by Marilyn Todd
Twenty-Four
Lining up to collect his arrow, Orbilio weighted the ceremonial bow in his hand and took his hat off to the craftsman who fashioned it. Each silver handgrip was skilfully engraved with an emblem to reflect the birch, the moon, the fishes, whatever. Every aspect of nature was covered. Last night lots had been drawn to determine which slave fired which priestess's colours, and as he ran his finger over the exquisite etching, he could almost feel the gorse come to life in his hands. As an investigator, he did not believe in coincidence, especially where crime was concerned, but there had been no fiddling when it came to the drawing of lots and he did believe in destiny. That it was perhaps preordained that he should draw the bow of Clytie's mother as he worked to unmask the monster that took Clytie's life.
Not, to be truthful, that her death took priority at the moment.
Yes of course he wanted to avenge the girl's death and rid the world of a monster, but (back to coincidence) he didn't believe it was chance that left Clytie dead on the spring equinox and Sarra dead at midsummer. Unfortunately, more lives were at stake now than a sick killer's victims. The Scorpion was out of its cage.
What's the bastard up to? he wondered. What's he doing here, at the College, why at midsummer, and why attach himself to Orbilio? There was a distinct smell of fish in the air, but despite the amount of time they'd spent together, he was still no closer to understanding Manion's game. One thing, though. The bastard was dangerous. He didn't trust him an inch.
From the corner of his eye, he caught two hands wind-
milling above the heads of the crowd. That something appeared to be Claudia. He waved back.
There was only one explanation Marcus could think of to explain the Scorpion's presence. Rebellion.
'Gorse!' she yelled out. 'Gorse!'
'Thanks,' he mouthed back, holding up his bow, though he was surprised at such eager support. 'But you know me. Fearn's arrow today, Cupid's arrow tomorrow. Fancy pinning your colours to that?'
Forget the campaigning season, he thought. This was a man who'd been shunned by his tribe for speaking out against Rome but who didn't roll over under the shame. He went out and built up an army.
In Rome's eyes, it was nothing but a raggle-taggle bunch of boozers and losers, but at their head were two clever men. Together, Manion and his deputy, Ptian, had used crime to build up a rich seam of funds, and the money must have gone somewhere. Weapons, armour, food and supplies, they had to be as well organized as the crimes they set up and as smart as the false intelligence they'd sent back to Rome. However, with limited numbers, these so-called Saviours of Gaul couldn't possibly charge the legions head on. Orbilio's guess was that they'd use guerrilla tactics, striking when the enemy expected it least, and in ways it would not imagine.
'Not gorse, horse!' Claudia was making galloping actions. 'You need a horse,' she was shouting.
'I'm Taurus, not Sagittarius,' he laughed back, but it only served to deepen the scowl on her face.
Was it any wonder men did not understand women?
'Bit late, I'm afraid,' Manion puffed in his ear. 'Couple of things to sort out and time kind of ran away on me.' He made an intricate gesture with his bow in Claudia's direction. 'Have I missed much?'
Marcus doubted the Scorpion missed anything. 'Not so you'd notice,' he assured him with a smile.
'Hurry it along, you two, this isn't a mothers' meeting, you know.' Gurdo's temper wasn't improved by murder, it seemed. 'We fire at midday not bloody midnight.'
'Whoops.'
Manion jumped forward to collect the arrow tipped with
Fearn's gorse-coloured feathers. Orbilio took Luisa's red favours behind.
'These are the wrong way round,' he said.
'Does it matter?' Manion had already notched the shaft in its rest.
'Superstition among the Hundred-Handed says that to accept an arrow out of its allotted order brings bad luck.'
Though it didn't specify whether that bad luck befell the archer, the priestess or the aspect of nature that she protected.
'Want to swap back, Pretty Boy?'
'I'm not superstitious,' Marcus said, holding his gaze.
From the dais, Dora's voice boomed across the field as they turned round to take their positions to fire.
'Now, with the year at its zenith, we, the Hundred-Handed, give ourselves back to the earth that we came from, and with each favour, send out an arrow of peace. Are the archers ready?'
Fifty heads nodded, and at Gurdo's signal, fifty bowstrings were drawn back to their chests.
'Then let a simultaneous loosing of fifty arrows demonstrate the harmony of nature and of this order ...'
A trumpet blew. Gurdo's hand came down. A rainbow of feathers flew into the sky. The crowd roared. It was over. The midsummer celebrations had come to an end. All boded well for the future.
Then a scream filled the air.
Piercing and protracted, it was a scream filled with agony. The whole field fell silent at once. Then a girl came rushing over, her face drained of colour, and Orbilio recognized her as the novice who'd won the dew competition. The crowd parted as Vanessia came forward.
'What on earth is it, child?' Dora asked, but with every step the girl took, the crowd drew back in horror.
Then he saw it.
In Vanessia's hands hung a bloodied black raven, from which one of the arrows protruded. Dora gasped. Beth gasped. All the priestesses and initiates gasped.
So did Marcus.
Mother of Tarquin, everyone in the Gaulish world knew that the souls of the priestesses were reborn as ravens. To
kill one of these birds, no matter how, meant certain death, execution in the Pit of Reflection. He swallowed.
'Whose arrow is it?' someone rasped in his ear.
Orbilio couldn't answer.
He simply stared at its bright rowan-red feathers, sick in the knowledge that the arrow was his.
Twenty-Five
The very mention of the word June conjures up bright sun-kissed days and extended warm evenings, stars twinkling brightly and poppies nodding at the end of long velvety stems. It's when aubretia and thyme tumble down hills in thick purple cascades, when kingfishers dart, buzzards ride the thermals and mew, when brimstone butterflies vie with buttercups and flag irises for the honour of the brightest yellow. Midsummer is when leaves are at their greenest, grass at its lushest and skylarks are warbling over the meadows to take spirits soaring up there alongside them.
Now, it seemed, June was the season of death.
Or at least the condemning to death. July was when it would take place.
By the time dehydration and starvation finally claimed the pit's victim, the roses would be over, fairy rings would appear.
Marcus Cornelius would not be alive to see them.
There were no tears left. Her throat was raw from pleading, from threatening, she'd tried every tactic that she could think of, from bullying, hitting, scratching and biting to begging, bribing and blackmail.
Nothing penetrated the wall the Hundred-Handed put up. These were their grounds, these were their rules and they brooked no intervention.
Negotiation was not part of the deal.
'Listen, lady.' Gurdo sat by the empty shell that was Claudia Seferius in the cave and filled a stone grail with water. 'It doesn't matter if he's the Roman bloody Emperor, your friend killed a raven and the penalty for killing ravens is death.'
There was something about the smell of the water that made Claudia push it away.
'Drink it,' he insisted. 'It's black hellebore, which has already served Pod well today. It'll do you no harm to sleep deep at the moment.'
'I can't. I need to be there—'
'No, you don't,' Gurdo snapped. 'That's why I had you brought down here! You didn't want to watch while they threw him—'
'Yes, I did,' she wailed, hurling the grail at the wall. 'Don't you understand? It was me that brought him here in the first place, me that got him bloody well killed!'
'It was an accident, Lofty Legs, and accidents happen. You can't blame yourself any more than you can blame the raven for flying across that glade. There's nothing you can do about fate.'
Oh, Marcus, why didn't you listen to me? Why didn't you take that bloody horse from the stables and ride? Ride down and catch up with Swarbric?
Gurdo bent down to retrieve the vessel and filled it with water from the spring. 'You won't like what I'm going to say, but I'm going to say it anyway.' He let the trickle run over his hand. 'The best thing you can do for your friend is keep away from that place, do you hear me?'
'But—'
'But nothing, lady.' His mouth turned down in an inverted U. 'There's no trial, no appeal, you know that already. Nothing can change those priestesses' minds, and it doesn't matter whether they think the Pit is barbaric or not, this is one of the few issues on which there's no going back.' He paused and took a deep breath. 'Not that it matters. By now, they'll have thrown your friend down the cliff and that's why I say stay away.'
He knelt in front of her and placed his hands on her quivering shoulders.
'He'll have broken bones, internal bleeding, he'll be lying among the rotting remains of other poor sods,' he said, 'without food, without water and without anything to dull his pain.'
An animal sound came from somewhere close by. Claudia had no idea it was her.
'What he won't need is some woman weeping over him, making him feel even worse,' Gurdo continued steadily. 'Because physical pain is one thing, Lofty Legs. All you'd be doing is adding to it with emotional torture.'
At the bottom of the Pit, Marcus Cornelius felt something wet trickle down the side of his face and although he hadn't explored with his fingers yet, there was something badly wrong where his belt should have been.
It had happened so fast, that was the thing. One moment he was standing on the field, staring at the arrow sticking out of the raven. The next, rough hands had grabbed him, too many to fight, and he'd been carried yelling and kicking round the rock, up the hill, and flung into a fissure.
Vaguely he'd been aware of the priestesses' white faces, notably Beth's, which was carved of stone. But most of all he'd been aware of a wild animal howling, spitting, scratching, clawing at his captors as they climbed the hill, until half a dozen local Gauls pulled her off and carried her screaming off down to the river.
And now what?
High above, he could hear the song of a robin, but here it was blackness, hell come to life, and, among the rotting remains of other poor sods, knowing he was without food, without water, and with only a thin slit in the rocks through which he could see daylight, Marcus Cornelius rolled himself into a ball and cried like a baby.
His only consolation was that Claudia wasn't around to witness his ultimate humiliation.
'Orbilio, is that you skiving down there at the foot of that rock?'
Her voice sounded croaky, it must be the echo. He sniffed, cleared his throat and called back.
'Do you mind?' He blew his nose on his fingers. 'I'm mining for silver, if you please. It grows wild in these parts, I've been told.'
'Fiddlesticks, that's gold and you pluck it from trees.' There was a pause the length of two heartbeats. 'I'm going to get you out of there, you do you realize that?'
She'd have better luck picking nuggets from trees. 'I'm perfectly comfortable, thanks all the same.'
This time the pause was longer, and the voice was croakier still. It seemed an awfully long way away.
'Typical, Marcus. Always thinking of yourself, but I'll have you know there are fences to mend and pigs to muck out. The world can't wait while you pamper yourself, and don't tell me you didn't contrive this little charade so you'd add more bruises to your collection in the hope that the Hundred-Handed don't bed damaged goods.'
For a moment, he just couldn't speak.
'It's not the sex-slave part that bothers me,' he eventually called back. 'It's where they stick the tattoo.' He closed his eyes then opened them. 'Claudia.'
'M-Marcus?'
'Why did you come back?' He had to know. 'Why did you come back to Gaul?'
There was no reply for several minutes. He thought she must have gone away. 'Good grief, Orbilio, I wish you'd conserve your energies for something important, like climbing the rope I'll send down later, for instance.'
When he drew a deep breath, his ribs hurt.
'Don't you think it a bit odd that the entrance to this pit isn't guarded?' he said. 'There's no rope here long enough to reach, Claudia. There is no way up from this pit.'
'Then I'll ride straight to the Governor—'
'Claudia!' The pain that tore through him squeezed his eyes shut, but the pain had no physical source. 'Claudia, this is sacred ground. Even Rome won't go against their decision.'
For once nothing, not his wealth, his breeding, his family name or his rank, could extricate him from this, and whilst Rome might beat its breast over one of its sons - and who knows, maybe even erect a statue to him in some obscure square - Rome would not intervene in religious matters. It was imperial policy, he knew it and, judging from the time it took to reply, so did she.
'What am I going to do?' she whispered into the hole. 'Marcus, tell me what I must do.'
Pain washed over him like he'd never known. 'There's only one thing you can do for me, Claudia.'
'Anything, darling, just name it.'
There was a tightness in his chest. Nausea rose up to engulf him. 'Go away,' he rasped. 'Please.' He was fighting for breath. 'Just, please ... please go away.'
He thought he heard crying, the racking of sobs. 'People keep telling me to do that, but I can't. I can't leave you down there on your own.'
'Yes, you can. You're strong, Claudia, stronger than you think, and if you . . . if you - ' he bit into his knuckle - 'if you care anything for me, you'll go. Now. Before it gets dark.'
'I—'
'Please, darling, don't make this harder. Just ... just promise me, swear on the life of your mother, that you'll walk away and never come back.'
An eternity passed before she answered. His head pounded like rocks in a storm.
'You have no idea what my mother's life means when you ask me to swear an oath on it,' she said slowly. 'You asked why I came back here to Gaul, and I'll tell you, it was to come to terms with her suicide.' A sigh multiplied with its own echoes. 'I saw her choosing death over me, her only child, as rejection. She didn't even leave me a note. And since it was only last autumn that I came here to find my father, it took precious little to open old wounds. The death of a twelve-year-old child with her lifeblood drained out was enough to trigger a quest. Justice for her, answers for me. Sweet Janus, I needed them both.'
He said nothing. Just waited. And the pain where his belt should have been doubled. It was the only time she'd ever talked of her past.
'But that wasn't the reason, my darling. I could have taken a different path, one that did not bring me back, and all right, it might have meant killing a man, but hell.' She tried for a joke. 'He was only a Spaniard and they don't count.'
He couldn't laugh if he'd wanted.
'I came back,' she said, 'because of you.'
Nausea washed over him. To think he'd left Rome because he thought she didn't care. He pressed his fingers over his eyes. 'Do ... do you love me?'
'You know I do, dammit.' He could almost see her scowl.
'Good.' He pressed harder. 'Now swear on the life of your dead mother that you'll walk away from this Pit and never come back.'
There was a long pause, he thought he heard sobbing. 'If that's what you want,' her voice was unrecognizable, 'very well. I swear I will walk away on the count of ten, and I will ... I will never come back.'
He thought she might be waiting for him to protest, but he didn't. He dared not. Drumming up every ounce of courage, Marcus began the countdown aloud and to his credit, his voice didn't shake. When he reached eight, he stopped to hear her call down, 'Eight and a quarter,' but only
silence filled the space in between them. By the time he reached nine, he knew she would answer. This was Claudia, for heaven's sake! But she made no reply, even when he called ten, then he couldn't control himself any longer. Ashamed of his weakness, he called her name softly. And then he shouted it loud. But Claudia Seferius had kept to her oath.
And this time, Marcus didn't care if the whole world heard his heart break.
Twenty-Six
For every problem, my lady, there is always a solution,' Manion said, without lifting his eyes from the wood he was whittling. 'The only predicament comes when there's a choice.'
'Trust me, options are limited,' Claudia said.
They were beneath the point of the arrowhead rock, at the place where the tip was the sharpest. Above them, trees, mainly rowan and oak, clung for dear life to gaps in the stone, while holly and broom tumbled down in spiky profusion, but here at the bottom the boulders were mossy. For though the promontory faced the southern sun, in the dense shade of the forest, little daylight penetrated. And if Manion was surprised that she, a stranger, had found him in this secluded spot where he'd settled himself with back to the stone, that surprise did not show on his face. He simply continued to whittle the piece in his hand, blowing away the shavings with sensual care.
'What incentive are you offering?' he asked after a while, and she could smell his soft nutmeg scent.
'Freedom?'
If she was wrong about him placing himself in the auction, then bearing in mind that Swarbric had discovered a way out of here, between herself, her bodyguard and a few well-greased palms, escape shouldn't prove too much of a challenge. Once in Santonum, a change of clothing, a wig, and that average build, that nondescript face would instantly melt into a crowd. She would provide papers to say he was free.
'Freedom.' Manion rolled the word around on his tongue. 'Hm.'
He smoothed the wood on his soft deerskin pants. She couldn't imagine what he was carving.
'Much depends on your definition of the word,' he rumbled slowly. 'Considering that none of us can ever truly be free, it is only the degree of freedom that differs.' As he twisted the wood, light caught the ring that wrapped round his seal finger and bounced off in a bright silver shine. 'You think of slaves in terms of wanting their freedom, but talk to your bodyguard, Claudia. He could have bought himself out several times over, but has he?'