Scorpion Rising

by Marilyn Todd

  'And you?'

  'Me?' Another long sigh. 'We need to move forward, one always must, but not by changing our teachings, my dear. What needs to change is the way that life is perceived here.'

  'I'm sensing that we're not talking about how outsiders see you?'

  'If only it was that simple,' Beth said. 'Unfortunately, there is a strong movement within the College that is pushing for priestesses to marry - and not just priestesses. Initiates,

  supervisors, they believe every one of us has the right to what they consider to be a "normal" life.'

  'Which you feel will dilute your status as a religious body and lower your standing in the community?'

  'I am not against love, how could I be? Love is the pivot upon which the world turns and it is the reason we expel our menfolk at the age of forty, while they are still young enough to raise families of their own - I see that surprises you.'

  Claudia shifted her torch to the other hand while her eyebrows returned to their customary level. 'Actually, yes.'

  'Did you honestly think we wouldn't want people we cared for to be happy?' Beth asked. 'Of course we want them to have wives, children, grandchildren and all the other things they deserve but which we cannot give them.'

  'And which you yourselves are denied?'

  'Our system is far from ideal, I agree, but I am prepared to lay down my life to preserve it, flaws and all, in order to retain the respect of the tribes.' In the torchlight, she looked older than her forty-six years. 'These people,' she said wearily, 'look to us for spiritual guidance and healing, and in doing so, they look up to us as well. We cannot teach them that nature is constant if the very College that serves it keeps changing.'

  Claudia stared at the ancient handprints daubed on the walls. At the bears, which, she realized now, had undoubtedly been sacrificed to long-forgotten gods.

  'What happens to those who rebel?' she asked dully.

  And how could such a hideous death chamber be sited in so beautiful a location?

  'Ah.' Beth clucked her tongue. 'You know about the Pit, then.'

  For several long minutes, both women remained locked in their own silence. It was the Head of the College who finally broke it.

  'Fearn argues that by changing our way of life to incorporate marriage, it will eliminate the necessity for the Pit, and such a philosophy is bound to gather momentum.'

  'Especially among the younger girls,' Claudia said, picturing Elusa's blonde, almost white, hair.

  'Who cannot imagine old bags like me ever had feelings,' Beth replied with a soft laugh. 'But instead of bending and thus making the College weaker, I believe we must show strength by believing in ourselves and standing by our convictions.'

  'Whatever the cost?'

  An eternity seemed to pass before she finally answered. 'Yes,' she said at last. 'Whatever the cost.'

  Maybe it was the cool of the chamber that kept Claudia bound to the place. Maybe it was the pull of ancient religions, a sense of holiness in pagan surroundings. But she couldn't have walked away if she tried.

  'What happens to priestesses when they die?' she asked. Because the Gauls liked to honour their dead every bit as much as a Roman, though instead of lining their approach roads with sumptuous tombs, they opted for moated graveyards way out of town. Yet Claudia had seen nothing resembling a cemetery round these parts, even though the Hundred-Handed had been established here for three hundred years.

  Beth pointed upwards, and Claudia lifted her torch. High above their heads, with access that could only be reached by a ladder, a ledge had been gouged out of the rock. On it sat a series of huge painted pots. At an educated guess, they numbered fifty, and each was as tall as a man.

  'Their ashes are kept in these urns.'

  Ashes? This was contrary to all Gaulish principles, where they liked to line their graves with planks of wood, preferably oak, and send their loved ones into the next life with as many personal possessions as they could cram in. Oh, and yes. Where it was crucial that the corpse remained as close to physically perfect as possible! Then she remembered Orbilio saying how the Greeks came to Gaul and the Gauls went to Greece, and how the cult of the water priestesses had somehow merged into this cult of nature priestesses. The women who talked with their hands.

  And the Greeks, like the Romans, cremated their dead—

  'I must go,' Beth said. 'Tomorrow is midsummer, there is much work to do, and my absence will be noticed before long.'

  All the same, she seemed in no hurry to return to the upper world.

  'This is your escape,' Claudia said.

  'My dear, as head of the order, there is no escape,' the Birch Priestess laughed. 'But down here I am at least free to think.'

  'Among the dead?'

  'Among old friends,' she corrected with a smile. 'And when there is so much discord among the living, believe me, this is no bad place to reflect.'

  Claudia studied the rows of pots high above her head. 'Is Clytie here?' she asked softly.

  'Only those who qualify for the fifty elite may have their ashes added to their predecessors',' Beth said, and her dark eyes were sad. 'For the rest, their ashes are scattered to nature and this is one of the hardest tasks that falls upon me. Telling the novices that they will not be admitted as Initiates of Light.'

  'The scattering of ashes doesn't seem to bother them.'

  'It is because they know no better, but to us, to the HundredHanded, the preservation of remains is sacrosanct. It is a secret that we, quite literally, carry with us to our graves.'

  And beyond, Claudia thought, and now she looked closely she realized that the paintings on the pots were not random. Yellow for gorse, silver for birch, black, green, purple for heather, red like Luisa's shiny bright rowans.

  'What disqualifies a novice?' she asked.

  'I prefer to think of it in terms of what gifts they can bring,' Beth said, smoothing her robe. 'But basically we look for balance, sound judgement, sensitivity and altruism. There is certainly no room for fluster or panic'

  Don't be fooled by that rough-and-tumble, Sarra had said, talking of Vanessia, Aridella and Lin. Those games stimulate their sharp little brains and believe me, they're clever, those girls. Vanessia's already qualified for Initiatehood, and without any shadow of doubt, the others will follow. Those three have the dedication and determination I never had, the fairy had added. That's for sure.

  'Was Clytie up to the job, Beth?'

  'No.'

  The answer came without hesitation. Only with sadness.

  'Did you tell her?' Claudia asked, biting her lip.

  'No.'

  The answer still came without hesitation. Except this time, it was accompanied by relief.

  'No, my dear, it is my one consolation that I hadn't got round to telling the poor child.' Beth sighed. 'At least Clytie died without knowing she'd been rejected.'

  As Gauls from the surrounding forests flocked to celebrate the summer solstice in revels that would last through until sunset the following day, Marcus Cornelius Orbilio tossed the last log on the bonfire. It was a giant of a pile, the biggest he'd ever seen that was for sure, although he wasn't sure the night would need additional heat. Hot and sticky, the temperature had barely dipped as the light faded and he decided he wouldn't fancy being close to this fire once it was lit. In these pants, he saw himself poaching to death.

  Whereas the spring equinox, now. He brushed the dust off his hands down the length of his trousers. The spring equinox was celebrated by many religions, not purely Roman, with beacon fires to represent the sun's triumph over darkness and with gorse representing the golden rays of the sun. Glancing at the crowds pouring into the Field of Celebration, Orbilio wasn't convinced either that Clytie's killer used the festival to sate some demonic bloodlust - how could they, for a start? The meadow was fenced off with a forbidding palisade whose gates were guarded by local men armed with knives and spears.

  And the murder seemed a lot more complicated than mere logistics, too. Clytie
had been lured, undoubtedly by prior arrangement, down to that rock by the river. Now a young woman might be tricked into such a meeting - love makes fools of us all - but no twelve-year-old child would be duped by a stranger. Especially when that child lived her life in a bubble. And if Orbilio needed a seal on that hypothesis, it was that sex wasn't the motive for Clytie's murder.

  He wished he knew what the hell was.

  To a slow beat of drums, the Oak Priestess mounted the dais resplendent in a brown robe embroidered with thousands

  of tiny gold acorns. As the choir sang sweet hymns in praise of courage and strength, the four other pentagram priestesses joined her, holding hands to form the eternal circle of life, from birth through until death. Novices of all ages came skipping forward and each was handed a bowl by a smiling Dora, who seemed totally unconcerned that the sky was full of clouds rather than stars as her finger joints repeated the same quick triple flick to each girl before they skipped off. The bowls, he'd been told, were to collect the midsummer dew. The novices would have their work cut out for them with this dawn, he thought.

  Stifling a yawn as the bonfire was lit to deafening cheers, Marcus knew sleep was out of the question. Tonight he had been co-opted to turn the ox on the spit. Tomorrow he was one of the fifty men chosen to fire an arrow into the zenith of the sun (they'd be lucky as well!). But as a seasoned investigator and with his military background, he was well used to the concept of catnaps. He could catch up on sleep if he wanted.

  He didn't.

  All afternoon, he had been building up that bonfire with the help of a man who called himself Manion. The man who Orbilio now knew was the Scorpion.

  Watching children dance round the fire as the dull grey clouds fused with the night and Gauls in bright chequered plaid and with jewellery adorning every spare inch of their body tossed back horns brimming with beer, he mulled over what Roman intelligence had been able to gather about the Scorpion's background.

  His tribe was the Bituriges; it translated as 'Kings of the World', which was precisely what they were to the Gauls. Through shrewd political alliances (plus some pretty resolute defending), their influence extended over every tribe from the centre of Gaul to the Pyrenees and right up to the River Loire. Ferocious warriors with a penchant for guerrilla tactics, Julius Caesar had wisely left the Bituriges alone and even Augustus had resorted to diplomacy to win them over. Well. Diplomacy with the twin carrots of prosperity and autonomy dangled before them, but who's counting?

  And since it was one of life's ironies that the Bituriges

  only ever went to war to maintain peace, they were more than happy to have other men fight their wars, whilst taking ostentatious pleasure in policing the lesser tribes to ensure they abandoned their old headhunting ways and gave up their wicker-man sacrifice. In fact, revelling in their status as imperially approved overlords, the Kings of the World broadcast the fact that there was no room in this prosperous, modern, forward-thinking society for any hothead with insurgent tendencies.

  So when an impatient young man pushed for war against Rome, they decided the most effective way to deal with this burr under the tribal saddle was to expel it.

  Similarly, there was no room in the impatient young man's life for cowards and, styling himself the Scorpion, he turned to crime to finance his cause. Heaven knew there were enough Gauls who had not settled happily under the yoke, malcontents who didn't work and didn't want to, and thus didn't profit from the occupying force. And when you took in the sheer number of tribes that comprised the Nation as a whole, the Carnutes, the Pictones, the Vocates to name just a few, the Scorpion wasn't short of allies. Cunning, passionate and wholly dedicated to ousting Rome from Aquitania, he managed to turn small-scale theft into a large-scale, well-organized syndicate that then became a burr under the imperial saddle instead.

  Luckily for Orbilio, newly promoted to this equally new branch of the Security Police, most of the crime centred around Santonum, since this was the seat of most trade and therefore the most profitable to rob. Fine. Orbilio was well used to handling gangsters and, embracing the challenge of scotching rebellion, he'd pored over the intelligence reports. And could see why the Governor was worried.

  After several months of concerted investigation, everything his men knew about the Scorpion could still be written on a thumbnail with room to spare. Average height, average build, no distinguishing features: he became the garrison's nightmare. Paste on a false beard, he was an Assyrian. Comb his hair back, loop up his tunic and he was a Spaniard. He'd proved as oily as grease, the reports stated with monotonous regularity, covering his tracks more thoroughly than an

  Egyptian sand tracker and ensuring that no felonies could be traced directly to him. Any that were, he swiftly dealt with, they added. Or rather employed shadowy figures to deal with on his behalf. And the reports were clear. No one crossed the Scorpion and lived to tell the tale.

  Turning the giant handle on the spit, Marcus watched the juices drip off the ox and recalled one particular instance where the soldiers thought they had this self-styled sponsor of Aquitanian independence cornered. A reliable informant had passed on details of a meeting between the Scorpion and his deputy, a man called Ptian, another of society's outcasts. This was good news, since Ptian was rumoured to be as cunning and callous as his general and, surrounding the tenement, the captain in charge saw promotion writ large as two birds were felled with the same stone. Yet when his informant gave the signal that the ringleader had passed inside the building, a thorough search of all six storeys revealed no Scorpion, no Ptian and sod-all by way of evidence, either. It was only one pen-pusher's afterthought that mentioned a pair of drunks slumped in the gutter, and Orbilio raised a wry smile as he'd read it. The slippery bastards had sloughed their skins when the first shout of Raid! hit the rafters.

  Around him, revellers feasted on roast meats, cheeses and bread while the men sang loud songs which talked of brave deeds and heroes, victories and blood feuds, while small boys waved imaginary swords and the women clustered in small knots to gossip.

  '... dreadful ...'

  '... don't believe a word of it ...'

  . . me neither. If she was going to cuckold her husband, I'm sure it wouldn't be with his spotty apprentice.'

  'The boy hotly denied it, but the miller had evidence and he threw the lad out on his ear.'

  'Evidence?'

  'Yes, somebody saw them, didn't you know, and sent the miller a note. The lowest millstone grinds as well at the top. Couldn't be plainer, could it, my dear?'

  'Yes, but what about our flour, that's what I want to know. There'll be a backlog now that they're one hand short—' Marcus Cornelius turned his attention back to the Scorpion

  and the problem he had been faced with. Namely, how could he hope to achieve what his predecessors could not and trap the Scorpion and thwart his uprising? Well. For a start, he had at his disposal the Governor's foresight to form a new branch of the Security Police. And since insurrection relies on good communication and sound information, Orbilio had set this dedicated force to wreaking as much havoc as possible within the Scorpion's own intelligence network. In the same way that Rome received masses of misinformation, part of the role of his taskforce was to plant informants of their own and relay the same equally incorrect information back down the communication lines. A tactic that would cause sufficient confusion to at least delay any uprising until it was too late and the campaigning season was over. Until yesterday, Orbilio thought that tactic was working.

  He wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.

  That Manion had staged that business of the lost signet ring was beyond doubt, just as he'd swapped the task that he'd originally been allotted to work alongside Orbilio to build up the fire.

  He needed to be careful he was not growing paranoid. It might well have been nothing more than an elaborate charade to draw another disenchanted sucker into his scorpioidal net.

  But his money was on Manion knowing exactly w
ho Pretty Boy was.

  Orbilio listened to the fats sizzle as they dripped into the flames and, as slices of beef were carved off and passed round, his thoughts turned to rebellion, to blood feuds and Claudia Seferius.

  And the way the Scorpion had wiped the honey away from her mouth ...

  Seventeen

  So who's your money on, Lofty Legs?'

  Dawn was breaking thick, dull and sticky when Claudia felt a sharp finger prodding her in the ribs. 'Vanessia or the girl with the widow's peak?'

  'Excuse me?' She frowned at the dwarf, who was rubbing his hands together in a gesture she just knew was a parody.

  'Don't give me that sniffy I-don't-like-a-bet look, I know you.' Gurdo's face twisted up at one side as he examined the pendant round her neck. 'Amber makes a good stake.' 'What are you putting into the kitty?'

  'Me?' His shoulders shrugged. 'Lady, I never lose, but if it keeps you happy, I suppose I could toss in a whistle-stop tour round the Cave of Resurrection.'

  The malevolent glint in his eye told her that he knew damn well she'd already taken it. Like Pod said, the crafty little bugger could see round corners.

  'Thank you, but I've lost interest in dark, murky places,' she said, unhooking the pendant and slapping it into his open palm. 'I'll let you know what I want once I've won, and do you mind telling me what we're betting on here?'

  'The dew-gathering, Lofty Legs.' His green shirt was dark in the places it stuck to his body and sweat-dampened tendrils of hair clung to his forehead. 'Because just when you think you know these women, something catches you by surprise, doesn't it?'

  Fruitlessly trying to fan some air to her own clammy skin, Claudia considered Beth's revelations that the men were released at forty to enable them to settle down, albeit in slavery, and her confidences regarding the discord seething within the College. It wasn't so much a case of what this little green dandy knew, she realized. More what he didn't know ...

  'See, it's not enough that they send novices to collect the dew on the quarter days, is it? There's a competition to see who brings back the most.'