by Marilyn Todd
Rain made the path slippery and loosened the stones, but the raindrops were warm and the smell of the earth slammed into her nostrils. She tried not to think of Orbilio down in the pit, water pouring down the channels of stone, cold, wet, in pain and alone.
'Soon.' A knife twisted her gut. 'Soon, darling. Somehow I'll have you released from your torment, that I really do promise.'
But the words could not get past the lump in her throat. Poison might yet be his only escape—
Outside the Cave of Miracles she took care, but the Guardian of the Sacred Spring wasn't watching the path. He sat on a stool with his head in his hands, sweat darkening the shirt round his underarms, his ponytail limp with the heat. If she didn't know better, she'd have thought Gurdo was praying - but for what? she wondered. Pod? The boy would be coming round soon, he could not keep him in a drugged sleep for ever. But what then? Pod had found Clytie, Pod had found Sarra, and the man who adopted him wasn't stupid. His mind would be turning back a decade in time, to the day he found the boy wandering among the reed beds. A boy with spiky dark hair, a broad elfish grin, and no memory whatsoever—
Creeping past the cave mouth, Claudia half-expected the forbidden side to be blocked by a guard of priestesses, but it seemed resurrection was a lengthy process. Presumably it would only be once Sarra's body was cremated that any rituals would transfer to this cave. Inside, sheltered from the howls of the wind and the drumming rain, she strained both her eyes and her ears. But the spirits remained invisible,
even in death, and their buzz was silent as ever, while deep underground the rumble of thunder echoed like the Minotaur's hoof.
She could turn back. Kill time in her room, pacing the floor. There was no need to do this, it could wait. But as long as her mind had nothing to occupy itself with, it tumbled with images of blood. Of broken bones. Of the rotting remains of animals that had fallen into the pit. Of the whimpers of previous victims ...
She pushed deeper into the tunnel. Where the bloody hell was it? That scrap of paper that talked about millstones had to be a draft of the original letter. A draft Ailm had torn up because it wasn't nasty enough, and Claudia was sure it was around here that she'd found it. Ah, there you are! A fragment, but enough to confirm her suspicions that Ailm penned her poison down here, hiding the evidence where it would not be found. As the Death Priestess, she had the freedom to come and go as she pleased, no one would question her right to be here, not even Gurdo. But if the parchment and ink were squirrelled away, Ailm would need a place where the damp couldn't penetrate. Funnily enough, Claudia had a hunch about that, too.
Guided by the channel of softly trickling water, she felt her way through the Stygian blackness until she reached the great painted chamber, still mercifully illuminated by the glow from a score of candles. Once again she was struck by its beauty. Unlike the frescoes that adorned Rome, they lacked subtlety and style, and the colours were severely limited. But there was something deeply compelling about those stylized antelope, about the handprints of men and women long dead, and the sinuous lines of the lynx. High above, on ledges gouged out of the rock, the ashes of three hundred years watched over them from their communal urns. Yellow for gorse, purple for heather, red like Luisa's shiny bright rowans.
It was tempting to dismantle the cairn of white stones, but Beth had already tried that. Maybe she'd received a letter herself, but either way she knew about the poison-pen letters, because there was only one reason why the Head of the College would fail to reprimand an outsider from setting foot on
sacred soil. Forget that nonsense about too many problems inside the College. That was false confidence, designed to distract Claudia from Beth's presence in the cave and the lie about visiting old friends. She'd been crouched down, behind that cairn, searching for the same thing Claudia was after today. Evidence. And she remembered the sighs that had echoed down the tunnel. Sighs, she realized now, that had been born of exasperation.
No evidence to connect these letters to me.
Wherever Ailm hid it, Beth hadn't found it, but the point is, Beth wasn't Ailm. Ailm would have hidden her secret in the one place Beth wouldn't dream of disturbing. Among the dead. Dragging the ladder against the ledge, Claudia picked up one of the candles and began to climb. It was wider up here than it looked from below, several feet deep in places. But with fifty funeral urns, each as high as her shoulder, where on earth to begin? Walking between the lines of colourful urns, running her hand over their painted imagery - birds, clouds, fruit trees, nuts - she wondered which one Ailm would have chosen. The resting place of her predecessors, perhaps? Claudia heaved off the heavy black lid and saw only ash staring back at her. Damn.
She promised.
Of course! Ailm would have hidden her secret inside the great silver urn, the one marked with the birch that she had seen as her birthright. By the flickering lamplight, Claudia flipped through draft after sickening draft.
Does your wife know about your trysts with that slutfrom the locksmiths?
Have you studied your son's profile? Have you studied yours?
The cask is best flavoured by the first fill of wine. This is why brides must be virgins. But can't you smell wine lees on your fiancee?
Page after page of stomach-churning venom, penned by a woman whose only means to fill the void in her life was to make others more miserable than herself. Claudia saw her rich peat-dark hair, her finely pleated robe and exquisite cosmetics. Resenting the other priestesses' busy days and multi-faceted lives, Ailm lavished attention on herself because
she had nothing else to do with her time. Another woman might pitch in with the chores, take up outdoor pursuits, even a succession of lovers. Instead, spite became Ailm's reason for living. Well, let's see how she takes to the kitchens! See how much time she has on her hands then!
From the corner of her eye, Claudia caught the glimpse of a shadow below. Saw silver robes flash in the lamplight.
'Good,' she told Beth, 'I'm glad you're here, because not only do I have the evidence to convict Ailm, I know what it is that you're hiding.'
So simple. All she'd had to do was look at the problem with sense and not sentiment and even before Claudia had reached this great painted chamber, she realized Swarbric hadn't killed Clytie.
'I know the reason Clytie died on the spring equinox,' she said steadily. 'I know why she died, I know why that particular rock was selected, I know why the body was moved, why her face was painted, and badly at that.'
Standing stiff, almost rigid, with her hands clasped behind her, the priestess's face was as blank as the stone that surrounded her. Round her neck hung a heavy bronze choker.
'But most of all, Beth, like you I know who took Clytie's life.' Her smile was sad. 'I know the secret you're hiding.'
Then three things happened at once.
First, as Claudia lifted her flame for a better view, she saw it was not a bronze choker round Beth's neck, but an arm. Holding a knife to her throat.
At the same time, the ladder was kicked away from the ledge.
And a man stepped out from the shadows.
Twenty-Eight
Stepping out of the shadows, the Whisperer smiled. Better and better, the Roman whore, too. Proof that the old gods were wise gods, and on his side. He cocked his ear to their low, insistent growls as they rumbled through the tunnels and caves. To their wails and keening cries. The gods were calling out to the Druids for blood. Blood to redress the balance and turn back the tide of neglect. His smile broadened. Who was he to disobey their demands?
'It is time,' he said, testing the rope that bound the bitch's hands behind her back. 'Tonight, at midnight, the battle cry will echo over this land, the earth will drink of the blood of the innocent and there will be carnage like no one has seen.'
He jerked her head back by her chestnut hair.
'Throats will be slit from here,' he touched her earlobe with the tip of his knife and ran it slowly under her chin, 'to here,' he said softly. 'Hands will be hacke
d off at the wrists, eyes gouged out, tongues will loll in the gutter, then let's see what language you speak, when you're bleeding to death and in pain.'
'Kill me, maim me, this is only one part of life's cycle,' she said, fixing him with her cold brown eyes. 'Do what you like with my body, for my soul is out of your reach.'
He laughed. 'Oh, Beth, Beth, do you seriously think I'm going to kill you?'
He threw her to the ground like the rubbish she was.
'The others, yes. Like that blonde cow this morning, oh, Beth, you should have seen her face! Saw me charging down naked, thought I was going to rape her, the conceited, stuck-up, arrogant cow!'
He shook his head as he tied the bandana around his neck.
'I wouldn't sully myself with one of you bitches, not in a million, two million years. I was naked so no blood would show on my clothing - and oak, Beth. What a masterstroke, to kill her under an oak, don't you think? Using your own beliefs to confuse you. Sowing another seed of fear, making sure you'd not feel safe on your own land. Isn't fear a wonderful weapon?'
'You do not scare me,' she replied steadily, even though he knew she'd cracked her knee when she fell.
'No?' He blew on his ring, then buffed the silver to a shine on his pants. 'Maybe when you see Dora crucified on her own oak, you'll feel differently, or Mavor's head rolling to a stop at your feet. The novices, ah, perhaps that'll change your mind, when I set them alight and use them as torches, or how about seeing babies hacked to death in their crib?'
'Your brutality only serves to reassure me that you will not be reborn again. Your soul will be demolished by the three-headed dragon. Your evil will end with your death.'
'Evil?' He was astonished that she could even think such a thing. 'This is not wickedness for its own sake, you fool. This is expedience, woman. Necessity.'
With the carnage of innocents, Rome would be set buzzing. Blinded by anger and grief, they won't have time to form an organized response. Got you, you bloody bastards.
'Surprise is my weapon, surprise and fear. For in panic and disarray, their armies will be led into traps, cut down in places they hadn't predicted, and the winter is Gaul's ally's, not Rome's.'
By spring, there would not be a legionary left in Aquitania.
The Druids will be returned to their rightful position, men will have power over their own bloody families and Gaul will be the proud nation that it once was. That is not evil, Beth. That is justice. And you,'
He lifted his eyes to the bitch on the ledge.
'Maybe I won't take you as my whore after all. I'll leave you up there to rot, slowly, a symbol of Rome's influence in Gaul. Day by day growing weaker. Withering away, frightened, alone, with only ghosts of the past for companionship. Won't that be nice?'
'What will be nice is watching you paraded in chains round the streets of Santonum, while your own people mock you, because you know what you are? You're a coward.'
'Coward?' He could hardly believe it. 'I am no coward, you acid-tongued bitch. I am Ptian!'
'Ptian?' She was genuinely surprised. 'The Scorpion's deputy? I - I thought you were just one of the guards.'
'For three years I have been all things to all people. Three fucking years, kowtowing to this one, kowtowing to that one, smiling when my heart has been pained, nodding when what I really want to do is put a knife through their ribs, but no longer.' He squared his shoulders in pride. 'Ptian has stepped out of the shadows.'
'Ptian?' she scoffed. 'That's not a name, that's the noise someone makes when they spit.'
She spat and made it sound like his name.
'Be careful,' he warned. 'Do not insult me, for the name of Ptian will live forever among my people. Ptian will save Gaul from itself. With the right military leader and a sound intelligence network, the old order will be restored. Ptian will make kings of the Druids, for he is a warrior, a general, a leader of men. He is—'
'A snivelling coward who kills women, and why? Because he's too puny to take on a man.'
'Why, you—' Kicking the rubbish that was Beth out of his way, he reached for his bow. 'No one calls me weak, you bitch! I am no coward!'
'What else should I call someone who sneaks up on defenceless young girls because he knows he'd lose to anything stronger?'
'Bitch.' The hand that notched the arrow trembled with rage. 'You bloody bitch.'
'And hides in the shadows, too scared to come out. That's why you kill women, Ptian.' She spat his name in saliva. 'You didn't rape her, for the simple reason that you can't. You're half woman yourself, you spineless freak.'
Fuck. Missed. As he notched another arrow, a foot kicked at his shin. He grabbed the priestess by the scruff of her silver robe and landed a punch on her jaw. Beth dropped like the scum that she was.
'Feel better?' the bitch on the ledge sneered. 'Does it feel good, hitting women twice your age who are tied up and defenceless?'
Fuck and double fuck. He watched his arrow bounce off an urn to drop harmlessly among the bear skulls.
'I won't waste good weapons on useless trash,' he snarled. 'You can jump the twenty feet and break both your legs or you can stay up there and starve, I don't care!'
'Can't even shoot me, dear god, what a loser.'
The scorn in her voice ripped through his brain. Bitch. He would show her. He would look that bitch right in the eye as he shot her. He moved close to the shelf. Forced his hands to stop shaking. The leg, he decided. The thigh. That would fucking well hurt. He clenched his fingers round the handgrip. Drew back the string. As he lifted his bow, a candle tumbled towards him. He laughed as he ducked. Did she think she could burn him with that stupid thing? The flame was extinguished within the first second. Pathetic. Bloody pathetic.
The Whisperer was still laughing when the lid of the silver urn crashed down on him.
Since the stone splintered his ribs, crushing his lungs and his liver, he wasn't laughing for long.
Claudia had no idea how long she sat on the shelf, listening first to the death rattle twenty feet below and then, when it finally stopped, hearing nothing but the echoes of thunder.
Had he killed Beth with that punch? She didn't think so, but there was no movement from that heap of fine silver linen. Only an ominous trickle of blood.
One by one, the candles round the chamber started to gutter. The wind, perhaps, or simply the dying of wicks. How long before someone came to replace them? Hours? Days? She looked at the handprints that speckled the walls and realized that, if Ptian's rebels won, it could be centuries before anyone came this way again.
The battle cry was going up tonight, the call that would signal rebellion, and suddenly Claudia understood the importance of midnight. Midnight is what the Scorpion had planned all along. He wanted her to hear it, be part of it, to witness the slaughter then take the story to Rome, let them know
what his army had done. What it is capable of in the future. That's what he meant by getting his life back. He was challenging Rome to come out here and fight, knowing that by spring the Druids would have backed the rebel army, the tribes would have united, and that millions of warriors were no match for Rome.
That was the Scorpion's revenge on the woman who double-crossed him.
Not death in the sense that she had envisaged. His revenge was a living death in which she was doomed to constantly re-live the horror. Whenever she looked at a child in the street, he knew she'd see the mangled corpses of novices. That was what he was condemning her to. Waking up every night with the screams of the tortured ringing in her ears, unable to block out the carnage that she'd been forced to watch. Every night, every day, she would be tormented by Marcus starving to death in that godless pit, knowing she was this close but could not save him ...
Tears flowed. Candles snuffed. Thunder echoed along the tunnels.
The gods were enjoying their retribution.
If there was any bright spot in this terrible mess, she supposed it was that the Scorpion's deputy had not lived to gloat over the bloodbath
. She had at least done that much for the Hundred-Handed, for Gaul, for herself, for Rome. But they would all be like him, that was the trouble. Embittered rabble who'd been shunned by society because their own people couldn't stand their whingeing and whines. Scum too lazy to put in an honest day's work, they wanted everything on a plate. They were bullies and boors, dim-witted and craven, soured by everything except their selfimportance.
And the bastards were armed to the teeth.
Time passed. More flames died. Then finally she heard a moan.
'Beth?'
The silver heap stirred. A chestnut head lifted. 'Claudia?'
'Beth, are you all right?'
'I ... think so.' She wriggled herself into an upright position and licked the trickle of blood that ran down a
cheek that was swollen and red. 'What happened? Where did Ptian go?'
'Straight to hell.'
Beth followed the direction of her finger and groaned. 'Holy mother, what has become of us? What are we come to,' she whispered.
Claudia stared. These women! They never ceased to amaze her. A monster lies dead and Beth feels sorry for him?
'What time is it,' she asked, 'can you see?'
'Time?'
'Is it midnight yet?'
Sensing the urgency, Beth shuffled over to one of the tall marker candles. 'Very close, why? He can't give the battle cry now.'
Claudia tossed down the knife she'd strapped to her thigh. It was her back-up plan, had the lid missed its target. And while Beth sliced through the rope that bound her wrists, she explained about the signal that would ignite Gaul. It would be lit by Manion, not by Ptian.
'I'll try to stop it,' she said, as Beth dragged the ladder against the ledge. 'But there's a chance I won't be able to, that it's already too late, you must run and round up the women. Take them into the woods then make for Santonum. Rome is not as unprepared as they think.'
That was a lie, she had no idea how prepared the legions might or might not be. But once again, if Aquitania was on the brink of insurgency, Marcus Cornelius Orbilio would not have left his post.