by Marilyn Todd
rushing waters and the river beds glistened with silver and bronze.
After prayers had been sung to Kikimora, including one eardrum-piercer by a group of children whose faces had been painted to resemble cats, it was time for the competitors to take their oaths beneath the sacred oak tree, holding a flint arrowhead in each outstretched hand as they swore on Perun's thunderbolts that they'd play fair.
'Too jolly right!' Rosmerta muttered in Claudia's ear, as she shook the drips off her pudgy hands after sacrificing an amulet to the waters. 'This society can't afford to tolerate cheating, that's why the fines are so hefty, and if the rogues don't cough up, tough. The onus falls on their family.' Rosmerta grinned. 'That fear alone keeps them honest.'
Can't afford to tolerate cheating? How did that square with Kazan and Vani, then, because, overweight, overdressed and overbearing she might be, but Rosmerta was no fool.
As the athletes drew lots for their starting positions, Drilo the High Priest beckoned Claudia over.
'Place of honour, my dear,' he said, patting the seat between Mazares and himself.
It was interesting that on Mazares's left sat a certain patrician investigator. You'd think, wouldn't you, that when you're trapped on an island in the middle of nowhere, the arrival of the Security Police would have been reassuring? Instead, Orbilio didn't believe a single word of what Claudia told him, despite the evidence to back up her story - and that was Mazares for you. He'd used friendship and charm to suck Marcus Cornelius into becoming a pawn in his conspiracy, and the only thing she could hope for now was that Orbilio hadn't passed her opinions on to Mazares.
'Thank you.'
Claudia smiled deep into Drilo's penetrating blue eyes, inhaling the heady scents of incense and myrrh that emanated from his strong, bearded features. White robes didn't suit him half as much as the rich colours he usually wore, but they accentuated the gold headband round his braided, oiled curls,
and the amulets of electrum that encircled each wrist. There would, she decided, be no half measures with Drilo.
The first race of the day was the women's, and Claudia wasn't the only person to be taken by surprise when several Amazons stepped up to the starting slabs and slotted their toes into the grooves.
'I don't believe it!' Mazares shook his head in despair. 'That bloody woman is going to be the death of me,' he said, fixing his astonished gaze on Salome, who was standing shoulder to shoulder with Vani on the starting line.
Her skirt had been kilted up to her thighs, her red mane was tied in a bun at the nape of her neck and, cheering her on from the sidelines were Mo, Naim, Tobias and Silas.
'One minute she tells me there's too much work to get away, now she's wasting whole days at a time on bloody foot races!'
'Thank your lucky stars Lora isn't running as well,' Pavan growled from Orbilio's other side, and Claudia's interest in track events suddenly clicked up a notch.
After the fires, Mazares had despatched men to help repair the damage, but Salome refused to allow them to set foot on her land. Why? Thieves falling out? And what exactly had brought Orbilio all this way from Rome . . . ? To complicate matters further, it was obvious that the Amazons were late entries to the competition, because Vani won the race by a comfortable margin. The crowd roared and stamped when she cartwheeled over to accept her crown of olive cut from Kikimora's own sacred grove. When she cartwheeled off again, the spectators nearly went wild.
'Not like Rome,' Mazares murmured, watching Salome's friends bestowing consolatory pats on her back.
'Not quite, no,' Orbilio agreed, shooting a sly smile to Claudia, who categorically refused to meet his eye.
Dammit, she'd petitioned the Senate a dozen times that women should be allowed to hold their own competitions, but the notion was jeered every time. A woman's place, the Senate insisted, is to organize her household and raise her children,
and Claudia wished now she'd put her own name to those damned petitions. Show them that women were perfectly capable of succeeding in whatever walk of life they damn well chose, but, of course, that would only get the authorities poking about in her affairs - and she wasn't sure that being arrested on joint charges of fraud, tax evasion and those other little misdemeanours would be beneficial to the sisterhood's cause.
After a couple of other races, it was time for a break and, as the heat of the day became trapped in the valley, people took the opportunity to shift seats in search of shade and fill jugs of refreshing water from the rivers. Claudia thought it was time she took an opportunity herself.
'Tell me about the King,' she said to Drilo, as the pentathlon began. 'Tell me everything you know about the man I'm going to marry.'
Because a theory was beginning to form.
It had started last night, when, lying in bed and unable to sleep, Claudia realized there were two separate parts to this puzzle and that she was no closer to understanding either. Until now, she'd only considered the puzzle from the conspiracy angle, simply because of its immediacy factor. As a result, she had ignored the other side. The side with the King's head on it.
All right, let's start from the beginning. The King needs an heir and the King is a friend of Orbilio's, who promptly puts her name forward as a potential candidate.
The reason for Orbilio's actions had yet to be established, but she was damn sure it was unscrupulous. Dammit, when promotion hinges on halting a one-woman crime wave, she's the very last person you recommend to royalty. Especially when Orbilio was aware of her slum-dwelling past, and knew her to be the very antithesis of Histrian values! Claudia's personal belief was that it was a trap. Something he and the King had cooked up between them, hoping to catch her in the act of stealing valuable artefacts from the palace or palming him off with table wine when it was billed as vintage.
In which case, everything after made sense.
But! What if the King was dead?
Suppose he'd been taken ill, like he and everyone said, too ill to travel to Rome, but suppose he then died? His only son had been disembowelled by a mastiff on a recent hunt and his daughter was also cold in her grave. That left the King with no heir. Exactly what the conspirators had contrived -except now they'd been gifted a heaven-sent opportunity. The King's letter requesting the hand of a wine merchant's widow in marriage!
With Histria prospering under its imperial patronage, why should the people question their widowed King taking a bride to unite his country with Rome? In their eyes, this would be no worse than any other inter-tribal marriage, and thus, having sold that lie publicly, all Mazares needed now was someone he could pass off to Claudia as the King. Of course, this would take some organizing, but it explained why he'd isolated her out here on Rovin, and who better to help his plan run smoothly than a free-spirited Roman girl with no ties? No family to chaperone her, no friends to counsel her, no one to whisper caution in her ear, he must have thought it was his bloody birthday.
Last night, as her thoughts drifted on the mellow night air, the notion had seemed far-fetched. But how implausible was it, exactly? As she'd taken that early-morning stroll round the cemetery, she was again struck by the extraordinary lengths that had been taken to eliminate the King's bloodline over the course of many years. Such coldness and deliberation had to be for a purpose other than greed or revenge. Some kind of insurrection, she suspected. The establishment of a new regime, since there were no contenders left for the old one.
Inheritance, then, by default . . .
As the pentathletes raced down the stadium, she set her mind to thinking as Mazares might think. It was all very well palming her off with an impostor, but he'd also taken great pains to invite Orbilio to Histria - and more precisely to Rovin
- therefore it was imperative to his plans that his 'good friend' continued to believe the King was alive and well. Right now, people in Rovin thought their King was in Gora and people in Gora no doubt thought he was on Rovin, but there was only so long Mazares could keep up this pretence! This suggested that he intended to separate his two
Roman visitors, for how else could he hope to engineer whatever terrible accident was about to befall the 'King' and his bride and still have Rome accept it on trust?
The problem was, Claudia still had no idea of exactly who the conspirators were. Salome, certainly, but just how deeply, Claudia couldn't be sure. Was she in it for love, for money, for land or for principle? And how was Claudia supposed to weed out an impostor? Mazares would be sure to find someone who matched his physical description, so the solution lay in understanding the soul of the man. Which is why, now that the pentath-letes had raced a full length of the stadium and were brushing the sand off their feet, she set out to bleed the high priest dry.
'Tell me about the King's strengths,' she urged prettily. 'His weaknesses, his aims, his ambitions.' She smiled artlessly into Drilo's blue eyes. 'Tell me about his inner demons.'
'His strengths?' The high priest stroked one of his oiled braids thoughtfully as the competitors drew lots for the long jump. 'Well, I suppose the King's greatest strength is that he trusts people, My Lady, and perversely, his greatest weakness is also that he trusts people.'
Accompanied by flute players, the athletes lined up one after the other, each holding a stone weight in his hands to add impetus to the jump.
'I see.'
At the last moment, each competitor threw back his hands for the final thrust.
'He must be a very dull stick, if those are his only virtues and faults.'
Drilo inclined his head forty degrees towards her as the athletes moved on to the discus, weighing up the heavy bronze plate, which they swung before throwing.
'My apologies if I gave the wrong impression, My Lady. I assumed you were just making small talk.'
So the high priest was not without sting! And she wondered how Raspor had coped. Did the Master's barbs pass over his little bald head? Or did Drilo not need them for those who served the thunder god? Only uppity Romans? Claudia pasted on an expression of wide-eyed earnestness, the one that had never failed in the past, and Drilo was no exception.
'His Majesty possesses many strengths,' he informed her, 'and although some might not see cunning as a virtue, trust me, it is a strength.'
They're cunning, they're sneaky and they're all doubledealers, Orbilio had said. But, by your standards, Mistress Seferius, those are surely their plus points. She pursed her lips as Drilo continued.
'His Royal Highness also possesses an innate sense of justice, a high level of integrity and a sense of responsibility, which, I regret, weighs heavy on him. As a result, he tends not to delegate, endeavouring to do everything himself.'
There was a flicker of emotion in his strong features, but it was quickly mastered.
'It's wearing him out,' he said sombrely. 'Slowly, his pride is killing him.'
Pride be damned, Claudia thought. Salome's the one who's doing (has done?) that - and on Mazares's orders!
There was no use in labouring this point to Orbilio, of course, Mazares had him eating out of his hand, but today had shown that all was not well in the Salome-Mazares camp. She had run in the women's race purely to annoy him and, clever girl that she was, her tactics had worked. Maybe he wasn't paying her enough? Or maybe she was just getting greedy? Either way, Claudia had seen a chink to exploit.
And dammit, a neatly plotted conspiracy laid flat on the table with the culprits held bang to rights, as they doubtless
said all the time in the Security Police, would be an excellent trade for a pardon . . . !
'What about the King's ambitions? His hopes for the future? His fears?' she asked, as the athletes slipped the first two fingers of their right hands into the leather thong positioned halfway along the shaft of their javelins.
'His Majesty has only one aim, and that is for his people to prosper,' Drilo said crisply. 'As for fears, he has none, My Lady. None at all.'
The javelins stood the height of a man, but each competitor threw them as though they were sticks for dogs to chase after, though the slight twisting movement carried the spears far down the field.
'That could be construed as arrogance,' she said sweetly.
'I wouldn't disagree,' the priest replied dryly. 'But if it's your future husband's temperament you're enquiring about, then you probably need to know that he is slow to anger, but implacable when roused. On the other hand, he is patient, extremely patient, and one might liken this aspect of his character to the art of the hunter - stalking his quarry with persistence, and refusing to give up.'
'You obviously know my husband well,' Claudia commented, as the javelins were paced out on the field.
'Men who drink together, think together.'
Really? Somehow she couldn't picture this stuffy individual knocking back goblets of wine with the boys! But then, if the King was as Drilo had described him - and indeed as she'd gathered from others - then he was very much a man of the people, and would encourage those around him to be, as well. Drilo, she concluded as the distances were announced, was not part of the conspiracy. He had been brought here to observe and testify. A man whose word could not be besmirched.
Claudia turned to Mazares and squeezed his upper arm.
'This is such fun, isn't it?'
With irritating slowness his aureole of dark curls turned towards her, the lazy catkins dancing with amusement.
7 think so,' he agreed.
Out on the field, it was the final event of the pentathlon. The wrestling.
'Of course you do,' she replied. 'In fact, we both seem to enjoy games in which no holds are barred, people get hurt and accidental death is not uncommon. But you know what I like most about this particular game?'
'I'm pretty sure it isn't watching grown men knocking one another's teeth down their throat or pulling their opponent's cauliflower ears off.'
'Quite right. What I find most attractive about this particular sport, Mazares, is watching the contestants trying to trip each other up. Round and round they go, see? Feinting and dodging, testing and parrying, sizing strengths and weighing movements, until one of them starts to get cocky.'
'Overreach himself, you mean? Think he's invincible?'
'Oh, yes,' she breathed, 'and that's where the real skill lies. Not in brute strength or endurance, but in guile. In getting inside the other man's head.'
His smoky eyes danced as he rubbed his goatee beard slowly in thought. 'Tripping your opponent through his own conceit, in other words?'
'We each choose our weapons, Mazares. The knack is to beat the enemy with his own.'
'In which case, My Lady -' he rose from his seat, turned and bowed deeply - 'you must excuse me while I retire to the training ground to sharpen my tongue.'
The sun was starting to sink over the Gardens of the Hesperides, turning the rolling countryside a deep heather-pink. Crickets throbbed in the lush green grass, cattle lowed from the meadows, fat brown trout nibbled at flies and, far across the valley, Marek and Mir's mastiffs howled.
The games had wound up with a comic race featuring soldiers in full armour carrying other soldiers piggyback down the running track, swapping over at the bottom and then lumbering back up. Two hundred yards is a long way at the
best of times, but on a warm day and encased in metal sheeting, it was surprising just how close the contest was. But then, in Histrian society, coming second counted for nothing.
After the race, hymns had been sung to the Cat Goddess, Kikimora. More libations of milk poured in her honour. And now white-robed spectators trooped slowly home through the woods. Their mood was one of happiness and contentment, just as Kikimora intended, and tomorrow afforded them another event to look forward to, since it was the one day in the year when marriages could be announced.
Nosferatu wondered whether the Roman girl realized the significance of this. From her behaviour, it seemed she'd forgotten. Excellent. The little madam thought she was clever, and no doubt she was - only, Nosferatu was smarter!
It would not be long now before the New Order was established. Everything was g
oing according to plan, and soon there would be no more of this ridiculous business of trying to keep both parties happy. Histria could only move forward if it jumped one way or the other, and just as there would be no vacillating in the New Order, no half-heartedness, certainly there was no room for any of the shilly-shallying that was so prevalent in the current administration.
The King is dead, long live the King!
Nosferatu practised the chant - silently, of course.
The King is dead, long live the King!
But it wouldn't be long before those cries rang out round Rovin, round Gora, round Pula.
The King is dead, long live the King!
Yes, indeed, Nosferatu had everything mapped out according to schedule, a schedule that had seen no mistakes so far and would see no mistakes in the future.
Being a perfectionist isn't easy, of course. But it does bring incredible rewards.
Back on Rovin, three things happened at once.
Firstly, a young man arrived tired and weary after a hard ride from the interior. The young man was more used to
wielding scalpels and forceps than bridles and reins, and his soft hands were bleeding from where the leather had rubbed. Also, he was more used to bending over patients than intractable brutes with a mind of their own, and his thighs were chafed raw, his buttocks were bruised and he doubted his knees would ever close together again. For this reason, he decided to soak his aching bones in the bathhouse before dropping his bombshell about the royal physician.
Since there had been no one in Gora he could trust with the news, he'd decided that, really, the best person to confide in was the King. The King was honest and fair, not swayed by emotion, and the King would listen objectively to how the hyoid bone in the royal physician's throat had been broken by manual strangulation. So, the young medic had hired a horse and put himself through hell and back to ride all the way out here to Rovin for an audience with the King.
But, according to the sign posted outside, the bathhouse closed one hour after dusk, and there was only half that time left. The young medic had no intention of wasting another minute.