Dark Horse

Six

Ooh, fank gawd!' The anxious face of one of the maidservants pushed its way into focus. 'When I couldn't wake you, I fought somefing terrible 'ad happened!'

Hadn't it? Through a thick haze, Claudia tried to piece back the memory. Vaguely she saw two figures. Wrestling on the granary steps. Felt two strong arms round her chest. Huh. Bad dream! She was here, wasn't she? Tucked up in bed. In her room. With one of the maids Leo had hired for his new bride bending over her.

'Ouch.' Except dreams don't leave lumps the size of onions. Or clash cymbals against your brain. Or smell of — 'Fire!'

'That's why I was trying to wake you,' the girl said, hauling Claudia up by her shoulders. 'Do 'urry, mistress. Please, mum.'

What was that dreadful noise? Was that inside her head, too? Then she realized. It was the sound made by feet stampeding down the villa's cool marble floors mingled with screams and shouts, with whimpering sobs and the slamming of doors in a mad clamour for open air. Through the windows, a ghostly grey light was pushing its way through the heavy blanket of sky to the east.

This, Claudia thought, is one hell of a way to greet a new dawn.

Holding her head with both hands to prevent it from rolling into a corner, she fumbled her way to the window. How long had she been unconscious? Weeks? Months? It could only have been minutes, she thought. Just a few minutes. Thick plumes of smoke smothered the courtyard and panic was spreading. Fieldworkers from the dormitories knocked one another aside in the rush. Slaves huddled in terrified knots. Children wailed.

'We're going to die! We're all going to die!' someone shouted.

'Run for your lives,' cried another.

Four rooms along, Silvia's imperious tones drowned the rumpus. Any frantic activity on her part had taken on a distinctly more pragmatic note.

'The jewels,' Silvia ordered her servants. 'Save the jewels.'

'Please, mistress,' Claudia's maid pleaded. 'You've gotta get out.'

'Go away.'

'What?' The girl blenched. 'An' leave you when you're ill?'

That was the trouble with hired help. Claudia could have brought her own entourage, but the fewer who knew where she was, the safer for all concerned, so she'd only brought the head of her bodyguard.

'I'm not ill.' If only those castanets inside her head would stop trying to compete with the cymbals…

The maid flung her single heavy plait over her shoulder as a gesture that she was standing her ground. 'You've picked up one of them fevers, that's what you 'ave. If I wrap you up nice and warm, you'll feel better.'

'You'll feel the back of my hand, if you don't stop fussing.'

'Now where the devil did I put your long lick woollen wrap? It's bin so 'ot, I honestly didn't fink you'd need anyfing that warm.' The girl scratched her head. 'Perhaps it's in that chest over there…'

She lifted the lid. Claudia slammed it down hard. 'Out.'

Bundling the girl unceremoniously out of the room, she explored the lump on the side of her head, the bruises round her upper arms where she'd been clamped. She swallowed. Lifted her shift. All right. She swallowed again. Let's see what other violations had taken place..

Juno be praised, she hadn't been raped.

Across the narrow pathway, orange flames crackled and spat, and shattered the terracotta roof tiles. What the hell kind of twisted mind knocks a girl unconscious then takes the trouble to carry her back to her bed? The burning stung her eyes. As she watched, one of the interior timbers let out an ominous crack. Hysteria swept through the crowd like a flash flood. As one, they surged towards the cliff path.

'Stop.'

Leo's cultured tones cut straight through the shrieks of the slaves, the screams of the women, even the terrified yelps of the dogs.

'Everyone remain where they are.'

This was a voice which was calm, controlled, and brooked no disobedience. Even when a large section of the roof collapsed with an ear-splitting crash, no one dared move.

'Qus.' He addressed his tall, Ethiopian steward, who had come running. 'Organize buckets, use the water from the bath house. The rest of you, form a chain, each man one arm's span apart — and that includes you, Saunio.'

'Me?' The maestro threw back his head in a theatrical gesture. 'I am an artiste,' he protested. 'I cannot risk damaging my hands. These hands are my work. My life. My art.'

'I am told that, over time and given plenty of nursing — ' Leo shot a withering glance at the coven of pretty young men clustered around him — 'blisters eventually recover.'

Saunio looked for another way out. His contract was to design, not to act as a skivvy. 'But your beautiful frescoes,' he wheedled. 'I am barely halfway through the project. If the famous Saunio's hands burn, who will complete his magnificent masterpieces?'

'The next painter I hire,' Leo barked, 'now jump to it. Listen up, everyone. It only needs one small spark to cross this courtyard and the house goes up with it, so put your backs into it. You too, Silvia. Grab a bucket.'

Straightening the wrap which covered her embroidered linen nightshift, Silvia tilted her patrician chin and was about to give a sharp rejoinder when she realized that Leo was no longer beside her. With a militant sniff, she stalked across the cobbles in the direction of the herb garden. If he wanted to get himself burned to a crisp, that was fine by her. He was only her brother-in-law, after all. She had no intention of so much as singeing an eyebrow herself. Good heavens, what did the man think slaves were for?

'Where the bloody hell are you sloping off to?' Leo snarled, spinning Saunio round by his arm. 'I told you. We need every man we can get, which means you and your nancy boys. Everyone pulls their weight in a crisis like this. Everyone, do you understand?'

'It's Bulis,' the artist whined. 'I'm worried about the poor boy.'

'In your shoes, I'd be more worried about me.'

'You don't understand. I can't find him anywhere-'

'Bugger Bulis. Just join the sodding chain, before the whole bloody place goes up.'

Watching the furious activity from the shadows of her bedroom, Claudia wished she'd seen the combatants more clearly. They had been of a same size and build, that much she could tell, but any further detail had been lost in the dark, in the smoke, in the fact that they were locked together. And before she'd got close enough to identify either party, someone had thoughtfully smashed a flowerpot over her head.

Was that why? To stop her identifying the brawlers? Or to prevent her from breaking up the fight?

Round her ankles, hackles raised and tail swishing like a scythe through hay, Drusilla yowled obscenities from the back of her throat.

'I know, poppet,' Claudia whispered, bending down to stroke the spiky fur flat. 'It's too slick, isn't it?'

Far too slick. Watching Leo striding back and forth across the courtyard, issuing orders in his calm, patrician voice, was like watching rehearsals for some theatrical drama. The slaves and fieldworkers might be terrified, and justifiably so, but not Leo. A fire breaks out, despite the vigilance of a whole corps of nightwatchmen. It catches hold. Becomes an inferno. Not for Leo, though, to be outdoors in his nightshift! There he was, striding around in long, patrician tunic, neatly belted, and he'd even taken the trouble to comb his hair and lace up his boots.

Drusilla's back arched, her tail stiffened.

'Exactly, poppet. Think how little time passed before the alarm was raised. Yet here's Leo, immaculately groomed, establishing authority on chaos.'

It was as though every scene which unfolded had been carefully — if badly — choreographed. In fact, so methodical were her host's actions, a girl could have been forgiven for thinking infernos were a weekly occurrence here at the villa.

'Leo was prepared for this,' Claudia said. Or at least, something like this, she quickly qualified. The drill was good, but it was far from practised. As though this was the first rehearsal in a play suddenly sprung upon the actors by the theatrical director.

'If proof were needed, just look how uninterested he is in his nightwatchmen.'

'Hrrrrr,' Drusilla growled.

'My sentiments entirely. All those big burly men staggering about holding their heads?'

Any normal master would have assumed they were drunk and beaten them for falling asleep at their posts. Not Leo. He knew their sleep had been induced by something more sinister. But make no mistake, Leo was angry. Very angry. Witness the stiff back, clenched fists — body language which suggested that, although he hadn't been caught on the hop, this Leo was not a happy lion.

As dawn began to throw her pink veil across the hills to the east, Claudia's eyes narrowed to slits.

Just what the hell kind of game was Leo playing here?

And what was the real reason he'd invited her to the Villa Arcadia?