Black Salamander

XXXII

To all those who believed the city was a confusing place, Claudia blew a large and resounding raspberry. Never again did she want to clap eyes on hornbeams, oaks or aspens, and if she never saw another set of white, foaming rapids in her life, it would be too soon. You can stick your limestone schist where the sun doesn’t shine, she told the Sequani gods, your coniferous woodlands, your rushing rivers and your savage gorges. Praise be to Juno, we’re spared this at home. Ours are gentle rounded hills, whose lush valleys flow with wide, inviting rivers lined with proper things. Like vines! Our horses are not sulky red buggers, neither are our cows and sheep and goats pathetic little runts.

We don’t burn human beings alive either.

Or keep embalmed heads on our walls.

Reincarnation. She stopped to unhook her (Arcas’s!) shirt from where it had snagged on a thorn. Did they honestly believe that crap? That by taking the heads of ‘worthy’ enemies, they’d be reborn with their power? Can’t they see the flaw? That by now, the Sequani ought to be a race of super-beings?

‘We’re here,’ Arcas said.

Claudia looked around. ‘Where?’ There was nothing. Woods, woods and, excuse me, more woods.

The Silver Fox chuckled, and she thought it was the first time she’d ever heard him laugh. ‘That’s the beauty of it,’ he said. ‘Follow me, only be careful. The going gets treacherous at times.’

Down they slithered, down and down and down, maybe another hundred feet, to the foot of yet another bloody valley. Except, wait. This was no valley, this was simply a bowl in the rock. A natural hollow, maybe eighty paces across. The air was thick and damp. Instead of the ground becoming lush and fertile, though, the soil grew thinner as they scrambled down, until soon there was only bare stone left in which to make a slippery foothold. Ferns draped the crevices. On the south side, a few hardy creepers put out tentative fingers, a straggly bush or two clung for dear life. Other than that, the hollow was given to ferns. And bare, unforgiving rock.

But the steam… Why so much white steam? There was no river down here. No water. Why this thick, humid air?

‘What is that?’ Her eyes, she felt sure, were on stalks.

A giant chasm loomed out of the mist. A gaping hole, which went backwards and down into the mountain. It was glistening white on the inside.

She slithered down the slippery rock face, dislodging ferns as she went.

‘I don’t believe it.’ Claudia rubbed at her eyes. She was seeing things. The strain had made her hallucinate. ‘That’s ice.’

‘It is,’ he said cheerfully, ‘and providing you don’t mind the cold, we can hide here in safety.’

Trotting after him, Drusilla’s crate joggling in her hand, Claudia muttered something about beggars and choosers and sent a silent prayer to the god of weavers for this handy woollen tunic.

The arch, so perfect many a Roman architect would wish to emulate its beauty, was at least twenty paces across and the same high. As far back as she could see, blue-white ice twinkled in the darkness of the cave.

‘How can it stay like this without melting?’ she gasped. For gods’ sake, this is July. ‘Is it a glacier?’

‘Freak rock formation,’ he said. ‘Look at the angle of the cavern. At some stage, ice formed in here and being, I don’t know, a hundred, two hundred feet thick, only a very thin surface layer melts.’ Picking his footing carefully, Arcas led her to the right-hand side of the cave. ‘Walkways have been cut out of the rock,’ he cautioned. ‘Rings hammered into the wall, ropes looped through, but it’s still very dangerous. The slope is steep and the rock face juts out in places. You have to be careful.’

‘You know a lot about this cave.’

‘I’ve spent three winters here,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘The fluky nature of this place means that very often the temperature is warmer inside than out.’ About fifty paces into the cave he paused and picked a torch from its hook on the wall. ‘Soon it will be too dark for our eyes.’

Claudia glanced upwards over her shoulder. Thanks to the twisting nature of this freaky cave, very little of the massive arch was visible. She could see a gibbous moon in an otherwise starless sky. Turn another bend and natural light would be extinguished altogether.

In her cage, Drusilla yowled like a banshee whose bunion gave her gip.

Arcas’s torch hissed into life. ‘Many rented the accommodation before me.’

His flickering brand brought to life bison galloping over the walls, deer in mid-leap, and Claudia wondered why she wasn’t reassured by their painted vitality, their glowing beauty. She glanced upwards, to where black stalactites hung from the roof of the cave, pointing not as she’d expected, straight down, but angled towards the entrance by freak whirlwinds. Did the cave dwellers find peace here? Happiness in their icy refuge? Or did they, like Claudia, endure it as a gruesome necessity, this place with no soul?

Strangely the narrow walkway, while treacherous going, was neither damp nor slippery and by taking it slowly, one pace at a time, Claudia followed Arcas down the spiralling ramp, the wall of ice rising higher and higher above her. ‘How far does it go?’ There were stalagmites growing upwards. Thick, chunky brutes.

‘To where we’re going,’ his voice echoed eerily in the stillness that was either black or it was white. ‘Not far. There’s a curve to the left, can you see it? A small cave leads off to the right. We’ll be safe there.’

The path levelled out, became a natural ledge where quartz twinkled like fireflies in the light of Arcas’s torch. It was a different world down here. Eerie, echoing and silent. Claudia set down Drusilla’s cage. More elaborate stalactite art-a cow with udders and long arching horns, a jellyfish, many of the formations had creepy mushroom-like gills. More sinister still was the constant drip-drip-drip of water from the roof. Claudia found her teeth were chattering and not necessarily from the chill in the air. This was a godless place, cold and unforgiving.

‘We’re not at the bottom?’

In answer, Arcas guided her by the elbow to the edge of the rope handrail and held his torch out as far as he could. Claudia sucked in her breath. The path went on and on for ever, disappearing into the icy depths of the cave as though this was the entrance to Hades… Above them, the tower of ice loomed silent and menacing and white. She shivered.

‘My winter quarters are behind us,’ he said. ‘Make yourself comfortable-I have hams smoked last winter to see me through the next-I’ll make sure no one can follow.’

By the light of the single spluttering torch, Claudia studied her surroundings. Couldn’t the Spider track them? If Arcas camped out here, surely the rebels would know of its existence? High-pitched ululating battle cries rang in her ears, and she didn’t know whether they were real or imaginary.

‘Off you go, poppet.’ She lifted the latch and out sprang a cat whose fury would only be appeased with a sliver of ham blackened for months over a fire of fir, the ash white and fragrant in the hearth he had built.

‘Come on, Arcas,’ she whispered. Come on. What was taking him so long? She pulled some of his blankets around her. They were damp and smelled of must, but at least they blocked out the cold, and inside her wigwam of wool she could pretend she wasn’t trapped in a tunnel with solid rock on one side and a great wall of ice on the other.

‘That should do the trick,’ he said, and she jumped. With a dull thud, a thick coil of rope landed on the stone floor. ‘I’ve concealed the entrance with branches, removed the handrail and laid one or two rather neat traps. No Spider can reach us in here.’

‘Then what’s that whining noise?’

‘Sequani war trick, designed to flush out the enemy. By pitching their voices high, the sound carries further, appearing closer than it actually is. Rather like birdsong in that respect.’

‘Give me a chaffinch any day.’

‘Hrrrow,’ said Drusilla. ‘Meeee tooooo.’

‘Right then.’ Arcas rubbed his hands briskly together. ‘We can’t light a fire, for obvious reasons-’

‘How long are we stuck here?’ Claudia asked. ‘You said yourself the Spider won’t give up on me, he’ll have men posted everywhere.’

‘Yes,’ Arcas nodded, chafing the circulation back into his naked chest and arms. ‘But after a couple of days, they’ll be less vigilant. We can easily slip through the net when their guard is down.’ From a pile of woollens, he selected two tunics and pulled both of them over his head.

‘Like we did from the Spider’s own house?’ She grinned.

‘We escaped, didn’t we?’ He cut a long sausage down from the beam which he’d fixed over the hearth. ‘Better this than what he had in mind.’

True.

From the back of the cave he brought out a large stoppered wineskin. ‘Pine liqueur,’ he said. ‘Helps pass time in the winter.’ He took a swig then passed it over to her. ‘So then,’ he said, slicing her a large chunk of smoked sausage, ‘what do you think of my cosy little nest?’

‘What intrigues me,’ she said, ‘is why you live here.’

His lips pursed, then pouted, then pursed once again. ‘Reasons.’ He shrugged. ‘Have another drink.’

‘My dear Arcas, are you trying to get this girl tiddly?’

‘Possibly,’ he admitted, stretching out and crossing his legs at the ankles. ‘Do you mind?’

Claudia thought of a man with dark, wavy hair. A man who had sent someone else to rescue her.

‘Not at all,’ she said, taking a second long swig. ‘Getting drunk is one thing I excel at.’

By the gods, though, this stuff fair makes one’s eyes water.

‘Tell me.’ Arcas grinned, propping himself up on one elbow. ‘Where did you hide that map?’

Beneath her blankets, Claudia suddenly shivered. It was as though her very marrow was ice. Tell me, she prayed. Tell me it’s just this wretched ice cave…

‘Why, Arcas?’ she said slowly. ‘Why do you want to know?’

‘Just curious,’ he said, flipping the stopper back in the liqueur skin. ‘Only you couldn’t have hidden it on your person-’

Was it the gentian liqueur which made her head spin? Tell me it is. Tell me it’s drink which is making me queasy.

‘Why did you bring my belongings with you, Arcas?’ She was shivering inside. This isn’t happening. It can’t be.

‘To escort you over the border.’

‘Earlier, you said Bern.’

‘Yes. Well. Your fancy patrician wanted me to take you to Bern, I told him I don’t know the place, but I’d see you as far as the border.’

Her heart was beating so loud, she thought it would deafen her. Arcas. She rolled the name around in her head.

The Silver Fox. Tears welled in her eyes. Not of anger, at being taken in by this man. But of sadness. Goddammit, she had liked this rugged woodsman ‘You’re one of them, aren’t you?’ she said quietly. ‘The Spider’s men.’

She dared not look at him.

Across the cave, she heard him inhale deeply. ‘I’m a huntsman, not a warrior. I told you.’

‘But first and foremost, you’re a trapper.’ You baited this trap. And removing the rope rail was not to impede the Spider’s men. It’s to hinder my progress, should I try to escape. A thousand emotions thundered in her head. ‘Dammit, Arcas, this whole bloody thing is a set up.’ Choreographed from the start…

Faster than she could have imagined, he sprang across the floor. ‘No!’ she screamed, making a bolt for the cave entrance, but already he was upon her, thrusting her on to her face as deft hands tied her wrists with strips of leather. ‘Let me go, you duplicitous bastard!’

‘You know I can’t do that,’ he panted, hauling her upright to a sitting position. ‘Although if it’s any consolation, this doesn’t make me feel good.’

You arrogant sod! It’s me tied like a sacrificial hog, yet all you’re concerned about are your own bloody feelings! She squirmed, and the bindings bit into her flesh.

‘One million Celts died defending their homelands, did you know that?’ he said sadly. ‘A million more taken to be sold into slavery. That’s half the population, Claudia. Half! No one held it against the old king when he pleaded submission, we’d been brought to our knees, many tribes wiped out completely. But times change. We are strong again. We will fight back.’

All right. He’s not like the Spider, a raving, sick psychopath. Let’s debate this in a civilized fashion.

If you call being kidnapped and hog-tied civilized. ‘Under Roman occupation,’ she said quietly, ‘civil war is a thing of the past, surely that’s worth celebrating. Or have you forgotten how you GauCelts used to be at one another’s throats? You and the good folks of the Auvergne, for instance. It’s not so long ago you sought to annihilate the whole bloody tribe.’

With an irritated flick, he sent the stopper winging over the floor and gulped greedily at the liqueur.

Wrong, Claudia thought. Don’t rub him up the wrong way. We’re being civilized, remember? ‘I can’t condone the loss of two million,’ she said with commendable calm, ‘but after two generations of peace the population is not only back to its original level, numbers are actually swelling. With men at home, instead of off fighting, lands have become fertile and prosperous-’

His fists clenched, and he rammed a punch into a pile of blankets. ‘Goddammit, we’re a vassal state! Don’t you have any conception of what that might mean?’ He shook his silver mane and his anger seemed to fall with it. ‘Well, that’s of no consequence. We need the last piece of the map, Claudia, and I know what you think of me, but I swear, you have my word as a Sequani nobleman, that once it’s in my possession, I shall personally see you to safety. My word.’

A vision flashed through her head. Of him giving his word to Marcus, of their gripping forearm to forearm, staring deep into each other’s eyes as they weighed one another up.

‘Is Junius dead?’ she asked woodenly. And knew the answer.

‘It was part of the plan.’ He shrugged.

Ah, yes. The plan. I was forgetting. Right from the very beginning, Sequani spies must have informed the Spider that Theo was acting for Galba. The Treveri and the Helvetii might not know the senator was about to double-cross them, but by the gods, the Spider did. The rock fall was his signal to swing into action. After that, it was watch-and-wait time. Someone-probably Arcas-would have kept an eye on the convoy, doubtless laying a trail for the hapless travellers to follow which would lead them to the plateau where they’d see a plume of smoke, and in their frazzled state they wouldn’t think to ask themselves, who lights a fire in midsummer?

Guided to the village, it’s plain sailing. From then on, they’re in the Silver Fox’s hands, dancing to whichever tune he pipes. He would be well aware of Theo’s role, and it wasn’t that he mistrusted him. He wanted the lad close to keep tabs on him. For similar reasons, he recognized in Orbilio a man who was not what he claimed to be, and wanted him at the back, separated as far as possible from the man who was collecting the maps.

‘That day the Spider’s war party descended on us,’ she said sombrely. ‘We weren’t in any danger.’

‘None at all.’

‘You signalled the charge by leaning on your sword, letting the sun send out a message.’ Then it was playtime. Lead them a dance. Sow seeds about headhunting Gauls. Sow panic. Pandemonium. Make them trust you.

‘I tried to warn you, Claudia,’ he said thickly. ‘How often did I say to you, trust nobody?’ Almost to himself, he added, ‘But you wouldn’t listen.’

No self-pity, Hanno had said. And no compassion, either…

Claudia thought of the ewe with her lambs, her cut throat pumping blood. She thought of the horse breeder, whose stock Arcas had so heartlessly stolen. Never mind that family might starve, be forced to leave the lands they had worked for, spend the rest of their lives in poverty. This was in the name of ‘the cause’. Try as she might, Claudia could not contain her rage. "What bloody cause? Did Arcas and his brutal leader imagine they could take on the might of Rome? With or without the chaos of the new Republic, did he not know how great the army numbered? How far the Empire stretched? No, of course not! To the Sequani, a few hundred miles was big territory. Oh, you stupid, stupid, ignorant sods! Sending good men into battle when any soldier could tell them, the whole bloody lot would be slaughtered!

Doubtless Theo had tried, but the Spider, in his arrogance, wouldn’t listen.

Double-cross upon double-cross.

Where would it end?

Now, though, one other thing, finally, made sense. Dammit, you silly bitch, you only have yourself to blame for this predicament. You should have been suspicious from the start when it was Arcas acting alone who came to rescue you. Not, she thought, because Orbilio holds a torch for you. No. He’d have tagged along for the simple reason he always had, to play the bloody hero!

She wondered what he was doing. The sun would be shining in Vesontio. The parade would be long over, the banquet underway. Wine would be flowing like nobody’s business, business contacts set up, orders placed as sucking pig and roast boar were wheeled in. There’d be dancing and music, jugglers between courses, acrobats, poets and mime. He’d have gone to the barracks, established Theo hadn’t turned up, and then what? Unable to proceed further on his own, would Marcus have gone to the party? He’d notice her absence. Maybe check up on her lodgings, but she’d checked out, he would find. He’d be cross, call her names, and when he calmed down he would see that she’d simply slunk back to Rome and since he was only concerned with his precious map, he’d be happy knowing it was not in rebel hands. Right now, she thought, he’d be feasting on lobsters and quail, taking his pick of a score of young women He would never know that the Spider, having searched her room, had then arranged her kidnap (no doubt a rebel fed false information to a gullible Junius that the Neptune Gate was perfectly safe). He would never know how, in order to retrieve the final portion of the map, the rebel leader had tested her resolve by trying to unnerve her with Theo’s head-with a whole cavalcade of heads-culminating in that harrowing human sacrifice which was the wicker man.

Marcus Cornelius would never know the Spider’s tactics. How, under torture, some people talk, others never will. How the Spider could tell (from heaven knows how much experience) which type he was dealing with, and having assured himself that tough measures would fail with Claudia Seferius, arranged for Arcas to effect a rescue.

The hue and cry that followed was another piece of theatrical romp. Designed to make her place her trust in her saviour…

With weighted eyelids, Claudia looked around the cave.

At the hams hanging from the beam above. The slimy walls. The Silver Fox whose lair she had been lured to. Where would, could they go from here? The friendship ploy had failed, she had seen through Arcas. Admittedly a tad late, but nevertheless, she knew who he was, as he knew she would not yield to torture. They had reached an impasse, and from here there was no way out.

This grotto was Claudia’s grave.