by Marilyn Todd
'You've spoken to Junius?"
'You sound surprised.' He stropped his knife with exaggerated care. 'I make it my business to know what goes on around me. That way, I know who my friends and my enemies are, as well as knowing who I can trust.'
Trust. The word ripped like a claw at her heart. You fear abandonment, which is why you will not - perhaps cannot - trust a man enough to let him into your heart. The pain intensified. Because of her, because she was stupid enough, selfish enough, not to admit how she felt, a man lay dying in the Pit of Reflection.
And after he'd died a lengthy, horrible, agonizing death, she'd be condemned to reflect for the rest of her life ...
Die? Where did that defeatist notion spring from? Marcus wasn't going to die! She pursed her lips in determination. She'd put him in there and she would bloody well get him out!
'Back to freedom, however.' As the light caught his ring a second time, the engraving flashed. A serpent or something, she thought. 'Is a Roman wife free, simply because she was not bought at auction? Of course not. She is bought by a dowry and is the property of a man from the moment she's born to the moment she marries, and if she is widowed, passes like an heirloom to the nearest male relative which, with luck, is her son. The Hundred-Handed aren't free, they're enslaved to their order. You're not free, you're enslaved to your laws. But me.' He lifted his eyes to meet hers. They were as measureless as the seascape they resembled. 'I am free.'
He didn't even try to pretend, she thought. So what could it be in this College that he wanted so badly that he enslaved himself to them?
'Who are you?' she asked.
A soft snort of laughter escaped through his nose. 'Not so much who as what,' he replied, 'so I ask again. What incentive are you offering in return for my risking life and limb for a Roman patrician - oh, you didn't think I knew about that, either?' He tutted. 'Never underestimate a Gaul, not even your own bodyguard, Claudia. Junius has been very helpful to me.'
'He's here?' Dammit, she'd told him to wait in Santonum!
'Loyalty is a supple commodity,' Manion said. 'The boy is infatuated, I suppose you know that, he just could not keep away.' He indicated the woods with a vague gesture. 'Camped outside the grounds, to be close to his lady, it was easy enough to initiate contact.'
Amazed as she was that Junius had not only disobeyed orders, but had been hanging around the woods all this time, and as curious as she was about who might be the object of his affections (how could he possibly know any of these women?), there was no time for that at the moment.
'What do you want?' she asked bluntly.
Seascape eyes held hers for eternity. 'What I want is my life back,' he said, rising to his feet in one fluid gesture.
She had no idea what he meant, but it didn't involve refusing to help.
'Come back at midnight,' he said in a way that suggested he was accustomed to giving orders and having them obeyed. 'By then I shall have a strategy prepared and we will discuss terms, but in the meantime you will speak to no one of this.'
It wasn't much, but it was the only lifeline she had. Claudia nodded numbly and wondered, what terms?
'Midnight,' she echoed.
'Midnight,' he agreed. 'Oh, and catch!'
As he loped off up the hill, he tossed her the piece that he had been carving.
A scorpion, ready to strike.
They say things come in threes.
They were wrong.
She thought the situation was as bad as it could possibly get.
She was wrong.
It wasn't enough that Sarra had been slashed to ribbons this morning, or that no matter how hard the girl had fought back, her attacker was determined that she should die.
It wasn't enough that Claudia had personally helped Sarra's killer escape. Dammit, she'd even given the bastard her blessing.
And now, it seemed, it wasn't enough that Marcus Cornelius lay with god-knew-what injuries at the foot of a ravine from which there was no way out.
As Claudia made her way back to the precinct, she thought on the most dangerous man in the whole of Aquitania who had engineered his revenge on the woman who double-crossed him and was delighted for her to know it.
She rubbed at the throbbing behind her eyes. Sweet Janus, no wonder there was something familiar about Manion. Average height, average build, nondescript features, these were the very qualities that he turned to advantage, disguising himself beyond recognition. But a gesture here, a tilt of the head there, those things had lodged in her memory and explained why he'd refused to show her his ring yesterday. Why he'd removed it before his approach with the honeycomb. Manion planned to reveal his identity on his terms, not hers.
As cunning as he is ruthless, no one betrays him and lives.
Silly bitch. You even asked yourself while you ate honeycombs together, Why me? Why seek me out? But then once he was gone, you barely gave him a thought. Not one of her better decisions, she reflected, and dammit, even when Gabali stepped out of the shadows to ask how her investigations were going, she didn't suspect they were in league with each other.
Do not worry about the Scorpion, Merchant Seferius. You will be perfectly safe in Aquitania.
She'd simply taken this - the man who threw victims into the Pit, for gods' sake! - at face value. Concern for the daughter he loved.
Do not worry about the Scorpion, Merchant Seferius. You will be perfectly safe in Aquitania.
Was Clytie his daughter? The hell she was. Gabali went to Rome with the express purpose of luring Claudia back here so Manion could take his revenge and enjoy it—
I make it my business to know what goes on around me.
At the gatepost, she reeled and had to hang on for support. He was thorough, she'd give him that. Having found out about her past, he played on it in such a way that it twisted the knife even deeper. Using Clytie as his weapon, he forced Claudia to relive the most painful memories a child can experience. Her father's leaving. Her mother's death. The fact that neither parent had said goodbye. Fine. Painful as it was, all this she could have dealt with. As she said at the outset, Claudia Seferius played rough and she played dirty.
But to take it out on Orbilio ...
Do you really prefer being on your own? She could almost hear his whisper in the late afternoon stillness. Or are you just frightened of letting a man in? The right man, perhaps?
He knew! He knew about her history with Marcus Cornelius. He knew about her crimes, her brushes with the Security Police, the chemistry that exploded between them.
Trust is when the same man is always behind you, to catch no matter how often you fall.
Who could have done this? she wondered bleakly. Who could have betrayed her innermost secrets?
Loyalty is a supple commodity.
Yes, of course, the bastard had openly bragged about it. She sighed. Junius would take a sword thrust for her, his loyalty went without question. But he'd travelled the world with her and shared several adventures and scrapes. It was only natural he'd make certain deductions. And if the Scorpion could fool her, when she was already vigilant, how simple it would be to manipulate the young Gaul. Same language, same culture, same subjugated background, he'd quickly pass himself off as a friend. Leaving Junius believing he'd done his mistress a favour by imparting her secrets!
For every problem, there is a solution. They were the Scorpion's very own words. For every problem, there is a solution.
Now it was a question of playing him at his own game and turning the tables in a way that would trap him. But how? Dear Diana, how he must have laughed when she came crawling to him for help. That's why he'd revealed himself with that carving. To let her know that Orbilio was doomed in that Pit and torture her even more. Bastard! He was
perfectly happy to let Marcus die, simply because it would hurt her. No, wait—
Across the valley, a streak of white lightning flashed in a sky that had darkened to the colour of lead. The Scorpion knew that Marcus was Roman, and that he was a pa
trician to boot. He was also aware of the history between Claudia and him.
Was it really a twist of fate that had Orbilio's shot killing the raven? That business of Manion pushing in front at the last minute. Suppose he was late because he'd shot the bird earlier with a red-feathered arrow, tossed it in the clearing at the last moment, then jumped in to take Orbilio's place in the queue? Who would accept this as anything other than bloody bad luck? She pictured the glade. Fifty rainbow thorns in the ground. Fifty priestesses giving a piece of themselves back to nature. Some would lie embedded deeper than others, some flat on the grass where their force had been spent, with others at odd angles, perhaps flapping in the hot sticky breeze. But even if Claudia could prove there were fifty arrows in the clearing, not forty-nine, it was still too little, too late. The Hundred-Handed would argue that she'd planted the evidence; who could blame her, they'd murmur. It would not change their decision, and the very fact that the Pit was sited some distance from the College meant out of sight, out of mind.
The bitches were expert at closing their minds.
Somehow, though, there was a way out of this. Somehow there had to be a way to take whatever trickery the Scorpion was planning and turn it back on himself.
What I want is my life back, he'd said.
Revenge wouldn't give an outcast his life back, so what would? Rebellion was the obvious answer, and though she had no idea what manner of double-cross he was planning for midnight, two things were clear in her mind.
One. She could not rely on her bodyguard for assistance, the Scorpion would already have brainwashed the boy, and since she could not hope to save Marcus Cornelius by herself, she remained reliant on the very man who put him in there in the first place.
And two, once this was over she would personally send Manion to hell.
Twenty-Seven
As it happened, in the false bottom of Claudia's clothes chest was a blade so long and so thin that Manion could search her and still not find it. Which did not make the weapon any less deadly. Tossing the carved scorpion up in the air, she caught it in her left hand.
I make it my business to know what goes on around me. That way, I know who my friends and my enemies are, as well as knowing who I can trust.
His mistake, she thought, was to trust anybody. A smile played at the corner of her lips as the kernel of an idea began to form. The Scorpion had an ego, that went without saying. He had enormous belief in himself. To some extent, he was right to be proud of that achievement, and despite the circumstances, she had to admire the way he'd befriended her, a Roman in a closed Gaulish society, in a manner that was neither gushing nor overt but nevertheless ensured that, when crisis called, she had nowhere else to turn. But trust. That was the key—
Flinging open the door of her bedchamber, a giant bat shot up in the air. It took a full second before she realized that it was nothing more than a black robe with its shadow exaggerated by candlelight. Ailm straightened up from where she'd been bent forward over the table.
'Did I startle you?'
Straightened up? Claudia snatched the tablet out of her hand and scanned the words etched in the wax.
Are your clerks fingers still in your money box?
The 'x' was missing, but if proof was needed that Ailm was the author, the stylus was still in her hand. Dear god! Claudia stared at the woman. As the priestess responsible for death on the pentagram, that was all she had to do! No
month fell under her special protection. She had no complicated bird life or animal behaviour to observe. No elements to keep track of and make meticulous records. Ailm's role was purely and simply to monitor the yew. A tree hardly renowned for its quick-changing properties!
'Sarra's not cold and you still write these venomous lies?' No wonder they were called poison pen.
'They're not lies,' Ailm snapped. 'People have a right to know what's happening around them. I simply alert them to the truth.'
' Truth? You told a pregnant woman that her loving, faithful husband was having an affair!'
'Don't tell me you don't know what men are like when they can't service their wives!' Ailm's eyes were hostile slits. 'They're animals, the lot of them, so they go looking elsewhere! That, my girl, is what men do.'
Hell hath no fury like a pentagram priestess scorned. Claudia had Fearn in mind when she first coined the phrase, but it looked like Ailm had also fallen in love and found it to be unrequited.
It was no excuse for what she did.
'What about the fisherman's widow who received a note at her husband's funeral, telling her that it was his drunkenness brought about his death?'
'What else could have made a small fishing boat capsize at sea?' Contrition wasn't one of the death priestess's virtues. 'People don't like to hear the truth, that's the trouble.'
'Really? What about this, then?' Claudia pushed the writing tablet in Ailm's face. 'Tell me where there's one single scrap of truth in this poison, because my clerks, I assure you, have no key to my money box.' She would die rather than have them see it was empty. 'Where's the honour in writing that, you poisonous self-centred bitch?'
'How dare you!' Ailm flung the tablet aside. 'You come in here and think you know everything, well you don't. You know nothing!'
'I know you're a vain, lazy cow,' Claudia hissed. 'I know you should be tending to Sarra's soul and saying prayers for her reincarnation, instead of spreading gossip and lies. But you're right, Ailm, I don't know everything. Because I sure
as hell don't know how you wangled your way into the Hundred-Handed, though I do know you don't deserve the honour.'
' Oh, really? Then let me tell you this, Miss High-and-Mighty, I should have been Head of this College. Me! I should have been running the place, not that snooty cow, and you know why? She promised. The previous Birch Priestess gave me her word.'
Years of bitterness came tumbling out.
'When she fell ill, she said that in return for the favours I'd done her in the past, she'd take drugs to prolong her illness because at the time the Yew Priestess was also teetering at death's door. But what happens? When push comes to shove, the selfish old bitch didn't even try to hang on. Called me to her bedside, said Beth was the oldest, it was only fair she should take over, and me, I get saddled with the bloody yew.'
The Hundred-Handed don't strike me as the competitive type.
Stick around, Lofty Legs, and you'll see rivalry on every issue great, small and infinitesimal, you wouldn't believe what goes on inside that precinct.
She pictured the College thirteen years ago. Two pentagram priestesses both know they're dying. Two initiates step forward, ready to assume their names and step into their roles. One sees it as duty, the other as entitlement. A reward for being Goody-Two-Shoes. She promised. As the death spirits hover like bees at her bedside, the scales fall from the Birch Priestess's eyes. The initiate that she's been grooming as her successor has shown her true colours at last. She is nothing more than a shallow toady and who knows? Perhaps the priestess even hurries her own death, because she knows in her heart that the head of this order must be disciplined, she must be calm, but above all she must be constant ...
'What's the penalty for writing this poison?' Claudia asked.
A sly grin crossed Ailm's exquisitely made-up face. Even in hate she remained beautiful.
'I'd be thrown out of the Hundred-Handed. I would have to work in the kitchens or maybe the bakehouse, and when
I died, my ashes would be scattered to the four winds, instead of spending eternity in a jar in the Cave of Resurrection, and of course my soul would not be reborn as a raven. But please make a note of the grammatical mood. Would is the operative word, my dear Claudia, because none of that will ever come to pass.'
She picked up the writing tablet and held it over the candle, melting her poison away.
'You do see, don't you? There is absolutely no evidence to connect these letters to me, and considering my sisters already believe you to be hysterical and irrational, they'd lau
gh your theory out of the house.' She smiled smugly. 'Make no mistake, Claudia Seferius. I will continue to tell people the truth.'
Bitch.
And anyway, Ailm was wrong.
Claudia changed into a simple light robe and strapped the stiletto to her inner thigh. Across the valley, the wind howled and whistled. White lightning lit up the sky, and this time it was followed by a loud crash of thunder. The gods were angry. They sought retribution. Claudia had sworn an oath on her mother's life and broken it in the same breath. On Olympus, reprisals beckoned. Fine, she thought wearily. But let's get Marcus out first, eh?
She looked at the notch on the candle marker. It told her that there were over three hours before she met with the Scorpion, and she had no intention of pacing this chamber until midnight. Not when she could use the time to clip the feathers on Ailm's poisonous quill. Toss out that inkwell of spite.
With lightning sparking high overhead, she had no need of a lantern as she slipped out of her room. From the long-houses lining the compound, laments joined the wailing of the wind as branches lashed against roofs. At least others mourned Sarra, if not Ailm, and she wondered how a priestess, one of the decision-makers at that, could be so cold towards one of her own. But Ailm's compassion had expired with Beth's predecessor on a deathbed of
promise. Thirteen years of bitterness had turned hot blood to bile.
And there was irony here, Claudia thought, as the first drops of rain started to fall. That she could feel sympathy for the woman who'd been betrayed not once, but twice, and who now saw life only through eyes of betrayal.
Which was not to say Claudia would lose a wink of sleep when the unfeeling bitch was stripped of her status.
'No evidence?' she asked Jupiter, as he shook his thunder cloak overhead. 'We'll bloody well see about that.'