Dark Horse

Nine

Two people fight. Now one man is dead. Was Bulis one of the tussling pair? He couldn't have been, Claudia thought. No one could have entered that inferno to tie someone up without succumbing themselves.

Besides, Bulis wasn't just tied. He was chained.

Was that what the fight was about? One person trying to prevent another from entering? Was Bulis alive while they struggled? Sweet Juno, was he screaming? Begging for help as Claudia ran across the path in the early hours? She hadn't been able to hear anything over the crackle of timbers. But no one on the steps could have missed his cries of agony…

A grim-faced working party mounted the stone steps and disappeared inside. Knowing the grisly task they had to undertake, the sound of sawing put her teeth on edge, and her mouth was drier than the Sahara as they carried the body out on a stretcher. Impossible to believe those charred remains had once been a living, laughing human being. What terror filled your heart, Bulis, as the first of the flames began to take hold? Which gods did you pray to for mercy? Which gods closed their ears to your prayers?

In silence, the stretcher-bearers manoeuvred the body down the steps. A path cleaved through the horrified crowd. By the bakehouse, several of Bulis's beautiful colleagues were sobbing openly.

'How could this have happened?' one of them spluttered through his tears. 'How could this have happened to Bulis?'

And Claudia thought, how indeed? How did a young apprentice come to be chained up like a hay rake? Did the arsonist know the boy was inside? Or, god forbid, had burning Bulis alive been his objective? The nightwatchmen had been drugged, the grain store flooded with oil and set alight, but who was fighting on the steps while the inferno raged, and who had clamped her tight in a bear hug then knocked her out? She could understand it if he'd left her where she had fallen, but instead he'd taken the trouble of carrying her back to bed. Later, she thought, she would go through a few rooms, see who scented their clothes with sweet cinnamon. Because someone A woman's scream cut through her conjecture.

So jarring was the sound, so utterly obscene in this moment of reverence as Bulis's remains were carried indoors, that at first no one understood what was happening. Then people saw where the woman was pointing.

And more screams filled the air.

Sails brailed, oars shipped, a galley lay at anchor in the calm, rose-red waters. Slim and symmetrical with her high carved posts fore and aft and her single bank of oars, there was no mistaking her for a merchantman. But the galley formed no part of the Imperial Navy. The colours she flew were of Mars, God of War. And the painted eyes were right at the front, on her bow. All the better to see her prey.

So much for the threat of piracy not being substantive.

'Jason!' Leo hissed through his teeth. 'Qus, arm the men! Everyone, man your stations! Prepare to defend to the death.'

Out on her prow, its bronze ram glinting in the rising sun, one man stood alone. His arms were folded over his chest. Like the Dacian tribes over the hills to the east, he was tall and wore black pantaloons tucked into red leather boots. He wasn't a Dacian, though. Dacian warriors wore a beard as their badge of identity. This man was clean shaven. And unlike the Dacians, his swordbelt tied under the crotch. Other tribes did that, of course, including Shamshi's fellow Persians. What gave him away were the blue tattoos on his forearms. Those tattoos pronounced the captain a Scythian. That savage race of warriors who sacrificed horses — and occasionally humans — to the sun god they worshipped.

Suddenly a lot of things fell into place.

'Bastards!' Leo ran to the cliff edge and waved his fists. 'Murdering bloody bastards,' he yelled.

The lone figure performed a long, insolent bow before resuming his original pose. Gold glittered in the sunlight when he leaned forward. At his neck and also at his belt.

'Qus!' Leo roared. 'Is the Medea ready?'

'Naturally,' the bailiff replied. 'You gave strict orders to keep her primed to sail at a moment's notice.'

'Well, this is the moment, Qus! Muster the crew. I'm going after that murdering bastard.'

'But that's what he's waiting for,' the Ethiopian protested. 'He's trying to goad you into giving chase.'

'I'll give that sonofabitch chase all right, Qus. When I catch him, he'll wish he'd never been born!'

'You can't hope to outstrip him with the Medea.'

'Who bloody can't? Leo turned to his head slave and glowered. 'You just make sure that ship's ready to sail in ten minutes or you'll find yourself turned into cash come the next auction.'