Dark Horse

Thirty-Seven

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.