Dream Boat

by Marilyn Todd

  Under the mask, Claudia felt herself sway. Did he not realise that no one could survive these knots? She watched him disappear into the thunderstorm and prayed a bolt of lightning would strike this sicko dead.

  At her feet, Geb stirred. 'Has he . . .'his voice was faint. 'Has he gone?' He'd lost a lot of blood, and the very fact that the arrow had been pulled out had signed his death warrant.

  'Yes.' Claudia swallowed. She wondered if he knew how badly he was hurt. 'Geb, I know this will be agony for you, but you've got to help me. Please!'

  'How?' Even to speak was excruciating for him.

  'Untie my hands.'

  'Can't - move.'

  'I can shuffle closer.' Each lurch drove the leather thongs deeper into her naked flesh. She felt blood dribble down her arms and thighs. There was blood in her mouth, too, from biting on her lip. One more jump and the chair would be within his reach.

  'Can't -' he rasped, 'can't move.'

  Claudia felt panic rise in her breast. This was her only chance! Seth would be back any minute. Think, think -somehow you must get Geb to help you. 'You killed your wife,' she said.

  Geb's head jerked in surprise. 'You know?'

  Yes, but the next bit was a gamble. 'You joined this commune to atone for your sin, didn't you?'

  'Her fault,' he whispered. 'Didn't stop me. She - made me hit her. One day - too hard. Dead. Blamed her until I found the Brothers. Know now that abstinence and - aargh! - penance will make my heart weigh light at the balance.'

  Jupiter, forgive me, I have no other choice. 'You imagine that a few paltry months overseeing the domestic running of this commune constitutes penance?' Claudia forced grit into her voice. 'Dammit, Geb, you bullied and browbeat everyone to get your own way!'

  'Not my way. The way. We - must all suffer and endure.' His voice was growing fainter. The pool of blood beneath him creeping ever larger.

  'But you haven't suffered, Geb. You killed your wife and then you got this cushy job, and all you've done is try and convert others to the path.'

  Kicking a man when he was down was bad. When he was on the point of death was unspeakable. Claudia screwed up her eyes and pressed on.

  'If you really want your heart to weigh light - and Geb, I have to tell you, those scales will be here soon - then you must suffer pain to win atonement. You must set me free, or Seth will gobble up your soul.'

  'Too late. Don't - care.'

  'Then care that he'll bloody gobble mine, you selfish oaf!'

  A look of utter astonishment crossed his waxy, anguished face. Then incredibly, and with superhuman effort, Geb crawled towards her, inch by inch.

  'Thank you,' she wanted to whisper, but the words would not come past the lump in her throat. Every tiny movement wracked his body and every time he winced, Claudia winced with him. She shuffled the chair round towards him. Slowly he raised his body, and Claudia blanched at the raw wound in his chest, at the blood and lumps of tissue matted in his hairy chest.

  She felt his bloody fingers fumbling on the knots. Please, she prayed. Please let him have the strength to undo them - It seemed to take for ever, and the pain was excruciating, because the leather bit even deeper into her skin every time she flinched, but suddenly her hands were free, and she was throwing off the golden mask and tackling the knots around her waist and ankles.

  'You've saved my life,' she said. 'Geb, I—'

  But he couldn't hear. Geb, the Keeper of the Central Store, lay dead, a radiant smile upon his face.

  Trembling hands closed his half-open eyes and Claudia prayed his heart would indeed weigh light, wherever it was bound. She reached for her shift.

  'Going somewhere, little lady?'

  The silver figure in the entrance dropped the unconscious woman in his arms. Claudia recognised the white robes of a priestess.

  'The killing's over, you sick bastard.'

  'Sick? I am Seth,' the figure roared. 'Master of the Darkness, the Sorcerer, the Measurer of Time.'

  'You can call yourself whatever names you damn well like, but I'm telling you, it's finished. Over. Done with.'

  Flea was your last conquest. Geb, your final casualty.

  'You?' The silver cloak trembled with rage, the silver plaits tinkled in his anger. 'You can't stop me. Nobody can!'

  'Oh, that's where you're wrong.' Claudia picked up the little light which had guided Geb here. 'I'm going to stop your evil practice right here and now.' She threw the lantern at the mummy wearing the head of the cat. The bandages caught alight at once.

  'No!' The eyes behind the silver mask grew wide. 'No!'

  Sparks from Bast's fur danced in the air, and even while Seth screamed in disbelief and fury, one caught the feathers of the falcon, Horus. Two bodies began to burn. The stench was putrid.

  'Bitch! I'll kill you for this,' he hissed. 'I'll kill you slowly, painfully, I'll have you die a traitor's death, roasted alive then boiled, but with you, I'll have the water heated slowly, no boiling oil for you, you bitch, you traitor, you!'

  Move, dammit. He was still blocking the entrance. And the priestess still lay unconscious. Claudia had a feeling he'd kill her out of spite.

  With a soft whoosh, a third mummy caught alight, and now the fumes and the smoke, trapped by the fig across the entrance,

  were unbearable. She began to splutter and retch. Seth, closer to the fresher air, stood confident. She had to make him move. Somehow, she had to get out of this cave before she passed out completely.

  'All my work destroyed by one meddling bitch,' he snarled, kicking the unconscious priestess in the ribs. 'I'll flay you alive before I roast and boil you, I'll have you scream for mercy, but you wait - I'll show you none. No one,' he hissed, 'messes with the Dark Destroyer.'

  'Except Mentu.'

  'Mentu?' The silver figure leaned towards her. 'Mentu's nothing but a con man, think that weakling frightens me?'

  Claudia swallowed the revolting fumes and smoke. 'Oh, yes,' she said quietly. 'He frightens you very much indeed. You've fought with him all your life, tried to prove that you're superior to him, but he's the one with all the money. He's the one who lives in luxury with his fine wines and his women, while you skulk in this cold, damp cave and move unrecognised among the people.'

  'They'll know me soon enough. Or would have, before you interfered. I'll have to start all over, now, you bitch!'

  Isis began to burn, pumping out more noxious fumes and foul smoke.

  Claudia fought the nausea which churned in her stomach and her throat. Move, you bastard. Move away from the entrance! But the silver figure, gulping in the cleaner air, calmly stood its ground. 'You'll have to make a run for it soon,' he snarled. 'And then you're mine, you bitch. By all that's holy, you'll be mine, and I'll make you pay for this.'

  'You know, don't you, that Mentu will never bend his knee to you? That no matter whether you make Osiris the first or last god at your table, he will never bow to you?'

  'Oh, yes he will.' She'd touched a nerve. The silver figure clenched his fists. 'When his time comes to die, he'll know that Seth is his master and that he'll hold dominion over him for all eternity.'

  The cow sprang into flames, her long horns arching outwards

  through the flames. Donata, Claudia thought. That's Donata burning . . .

  The smoke was choking now, she could hardly breathe. She'd have to fight him on his terms.

  Picking up the high-backed chair he'd tied her to, she swished it over poor Donata's burning corpse. The dry rushes caught immediately, and with the chair on fire, she rushed at the figure in the entrance. He darted to one side, crashing into the branches of the fig. The outside air rushed in and fanned the flames.

  'What's happening?' The priestess was coming round. 'What—' She began to cough and splutter.

  Seth grabbed her and used her as a shield.

  The rush chair was burning close to Claudia's hands. She could not attack, she'd burn the girl. Seth was laughing now. She hurled the remnants of the chair at the black j
ackal mask. If it was the last thing she would do, it would be to ensure Flea was cremated properly. Flames licked up the dog's long snout and pricked up ears. She could not bear to watch the rest. By her feet, Geb's long hair began to singe. The cave had become an inferno.

  And shit - Seth was going to block her in it!

  While Claudia had been concerned with cremating Flea, he'd knocked out the priestess and tossed her in the corner and was now sealing up the entrance to the cave.

  The heat was intense, the smoke smothering her lungs. She pushed against the fig, but he'd used his special knots to anchor it. Another three or four and she'd be imprisoned.

  Suddenly, by the mouth of the cave she saw the arrow he'd pulled out of Geb. Gripping it by its bloody shaft, she stabbed with all her might. Seth gargled as the point went in his throat. He teetered. His hands flew to the shaft, still clutched in Claudia's hand. And as he lurched forward, she pressed harder. With a spurt, the barb came out through his flesh.

  Biting on her lower lip, she twisted, and with a rattle, Seth fell to his knees. He twitched and writhed, and finally fell still.

  'Quick!' She grabbed the groggy priestess and pushed against the last corner of the fig. 'Hurry, before this catches fire, too.'

  They scrambled through the branches, and the girl gasped when the saw the inert silver figure. 'Who's that?' she cried. 'Who the hell is he?'

  'Who?' With a short laugh, Claudia jerked off the figure's silver mask. 'It's Mentu himself,' she said.

  Who else could it be?

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Most men wrestle with their consciences. In Mentu's case, he'd spent his whole life wrestling with the dual facets of his own split personality.

  At last, Claudia understood what Min meant when he'd talked about the influence he carried in this commune. He was referring to the very necessary control he'd need to have over his younger, more unstable brother. They had set up this scam between them, Min and Mentu. A means of making money, but Min soon became aware that, for his brother, the commune meant much more than a simple get-rich-quick scheme. The role of Pharaoh had taken him over, sucked him in as much as it had sucked in the cult members who contributed so generously to their Solar Fund.

  Mentu would have been the one to ensnare skilled craftsmen. He would have been the one to extend the buildings, to enrol members from as far afield as Naples and Brindisi. Min would have been all for a year or two on the gravy train, then pulling out. Not so his younger, headstrong brother.

  It wasn't difficult to decide which of the two should be the Pharaoh. Mentu was a born showman, Min more the backroom puller of strings, but in fairness, neither could have predicted its tragic outcome.

  In a way, thought Claudia, staring at the birthmark on his face, Mentu was as much a victim as his Pyramidiots, taken over by the very showmanship he'd used to control the members' minds. Which was not to say she felt sorry for the bastard! But what had started out as a common-or-garden illusion, the faking of his own death, had grown into an

  obsession with resurrection and the afterlife. Reality became distorted. He believed himself the Pharaoh of his people, Osiris incarnate, son of Ra. And as Ra battled with the serpent, so Osiris battled with his antithesis. Good and evil, order and anarchy, light and dark. Even the cave symbolised this duality. Luxury swapped for sparseness. Mentu had his pick of women, Seth had to lure them. For Mentu, they'd spread their bodies on his couch, naked and compliant. For Seth, they struggled all the way. And for Seth, they died. No one died for Mentu, even as Osiris . . . that made Seth omnipotent.

  At what stage did he consider setting out his grisly table? Perhaps the first body had given him the idea, and the belief in his powers had grown. Perhaps he truly believed, as any self-respecting paranoid schizophrenic would, that 'they' were after him. The Romans. The enemy. Out to get him.

  And on a purely practical level (and Seth was nothing if not practical!), he would ensure that the overseers were men in his own mould. Min, of course. Callous, manipulative and ruthless. Shabak, the doctor who healed without compassion, because healing was A Good Thing and would secure him a place in the afterlife. Penno, the pernickety sneak of a temple warden, happy to report back on what the terracotta ears had heard. Neco. Probably a repressed homosexual, venting his spite on the world and himself. And Geb - Claudia could find no word to say against the man who died saving her life. The man whose corpse burned inside the cave, alongside little Flea's.

  Flea, who would never cuddle Doodlebug again . . .

  Claudia broke a branch off the fig tree and held it close to the fire until it caught alight. Then she held it to the silver cloak. Could Seth gobble up his own soul, when his heart clanked like a stone upon the balance? What the hell. She tossed the burning branch on to his chest. They'd made the whole religion up, picking bits of this and bits of that and tacking them together. Just like that Festival of Lamps down there.

  She glanced through the trees. Lamps? She blinked, and blinked again. Those weren't lamps. Juno, Jupiter and Mars - the whole damned commune was on fire!

  She skidded back down the narrow, twisty path. Screaming carried louder than the thunderclaps. As she approached the temple compound, Claudia heard a voice booming out across the commune.

  'Hear me, for I am Jupiter. You have betrayed my trust, and the chariots of Mars shall charge among you and the fires of Vulcan raze this place to the ground.'

  Thunder rumbled overhead, lightning bolts shot through the heavens and - incredibly - horsemen came riding through the open gates. Six of them! Is this happening? Is Jupiter really talking to us? But wait. There was something about the voice. Something cultivated. Something familiar . . .

  'Your idols shall tumble.'

  More screams broke out when the two alabaster sphinxes toppled sideways. In the flickering light of flames, Claudia could see the ropes. But where was the voice coming from? So loud, so deep, so . . .

  'So very like a tortoise!'

  'Flattery,' said Orbilio, wiping the smuts from his nose, 'will get you everywhere. Excuse me, while I crawl back into my shell.'

  Claudia wriggled in alongside him, and felt the warmth from his body pressing against hers like a current in a turbulent sea.

  'I won't ask,' he said, and his voice echoed in the hollow chamber, 'how you acquired a blue face, but even the Serving Women didn't set the bloody hills alight.'

  'There weren't any wild fig trees locally, I had to take up mountaineering.'

  'It had to be a fig?' He was studying the raw wheals on her arms.

  'You know me. Stickler for authenticity.' He smelled good, she thought. Smoke and sandalwood make a heady combination, even in a dead man's clothes. 'Some investigators, I see, will go to any lengths to get their profiles raised. You took that blaze-of-glory phrase literally, I gather.'

  'When a Security Policeman's under house arrest for suspicion of murder, he has to take some pretty drastic action.'

  'You don't consider dressing up as a woman drastic?'

  'Only at weekends,' he fired back, his eyes locked on the broad band of bruising round her throat. 'I don't suppose, while you've been idling your time up there in the hills, that you've so much as given a thought as to whose might be the body in the plaster, let alone put a name to her killer?'

  'Of course I have,' she quipped, 'but if I tell you that, it'll make me cleverer than you, and men don't like that in women. Now is this a private party, or can anyone join in?'

  'Oh, be my guest,' he said, wriggling to give her access to the tortoise's open mouth. Her palms were moist, her stomach was in knots. It really was a strange sensation, feeling safe . . . but there was one more thing to do before she left this evil valley.

  'Hear me,' she called, 'for I am Juno, Queen of Heaven.' Hey, the acoustics are good! 'To repay your disobedience, I shall destroy your Boat of Dreams.'

  Grinning broadly from ear to ear, Orbilio tugged on a rope and to Claudia's delight the whole damned barque exploded. Cedarwood, oily an
d fragrant, sputtered and spat and sent out a spray of red sparks. Amethysts and emeralds, pearls and lapis lazuli grew black, and slowly the gold plating on the boat's high prow began to drizzle down the side.

  What a waste . . .

  'I don't know what that High Priest keeps in that moleskin pouch of his,' Claudia said, and her voice sounded husky, 'but it's pretty damned effective.'

  'So are you,' he rasped, and she realised that, at some stage, his arm had closed around her shoulder. 'So the hell are you.'

  Inside the bronze tortoiseshell, the two of them seemed locked together, eyes on eyes, nose to nose, body pressed to body.

  'Marcus?'

  There was a beat of perhaps five. 'Claudia?'

  She could hear his ragged breathing, even over the tumbling of buildings, the crackle of the flames, the roaring

  thunderbolts. 'Marcus . . Will you always be here for me? 'Marcus . . .'

  'Claudia?'

  Will you always keep me safe? 'Marcus Cornelius, will you shift that damned pommel out my bloody way?'

  And in their dark, bronze, private shell she heard him chuckle. 'That,' he said, 'is not my scimitar. Behave yourself.'

  Behave?

  Claudia Seferius?

  You must be joking!

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Marilyn Todd was born in Harrow, England, but now lives with her husband on a French hilltop, surrounded by chateaux, woodlands and vines. As well as sixteen historical thrillers, Marilyn also writes short stories, which are mostly crime-based. When she isn't killing people, Marilyn enjoys cooking. Which is pretty much the same thing.

  www.marilyntodd.com

  I, CLAUDIA

  Claudia has successfully inveigled her way into marriage with a wealthy Roman wine merchant. But when her secret gambling debts spiral, she hits on another resourceful way to make money—offering ‘personal services’ to high ranking citizens.

  Until her clients start turning up dead. The victims of a sadistic serial killer.