by Marilyn Todd
'Thirteen hundred and fifty,' the assassin corrected, 'and do you not imagine that people have been killed for less? Uniting the tribes to push Rome out once and for all requires fundraising on an enormous scale, and the type of criminals the Scorpion employs need to be kept in check by something more than a spank on the bottom. Come.' He'd held out his arm. 'Let us take that walk in the garden.'
How much time had passed since Claudia had linked her elbow through his? Seconds? Minutes? A lifetime—?
'You were wise not to wake your steward,' he said, leading her to a seat beneath an acacia.
Claudia already knew that. Instinctively, she had realized that if she'd raised the alarm, he'd be left with no choice. Not tonight, not tomorrow, but some time he would come back and fulfil his contractual obligation. She shivered. Gabali wasn't the type who fed off the fear in his victim's eyes as they died. He was calculating, clever and detached, not sick. Had he not wanted something else from her, she would already be dead ...
A faint light appeared in the sky over the Viminal Hill. Any minute now, roosters would start crowing and she realized with a jolt that the Spaniard had been in her house for twenty-four hours. Apart from a faint hint of stubble, he was as fresh as the dew.
'What do you want, Gabali?'
Her legs were weak, her heart pounded like thunder and there was something wrong with her breath. But she had to know ...
'What do you need from me?'
His stillness lasted for an eternity, or maybe a heartbeat. Then he knelt down to face her, his penetrating eyes at a level with hers.
'Help,' he said carefully. 'There is a college of priestesses near Santonum known as the Hundred-Handed, a revered and powerful order, not unlike the Druids—'
'With the same attitude to human sacrifice?'
A muscle contracted in the Spaniard's cheek. 'When I kill, I kill cleanly,' he said. 'There is no question of sending you to be burned alive inside the wicker man, or indeed enjoying any of the other hospitalities that are practised in some of the remoter regions of Gaul.'
He rose, smoothed his hair back from his face and ran his fingers down the delicate leaves of the acacia.
'The Hundred-Handed wield the same spiritual influence as the Druids, except they interpret the cycle of life as a five-pointed star which they call the pentagram. The tips represent birth, growth, maturity, decline and death in sequence,' he said, 'but the difference is, the priestesses do not believe in gods like the Druids. They preach worship through nature and advocate peace in all things.'
'Sounds very noble.'
'It is.'
'But?'
Gabali turned his face away. 'One of the initiates, a girl of a mere twelve summers, was found murdered close to the sacred boundaries of the College. Her name was Clytie, she was killed on the spring equinox and her murder has never been solved.'
There was no point in asking where this was leading.
Claudia stared at the Spaniard's straight back and wondered why a day in midsummer should dawn so chill.
'The priestesses aren't celibate,' he continued, 'but no man is permitted to set foot inside the precinct, not even the tribal Chief, and thus, since no proper investigation was conducted, Clytie's killer remains at large.'
'Call me slow, Gabali, but I don't see where I come in.'
'No? I was rather thinking that if you were to talk to the priestesses—'
'Excuse me, this is Gaul you're talking about?'
'Yes.'
'And you haven't forgotten that we're in Rome having this conversation?'
'No.'
'Or that I'm not a priestess?'
'No.'
'Or that I'm unfamiliar with the Gaulish language?'
'I assure you, I have not forgotten any of those things.'
'Well, I'm glad we cleared that up. Do carry on.'
'Thank you.' He bowed. 'Clytie's death was similar to previous murders that plagued Santonum two years before, but then a group of vigilantes caught the brute kneeling over his victim with his hands round her throat. I won't go into details. Sufficient to say, this monster was put to execution.'
'You think it was a miscarriage ofjustice?'
'I do not.' Gabali was clear about that. 'Although Clytie's arms were arranged like this,' he positioned his own in an outstretched position, 'her hair fanned out and her face painted—'
'Like the previous victims?'
'Like previous victims, si' but this time the body was not found in the town, there was no sexual assault and no signs of strangulation. Little Clytie bled to death from cuts on her wrists— Are you all right?'
'I'm ... fine.'
From inside the house, skillets clacked in the kitchens as breakfast was cooked, the sound of heather brooms could be heard sweeping the cellars and the smell of freshly baked bread filtered out from the ovens. With every ounce of self-
control she had left, Claudia thrust the memories of her mother's drained corpse back into the dark pit where they belonged and concentrated on staying alive.
'You obviously don't feel there's a copycat killer on the loose, either,' she said, because why else would he be proposing this bizarre exchange?
'That is the story Beth, the Head of the College, is putting about, but me, no. I do not believe it.'
As daylight turned the leaves from dull grey to green and the first blackbird began to sing, Claudia wondered why she'd thought her wine business important.
'Gabali, you seem a level-headed sort of chap, let me ask you a question.' She swivelled round on the bench to face him. 'Why me?'
He shrugged. 'I'm assuming you don't want to die.'
Fair point. 'Then let me ask you another question.' She stood up and walked across to where he was standing. 'What's to prevent you from killing me, once I've discharged my obligation?'
Blackmailers don't stop once they've got their claws into their victim, and she was unlikely to be useful for anything else. Also, he said himself the Scorpion was a ruthless thug and that no one who double crosses him lives.
'Because I give you my word.'
'Which, as an assassin and extortionist, is worth what, exactly?'
He ran his tongue under his upper lip. 'In their thirteen years of Roman occupation, the Aquitani have not confined themselves solely to the import of wine and olive oil. In the past, of course, their slaves comprised fellow Gauls, captured in raids or taken as trophies of war.' His mouth twisted up at one corner. 'But thanks to you Romans, a whole new global market in human flesh has opened up.'
'Including Spaniards.'
'The Andalus yielded an especially rich harvest, si. I have the distinction of being one of their earliest exports, and never let it be said the Hundred-Handed don't move with the times.'
'I thought you said men weren't allowed in the College?'
'That's right, they're not.' Gabali plucked a late cherry
from the tree and munched carefully. 'They live in a compound on the hill behind the College, where they're set to tending the livestock, brewing and general maintenance work.' He spat the cherry stone into the centre of the fish pond. 'We work like dogs but are kept as stallions, if you follow my meaning.'
'The Hundred-Handed might be a matriarchal society, but they still can't manage to father their own children?'
'It seems we have some uses,' he said, with a lopsided grin, and whilst Claudia could see how he might be bitter, she understood why the priestesses had picked him. 'Once the children are born, they're placed into communal custody, where they're raised by those women who, for one reason or another, didn't qualify for the fifty elite, so you see, even the mothers don't spend time with their own children, much less the poor fathers.'
Oh, sweet Janus. 'Clytie was your daughter?'
'Those bitches wouldn't let me near her when she was alive,' he said thickly, 'but I'm damned if I'll let them betray her now that she's dead.'
It was a convincing argument, Claudia thought. Had it not been for the fact that he killed
people for a living and was as trustworthy as his scorpioidal boss—
'I make no promises,' she told him bluntly. 'I'll happily go back to Aquitania' - as though she had a choice - 'and ask around at the College, but I can't guarantee finding your daughter's killer, much less bringing them to justice.'
'If you find the killer, I will see to the justice part,' he murmured. 'As to the rest, all I ask is that you do your best and, as a woman, you will have a better chance of finding the truth.'
Claudia doubted that.
'What about the Scorpion? If he knows I'm not only alive, but on his patch—'
'Do not worry about the Scorpion, Merchant Seferius. You will be perfectly safe in Aquitania.'
Claudia doubted that even more.
'Can I hope you will be packed by midday?' he asked in a manner that brooked no negotiation.
'My dear Gabali, I shall be packed in a hour,' she breezed back. Because this Spanish assassin might be a mine of infor-
mation and a pedant for detail, but what he couldn't possibly have gathered from watching her house was that Claudia Seferius didn't just play rough, she played dirty.
And strangely enough, excelled in both.
Three
In the centre of the world between earth, sky and sea, at the point where the realms of the universe meet, the whisperings slowly came together. Swirling jointly in excitement and confusion, they jumbled through the halls of falsehood, rumbled down the trail of dreams, until finally they tumbled through the gates of confidence as truth.
Unlike Rumour, Truth carried conviction.
Carried on the soft warm wings of night, she soared over bright, shiny basilicas and painted stone tribunals without stopping, for there was no one to listen to her there. On and on she flew, past fountains, statues, bathhouses and barracks, watching broad metalled roads below give way to narrow rutted tracks as six-storey tenements fragmented into single-storey thatch. With every rolling hill and wooded river valley that she passed, Rome became more and more distant. For though the conquerors pulled on the oars of administration and finance, it was the Druids that steered the spiritual tiller.
And so it was here, to the lands under the Druids' dominion, where human sacrifice placated the black gods of vengeance and the powers of darkness were summoned and harnessed, that Truth swooped and imparted her wisdom.
'Nonsense!' Dora slammed the table with her fist. 'In all my sixty summers, I've never heard such rubbish!'
'We don't even allow men in the compound,' Fearn protested. 'How on earth are we supposed to suck their minds clean while they sleep?'
Beth ran her hand over the table shaped in the form of a pentagram around which the five women sat and studied the reflection of her silver robe in the shine. 'It's human nature to fear what we don't understand.'
'But witches!' It was a wonder the thatch stayed on the roof when Dora's fist crashed down a second time. 'Never in our history have we laid a single claim to sorcery or magic!'
'Fabrication walks hand in hand with fear,' Luisa pointed out.
'But who started this wicked fiction?' That's what Fearn wanted to know.
Beth pushed her chestnut hair back from her face and gazed around the half-timbered hall, whose rafters of ash were interwoven with hazel and whose basket-weave walls were hung with dried flowers and carved, painted plaques.
'The issue is not how the rumours started, it's how we scotch them,' she said.
Without windows, the only light came from the scores of candles dotted round the hall, and the only sounds that intruded were the soft coo of a pigeon on the roof and the occasional bubble of the scented infusion in the brazier.
'By ignoring them,' Dora retorted. 'Slurs are no different from hearth fires, Beth. They fizzle out soon enough for lack of attention.'
'That only holds true up to a point,' she replied. 'For personal insults, I agree. Ignore it. But, Dora, this accusation has the backing of the Druids.'
'Whose power is waning,' Luisa said.
'And for which they only have themselves to blame,' Fearn added, rubbing the arm of her wickerwork chair. 'They live apart from society—'
'So do we,' Beth pointed out.
'Indeed we do, my dear, but the Hundred-Handed don't believe themselves superior to their fellow Gauls.'
'It's why we don't embroil ourselves in local politics,' Dora said. 'Who are we to pass judgement on others?'
'An attitude which seems to be working against us right now.'
'Why?' Dora spread her large hands. 'If setting themselves apart makes the Druids more mystical, rather than less, why shouldn't the same apply to us? Let our very remoteness work in our favour, that's what I say.'
'I agree,' Fearn said, nodding. 'By ignoring these preposterous allegations, the communities that rely on the forest
will come to realize that in an impermanent world, nature is constant, while the gods of the Druids are bloodthirsty, capricious and vengeful.'
'Our healing springs will also speak for us,' Luisa added confidently. 'People will soon see that the Hundred-Handed reflect the steadfastness of nature.'
'Will they.' Beth sighed. 'Rome has opened minds as well as trade routes,' she said. 'People no longer accept authority without question.'
'Which is exactly why the Druids' influence is on the slide,' Luisa said. 'The Aquitani have stopped running to them for guidance on every petty issue, and people have grown stronger in character because of it. That can only be a good thing.'
'Unless we are proved to be witches,' Beth said. 'The disbanding of this College will undermine the concept of independent thinking more effectively than any Roman law once the Druids show the Aquitani that, left to their own devices, they put their faith in monsters.'
Dora snorted. 'Are we really saying we're so damned powerful that we can bring down the Druids?'
'Or be responsible for building them up to the force they once were?' Fearn asked.
Beth watched a spider climb up the wall, reach a plaque and fall back down. She waited until it began to climb again.
'We've heard Growth's views.' She patted the arm sitting beside her, draped in linen dyed the colour of gorse. 'Fearn here believes that the goodness of nature will prevail over whatever malevolent gods are thrown in our path.' She turned to Dora. 'Maturity - and I think we can all agree on this - is firmly of the opinion that in ignoring the rumour, the fire will go out, while Decline,' she smiled at Luisa, utterly resplendent in red, 'puts her trust in the powers of healing.'
The spider fell back onto the floor. This time it did not attempt another ascent, but scuttled under the table. Beth crushed it under her foot.
'As the Birth point on the pentagram and Head of this Order, you know my view. I believe closing our eyes to the accusation of witchcraft is dangerous in the extreme, because,
as someone far cleverer than me once said, for evil to triumph, it only needs for good men to do nothing. However.'
She swivelled in her chair to face the woman sitting on her right, whose robe was black as night.
'The one opinion we haven't heard today is Ailm's.'
The narrow, watchful eyes of the Death Priestess tapered to mere slits and through the coo-coo-coo of the pigeon on the thatch, the fragrant contents of the brazier bubbled gently.
'If Rumour whispers into credulous ears,' she said eventually, 'credulous minds are bound to put their trust in her wisdom.'
'Is that it?' Dora turned her head away in disgust. 'Is that the extent of your input? Trotting out some trite old saw that might sound deeply intellectual to those who know no better, but is meaningless in its actual content?'
'You asked,' Ailm said.
I didn't,' Dora corrected, with a glare at Beth.
'Ailm.' Beth refused to meet her friend's eye. 'Ailm, this is serious. As Head of the Order, I have three votes. Right now, the pentagram is deadlocked.'
'Then instate a fairer ballot.' The Death Priestess stood up and swept towards the door, her skirts billowing lik
e the wings of a bat in her wake.
'Ailm!' Beth brought her palms down on the five-pointed table with the full weight of her position. The boom stopped the priestess in her tracks. 'The voting system is part of our heritage. It underlines the College hierarchy and reinforces the Head of the Order's authority. Remember, only the five pentagram priestesses are entitled to vote. Our decision affects the whole of the College.'
'There's nothing in the rules that prevents us from canvassing the opinion of the rest of the Hundred-Handed, though.'
'Apart from time,' Luisa said. 'If we opened a debate to the remaining forty-five, we'd be opening a floodgate of hot air and the whole point of the pentagram is that we, as the governing committee, act swiftly.'
'And ...' Dora sniffed. 'Decisively.'
'Not only that,' Fearn said, 'even if we mooted every issue
under discussion before the rest of the Hundred-Handed, why stop there? If it's democracy you're pushing for, Ailm, you'd have to include the Initiates of Light, whose very training is to prepare them to step in once the next priestess dies.'
'How could you possibly then exclude those women who didn't qualify for Initiatehood,' Luisa asked, 'but who oversee the nursery, the cooking, the cleansing of holy spaces and such like?'
'Indeed,' Dora said. 'That only adds another couple of hundred, and why not poll the novices while you're about it? Or aren't children entitled to a say in their own future under your precious voting system?'
'Ailm.' Beth pulled the meeting back on track. 'Ailm, the College stands accused of witchery and you know the Druids' attitude to that.'
'The Druids have no power over us,' Ailm retorted, 'and anyway, we're under Rome's protection now. Let them put their money where their mouth is.'
'Rome!' Dora pushed her chair back from the table. 'How can they possibly protect us out here? Ailm, you're a fool. A selfish, narrow-minded, short-sighted fool—'
'How dare you, you who—'
'Enough.' Beth stood up. 'Ailm, I'm sorry but Dora's right. Rome would willingly send its legions to our aid, but for how long? They can't stand around these woods for ever, and the Druids are like cats outside a mouse hole. They'll wait weeks, months, years if necessary, but far more likely they'll pounce before the Governor has even had time to read our petition.'