Black Salamander

III

With the gods duly propitiated with honey cakes and wine and a good old gust of incense, the assemblage finally began to disperse. Duty done, it was time now, they figured, to reassess, regroup and then get out of this hellhole. The rain had eased to a soft Caledonian mist, and with the air warm again after the deluge, the canyon was turning into a giant steam room. Somewhere close at hand a chaffinch warbled high in the canopy and flies began to pester the horses.

‘We’ll make for the bridge first,’ said Theodorus, ‘then sort out a burial detail.’ And such was the confident tone of the legionary’s voice that no one demurred.

Claudia studied him, as he wiped grime off a face which, no matter how hard he tried, remained stubbornly, boyishly handsome. With his armour covered in dust and his legs streaked with mud, he looked a decade younger than his twenty-six years and that would be a perpetual problem for Theo. Despite a frame built for combat, his face provoked altogether different emotions. Women, fellow soldiers (who knows, perhaps even his enemies?), would be drawn by his apparent vulnerability and maybe it was the freckles, then again, perhaps it was his wide-set blue eyes, but even Claudia couldn’t imagine Theo clubbing a man in cold blood.

And that’s what it was. In cold blood. Any doubts she may have had about a murderer among the group vanished the instant Nestor’s body was discovered by the roadside. An overlooked casualty was the general consensus, but Claudia knew, as his killer knew, that dead men don’t jump out of carts. It was pure bad luck that the very rig he’d been dumped in had stopped in the lee of an overhang, a mistake which had quickly been rectified.

So, then. The lyre-maker, swept to his death in the river. Libo, stabbed in the bushes. And now Nestor, bludgeoned to death. Three deaths passed off as tragic accidents. My, my, the perils of travel!

‘Claudia.’ The scent of oregano wafted under Claudia’s nostrils. ‘Claudia, I’ve just heard.’ With her familiar jangle, Iliona appeared at her side. ‘Your rig’s gone, hasn’t it? Well, don’t worry, ours is fine, you must travel with us. And if you need clothes or anything, you just have to ask and it’s yours.’

Claudia sucked in her cheeks. I’m-Cretan-and-don’t-you-forget-it was all but tattooed on Iliona’s forehead, her heritage blasting out from all directions, be it from her glossy dark hair, folded and knotted at the nape of her neck, from the oiled curls which hung over her ears, from the heavy copper belt which kept her waist unnaturally small, or from the wide baggy pants she wore under a laced and beaded bodice! Claudia smoothed the elegant pleats of her high-busted linen tunic and swallowed a laugh. ‘That’s very kind of you, Iliona,’ she said soberly. ‘But my trunk has survived, thank you.’

‘Well, I repeat, everything I have is at your disposal for as long as you want it.’ Iliona let out a giggle. ‘Except Titus, of course.’ Still laughing, she sashayed away, and Claudia couldn’t imagine the lovely Cretan lass pounding Nestor’s skull to a pulp either. Iliona was born for beauty, to enrich every scene she appeared in.

But her spice-merchant husband?

From the corner of her eye, she watched Titus tightening the leather straps on his baggage. The way his hair fell over one eye gave the impression of a sharp and shifty individual, yet his broad (if tight-lipped) smile contrived to imply the very opposite. To achieve such ambiguity, Claudia decided, Titus must have practised extremely hard in front of his mirror.

Dear Diana, this is madness! You can’t go around suspecting everyone who’s trapped in this wretched gorge, there must be twenty or thirty of us. Get a grip! She stared round as torn canvas was yanked off the carts, rocks heaved out, damaged rigs tossed down the hillside, wheels replaced. In itself, the industry was comforting and the answer, she told herself, was simply to remain on her guard. Watch, look, listen. All the time. Vigilance wasn’t an option. It had become a matter of life or death.

‘That’s it, stand on my foot, why don’t you!’ Hanno’s dirty wheeze of a chuckle carried over the hammering. ‘That’s all I need now, to be crippled!’

Everyone laughed along with this whiskery old muleteer, whose teeth had long since said goodbye to his lined, leathery face, and Theo-to his chagrin-blushed as deeply as nature (but not he) intended, mumbling something about narrow passing places and his hobnails not being able to grip properly in this slippery mud. Hanno continued to hop up and down on one leg, clutching his foot, but his heaving shoulders betrayed him. In fact, his whole wizened body shook when he laughed, and you’d hardly believe the redheaded groom who’d died trying to save some of the horses had been his grandson…

‘Psst.’ Junius signalled his mistress away from the party. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said quietly. ‘There’s no going back, that outcrop made a right mess of the hillside, but with my help, you should be able to scramble up to the summit.’ His eyes indicated upwards. ‘I know it’s steep, but with Drusilla on a leash, we ought to make it, then we can zigzag back down again, to pick up the road over there.’ He pointed along the gorge to the path hidden by trees. ‘We might even, if we start soon enough, make that little town we stayed in last night before it gets dark.’

Turn around? ‘No.’

The young Gaul’s jaw dropped in amazement. ‘But madam-’

‘Butts are for Billy goats, Junius, and my decision is final. We are not going back.’

He fumbled to find adequate words. ‘You said yourself, there’s a killer on the loose. We’ve been split from the main body of the trade delegation, deliberately by the looks of it, the route has been sabotaged and I’m far from convinced this is the same road the original convoy would have taken.’

Me too. That’s what first made me suspicious.

‘We’re going on,’ Claudia said. ‘Correction, I’m going on. You, of course, can turn back any time you wish.’

His face drained. ‘Madam! You know I’d never leave you! Not out here-’

‘Then that’s settled. Now be a good boy and lend a hand with the labouring, will you?’ She shooed him away with the back of her hand. ‘There’s a considerable amount of repair work outstanding.’

Dazed, the bodyguard stumbled off and only when she was satisfied that not even a gnat was close enough to see what she was doing did Claudia delve deep down into the satchel which she’d slung round her neck when Junius first told her to jump from the trap. Thoughtfully she weighed the small deerskin pouch in her hand and felt something, as she had felt it many times before, chink softly in the cloth. Gemstones, she presumed. What else? Stolen, in all probability, but that wasn’t her concern. All that mattered was that a man whom she’d never seen before had approached her in her own house and, on behalf of his master, had offered her a place in this prized delegation to Gaul. Then, without so much as a change in voice tone, had calmly added that if Claudia Seferius felt she could convey this package along with her on the journey, the man he worked for would be prepared to purchase last year’s vintage in its entirety.

In its entirety.

Claudia re-buried the pouch in her satchel, her fingertip dancing over the embossed salamander. Such a sum would tide her over for another year, allowing her to become fluent in Greek, learn more about the trade, develop connections, make contacts, who knows, maybe even expand? She had not hesitated, and the following day ten per cent of the promised payment had arrived via a messenger.

However, every enquiry she’d made, discreet as they were, had met with a blank-a dead end every time-leaving her unable to trace this utterly distinctive seal and therefore put a name to the man who was so generous when it came to smuggling. And more than once during the past twelve days, Claudia had wondered why, if these were gemstones in the pouch, the Salamander had covered their cost twice over in his proffered payment to her?

Who cared? Curious it might be, but it was absolutely none of her business. And in spite of the very real dangers which threatened by tagging along with this little group, what spurred Claudia on was the knowledge that, waiting for her in Vesontio, would be another agent.

With the remaining ninety yummy per cent!