his spears. So he knew about them as well, did he? Even in grief, he functioned on a different level that man.

  Excepting the bits in his loin cloth.

  'In itself, there's nothing remarkable about the bath house ' he said, passing into the vestibule. 'Like the rest of the villa it's been built to the highest of standards.'

  A steam room, a hot pool, a plunge pool, dressing rooms plus a room to house the hot and cold water cisterns had been built around an open-air gymnasium which, on any other day, would be filled with slaves playing handball in their break, wrestling, boxing, or working out with the dumb-bells. Inside, soaring arches were covered in opulent frescoes. Statues of the gods, twice the height of a man, stood in niches. The mosaics boasted some of the most complex designs Claudia had ever seen.