Scorpion Rising

by Marilyn Todd

  'He didn't say anything, then? Manion?'

  'Ifyou must know, we enjoyed a riveting chat about bees.'

  'Bees.'

  'You know the things, Marcus. Fluffy buzzy creatures. One sees them all the time flittering round flowers.'

  Marcus tore his gaze from the trees into which Manion had disappeared and stared at her. 'Are you referring to those fluffy buzzy male drones that do all the work, while the queen watches from the centre of the hive?'

  Perhaps they know I sting back, a little voice echoed inside her head. Rubbish, she told it. Not everything has a subtext, sod off. Only dead men do nothing, the little voice wheedled ...

  'Have the Hundred-Handed branded you yet?' she asked cheerfully.

  Orbilio wiped his sticky hands on the grass and when he looked up, the hardness in his expression was gone. 'They couldn't find an unbruised patch of skin, and with luck I'll be gone before they can.'

  'Tut, tut, Marcus. The Governor is absolutely delighted that you and your ex-wife are about to become reconciled. He said take as much time to recuperate as you need, I quote his very words.'

  'Yes. Well. As much as I find slave labour an excellent

  aid to marital counselling, there is the little matter of an uprising that ideally I'd like to prevent.'

  Claudia popped the last corner of honeycomb into her mouth, confident that the Head of the Security Police wouldn't be playing Masters & Slaves if the whole of Aquitania was poised to explode. But why had he agreed to come here with her? Why so quickly, and with only a token protest? The smell of rat had slammed into her nostrils the instant he'd said yes. Rat, with a large helping of weasel.

  'Then the quicker we solve Clytie's murder the better,' she breezed. 'Now then. Apart from the fact that tight pants are a bitch, what else have you discovered?'

  Marcus hefted the bale onto the opposite shoulder. '(A) women are to be avoided, they're deadly and dangerous, (B) men have no brains or we'd steer clear of them and (C) that working with livestock,' he patted the bale, 'leaves indelible stains on a chap's kit.'

  'It took you twenty-eight years to work that out?'

  'I'm a slow starter.' His expression became serious again. 'You know, for three centuries, the Hundred-Handed have provided spiritual guidance for small, isolated communities in the surrounding countryside who rely on this forest for their very survival. In leading by example, the priestesses set high moral standards—'

  'I hope that was a joke.'

  'Far from it.' He spiked his fringe out of his eyes. 'Have you stopped to think what they give up?'

  'Apart from their male babies at birth?'

  'Including their male babies at birth. Claudia, I know you don't approve of their ways, but this is a far from easy life for these women.'

  'Thus speaks the wisdom of a sex slave, Orbilio. I just knew you'd feel right at home here.'

  'Mock all you want,' he said, 'because yes, I suppose every man does dream of being a sex slave - until that dream becomes a reality. But I'm serious. Times are changing, Claudia, Rome's seen to that. And thanks to us, the world has got smaller for the Gauls, and this world,' he indicated the College with a nod of his head, 'has to adapt. If it doesn't, quite frankly, it dies.'

  'Are you saying the Hundred-Handed are under threat? Because if so, I really don't give a damn.'

  He set down the bale then lay flat on the rock, resting his feet on the flat of the bale. 'Peace is a funny thing. You and I, we're part of the new generation who aren't content to sit back and put our trust in our elders and betters. We demand a say in our future and don't obey laws without satisfying ourselves first that those laws are fair.'

  'That's the second time I've heard those arguments today.'

  'Because independence is a hot topic in these parts at the moment,' he said, folding his arms behind his head and crossing his feet at the ankles. 'Hence my point about insurrection.'

  This is not a good time to be a Roman.

  'Nonsense. Those rumours have been rumbling for months.'

  If the Scorpion intended to stage an uprising, he'd have started before midsummer, and no matter how well organized the rebel forces, they couldn't achieve much in the remaining three months of the campaigning season. The smell of rat doubled in strength.

  'This business of challenging authority, questioning orders and not accepting what we're told without corroboration,' Marcus said, 'that's called democracy. And while you and I take it for granted, for the people of Aquitania, it's a whole new concept.'

  'Then the quicker it comes the better.'

  'Not necessarily.' He propped himself up on one elbow to face her. 'If change comes too fast, it's liable to have the opposite effect of what it's intended to do. It can destroy rather than build.' He paused. 'Why don't you give a damn?'

  'Goddammit, Orbilio, if you'd been doing just a fraction of your job, you wouldn't be asking that question! It's monstrous! Barbaric! Utterly obscene—'

  'What is?' he asked calmly.

  'The Pit, Marcus! They throw the condemned down there alive, so they can reflect on their sins while they die slowly and painfully over a couple of weeks, and dear god, you say these women want peace, but I've never heard of anything so diabolical in my life!'

  'I have.' His voice was still calm as he shifted position to sit on the hay bale, resting his chin in his hands. 'It was how the Spartans used to execute criminals. Only for the direst of offences, mind you. The punishment was intended as a deterrent.'

  'Spartans?' Something about that rang a bell.

  'The Greeks and the Gauls share an interesting history,' he said. 'The Greeks came to Gaul, the Gauls went to Greece, and not necessarily for the purpose of cultural exchange. However!' He grinned. 'Not all their legacies involved funerals, blood and smouldering ruins. You know what nereids are?'

  'Sea nymphs who serve Neptune.'

  The grin deepened. 'The Greeks believed these nymphs served the sea goddess, Thetis, and they founded colleges of priestesses in their honour. Fifty of them, to be precise. Moon priestesses, dedicated to a gentle goddess who could nevertheless assume, guess what? A hundred different shapes.'

  Of course. The Dining Hall. Claudia had never visited Greece, but the structure of three sides round a courtyard was typical for mass catering at sanctuary sites.

  'And we all know who the son of Thetis was,' Marcus murmured.

  Achilles.

  'If you're saying the Pit of Reflection is their Achilles heel, I still don't care about these bloody women.'

  'In Sparta, the prisoner would be dragged in chains through the streets, where he'd be whipped and humiliated by a line of his peers. Shamed,' he said, 'anguished,' he paused, 'and degraded.'

  'And if the moral of that tale is that the Hundred-Handed have evolved with a soft spot, you're still wasting your breath.'

  'Strange how often this becomes the case when I'm talking to you.'

  'Whoa, there! I paid my back taxes.'

  That was the reason she was in this wretched mess, and damn those greedy bastards for taking advantage of a poor grieving widow struggling with a mountain of debts.

  'So ...'He scratched his chin. 'No outstanding frauds, then? An end to the forgeries? No more—'

  'You were talking about the Pit,' she snapped.

  'Indeed I was,' he said turning away, and from this angle, it looked like his shoulders were shaking. 'And I'm saying that the way the priestesses distance themselves from the physical act of execution suggests cowardice.'

  'The word, Marcus, is callousness.'

  He leaned across, plucked a blade of grass and chewed on the juicy end. 'Cruelty isn't quite so cruel if you don't witness it personally.'

  'Closing eyes and closing minds. Yes, I'm starting to see how they're really nice people.'

  'I didn't say I agreed with it, but the fact that Beth believes Clytie's killer is a copycat, Dora thinks it's an experiment and that only the souls of the truly evil are thrown to the three-headed dragon suggests a certa
in amount of optimism to me. That the Hundred-Handed always think the best of people and need to be convinced beyond doubt of their dark side.'

  So he had been doing more than just a fraction of his job, then.

  'Beth took over at the same time as Rome officially took office,' she told him.

  'Is that important?'

  'You tell me.'

  'Actually, I was rather hoping there was something you might want to tell me.'

  'Such as?'

  'Well, let's start with the reason you came back to Gaul. The reason, in fact, why you're here.'

  The Security Spider luring the fly into his sticky little web? Honestly, Marcus! Does it look like I have wings?

  'Providing you tell me why you're here,' she said sweetly.

  'Because you asked me.'

  'If I asked you to jump in the river, would you do that as well?'

  He looked at the stream.

  'My ankles would get awfully wet, but I suppose I might make the sacrifice.'

  The twinkle died in his eye.

  'Claudia.'

  He leaned so close that she could smell his sandalwood unguent even over the smell of livestock and hay. And, she thought, maybe a faint hint of rosemary.

  'For someone who flies in the face of male chauvinism herself,' he said, 'you're surprisingly antagonistic towards these priestesses and alarmingly passionate about solving this child's murder. Don't get me wrong, I find it admirable, but at the same time I can't help wondering - what does Clytie mean to you?'

  There it was again. Thirteen long years ago, climbing the stairs ... opening the door ...

  Dammit, no matter how many times that memory flashed, it never changed and never softened. Not even in her dreams - in her nightmares - had Claudia walked into that room to find her mother laughing and happy, arms outstretched in welcome, sober and delighted to see her. The memory had stayed true in every respect. Her mother remained limp. Waxy. Somebody else.

  And there was never a note beside the body.

  Suddenly, the stench of congealed blood overwhelmed the scent of sandalwood and now all she could hear was the buzz, not of bees, but of blowflies. Bluebottles, gorging themselves on her mother's spent life—

  She looked at Marcus with eyes that were as dead as her mother. As dead as the life she'd left behind.

  'Nothing,' she said coldly. 'Clytie means nothing at all.'

  From deep in the undergrowth, a pair of eyes that were neither green nor blue but somewhere in between followed the exchange with interest. Too far away to catch the exchange, enough words drifted across to convey the gist. That bit about insurrection was particularly interesting. As was the part about the pit.

  Hidden by the thicket, his crouching figure went unnoticed by the girl as she went striding past, and half a minute maybe more passed before Pretty Boy eventually stood up, hefted the bale on to his shoulder and marched off down the path, whistling under his breath.

  The eyes in the bushes might not be either truly green or truly blue.

  But truly they were smiling.

  The Scorpion slipped his ring back on his finger.

  The hinge of the writing tablet flipped quietly open. With painstaking care, the stylus scored deep into the wax.

  No secret can ever be safe.

  The pen hesitated. Should it, or shouldn't it, add anything else? It tapped against the lip of the writer while it weighed up the consequences. Then, without bothering to etch another syllable, it positioned itself diagonally across the open wooden tablet.

  The author took another long look round Claudia's room and, nodding in satisfaction, withdrew on silent feet.

  Thirteen

  In the Hall of the Pentagram, the flickering candles turned the robes of the priestesses iridescent as they took their seats round the star-shaped table. Sparkling silver next to flashing yellow. Shimmering brown beside flaming red. Sinuous black merging with silver again. But this tableau of elegance and sophistication was betrayed by the rapid amount of finger flicking, hand tossing, signing and gesticulating that passed between the five women. An infusion of lime blossom and lavender simmered softly in the corner. It did nothing to calm the mood of the meeting.

  'I don't understand why this Claudia creature is so interested in Clytie,' Fearn flashed furiously.

  'Is she?' Dora countered. 'So interested, I mean, rather than simply interested? After all, a twelve-year-old girl was murdered, one of our novices, then her body moved, painted and artfully arranged. Wouldn't that fire anyone's curiosity?'

  'That woman doesn't strike me as the type to engage in morbid curiosity for its own sake,' Luisa signed, with an agitated fluff of her rowan-red gown.

  'Typical.' Dora rolled her eyes in disgust. 'Decline has barely spoken to the girl, yet once again she's treating us with the benefit of her expert opinion.'

  'My judgement's based on instinct and observation the same as yours,' Luisa retorted hotly, 'so don't you dare presume to question it.'

  'It might be based on the same criteria, my dear, but it doesn't follow that it's sound.'

  'The point is,' Fearn cut in, 'someone needs to tell that meddling bitch to keep her nose out of our affairs!'

  'Curiosity killed the cat,' Luisa signed, looking at no one in particular.

  'People come to the Hundred-Handed for guidance and healing.' Beth stood up and began to pace the room. 'They're bound to be curious about what this College stands for, its beliefs, its customs, its laws. But on this occasion I do find myself agreeing with Growth.'

  Fearn gave a told-you-so toss of her raven black hair in Dora's direction. Luisa wrinkled her nose in support.

  'Claudia's curiosity does bother me,' Beth added.

  'She's questioned Vanessia, Aridella and Lin,' Fearn pointed out. 'She's talked to Gurdo.'

  'And Mavor and Swarbric,' the Rowan Priestess listed helpfully. 'And they're just the ones that we know of.'

  Beth circled the table twice then sat down, smoothing her silver gown flat.

  'What convinces me that Claudia's questioning goes beyond straightforward prying is that she enquired about souls, isn't that right, Ailm?'

  The Death Priestess threw her hands in the air.

  'You slated me for not getting involved in the witchcraft vote, yet it's midsummer tomorrow, the second most important date in the calendar after the New Year, yet the best you can talk about is some stupid Roman who'll be gone from here in two days.'

  She stood up and marched to the door, her black robes billowing behind her.

  'I'll be casting the death runes if anyone wants me.'

  'Ailm is right, of course,' Beth signed, as the door reverberated on its hinges, extinguishing half a dozen or more candles. 'I don't underestimate how unsettling it is for -well, all of us to have a stranger stirring up this unfortunate tragedy, but we do need to maintain perspective.'

  She glanced at Dora, who stared impassively back.

  'If, after two days, you wish to call another Pentagram, Fearn, should the problem still persist, then you may do so. Until then, though, and since my vote is worth three and Ailm's opinion we know, I declare this assembly null and void, and since it never took place, we will not speak of it again.'

  'Now can I go and get my lunch?' Dora asked aloud, and though it was to Fearn and Luisa that her words were

  addressed, it was to the Head of the College that her fingers signalled once behind her back. The message that the priestess flashed was simple.

  Thank you.'

  Fourteen

  With the approach of midsummer, preparations for the solstice were in full swing. Alternating between the force of her personality and her stentorian tones, Dora had conscripted a large percentage of the priestesses to help organize the festival that was dedicated to the mighty oak and everything it stood for. Leading her troops down the cliff and over the bridge towards the Field of Celebration, maturity, strength, courage and endurance would be the theme for a range of activities that would last a full twenty-four h
ours, commencing at sunset with the one event universal to all religious beliefs. The bonfire.

  Here, in a wide open pasture edged with poplar and alder, the sheep that cropped the grass and kept the College in tasty lamb and mutton had been corralled into makeshift pens, while what appeared to be the entire male labour force had been put to work erecting daises for the priestesses and rigging up canopies to shield the crowd from the ferocious noonday sun. Dressed in his customary green shirt and pantaloons, Gurdo scribbled chalk marks on the grass as indicators for siting casks of healing spring water, while under the watchful eye of their plump, brown-robed general, novices in headdresses made from gilded acorns practised their routines. The older girls glided back and forth with graceful precision. The plates in the hands of the younger ones wobbled with nerves.

  'No, no, no, Aridella.'

  Dora's voice boomed out even over the sawing of timbers, the knocking of nails and initiates rehearsing the Oak Song.

  'Good heavens, child, the flames you're supposed to be carrying will either have blown right out or set the whole congregation alight. Like this, dear.'

  For her size, she was remarkably nimble and, as she balanced the dish high on splayed fingertips, Claudia caught a glimpse of the stunning sylph Dora once was.

  'Try again, Aridella.' She handed the bowl back and watched the little novice imitate her actions. 'Excellent, absolutely perfect,' she said, even though there was little discernible difference. 'Now you try, Vanessia. Good girl!'

  On the far side of the meadow, Claudia could see Orbilio and Manion, wordlessly engaged in the business of bonfire construction, aided by the youth she'd seen with Swarbric earlier. Though the sky was still mostly covered by cloud, the temperature had started to soar and all three had removed their shirts to cope with the heat, their bodies glistening with sweat. Connal's face was dark with something more than concentration on his task, though, and she wondered whether, like Pod and Sarra, he and Elusa were also planning to use these preparations as a cover for their illicit activities. How far would they get? she wondered dully. Connal was a foreigner and Elusa had never left the College grounds. Neither had a clue what lay beyond the vista they could see and frankly Claudia doubted they'd cover five miles before the guards tracked them down. Watching Connal's scowl deepen with every branch he threw on, she knew that either way the lovers were heading for tragedy.