Still Waters

by Marilyn Todd

  Anyone at all.

  ‘Hm.’ He scratched his cheek. ‘Let’s take a walk,’ he said.

  They followed the path in silence, the islands shimmering in the equinox heat, peninsulas melting into the waters. As her hem brushed the creamy clusters of meadowsweet it released waves of almond fragrance. She heard the cry of a peregrine falcon.

  Would he ever find out that his plan to blacken her reputation had fallen at the first hurdle? Too many times for comfort this morning she had found herself back against that tree, reliving the pressure of his lips against hers. If she closed her eyes, she could taste the salt on his skin. Smell the mint on his tongue.

  ‘Not anyone,’ he said eventually. He stopped. Skimmed a stone over the water. Skip-skip-skip, eight times. ‘Gregos picked up a horse from this station and rode like the wind to meet me. Which meant someone from this station followed him. Someone who’s good with horses and whose absence would not be remarked on, and yet…’

  This was ridiculous. No one in their right mind would choose a man who didn’t laugh.

  Then again, how many men whose wives and children had been murdered find much to laugh about?

  ‘It doesn’t add up,’ he was saying. ‘Gregos could not have been killed by a woman.’

  ‘A female groom worked here until recently.’ Iliona ticked the points off on her finger. ‘Good rider. Familiar with horses. Left without warning, and strong. If it wasn’t uncommon for Gregos to find consolation outside the marital bed, she could easily have seduced him.’

  Hot sex in the hay. Passions kindle. She rides after him, tells him she loves him, can’t live without him, maybe she even rides with him.

  ‘The point is, he’d trust her,’ she said. Rather, he wouldn’t mistrust her, there’s a difference. ‘He takes her to his hut in the woods, and he’s not worried, because he’s not meeting you until dawn. Plenty of time to relax after a long ride.’

  ‘Sex is an equally powerful weapon,’ Lysander agreed. ‘It’s broken stronger men than Gregos.’

  And women, she reflected.

  ‘It suggests your man in Lynx Squad has more than one accomplice.’

  ‘Not more than two, though.’ He skimmed another couple of pebbles. ‘If the gang was any bigger, their best bet would be to make a lightning strike in one of the wide, open passes. On horseback, they’d have had a fifty-fifty chance of making off with an entire delivery of gold. Twenty-five thousand drachmas.’

  ‘Whereas these thieves only stole what they could carry.’

  Iliona watched clouds of butterflies dance over the meadows and thought, when a robbery relies on this amount of planning, the gang members need to stay tight.

  ‘Their strategy,’ he said, ‘is to steal as much gold as possible without jeopardizing the escape.’

  She focused on the cloud banks on the horizon, fluffing up into balls then dissipating. Once this last caravan reached Sparta, all twelve members of Lynx Squad would be placed under close surveillance, shadowed day and night in a bid to unmask the traitor. Unfortunately for Lysander, it seemed the thieves had the advantage.

  ‘With the Lake of Light straddling two major trade routes,’ she said, ‘escape is easy for them, but it makes pursuit a nightmare for you.’

  No doubt he’d have men stationed along each of the four highways, the same as he’d know exactly which ships were waiting at the coast, and where they were headed. But exactly who were they looking for, that was the question. He’d only assumed the accomplice was employed at the station. Suppose it was a messenger, a muleteer, a philosopher, a poet, who timed his visits to coincide with the caravan? Factor in a second accomplice, and the problems multiplied tenfold.

  ‘Like you said, the seas close in less than three weeks. If they make it,’ she pointed out, ‘that gold buys an awful lot of alibis, puts a lot of distance between them and Sparta, and, more importantly, it will buy them anonymity.’

  ‘Oh, I have my work cut out with this one.’ A scorpion crunched under the heel of a fancy Cretan slipper. ‘But if there’s one thing the Krypteia is famous for, it is patience.’ Grey eyes bored into hers, as measureless as a winter sky. ‘Patience and stealth, to be precise, and the arm of the secret police is long. Decades might pass, but a Spartan warrior never, ever yields. One day, Iliona. One day that gold, and the thieves, will be traced. You have my word of honour on that.’

  Word, yes. But honour…?

  ‘I notice you used the past tense,’ he said. ‘You said this woman used to work here.’

  A snake slithered under a stone. ‘What of it?’

  ‘To me, it makes more sense to return to the station and get on with the job as before. Head down raises no suspicions. Business as usual until the last gold train passes through.’

  ‘Maybe the last one already has. At least from the thieves’ point of view.’

  Moorhens dabbled in and out of the reed beds. Storks wheeled over the water. Glossy ibis croaked and grunted up in the trees. In fact, Iliona passed quite a lot of time getting acquainted with nature before the Krypteia finally answered.

  ‘It’s a possibility,’ he acknowledged. ‘Ten per cent of three gold trains, rather than four, is still rich pickings. It would buy time by throwing us off the scent, but I’m sticking with good old-fashioned mathematics.’

  She watched a pair of swans flap lazily over the water, their reflections pearly in the heat haze. ‘Mathematics?’

  ‘Ten thousand drachmas divided by three is a tidy little sum,’ he murmured. ‘Divide it by two, though, and it becomes even tidier.’

  ‘Holy Hera. You think she’s been eliminated, too?’

  ‘It’s what I would do.’

  Yes, but not everybody is a cold-blooded killer.

  Though at least she knew why Lysander had taken so long to answer. He’d been thinking it through, the way the gold thief thought it through. Trying to cover every angle.

  ‘If she’s dead, we’re back to square one,’ Iliona said dully.

  She’d never met this groom, and probably wouldn’t have even liked her. Women who kill for money don’t usually have sunny personalities and empathetic dispositions. From some angles, she deserved exactly what she got. And yet…

  The thread of human life had nevertheless been cut before its natural span, cheated of everything life had to offer her. The love of a good man. The tug of a babe at her breast. Even the simple joys of a glorious sunrise. But Iliona’s sorrow didn’t centre on the death of a killer. This had been a woman who’d forged a career in a man’s world. Who’d have had to scratch and claw every step of the way. And who, had she lived, would have set a precedent. Making it easier for other women to follow—

  ‘Not quite square one.’ Lysander skipped another stone over the water. ‘The dead still talk. If I find this woman’s body, it might give me clues to how she died, and therefore who killed her.’

  Iliona understood. A stab in the back would indicate a surprise attack. An up-and-under thrust to the heart meant a professional killer, as well as someone she trusted enough to get close, while poison was a woman’s weapon. Of course, the body might yield no clues at all, though Iliona didn’t see this as his biggest challenge.

  ‘The lake is clear to ten fathoms, but its depth is far greater,’ she said. ‘Your arms would drop off from rowing before you found her.’

  Skip-skip-skip. Another seven ripples.

  ‘He didn’t throw her in the lake.’

  She couldn’t help it. She laughed. ‘Are you serious? Why, when he has a hundred and seventy square miles where only the fish would find her, would he risk the body being found?’

  More pebbles. More ripples.

  ‘Because every fishing boat is accounted for,’ the Cretan banker said. ‘At night, they’re brought up on the beach, stern first, which means anyone taking one out would be noticed. The killer wouldn’t want to risk it.’

  ‘Yes, but you said yourself a corpse is heavy to lug around, and in any case, what makes you so certain she c
ame back?’

  ‘The same reason she left in the first place.’ He patted his heart. ‘Love.’

  Oh, god, yes. What else explained it? Working at the posting station, among so many men, love sparks. She pictured them sneaking away, perhaps running hand in hand to their special place in the woods. He’d serenade her on the lyre, they’d play chess, drink wine, make love until the cock crowed, while planning their, quite literally, golden future together. Until Gregos put a spoke in the wheel. He had to be stopped, and she imagined the female groom’s lover convincing her there was only one way. The lure that had distracted the Spartan soldier at the posting station in the first place, while the gold was being switched, would also be the lure to his silence. And because she loved her man, even though he’d pimped her like a common prostitute, she had followed, and then killed, the one person who threatened their happiness.

  Only to discover that once she’d outlived her usefulness, the heart of greed was black, and cold, and empty…

  ‘My guess,’ Lysander said, ‘is that he met her at a prearranged spot and killed her there.’

  When she arrived at the meeting place, breathless from terror and guilt but most of all love, little did the poor bitch know that her grave had already been dug.

  ‘Not too close to the station, where they risked being interrupted,’ he said. ‘But not too far away that their absence would be remarked on, either.’

  Well, that’s all right, then, Iliona thought. Instead of a hundred and seventy square miles to search, he’s narrowed it down to a thousand.

  That should keep him out of her hair.

  Nineteen

  Mountains that were misty blue in daytime had turned violet in the dying light. The islands in the lake fused with the shadows. The setting sun had turned the autumn leaves to molten gold. An old man leading a donkey down the twisting, narrow path nodded to the young laundress marching up. But if he wondered why she was out alone at sunset, curiosity didn’t show in his leathery, gnarled face. He and the donkey plodded mournfully on. The young woman strode purposefully up.

  Pausing for breath, Lisyl heard a horse whinny in the stable yard, watched as a column of smoke from the spit-roast searched out a breeze to carry it off. There was just enough light left in the sky to make out the usual scrum of visitors, now the size of ants down below. Scribes and administrators, in need of a decent night’s sleep. Dispatch runners, grateful for a plate of good food and a bath. Messengers, wanting a change of horse and some rest.

  They’d be lucky, she thought wryly. No one works overtime on the eve of the equinox, and that was the trouble when you employ citizens, instead of keeping slaves.

  ‘You should use more slave labour,’ she told Hector, as she’d stripped the sheets off his couch the other morning. ‘Everybody else does.’

  ‘You think that makes it right?’ He’d smiled gently. ‘With this new alliance growing richer by the year, don’t you feel distribution of wealth is better spread among ordinary people?’

  Lisyl most certainly did not! Excuse her, but what slave ever had to work more than an eight-hour shift? They never had to worry where their next meal came from, did they? Lodgings were free, their owners clothed them, physicked them, slaves didn’t pay taxes, plus they got pocket money on top. She’d rolled the linen into a ball and pointed out that several slaves owned businesses over in the town of Phaos. Barbers, dressmakers, one ran a bakery, another had a forge, and every last one owned slaves of their own.

  ‘They’re far richer than me and Morin,’ she’d protested, stuffing her chin on the bundle to keep it in place.

  ‘Only financially,’ Hector murmured, opening the door for her. ‘Don’t forget, you’re free to live where you wish, wed whom you choose, and live in the safe and certain knowledge that you will never be separated from your loved ones unless it’s by the Herald of Death.’

  The station master was right, she supposed, but only up to a point. The difference was, he was married to rich, aristocratic Anthea while Lisyl was plump and, well, let’s face it, poor. Oh, and the other thing he’d forgotten was that she was indeed free to marry anyone she pleased…provided he wasn’t an Enkani.

  ‘Oh, Morin.’ High above, the Evening Star twinkled in the sky. ‘Why couldn’t you have been born in bloody Phaos?’

  Personally, Lisyl blamed the Persians. If they hadn’t invaded, Greece would never have had to go to war, and if they hadn’t gone to war, no one would ever have thought of this posting station lark. Stirred everything up again, it did, Eagles and Bulls always trying to get one up on each other, and what was the point of it, anyway? Absolutely stupid. Like Hector said, freedom was a rare and precious commodity, and it wasn’t as if both sides didn’t know how lucky they were to have it.

  The Eagles believed freedom was their right, which it was.

  The Bulls believed they’d earned the privilege. Which was also true.

  Holy Hermes, would they ever rub along?

  She sighed, imagining herself and Morin becoming the bridge between the clans. That was how they’d pictured themselves when they first got together. Star-crossed lovers that kick-started a new and blissfully harmonious relationship between lowlanders and the mountain men…

  Only Morin didn’t see it that way any more. He saw her as becoming an Enkani woman through marriage, giving up her work and raising babies the Eagle way, in which boys effectively reported to their fathers from the age of eight.

  ‘Every other nation in the Greek alliance does it, what’s your bloody problem?’ he had snapped.

  ‘Not every nation, Morin. The Spartans don’t, and it’s the same down here in Phaos—’

  ‘Yes, but you won’t be in Phaos, will you, Lis? You’ll be one of us now, and I’m proud to have you as my wife.’ He’d kissed her. ‘We’ll make lovely babies, Lis.’

  Was that all he thought about, she wondered. Hopefully, he wouldn’t be so grouchy once she’d surrendered her virginity, and she tried to remember what it was like at the beginning, when love was fresh. He wasn’t bigoted back then. None of this foot-stamping, I’m-a-man-and-I’m-the-boss in those days. He’d always insisted that celibacy wasn’t natural for a man, and perhaps that’s what changed him, but with luck, after tonight, it would put the fun and games back into fooling around.

  I mean, honestly. When was the last time anyone heard Morin laugh?

  Glancing back down the stony track, she could just about make out a rider hurtling into the yard. Bit late to be riding at that speed, she thought. The poor horse could fall and break a leg—and the rider wouldn’t fare too well out of the arrangement, either. She wondered what the hurry was, as he jumped down and sought out the Cretan banker. Not difficult to pick out in that fancy gear. The blue stood out even from here. Now there was an odd cove, she reflected, pressing on. Most bankers who passed through kept themselves to themselves, but this one played dice with the grooms like he was one of the boys, and the funny thing was, they opened up to him, too. Though quite why a banker should be interested in a woman who used to work in the stables, Lisyl couldn’t say. Curiosity, most like, and she must admit, she was shocked herself at first. But like everything, she supposed, you soon get used to it.

  Mind, wasn’t it shortly after she arrived that Morin started getting uppity? Funny how men felt threatened by a woman doing what they thought was their job! Still. She squared her shoulders. All those bad moods would be history after tonight, which reminded her. What was going on between Yvorna and Cadur when Lisyl was putting the washing away earlier? She’d been taking the short cut, round the back of the stables, when she noticed her sister shaking Cadur’s shoulders. Lisyl couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen such an angry look on Yvorna’s face.

  ‘Tonight, Cadur! Don’t you understand? You have to act tonight.’

  Whatever his answer might have been, Lisyl would never know. He saw her, loaded up with linens, from the corner of his eye. Locked gazes with her for a beat of three, and then walked off. The last thi
ng Lisyl saw or heard was her sister shouting at him, and Lisyl didn’t know why it should made her eyes sting, but there you go. She mustn’t let a lovers’ tiff weaken her resolve. She’d promised and it was too late to go back on it now. Besides, she’d gone to all the trouble to dig out her embroidered turquoise tunic, the one she kept for best, and though ideally she’d have picked a floaty, feminine wrap to go with it, the evenings did tend to get a little chilly up here in the mountains. Special moment or not, she’d brought a woollen cloak. Morin wouldn’t notice, anyway.

  At the fork in the path, she made the sign of three. Silly really, because what’s to fear from the Blue Goddess? Also, no wolves prowled round here this time of year, bears rarely ventured so close to the cliff, and dragons hadn’t flown over the mountains for as far back as anyone could remember. Even so. Lisyl tweaked a strand of hair behind her ears and found the rasp of cicadas oddly comforting, the twitter of bats round the temple entrance strangely welcome.

  Zabrina’s shrine wasn’t anywhere near as glamorous as the temple of Aphrodite in Phaos, for example, which was new and built of stone. Or even those of Zeus, Apollo and Poseidon, which were brick, faced off with stucco and then painted. No terracotta tiles. No marble columns or ornate pediments up here. A simple timber structure with a roof that had been newly thatched last year, whose door was opened twice a year, no more, for religious rites.

  Unlike most deities, the goddess did not reside inside her shrine. Her palace was in the deepest part of the lake, where her throne was guarded by dragons that laid eggs of pure gold. But on her festival days, the doors opened to reveal her statue, and she was as beautiful as Calypso, Lisyl decided. Dressed in blue robes and carrying an eight-pointed star that represented all the points of the wind, her face was pale, since she rarely came to the surface. But when she did, every seventh year at the spring equinox, she would dance over the lake at midnight, when everyone was asleep, because her waters had been formed from the tears of the River God, and this is the only way she was ever able to touch her beloved, who cried so when they parted.