Dark Horse (24 page)

'The rumours are true, then? It's what we suspected, of course, her and the boy, and who can blame her. Attractive young widow, all that sexual energy has to go somewhere.'

Orbilio tasted regurgitated wine in the back of his throat. Claudia and the Gaul? Entwined between the sheets, naked, buffered in sweat, groaning in mutual pleasure ... He put his hand on the door jamb to stop himself falling.

'But to put your mind at rest, Marcus, the boy has gone, too.' Silvia ruffled his hair like a child's. 'So whatever it was you needed to explain to the lovely young widow, you're either going to have to keep it until we return to Rome or else put it down in a letter.'

'You don't understand.' A vice clamped round his ribcage.

'Letter, definitely, seeing how it worries you that much. Now it's two hours past midnight and you need your sleep, you poor darling. Come along.'

'No.' He couldn't breathe. 'I knew she'd try something, so I - Silvia, you don't understand.'

'Understand what, dear?'

'I locked the Gaul in the woodshed.' Justified on the grounds that he'd caught the bastard sneaking round his papers. 'Shut the cat in there, too.' Serves him right if she scratches his lecherous eyes out.

'Marcus, darling, two men have been brutally murdered and the
Medea's
on the stocks. That makes Cressia an extremely hazardous place to be at the moment, and whatever else one might say about the woman, Claudia Seferius doesn't strike

one as the type who'd wait for her toyboy when pirate ships are on the rampage.'

'Agreed.' Suddenly he was sober again. 'But there's one thing she'd never go without.'

Claudia would never leave her beloved Drusilla behind.

'Meaning?' Silvia asked, linking her arm through Orbilio's.

'Meaning,' he growled, shaking the arm off, 'the silly bitch is in danger.'

The silly bitch certainly was. With all that had happened, she had completely forgotten that incident outside the grain store. Now, bundled under the cloak, everything came flooding back. The same grip. The same bear hug. The same sweet smell of cinnamon. Only tonight there was no question of him carrying her back to her bed.

Time passed, or then again, maybe it didn't.

Trussed and helpless, all Claudia could do was to wait. Wait and remember . . .

If only she'd thought to pull out the gag once he'd released her! At least she'd have been able to breathe, call for help. But her instinct had been to run. To pitch headlong away from her attacker. She hadn't banked on him netting her like a hare. Cinnamon.

If she never smelled it again, it would be too soon.

Once the cloak was thrown over her, a rope had been looped round her waist to pinion her arms, but there were still two cards hidden up Claudia's sleeve: the knife she carried in the folds of her gown; and the thin stiletto strapped to her calf.

While she fumbled for the knife on the clifftop, she'd lashed out at her attacker with her feet to distract him. But before she could get a firm grip round the handle, she was tossed over his shoulder like a sack of old turnips. Surefooted as any mountain goat, he trotted down the hillside, dumped his squirming bundle into a boat then quietly relieved it of the knife hidden in the folds of her gown and the stiletto strapped to her calf. Obviously the moon had started to rise; its light had betrayed her steel defences. Acca must be laughing her bloody socks off.

An eternity later, dizzy and dazed, Claudia felt the boat grate to a halt. Heard the scrape of wood against sand, the

slap of water against rocks. Defenceless as a kitten, she was once more bundled over his shoulder and then it was another climb, up another cliff, and she had no idea whether this was still Cressia or whether he'd brought his victim to a different island completely.

They'd reached the top and dammit he was barely panting with the effort. Throwing her over his other shoulder, hardly a minute had passed before her abductor slowed to a halt. She heard him kick open a door. Inside, his footsteps echoed, but the echo was not stone or marble. Solid. Dull. More like tamped earth. He lowered her down. Not softly, but not roughly either. Claudia didn't move. She would not give him the satisfaction of struggling again. Whatever he did, she would not flinch. She'd deprive him of the pleasure of watching her suffer.

But the bastard was biding his time.

Whistling softly under his breath, the footsteps retreated across the room. She heard the squeak of rusty hinges. The graunch of the bar as it was rammed home to lock the door from the outside.

With the sound, all hope died in her breast.

Bound and gagged, blindfolded and trapped, Claudia could only wait for her attacker to return. She had no weapons with which to fight. No one knew where she was. She couldn't break free, much less break out of this prison.

Whoever it was had planned it well.

In her soft, cinnamon tomb Claudia waited.

Darkness had barely covered the hills before Clio heard the first of the rustlings. Her heart was pounding, her mouth dry. Straining, she heard further shuffles. A rock dislodged here, a scrape of foot there. Through a crack in the shutters she saw torchlights, which were quickly extinguished. How many of them had gathered? Were they armed? Did they intend to kill her now? Or take her alive and do it slowly?

She imagined Llagos the priest denouncing the whore who had tried to seduce him, faithful husband and father of four that he was. No mention of the silver he left, or who approached who.

Then the cobbler would probably tell how Clio cast the evil eye over him as she passed his stall. His valiant fight to resist the

lethal pull. How the effort made him sick. Forget that the bastard was a habitual drunk.

The widower fisherman would be one of the group. Grief finding an outlet in vengeance, his own inadequacies drowned in her innocent blood. With the witch out of the way, he could bury his conscience along with his wife. Never having to question whether he should have noticed how ill she was, and that maybe he shouldn't have worked her so hard to the end.

And the father of the boy who had died. The carpenter. He had seemed a reasonable enough man, even though Clio had never actually exchanged more than a nod or two with him. Did he know she had never even clapped eyes on his son? Did he care as he swelled the mob's numbers?

Bigotry plus helplessness equals explosive combination.

All it needs is one little spark . . .

Leo, Leo, what a price we are paying. All because we wanted riches! She put a hand over her lips to stop them from trembling. Her hand was colder than ice.

If the men rushed the cottage, they would probably kill her. Clubs, knives, something quick. But if the women were outside, huddled in groups further down the hillside, she was facing a very different scenario. Witch. Vampire. Flesh-eater. It didn't matter what names they called her. The bitches would want her alive.

Once more, Clio dropped to her knees. She hadn't known where to start, who to call on, when she began praying earlier. In the end she had chosen the great falcon god of her Liburnian ancestors, whose vision was sharp and whose flight was swift. The god whose vengeance was deadly.

'Come to me now,' she murmured. 'Bestow upon me your wisdom and courage, oh lord.'

The heat in the cottage threatened to engulf her, crushing her chest like a millstone, and the blackness was the blackness of hell.

'Make my ears deaf to the footfalls which shuffle closer each minute.'

And the soft whispers which called for her blood . . .

In the blackness of her cottage, Clio felt something brush her cheek. It could have been a moth, of course. Then again, who was to say it wasn't the wings of the falcon god? The one whose vengeance was deadly.

The whistling was light. Jaunty even. The whistling of a man looking forward to what he was about to do.

At first, Claudia thought the whistling was part of the birdsong. The dawn chorus had just started up, led by a blackbird solo before the rest of the choir joined in. This whistling was different. It had a tune. A rush of weakness enveloped her. Was that the last sound she'd hear? Not even the liquid trill of a warbler, the harsh chatter of a magpie, but the tune of her killer?
Or would the last sound she heard be her own scream?

The whistling grew louder. Closer. Unbearable. Hands closed round the bar across the door. She shuffled backwards on her bottom against the stone wall. Pressed her backbone hard against it. Willed the stone to absorb her flesh.

'Zlat:

The bar didn't shift. With a grunt, he heaved again. Blood thundered in her ears, her heartbeat jumped out of its rhythm She felt sick. There was a dull thud from where the bar landed on the ground. A squeal of ungreased hinges. I'm going to die Oh, god, I'm going to die. Instinctively, Claudia curled herself into a ball.

'Sorry about this,' he said, and although the accent was mild, it was Latin he spoke. 'It was the only way I could -

vlodor zlat!'

Even under the cloak, she squeezed her eyes shut. Footsteps covered the room in three strides, but miraculously Claudia's arms were sprung free from the rope. Rescue! She heard a primeval whimper and realized it came from her.

'Da vlodor stapo injio!'

For a moment, she couldn't believe it. I'm safe, I'm safe

I'm not going to die. Trembling hands pulled the gag out of her own mouth, but when she tried to push the cloak off, it weighed more than lead-covered ivory and it was left to other hands to pull it off. As the curtain rose, she saw the grey light of dawn streaming in through the rough wooden doorway of what looked like an abandoned shepherd's hut. Stank like it, too. Her eyes picked out the crude tamped earth floor. Rat droppings. Patches of mildew. A pair of boots - oh, shit. A pair of red leather boots.

The cloak was finally clear of her face. Her gaze locked with that of the pirate.

'Oh, no,' Jason groaned. 'Not you again.'

The expression out of the frying skillet into the fire drifted into her head. Here she was, being helped to her feet by the same son of an Amazon who'd chained Bulis in the grain store before generously setting it alight. The same Scythian warrior who doesn't bother employing heralds to deliver his letters, he sends them spear-post instead. The pirate who spitted Leo like a sardine and left him to die in unspeakable agony.

'Here.'

The perfect gentleman, he unhooked the goatskin at his belt and pulled out the stopper. Who'd think he drank wine - this wine, probably - out of the gilded skulls of his enemies and used their flayed skins to cover his quiver? Claudia hesitated, and discovered the uncomfortable truth that the need to rehydrate far outweighed pride. The wine was fruity and dry. More importantly, it was strong. With every gulp, her strength returned.

'This is Geta's fault,' Jason was saying. 'When I told him I wanted a woman from the Villa Ar— Ach, it's a long story. Just accept my apologies.'

'Absolutely.' I mean, who's to say it wasn't purely men that he butchered? Perhaps, underneath it all, a heart of gold beat inside that white shirt tucked into his pantaloons?
Perhaps I'm the Queen ofBloody Sheba.
When his people sacrifice to their sun god, they don't do it in the swift humane manner of Roman priests, stunning the animal before cutting its throat cleanly. Scythian sacrifice was as cruel as it was protracted. First they

tie the horse's front feet together, then they pull on the rope. As the horse stumbles, so a noose is flung round its neck, with a short stick to act as a garrotte. The rope is then twisted, slowly, choking the poor beast to death.
Choking.
Claudia shivered. And pictured the bruises round Silvia's throat, darker than dragon's blood . . .

Suddenly Claudia understood why Bulis had been killed in the way that he had. It was a ritual in the Scythian practice of human sacrifice to tie the victim to a tree or ceremonial pole to garrotte them. She handed back the wineskin and hoped he didn't see her hand shake. 'We'll say no more about this little misunderstanding, then.' She edged her way to the door. 'After all, everyone makes mistakes.'

'If it's any consolation, I'll have Geta's
dokion -
blood, for this.'

Claudia didn't doubt it. He'd probably drink it out of the helmsman's skull, too. While the helmsman was still alive.

Outside, it was pretty obvious that the strapping Geta, he with the stamina of a bear and the life expectancy of a butterfly in frost, hadn't delivered his package to a different region of Cressia. Peaks which had previously been little more than jagged shadows on the horizon suddenly loomed stark and uncompromising before her. Her heart jumped. Only a narrow channel of crystal clear water separated her from the pitted, white karst. Ducking under the lintel, Jason looped his thumb in his cloak and hooked it over his shoulder and Claudia realized that the gold she'd seen glinting at his neck from the cliffs of the villa was in fact a torque engraved to resemble overlaid leaves of willow, while the gold at his waist proved to be links of chain forming a belt. The buckle comprised two interlocking gold serpents. Well, they would be, wouldn't they. There are always serpents in paradise.