Jail Bait (38 page)

But only one eye.

A spear was sticking out of the other.

‘Is speciality of mine.’ Tarraco shrugged modestly.

When she laughed, the laughter felt good. But for some reason, her eyes had filled with salt water, and there was a low humming sound in her ears.

Outside, Orbilio had tied Lais to a post and was fetching the one boat which hadn’t been holed.

‘What will
you
do?’ she asked Tarraco.

The roof of Lais’ hidden chamber had long since collapsed, melting and contaminating the contents of her treasure chests. The storehouses had gone, kitchens, two whole wings, there was precious little left of the villa. Tuder wouldn’t have recognized the place now. But the ancient Etruscans who buried their dead here might, though.

‘There is nothing left, that’s for sure,’ he said with a sigh. ‘Nothing to salvage, nothing—’ he broke off, blinked and looked away ‘—to stay for. I shall go back to Spain.’ Suddenly his dark, dark eyes were boring into hers. ‘I don’t
suppose…?’

No, Tarraco. Don’t suppose. Please—never suppose. Something wet dribbled down Claudia’s cheek. The rain, of course. What else. Louder and louder, the strange humming sound filled the air.

‘W-what?’ She cleared her throat and started again. ‘What’s that noise?’

On the foreshore, Orbilio was using every last ounce of effort to heave Lais into the boat.

‘That?’ Tarraco let out a snort of ironic laughter. ‘That is Memnon. The colossus. Did I not tell you that, one day, you would listen with me as he calls to his mother, the dawn? The statue is hollow.’ There was a sad, sad smile in his eyes. ‘The warm air makes a resonance. Like a song.’ Claudia stared up at the sky and out across the lake to Atlantis. The torrential rains were easing to a drizzle, soft and gentle on the waters of Lake Plasimene. The thunder and lightning had burned themselves out, and now the sky was bright in the east. The fluke heatwave had finally been killed by a fluke storm.

Who says life does not mirror nature?

As she heaved on the oars, with Orbilio slumped white-faced and asleep in the bow and Lais out cold, Claudia listened to the mournful song of the fifty-foot colossus.

‘Hey!’ She cupped her hands round her mouth to ensure her voice carried back to the island. ‘I haven’t thanked you,’ she yelled, ‘for saving my life in the tomb.’

‘No,’ a deep voice echoed back, ‘but you will.’

As she reached for a kerchief to blow her nose, Claudia felt something hard under the seat. A woodcarving. Curious, she pulled it out. A peacock, with all its tailfeathers displayed. Laughing through her tears, Claudia squinted back to the island, to the man with dark eyes and a long mane which hung like drapes to veil his expression, but he’d been swallowed up by the island.

As though he had never existed.

Black Salamander

Marilyn Todd

What better opportunity for a lovely young widow than to join a trade delegation to Gaul? It would raise her profile as a wine merchant, give her plenty of contacts. And let’s not forget the promise of riches for delivering a certain pouch, sealed with the sign of the black salamander.

But before they can reach their destination, a rockfall kills five of Claudia’s party, stranding them in hostile territory.

When it becomes clear that one death was not accidental, all Claudia wants to do is to get out of the valley and hand over the pouch. But it seems there are those who will go to any lengths to stop her.

Plunging her into a deadly game of high treason, in a land where warriors still hunt human heads, and where wicker-man sacrifices are far from rare…

Claudia’s latest mystery,
Black Salamander,
is coming soon in ebook from Untreed Reads.

The opening scenes follow here.

I

Don’t you just hate it when that happens? Claudia pulled her wrap tight to her shoulders, gritting her teeth as the trap bounced over yet another rut in the road. You’re presented with a once-in-a-lifetime chance to join a prestigious trade delegation to Gaul (expenses paid of course) at the time of year when Alpine meadows are at their lushest. Yet here you are, twelve days into the trip, and you haven’t seen a single Alp—not one—thanks to weather which has turned out more January than June. It’s cold, it’s wet, it’s windy, and that isn’t the half of it.

‘Are we clear of the danger zone yet?’ she asked the driver, poking her head through the gap in the canvas which shielded the car from the rain.

It was only last year, remember, that Augustus finally persuaded the Helvetii that resisting the might of the Roman Empire was not entirely to their advantage, and even then his charm hadn’t been universally appreciated. A burned village here, a town sold into slavery there, his tactics hadn’t exactly won the tribes over and Libo, the tilemaker, had already paid the ultimate price. A taciturn, some might say secretive, individual, all he’d done was wander off the path to relieve himself in the bushes. He’d been found where he squatted, a stab wound straight to the heart.

‘Dunno, miss.’ The driver shrugged. ‘Hope so.’

How very reassuring. Claudia glanced round. Protected by pines, this mountainous terrain was perfect for a guerrilla attack, the delegation a sitting target as they skirted this deep-sided gorge. She shuddered. Wooded slopes fell two hundred feet to meet white waters swirling over jagged, black rocks. High above, their granite-topped tips were obscured by low heavy clouds. Would a hostile clan attack an escorted convoy in broad daylight? One could never tell with the Helvetii. For a hundred years, they’d been a thorn in Rome’s side.

‘Hello, gorgeous.’ A shiny wet face poked its head under the awning. ‘Hard to credit yesterday was the midsummer solstice.’ He shook himself like a dog. ‘Thought you might be feeling the jitters, what with the road barely wide enough for a wagon. Ha.’ His eyes rolled upwards. ‘Did I say road? Not like Rome, eh? Anyway, I’ve brought a skin of wine to take your mind off the lumps and the bumps and the bruises.’

Without waiting for encouragement (which was probably as well, because the wait would have been lengthy indeed), Nestor leaped into the moving rig, securing the canvas behind him. ‘According to Clemens,’ he said, referring to the stumpy little priest who seemed to know everything, ‘this is the border between Helvetia and the land of the Sequani.’

Thank heavens! A Gaulish tribe, friends of the Empire! It was to their capital, Vesontio, the delegation was headed, which means they’d arrive in what? Three days from now?

‘That river down there marks the boundary.’ Nestor edged a fraction closer as he unstoppered the wineskin and Claudia reminded herself of the promise she’d made yesterday. Namely that if this stocky little architect touched her up just one more time, she’d rip out his gizzard and feed it to the wolves she’d heard howling in the night.

Not that Nestor was poor company. Far from it. Relentlessly chirpy and a fount of tall tales garnered from travels which had taken him the length and breadth of the Empire, hours which would have otherwise dragged on this wet, miserable journey spun past. When it came to spooky legends, Nestor had no match. He talked of Helvetian bear cults, of deep, sacred caves guarded by the skulls of seven bears arranged in a ring, and chilled her blood with tales of Druids, making human sacrifice by burning their victims alive in effigies made of wicker.

Nevertheless, it was quite astonishing the number of times he’d ‘accidentally’ brushed against her breasts, how often his hand had come to rest against her thigh, the regularity with which she’d felt his breath on the back of her neck. Take him to task, of course, and Nestor was quick to blame circumstances. The jolt of the wheels. A judicious pothole. But Claudia had given him clear warning yesterday. Keep your distance, or there’ll be a wolf out there licking its chops.

‘You’ve never been to Vesontio, have you?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘You’ll love it. Prettiest city in the whole of Gaul in my humble estimation. And commanding, as it does, a broad loop of the river and with a mountain rising behind, it’s not only beautiful, it’s a natural citadel and quite impregnable. And you know how impregnable translates to an architect?’ He chuckled knowlingly. ‘Prosperous. That’s why I love Vesontio so much.’ Funny how his hand needed to clasp her wrist every time he made a point.

‘That city’s crying out for a delegation like ours,’ Nestor continued. ‘Oh yes.’ As a self-made man, he’d never quite lost his barrow-boy accent. ‘This’ll make us all rich, mark my words.’ He squinted out through the gap in the canvas, using the bump of the rig to annex Claudia’s elbow.

‘Nestor, which part of the word “no” are you having trouble with?’ she asked, but so engrossed was Claudia in recalling the real objective behind making this journey that there was no sting in her rebuke.

Sure, the delegation would cover her expenses, raise her commercial wine-growing profile and provide her with numerous contacts for trade—unfortunately those were long-range proposals. When you’ve been blackballed and cash flow is tight, to hell with pretty views and a travelogue! The immediate objective is cash. Cold, gold, glittery coins which Claudia could trickle through her fingers and replenish gasping coffers with. Her eyes darted to a satchel swinging from a hook above Drusilla’s cage. She pictured the soft yellow deerskin pouch tucked inside. The one sealed with a golden blob of wax imprinted with the sign of the black salamander.

‘Nestor!’ Somehow he’d managed to combine the task of unstoppering the wineskin with a fingertip alighting on Claudia’s nipple. ‘I told you yesterday, no more funny business, but you didn’t take a blind bit of notice.’ She had to raise her voice to drown the rumbling sound from outside. ‘The fact that you have no respect for me, well, that hurts. But you know what hurts most?’

‘What?’

‘This.’ Claudia squeezed his testicles as hard as she could. ‘Touch me again, you odious wart, and I’ll geld you.’

‘Landslide!’ The powerful voice of a legionary boomed the length of the line. ‘Move! Fast as you can—run for it. NOW!’

Claudia’s stomach flipped somersaults. After all this, the danger didn’t come from hostile Helvetii.

The danger came from a rockfall.

II

Imagine thunder. Imagine a stampede of wild Camargue stallions. Imagine earthquakes and a volcanic eruption. Now put them together. The very ground shook beneath the wheels as the driver cracked his whip. The mares bolted forward and, as her nails dug deep into the grain of her maplewood seat, Claudia thanked Jupiter for the skill of her driver.

With the stone trackway potholed and scarred and treacherously steep, coated with an ooze of wet mud that had turned it into an oilslick, only the driver’s expertise kept this light trap on its course. Twice the wheels skidded. Drusilla’s cage slid to the left, it slid to the right. The axle caught on a rut. Rocks crashed behind them, clattering, splintering, bouncing down the ravine. Horses screamed on the perilous bend and she clung to the rig as the wheels bounced high off the ground and crashed down again. We’ll turn over, she thought, a wheel will spin off. How far now down the gorge? A hundred feet to the bottom?

Boulders the size of a stable block thundered past, ripping up sixty-foot pines, oak trees and beech. Fragments broke off, thumping, thudding, wrecking their way to the riverbed.

‘Gee up! Gee up there!’

The mares needed no encouragement. Their eyes wild with terror, foam flecking their cheeks, they galloped ever closer to the wagon in front. Claudia’s clenched knuckles were white, she daren’t breathe. One slip from a rig up ahead, the whole column would go down like gates in a gale. Plummeting into the void.

Sweet Juno, could they truly outrun it?

Nestor had gone. At the first yell of the soldier, he was off, faster than a rock from an Iberian sling, his eyes still watering, his face as red as a turkey cock’s wattle. Idly she wondered whether things like this had happened to him before on his travels, whether rockfalls were a regular occurrence?

‘Madam.’ The canvas was jerked open, rain began driving into the cart. ‘You have to get out.’

‘About bloody time, I must say.’ Claudia stared at the bleached face of her bodyguard, hurling himself into the jostling rig. ‘Where the hell have you been?’

‘Backtracking up the road like you told me,’ Junius puffed, grabbing the handle of Claudia’s trunk. ‘Come on. Quick!’

‘Brilliant. When that creep Nestor started pawing me, where were you? Sightseeing!’ At her feet, Drusilla howled like a banshee. ‘What’s the point of having a bodyguard, if he’s not around to protect your body?’

‘Sightseeing?’ he yelped, his left hand closing over the strap round the cat’s cage. ‘You gave me specific orders to—oh, madam, just jump, will you?’

Claudia stared at the young Gaul. ‘Has your mind been possessed by a lunatic’s?’ With mares at full pelt, wagons racing behind and boulders bouncing down the hillside like inflated pigs’ bladders, Junius tells her to jump? ‘I’ll be pulped like an olive for oil!’

‘Madam,’ he warned, his face pinched with worry. ‘This whole mountain is going.’

Shit. Slinging her precious satchel over her shoulder, Claudia scrabbled onto the buckboard. Rain and dust slammed into her face.

‘You what?’ the driver said. ‘Bleedin’ ’ell, are you sure?’ But Junius’s face answered for him. ‘Then forget jumping,’ he said, clambering onto the buckboard, ‘let’s stop this column. Pull up,’ he yelled, standing upright as he hauled on the reins. ‘Stop your carts.’ The authority in his voice caught their attention. ‘Stop your carts!’