by Marilyn Todd
The meaning was clear. Summary execution.
‘Whatever you say, ma’am.’ Ballio stepped smartly round the desk.
‘Lisyl, I swear—’
‘Leave him alone,’ Dierdra said. ‘He was with me. All night, if you must know.’
Iliona looked at Cadur. ‘Is this true?’
‘Of course it is,’ Dierdra snapped. ‘He—’
‘Be quiet,’ Iliona ordered. ‘Cadur? Is it true? Did you spend the night in Dierdra’s bed the night Yvorna died?’
She held her breath for what seemed like eternity.
‘No,’ he said eventually. ‘I was by the lake. On my own.’
Praise be to Apollo! Iliona released the air from her lungs. ‘See how it would have been?’ she asked him. ‘See what she would have done?’
He did see. Looking at Dierdra, he saw very clearly…
‘For gods’ sake,’ he rasped. ‘Why?’
Dierdra opened her mouth in indignation, but Iliona cut in again.
‘She doesn’t think of you as her long-lost son at all. For a start, there never was a son. Nor a husband. Just year after year of endless disappointment. Too many men who left money but never their names.’
‘I didn’t care about that. I went to her hut to play chess and drink wine, because I felt sorry for her.’
‘Sorry for me? Sorry for me?’ Of all the insults, that hurt the most. ‘After all I’ve done for you, you ungrateful bastard. And to think I was prepared to give you an alibi, too!’
‘On the contrary, you were trapping him into giving you the alibi, Dierdra. Then you’d have had him over a barrel.’
You can’t leave, you’d be dead without me.
‘Bollocks!’
Iliona met the hard eyes of the masseuse. ‘You finally found someone who didn’t judge you, and you fell for him. Hard.’
It didn’t matter he was twenty years younger. Look at Hector and Anthea! She loved him, that’s what counted. Why else would his favourite foods be there when he called? Why else would she fill his water skin before he set out with the horses, packing sweetmeats and pies in his saddlebag? And the wonderful thing was, Cadur sought out her company!
‘For once, someone is interested in what you have to say. Who doesn’t call to lay coins on the table.’ Poignant, really. ‘Then you notice he’s calling less frequently, while spending more time with Yvorna, and even when he does come, the visits are shorter, and it’s you who has to instigate them. You try warning Yvorna off, but she laughs in your face.’
‘She called me an old bag,’ Dierdra hissed. ‘Me! She was the one sleeping around, dirty little whore. At least what I did was business!’
The last straw, Iliona imagined.
‘Humiliated, jealous, believing her to be poisoning Cadur’s mind against you, your only chance to claw back happiness was to wipe out your rival, making it appear like a suicide, then pretending you were such a good friend you couldn’t believe she’d actually done such a thing.’
At the same time, painting her as spiteful and vindictive in playing such a cruel prank on her sister.
‘Just as you told Yvorna that Melisanne was in my room, having already stolen the brooch yourself.’
I’ve multiplied its powers by leaving it on the altar in my room.
‘You pinned it on her breast, as though she was flaunting the theft, then hid some of your own jewellery under her pillow. At which point, you cranked up the rumour mill, putting it about that she was a thief, again covering your tracks by supposedly sticking up for her, when all the time you kept blackening her name.’
It seemed everyone in the room was holding their breath.
‘No one “ogled your jugs” at the Festival of the Axe God, and that clansman didn’t “lose his eyeballs” down your front at the Feast. It was all part of the ploy to make Cadur notice you.’
And possibly make him jealous.
‘Every time he stuck up for Yvorna, you jumped in to back him up. Look at me, I’m her friend. The trouble was, you were on a loser from the beginning. He’d never have fallen for you.’
‘Yes, he would. After he realized she was so weak and cowardly as to take her own life, he’d have seen who really loved him! He’d have come back—’
Dierdra stopped short with the sudden realization that she’d just admitted the killing.
Aware for the first time the horror and revulsion on everyone’s faces…
‘It—it was an accident,’ she whined.
I have my plans, my lady. Everything’s mapped out.
‘It was murder.’
Maybe tonight…maybe tomorrow…
She’d heard Sandor throwing Iliona’s words back at her at the Feast of the Eagles, warning her that tragedy was coming, trust me on this and that, when it came, it would be on her conscience, not his.
‘Pure fluke that Lisyl was at the Blue Goddess that evening. Your intention was that Sandor should find the corpse in the morning, to make the prophecy come true.’
Pure bad luck for Yvorna that she’d overheard Lisyl in the stables, promising Morin her virginity.
Dierdra must have thought the gods were with her that night, when Yvorna actually did confide in her.
‘I did it for you, Cad,’ Dierdra bleated, and this time they were genuine tears streaking her make-up, even if they were born of self-pity. None of the crocodile tears she’d produced for the funeral. ‘She wasn’t good enough for you. I’m the one who loves you. You do care for me, don’t you?’
‘His heart is, and always has been, elsewhere,’ Iliona said sternly. She turned to the groom. ‘Am I right?’
Cadur slowly lifted his head. ‘You count the grains of sand, you tell me.’
‘With pleasure.’ She smiled. ‘Working in the stables, you naturally saw a lot of Lisyl when she popped in to see Morin, who of course was skiving more often than not. The more you talked with her, the more you saw of her, the deeper you fell. Which is why you spent so much time with Yvorna. To be even closer to Lisyl, even though you knew she’d never be yours.’
‘Yvorna was always telling me Morin was the wrong man for her. That I should do something to stop her committing herself to that oaf. But the decision was Lisyl’s to make. Not mine.’
‘Well, I’d have made it a bloody sight quicker, if you’d told me, you daft sod!’ Lisyl was also wiping tears from her eyes, but for once there was something other than grief shining through. ‘I thought it was Morin who’d changed. It was me.’
Iliona had seen it. Yvorna had seen it. The only person who hadn’t was Lisyl.
Even big, burly Morin, biting his lip till it bled, had noticed his girl cooling off. Passion had died, her heart wasn’t in it, but like a dog cocking its leg, he was desperate to mark his territory, hoping the loss of her virginity would cement the relationship.
‘You ground those chestnuts for me, just like you waded in for that tunic,’ Lisyl said. ‘And stuck up for me when Morin called Yvorna a coward.’
Cadur looked at her through his long, heavy fringe. Dark as an adulterous liaison.
‘If I went through fire for four tiny kittens, imagine what I’d go through for you.’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, go outside and kiss the girl,’ Hector said. ‘It’s what you’ve both been waiting for.’
No one heard Dierdra’s screams for the cheering.
Thirty-One
The hour was late. In the garden, the scent of basil and lavender mingled with the heady perfume of roses and honeysuckle and the incense that burned for the gods. Apollo the Prophet, Demeter the Gentle, and Hermes, who protected travellers and trade. The station had dipped into silence. A silence broken by the occasional snore. The odd snicker of a horse in the pastures. The squeak of a bat taking moths on the wing.
Iliona stood among the topiary and lilies, her white robes ungirdled and her blonde hair loose, watching the reflection of the moon in the fountain.
My work here is done, Lysander had said.
Hers, to
o, now. The dragons had roared. Quite impressively, too. Shame they didn’t have them in Sparta. By now, Melisanne would have told Hector what he already knew, and would be planning her—their—new life at the tavern. Would it end happy-ever-after? Very doubtful, given the tissue of lies, but for now it was the only solution and at least the child would be taken care of. Cadur and Lisyl would be wrapped up in love, and Morin was already well on his way to getting drunk before the dragons began to breathe fire. In his own way, he loved Lisyl, but deep down some part of him must have known that she’d never be his. You can’t lose what you’ve never had.
And Dierdra? Justice in Phaos was relatively merciful. Murderers, rapists and bandits were forced to drink hemlock, a slow paralysis that eventually led to death, giving them plenty of time to reflect on their crimes.
Gossip’s the lifeblood of this posting station.
There would be a little less of it flowing, now Dierdra had stopped tipping lies into the mill.
He’s been acting odd lately, must be his age, she’d said of Sandor.
Rubbish. Pure falsehood designed to ingratiate herself with the Spartan priestess, because having sucked the priestess in with her honey, she was free to pave the way for killing Yvorna.
First he comes on to me, and when that wouldn’t wash, he made a play for Yvorna.
The worst kind of falsehood, staining a man’s character whilst bolstering your own, at the same time painting your victim as a weakling who couldn’t cope with the pressure of a priest demanding she purified Zabrina’s altar with her love.
From the first time Iliona saw Yvorna, flirting with the men as she topped up their goblets, she didn’t look the sort of girl who’d want advice, much less taken it. But Dierdra was convincing, and appearances can be deceptive.
However, the minute Iliona began to question it, she saw how cunning and cold Dierdra was underneath. In the office tonight, she realized the masseuse had no intention of buckling under verbal attack and, without evidence, there was no hope of extracting a confession. Iliona’s only chance was to accuse Cadur and trust that his integrity was all she’d believed it to be and that Dierdra would trip herself up.
Suppose, though, he’d snatched at the offer of his friend’s alibi. What would have happened then?
The case against him would have been dropped, but the slur would remain and the pariah would have no friend other than Dierdra. For a while, it might work, but what happened when she finally realized he hung around out of pity, not love? Would she poison him with his favourite meal of fresh crab? Stab him while he slept? Or revert to the blunt instrument she was already so familiar with?
Only the murmurings of ghosts would bear witness to the tale, and the truth, Iliona thought, was colder than the statues in this garden, and more elusive than the west wind.
In his room, Lysander was slouched over his couch, clicking the abacus that confirmed the full quota of missing gold had been located and loaded. Just a single lamp burned on the alder-wood table next to his bed. The sound of funerary pipes drifted in through the window. The stars in the sky twinkled like the sun on the ocean.
‘You’re working late,’ Iliona said.
‘Hm.’ A lean and bronzed arm pushed the counting frame to one side. ‘Something wrong?’
‘You and I have unfinished business,’ she said, closing the door.
‘Really? And just what might that be at this hour of the night?’
She unclipped the brooches pinning her robe and let the linen pool at her feet. ‘Drugged to the eyeballs I may have been, but your arousal that night was for real.’
It’s real now, he thought.
‘Think carefully, Iliona. There’s no future in this.’
‘I know.’
Trust no one.
‘No matter who it may be, or how close you become, that person will betray you,’ he warned. ‘Either that, or you will betray them.’
‘I don’t want a future.’ She snuffed the light. ‘I just want to forget.’
To obliterate the face of the son she had lost. The monster who stabbed her. The laughter of a girl with red hair.
‘In which case, I don’t think that’s beyond my abilities, ma’am.’
A strong hand drew her down on to him.
Come into my parlour, said the spider to the fly.
Blind Eye
Though Theo knew himself to be a freak, he had never felt lonely. Not, oh not, until now. He stared at his blood-splattered pantaloons. At stains that wouldn’t wash out. Closing his eyes, he remembered the girl with her back to him, arranging flowers and cakes on the altar…
Blackmailed into spying for Sparta’s hated secret police, High Priestess Iliona’s investigations keep turning up the same stories of a one-eyed giant roaming the hills. The legendary Cyclops.
Iliona knows the Cyclops is a myth, but the killings are most certainly real. And she too late discovers that the threat to her country doesn’t come from the so-called Cyclops, or even their archenemy, Athens. It comes from deep within Sparta itself.
Blood Moon
In a cave in the hills, seven candles burned, and tonight, when the moon was at its full, it would be time to light another. Oh, the Blood Moon was so aptly named…
Three ritual killings on the same night can’t be coincidence. More an attempt to sabotage the peace between Sparta and her new allies across the Black Sea.
High Priestess Iliona has no wish to become embroiled in politics. Especially now. The son she gave up at birth has discovered her identity, and emotions she’d worked so hard to lock away have surfaced, raw and painful. But Lysander, the head of the hated Security Police, gives her no choice. And because she hopes that uncovering conspiracy, murder, kidnapping and adultery will dull her pain, she fails to notice a killer on the loose with a pathological hatred of women.
Who’s picked Iliona as his next victim.