Dream Boat

Chapter Thirty-six

Most men wrestle with their consciences. In Mentu's case, he'd spent his whole life wrestling with the dual facets of his own split personality.

At last, Claudia understood what Min meant when he'd talked about the influence he carried in this commune. He was referring to the very necessary control he'd need to have over his younger, more unstable brother. They had set up this scam between them, Min and Mentu. A means of making money, but Min soon became aware that, for his brother, the commune meant much more than a simple get-rich-quick scheme. The role of Pharaoh had taken him over, sucked him in as much as it had sucked in the cult members who contributed so generously to their Solar Fund.

Mentu would have been the one to ensnare skilled craftsmen. He would have been the one to extend the buildings, to enrol members from as far afield as Naples and Brindisi. Min would have been all for a year or two on the gravy train, then pulling out. Not so his younger, headstrong brother.

It wasn't difficult to decide which of the two should be the Pharaoh. Mentu was a born showman, Min more the backroom puller of strings, but in fairness, neither could have predicted its tragic outcome.

In a way, thought Claudia, staring at the birthmark on his face, Mentu was as much a victim as his Pyramidiots, taken over by the very showmanship he'd used to control the members' minds. Which was not to say she felt sorry for the bastard! But what had started out as a common-or-garden illusion, the faking of his own death, had grown into an obsession with resurrection and the afterlife. Reality became distorted. He believed himself the Pharaoh of his people, Osiris incarnate, son of Ra. And as Ra battled with the serpent, so Osiris battled with his antithesis. Good and evil, order and anarchy, light and dark. Even the cave symbolised this duality. Luxury swapped for sparseness. Mentu had his pick of women, Seth had to lure them. For Mentu, they'd spread their bodies on his couch, naked and compliant. For Seth, they struggled all the way. And for Seth, they died. No one died for Mentu, even as Osiris… that made Seth omnipotent.

At what stage did he consider setting out his grisly table? Perhaps the first body had given him the idea, and the belief in his powers had grown. Perhaps he truly believed, as any self-respecting paranoid schizophrenic would, that 'they' were after him. The Romans. The enemy. Out to get him.

And on a purely practical level (and Seth was nothing if not practical!), he would ensure that the overseers were men in his own mould. Min, of course. Callous, manipulative and ruthless. Shabak, the doctor who healed without compassion, because healing was A Good Thing and would secure him a place in the afterlife. Penno, the pernickety sneak of a temple warden, happy to report back on what the terracotta ears had heard. Neco. Probably a repressed homosexual, venting his spite on the world and himself. And Geb — Claudia could find no word to say against the man who died saving her life. The man whose corpse burned inside the cave, alongside little Flea's.

Flea, who would never cuddle Doodlebug again…

Claudia broke a branch off the fig tree and held it close to the fire until it caught alight. Then she held it to the silver cloak. Could Seth gobble up his own soul, when his heart clanked like a stone upon the balance? What the hell. She tossed the burning branch on to his chest. They'd made the whole religion up, picking bits of this and bits of that and tacking them together. Just like that Festival of Lamps down there.

She glanced through the trees. Lamps? She blinked, and blinked again. Those weren't lamps. Juno, Jupiter and Mars — the whole damned commune was on fire!

She skidded back down the narrow, twisty path. Screaming carried louder than the thunderclaps. As she approached the temple compound, Claudia heard a voice booming out across the commune.

'Hear me, for I am Jupiter. You have betrayed my trust, and the chariots of Mars shall charge among you and the fires of Vulcan raze this place to the ground.'

Thunder rumbled overhead, lightning bolts shot through the heavens and — incredibly — horsemen came riding through the open gates. Six of them! Is this happening? Is Jupiter really talking to us? But wait. There was something about the voice. Something cultivated. Something familiar…

'Your idols shall tumble.'

More screams broke out when the two alabaster sphinxes toppled sideways. In the flickering light of flames, Claudia could see the ropes. But where was the voice coming from? So loud, so deep, so…

'So very like a tortoise!'

'Flattery,' said Orbilio, wiping the smuts from his nose, 'will get you everywhere. Excuse me, while I crawl back into my shell.'

Claudia wriggled in alongside him, and felt the warmth from his body pressing against hers like a current in a turbulent sea.

'I won't ask,' he said, and his voice echoed in the hollow chamber, 'how you acquired a blue face, but even the Serving Women didn't set the bloody hills alight.'

'There weren't any wild fig trees locally, I had to take up mountaineering.'

'It had to be a fig?' He was studying the raw wheals on her arms.

'You know me. Stickler for authenticity.' He smelled good, she thought. Smoke and sandalwood make a heady combination, even in a dead man's clothes. 'Some investigators, I see, will go to any lengths to get their profiles raised. You took that blaze-of-glory phrase literally, I gather.'

'When a Security Policeman's under house arrest for suspicion of murder, he has to take some pretty drastic action.'

'You don't consider dressing up as a woman drastic?'

'Only at weekends,' he fired back, his eyes locked on the broad band of bruising round her throat. 'I don't suppose, while you've been idling your time up there in the hills, that you've so much as given a thought as to whose might be the body in the plaster, let alone put a name to her killer?'

'Of course I have,' she quipped, 'but if I tell you that, it'll make me cleverer than you, and men don't like that in women. Now is this a private party, or can anyone join in?'

'Oh, be my guest,' he said, wriggling to give her access to the tortoise's open mouth. Her palms were moist, her stomach was in knots. It really was a strange sensation, feeling safe… but there was one more thing to do before she left this evil valley.

'Hear me,' she called, 'for I am Juno, Queen of Heaven.' Hey, the acoustics are good! 'To repay your disobedience, I shall destroy your Boat of Dreams.'

Grinning broadly from ear to ear, Orbilio tugged on a rope and to Claudia's delight the whole damned barque exploded. Cedarwood, oily and fragrant, sputtered and spat and sent out a spray of red sparks. Amethysts and emeralds, pearls and lapis lazuli grew black, and slowly the gold plating on the boat's high prow began to drizzle down the side.

What a waste…

'I don't know what that High Priest keeps in that moleskin pouch of his,' Claudia said, and her voice sounded husky, 'but it's pretty damned effective.'

'So are you,' he rasped, and she realised that, at some stage, his arm had closed around her shoulder. 'So the hell are you.'

Inside the bronze tortoiseshell, the two of them seemed locked together, eyes on eyes, nose to nose, body pressed to body.

'Marcus?'

There was a beat of perhaps five. 'Claudia?'

She could hear his ragged breathing, even over the tumbling of buildings, the crackle of the flames, the roaring thunderbolts. 'Marcus.. Will you always be here for me? 'Marcus

…'

'Claudia?'

Will you always keep me safe? 'Marcus Cornelius, will you shift that damned pommel out my bloody way?'

And in their dark, bronze, private shell she heard him chuckle. 'That,' he said, 'is not my scimitar. Behave yourself.'

Behave?

Claudia Seferius?

You must be joking!