by Marilyn Todd
Table of Contents
Copyright
Critical Acclaim
Still Waters
For Linda and David.
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Blind Eye
Still Waters
By Marilyn Todd
Copyright 2016 by Marilyn Todd
Cover Copyright 2016 by Untreed Reads Publishing
Cover Design by Ginny Glass
The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.
Previously published in print, 2011.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher or author, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages embodied in critical articles or in a review. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. The characters, dialogue and events in this book are wholly fictional, and any resemblance to companies and actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Also by Marilyn Todd and Untreed Reads Publishing
I, Claudia
Virgin Territory
Man Eater
Wolf Whistle
Jail Bait
Black Salamander
Dream Boat
Dark Horse
Second Act
Widow’s Pique
Stone Cold
Sour Grapes
Scorpion Rising
Blind Eye
Blood Moon
www.untreedreads.com
Critical Acclaim for the Iliona series includes:
“Painting antiquity with a particularly suspenseful brush.” Booklist
“Usual feast of historical detail.” Kirkus Reviews
“Sequels equally entertaining.” Booklist
“Abundance of historical tidbits and robust prose.” Kirkus Reviews
“Skillfully tangled plot.” Booklist
Still Waters
Marilyn Todd
For Linda and David.
In-laws by marriage.
Friends by choice.
One
Above him, the mountain peaks slept. The ravines, the gorges, the torrent beds were silent. Slumbering beneath a blanket of velvet. The warrior listened. Heard the wind hissing in the alders. The gurgle of water passing over the rocks. Even the distant hoot of an owl.
But no footsteps. No voice softly calling his name.
He waited.
The scent of mountain sage mingled with spicy wild basil and the fragrant pink oleanders that lined the river banks. Known to some as ‘the Rose of the Brooks’, most people referred to it by another name. ‘Horse Killer’, after leaves that were toxic enough to make a heart stop. Deadly beauty was a concept the warrior was familiar with. Mostly in human form.
The faint grey of dawn slanted through the clouds. It was time.
In the hills, quail were fattening up on insects and seeds, before migrating south for the winter. Mushrooms were sprouting across the forest floor and soon fog would be swirling round the oaks and the chestnut trees. The leaves were already beginning to turn. But for now the days were long, the air warm, and the autumn equinox that signalled the end to the campaigning season was still some days away. Would the end of this summer’s fighting bring peace? Stupid question. There was always someone who wanted what other men owned, and in a continent where water, minerals and rich soil were precious, conflict was guaranteed.
In that respect, Sparta was blessed. This land boasted all three, with plenty to spare, and produced the best fighting force the world had ever seen. Which was just as well. With nine hundred city states scattered across three and a half thousand square miles, the smaller, weaker, more isolated kingdoms were easy prey for power-hungry predators. Thanks to the strength of Athens’ navy and the mighty Spartan army, the tyrants were largely kept in check.
At what financial cost, though?
The sky turned from grey to yellow to copper to pink. Peaks came into focus. Some rounded and gentle, others jagged and sharp, some with crowns of snow that never melted away.
Birds started to sing in the thickets. Rabbits emerged from their warrens. The creatures of the night slunk back to their lairs. It was only when the sun peered over the mountain tops that the warrior knew Gregos would not be coming.
He unsheathed his dagger.
Gregos was never late.
*
Downstream, where the Eurotas widened and slowed, Iliona also watched the sun climb over the peaks. Unable to sleep, she’d watched dawn light up the lush grasses that grew round the temple precinct. Saw the fish rise in the river god’s sacred pool. Waited while the sun warmed the wild rosemary and released its scent on the breeze. Where the bank was stony, deer came down to drink. An egret stalked the shallows with vigilant tread.
This was the quietest time of the day, a moment to be savoured—providing you could ignore the enormous piles of masonry and rubble, where the builders were installing a new watercourse, gymnasium and library. Had the temple not been standing proud among it all, you’d be forgiven for thinking the place had fallen victim to an earthquake. Holes here, channels there, the cypresses white with dust. Small wonder worshippers had tailed off.
‘Up! Come on, come on, up, up, up!’ The child’s plea was both urgent and breathless. ‘Don’t stop, don’t stop! Keep going.’
There was a gasp of frustration. A scrabbling that went on for several minutes, then silence. A few seconds later she heard the sound of anguished sobbing.
So much for the moment to herself.
Iliona followed the sound to a stand of willows overhanging the river, where a boy of seven, maybe eight was hugging his arms to his belly and rocking back and forth on the ground.
‘Shh.’ She scooped his bony frame into her arms. ‘Shh, it’s all right.’
‘No, it’s not,’ he gulped, swinging his head wildly from side to side. ‘See?’
A dirty, bleeding finger pointed to a piece of white cloth caught in the treetops. There seemed to be a string trailing down.
‘Your kite?’
‘Yes. No.’ His small, freckled face was swollen and red, his eyes brimming with hopelessness. ‘I need to get it back, but it’s too high.’
That explained the blood, the dirt and the frantic scrabbling. Even the lowest branch was out of his reach. But the urgency? Judging by his rough haircut and hand-me-down tunic, he was a helot. Son of a serf, too poor to splash out on luxury toys…this was clearly a treasured possession.
‘Suppose we pour a libation to the river god?’ she suggested. ‘Burn
some incense, throw some rose petals into his waters?’ She closed her eyes and pretended to sway in a trance. ‘Beneath a nest of bronze and wood, wings will fall from the stars.’
The boy sniffed. ‘What’s that mean?’
She opened one eye. ‘How do I know? I’m only the Oracle, who imparts the river god’s riddles—no, wait. Suppose…suppose the nest of bronze and wood means the wind chimes in the plane grove? And suppose Eurotas is telling us that tonight, when the stars are out, a new kite will fall from the sky and land right beneath them?’ She dropped to the boy’s level. ‘Why don’t you come back at nightfall and see if it’s true?’
‘Can’t.’ Tears flooded his eyes. ‘Need that one.’
‘Why? Does it belong to somebody else? Have you borrowed it, perhaps, without asking?’
‘No, it’s mine, I made it.’ He started rocking again, howling louder. ‘It’s a letter to Zeus,’ he wailed. ‘I wrote it myself. Tried to send it to Olympus, but it got caught in the branches—’
‘Let’s write him another.’
‘No! No, it’s got to be that one. It’s my Mam’s tunic, don’t you see?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘I cut it off before they burned her, when no one was looking—’
Her heart dropped. ‘Your mother’s dead?’
‘Aye, but if I send that letter to Zeus, he’ll put it right. He’ll tell Hades to send her back over the Styx—’
Iliona scooped the boy into her arms and hugged him tight. ‘Darling, he can’t,’ she said gently. He smelled of parsley and cypress, poor people’s funeral herbs, since they couldn’t afford cinnamon and myrrh. ‘She’s a shade in the realm of the Underworld now, and even Almighty Zeus can’t bring her home. Your Mam’s gone for ever, sweetheart.’
She expected him to lash out in defiance, or collapse in a heap. He did neither. Pulling out of her arms, his body stopped wracking and wise eyes met hers.
‘Maybe not,’ he said slowly. ‘But if I don’t try, if I don’t send that letter, my Mam’ll never have the chance to come home.’
There was no arguing with the logic, which left Iliona only one option. Reaching up, she grabbed the branch and swung herself up. Heard the stitches of her wound rip. Felt the hot gush of blood at the same time as the pain tore through her stomach. Suddenly, she was back in the temple precinct… Too drained emotionally, too physically exhausted, to recognize the grievance in his eyes… She’d felt a blow. Looked down. Saw the knife in her side…
‘Can you reach?’ a small voice asked from below.
She clutched at the willow branch, gasping for breath, sweat and blood drenching her tunic.
‘Almost.’
After a while, the pain dulled to a furious ache. The bleeding eased up. What on earth was she thinking of? In an hour or two, there would be servants and workmen all over the temple. Let them get the bloody kite out of the branches. She lowered her foot, but when she looked down and saw the hope swelling in those tear-reddened eyes, she knew she could not fail him.
Ten minutes later, the High Priestess of Eurotas and a motherless boy released a piece of tattered shroud cloth to the heavens.
We all cope with death in our own way.
*
The head of Sparta’s secret police certainly had his own way of dealing with death. Courage, endurance and discipline formed the backbone of every warrior society, but for the single most formidable fighting force of modern times, this wasn’t enough. The code of the Spartan warrior decreed he must push himself to limits most other men could not endure. He schooled himself to survive prolonged periods of hunger and thirst, as well as extremes of temperature and other mental and physical deprivations. It was also drummed into him to be scrupulous, trustworthy, reliable, but, above all, detached.
The first three could be taught in the barracks, learned through training, or picked up as he went along. Objectivity was more complex. He might not tire on the battle ground, nor flinch from danger or pain. But was he able to look a man in the eye and despatch him to Hades?
To harden them up, warriors served for two years in the Krypteia, Sparta’s notorious secret police. Sometimes they were tasked with hunting down and killing troublesome helots. A mission that relied heavily on camouflage and survival techniques, since most rebels plotted in secret. Other missions had them tracking down traitors, and the patience of the Krypteia was long. Years might pass before a spy, a turncoat, a deserter was found, though not for him the benefit of trial. He would just hear a footstep in an alley. See the bright flash of metal. Then know retribution had come.
As head of the Krypteia, Lysander monitored every warrior assigned to his organization. Which was why he worried when Gregos failed to meet the dawn appointment. Especially, when it was of Gregos’ making.
No one at the barracks had seen him.
‘Thought he was escorting the gold train,’ was the general consensus.
So had Lysander, until he received Gregos’ note.
I know who. I know where. I know how.
Bend at dawn.
Not for nothing did the word ‘cryptic’ stem from Krypteia, and for anyone else, the last part of the message would be meaningless. But for Lysander, who had personally charged Gregos with the investigation, it was clear that his agent had finally identified the criminal(s). The bend in the river was the pre-arranged meet.
Still. If he was not at the barracks and had not kept the appointment, there was still one more possibility, and the most likely. Gregos had left the gold train in Macedonia and ridden south without stopping, other than to change his horse. Even for an experienced battalion commander, two hundred miles was one hell of a ride. Soldiers were also taught the art of deep sleep.
‘Gregos.’ Lysander hurled a pebble into the side of the old shepherd’s hut, long since abandoned after a storm took off the roof. ‘Wake up, you lazy bastard.’
In theory, all enlisted men were supposed to eat, sleep and drink at the barracks. In practice, they regularly sneaked home to their wives, their lovers, their own private spaces, and there was no punishment for disobeying the rules. Only for being found out.
But Gregos was an experienced soldier. Recently promoted from platoon leader, he was careful and crafty. Only the head of the secret police knew the location of his hideaway in the woods, and only then because Gregos had invited him there. Lysander remembered the night well. They drank, played dice, drank some more, then played darts. In the morning, the keg was empty, Lysander was broke, and neither men could speak for the pain in their heads. Every dart, though, was right on its target.
That had been over six months ago, and its crumbling walls were now almost obscured with ivy. The door had long gone, and Lysander could see rat droppings on the crude, tamped earth floor and patches of mildew on the stonework inside. Hardly homely. But shelter enough from sun, rain, women and the army. Every man needs some place to escape to.
‘Gregos?’
As he drew closer, his nostrils were assaulted by a familiar smell. When he heard buzzing, Lysander broke into a run.
‘Fuck.’
The mattress in the corner was pool of congealed blood surrounded by red arcs that covered the walls and the floor. A haven for blowflies laying their eggs. He closed his eyes and exhaled very slowly, repeating the gesture two or three times. Then with a purse of his lips, he examined the scene. Followed the drag marks down to the river…
If they were lucky, he thought, he might at least be able to give his widow a body to bury, but river gods could be fickle. Like the deep, dark pool beside the Shrine of Eurotas, there was always the risk that if a body went in, the only thing it would see after that was the fishes.
No way had Gregos come out of this alive.
Two
Two hundred miles to the north, in a place where lakes met mountains in a misty blue haze, a crowd gathered in the posting station yard. The crowd was not large, since by its very nature the station was isolated, but the crowd sure as hell was keen. It’s not every day an Olymp
ic champion passes your way, and Nobilor was the most famous person any of them—merchant or servant, scribe or wandering minstrel—had, or probably would, ever see. More importantly from Lisyl’s perspective, Nobilor was the finest wrestler ever to have lifted the laurel crown, and she couldn’t believe her luck he was here.
‘Did you know he was coming?’ she asked Melisanne.
Her sister shook her silver-blonde mane. ‘Madam didn’t mention it, but then—’ she glanced across at the station master’s wife—‘Anthea rarely gives much away.’
‘I knew.’ Yvorna, the youngest of the three sisters, winked. ‘I knew he was coming.’
‘So that’s why you’re wearing that new tunic,’ Melisanne said.
‘Why didn’t you tell us?’ Lisyl was cross. She’d have put on a better tunic, too. A brighter shade than this dull, faded lilac. Pink maybe, or blue to match her eyes. To compensate, she tugged at the linen so it folded over her belt. She might be plump, but her ankles were pretty.
‘She wants to make a play for him, that’s why,’ Melisanne said.
‘What if I do?’ Yvorna loosed her tumble of red curls in such a way that it couldn’t help but catch the wrestler’s attention. ‘You two are both spoken for—’
‘Yvorna, please!’ Melisanne’s eyes bulged in censure. ‘Not in public.’
‘What? You think anyone here’s listening to us talk about you and old Hector, while Nobilor’s in the yard?’
‘Don’t be such a bitch,’ Lisyl hissed in her sister’s ear. ‘You know how Mel feels about him, and it’s not her fault the station master is married.’
‘No, it’s not her fault, but it’s about time she faced up to reality. He’s never going to leave Anthea, Lis. Not in a million years.’
‘Hector isn’t old,’ Melisanne protested vigorously.
He wasn’t young either, though, Lisyl thought. A good twenty years separated him and her sister, but then age gaps were something Hector knew all about. His wife was nearly twenty years older than him.
‘Feel my muscles, Nobilor!’ a small lad cried, wriggling his way to the front. ‘Feel them. See how strong I am!’
A massive paw covered the puny white bulges and nodded in solemn approval. ‘Solid as rocks, son.’