Scorpion Rising

Eleven

Swarbric was engaged in conversation with a youth with a fuzz of dark curls when Claudia approached his hut shortly after breakfast. Actually, she thought, conversation might be too strong a word. What Swarbric was actually engaged in was grabbing the youth by the fabric of his collar, pressing the boy's back against the wall and snarling into his face. Which, when you looked closely, was quite a handsome young face. But then she'd never seen so many hunks to the square mile before.

Having taken a stroll round the perimeter of the village on the way to his hut, from glimpses through the palisade she'd noticed that the workforce was universally young, universally strapping, universally unblemished and universally intelligent. Perfect sires for the priestessly foals, and yet not one of them over the age of forty. What must it feel like? she wondered. What must it feel like to be valued for your physical attributes and your core characteristics, but never, not once, for yourself?

She hid behind a holly bush and watched the exchange. Overhead, low clouds began to cover the sky.

'It doesn't matter whether you like it or not,' Swarbric was growling. 'You bloody well do your job.'

'Never,' the boy hissed back. 'I'm not some sodding bear that can be forced to dance or be beaten to within an inch of its life.'

'Wrong, Connal, that's exactly what you are. See these?' Swarbric indicated his own tight linen pants. 'See this?' He ruffled his shirt whose drawstring hung open halfway to his waist, revealing the sort of chest armourers used when fashioning models for breastplates. 'This is the livery of a performing bear, Connal, and you either get used to it-'

'Not all of us are like you,' the boy spat, 'and maybe when you fall in love, you'll know how it feels.'

'Love! Do you think any of these women cares a copper quadran for you? They don't know the meaning of the bloody word.'

'That's where you're wrong! Elusa loves me, I love Elusa, and somehow we're going to get out of — ow!'

The youth's face twisted in pain as Swarbric tightened his grip on his collar, choking Connal with his own shirt.

'Listen to me, you stupid bastard, there'll be no talk of running away, do you hear?'

'The hell I-'

'Do you know what they'll do to Elusa, if they find out what you're planning?' he rasped. 'Because they will, son. They always find out. These trees have ears, they have eyes, trust me, the Hundred-Handed know everything. They pool secrets the same way they pool their knowledge of nature, the same bloody way they pool us, and what the trees don't give away, pillow talk does. Now for gods' sakes, Connal, grow up.'

He released his grip and his anger drained with it.

'Meet with Elusa, love with Elusa, but you damn well do what you have to do, son, and you do it with good grace or believe me, they'll sell you faster than you can say knife, then you'll never see Elusa again.'

'I know you mean well — ' Connal wiped his nose with the back of his hand — 'but times are changing, Swarbric, just look at us. You're German, I'm a Briton, the world's opening up, even for the Hundred-Handed. With Santonum having trade links all over the world, thanks to sailors' tales, to merchants, from the Gauls travelling themselves, people don't accept blind authority any more.'

'If you mean Elusa-'

'Not only her. Lots of the younger ones have minds of their own.'

'We all have minds of our own, son. It's our bodies that are in thrall, that's the trouble, and the Hundred-Handed are slaves to their system every bit as much as we are.'

'But-'

'But nothing. Don't you imagine Beth was as passionate when she was Elusa's age? Don't you imagine Dora or Fearn or Ailm had the same fire in their bellies as you have? As the younger ones have today?'

The youth shrugged one surly shoulder. 'They might have, I suppose.'

Then no more talk of escape, right? You've only been here a year, son, you're still learning. Now go on with you.' He gave him an affectionate shove back to the village. 'And trust me, Connal. You'll get used to it.'

Would he, though? Claudia wondered, as the boy slouched miserably off up the hill. Would he ever get used to the concept of never being able to marry, never being able to settle down, never raising kids of his own? Croesus almighty, if the men were bitter and resentful in youth, what on earth were they like in middle age? How poisoned would they be in their dotage?

Her mind pictured the young girl with blonde, almost white hair, laying hot stones on her back, and the pain that had filled the girl's eyes. Swarbric was wrong. Elusa did care for Connal, but was it hot, searing puppy love, something deep and eternal or a novelty which would pass once duty superseded it? At the moment, though, the definition of Elusa's feelings was irrelevant. All that mattered was that the girl believed herself deeply in love and was prepared to sacrifice everything to be with him. Yet another forbidden fruit.

Claudia looked round the valley, at the willows, the iris, the dragonflies and the bees. She looked at the water gushing out of the rock. At the stream that danced its way through the meadow.

And saw not paradise.

But Hell.

Where all manner of dark creatures slithered. Including fear…

The night before, when she'd returned to her bedroom — one of several small private chambers sectioned off in the longhouse that served as the guest quarters — the note was the first thing she'd noticed. As, indeed, she'd been meant to, since a candle had been lit adjacent to the writing tablet and the stylus laid elegantly across it.

I know, it had read. But now seven new words had been added. I just cannot decide who to tell.

Since she was the only guest at the moment, that narrowed the list.

To approximately five hundred women.

Of whom one was also a murderess.

'The Pit of Reflection?' Swarbric seemed surprised by her question. 'Yes, of course I can take you there.' He tipped his prematurely grey head to one side and raised one eyebrow suggestively. 'I can assure you, the Lady Claudia won't lack for privacy up there.'

'Sorry to disappoint you, but it's only the Pit that the Lady Claudia's interested in.'

'We'll see,' he said cheerfully. 'But I have to warn you, it's quite a hike.'

He wasn't kidding, though quite how the seams of his pants stood the strain of the climb, she wasn't entirely sure. 'And it's up here?' she wheezed.

'Nope.' He gave his short sword an airy jab towards the opposite hill. 'It's up there.'

Maybe it was the sweat in her eyes, but — 'Wouldn't it have been easier to have walked round the arrowhead to reach that second hill?'

'Much easier and a damn sight faster, as well.' He helped her down a slope that would have given the average mountain goat palpitations. 'But that way I wouldn't get to hold your hand or have you lean against me, now would I?'

The old joke sprang to mind: If I said you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?

'I'll say one thing, Swarbric. You don't lack for confidence.'

'No, ma'am, that I don't.'

But for all his cockiness — or maybe because of it — she imagined there would be many among the Hundred-Handed who went to sleep at night dreaming of that wide, disarming grin.

'Do all novices go through the tomboy phase like Clytie and the other three?' she wheezed, leaning forward to catch her breath.

'Clytie wasn't a tomboy,' he said, resting his foot on a rock and letting his shirt billow in the breeze. 'In fact, she wasn't a bit like Vanessia and the others.'

Claudia had got her wind back, but pretended she hadn't. 'How so?'

'Put it this way,' he said. 'Our Clytie was never caned or put into detention. Our Clytie would mend the tears in Aridella's smock and clear up the honey Lin spilled, and she'd re-make their beds and re-wash their underclothes, and every morning our Clytie went out spotless and tidy, and at night came home exactly the same.'

'Was she clever?'

'No idea, I can't follow the signing, but that child was certainly conscientious, if that's what you mean.'

'The class swot?'

'Like I said.' His mouth twisted up. 'Conscientious.'

And that was clearly the end of that conversation.

Halfway up the second hill, Swarbric offered to carry the Lady Claudia the rest of the way. Three-quarters of the way, the Lady Claudia wished that she had let him. Overhead, magpies chattered in the oak trees. She had a feeling that they were laughing. But at the top, the woods opened out to a wide, grassy clearing in which limestone outcrops were dotted with poppies, where lizards basked in the warmth of the sun and where birds deafened the eardrums with their warbling. Chaffinches, goldfinches and blackcaps.

'This is beautiful,' she puffed, sinking down onto one of the rocks and sending a family of lizards diving for cover. 'Absolutely-' She jumped up and covered her nose with her hand. 'Oh dear god, what is that?'

'The putrefying remains of wild animals,' Swarbric laughed, steering her downwind of the smell. 'Young ones, usually, who hadn't learned prudence by the time they fell in and discovered it was too late to learn it afterwards.'

Still shielding her face, Claudia peered into the diamondshaped fissure from which the stench was emanating. 'Curiosity killed the cat, eh?'

'And the lynx and the wolf and once, even, a bear.'

It looked innocuous enough, that hole in the rock. Why

'reflection', she wondered. And why 'pit'? To her surprise, the hand that clamped round her arm and jerked her back was neither gentle nor seductive.

'I don't advise standing too close.'

Searching round for a loose stone, the German tossed it into the aperture. Claudia counted four before she heard the dull thud.

'That is deep.'

'That is very deep,' he corrected. 'The opening's narrow, but don't be fooled. Like a pear, the chamber inside gets bigger the further it goes down and the rockface, like the rest of the region, is sheer. Once a penitent is thrown in, it's impossible to climb out.'

The Pit of Reflection, shaped not like a pear, but a teardrop, she decided. With plenty of time to reflect on one's sins, stuck inside a dank, dark hole with just a crack of daylight above to mark the passage of time and with only old bones for companionship.

'What's the average sentence?' she asked, tossing in a rock of her own and waiting for it to land.

'You don't know, do you?' The grin dropped from his face. Every trace of the cavalier had vanished. 'When I said it's impossible to climb out, I mean impossible.' Swarbric drew a deep breath. 'They don't use it often and never, thank the Fire God, willingly, but this is how the College deals with execution.'

Something primordial slithered inside.

'By distancing themselves from the act and thus ensuring none of those dainty little hundred hands gets dirty?'

It was arguably the nastiest form of punishment she had ever encountered, certainly the slowest and the most painful. Forgetting the possibility of breaking a bone or three in the fall, the prisoner was doomed to die of thirst and starvation in a pit filled with rotted remains. Reflection, my arse, she thought bitterly. This is murder by any other name. Murder, moreover, through the slowest torture known to man.

The penalty for slaying a raven is severe. Ailm's voice floated back, but Claudia remembered how the Death Priestess had turned her head to the wall when she spoke.

The perpetrator is cast into the Pit of Reflection, as are runaway slaves and, of course, any man found inside the walls of our precinct.

Small wonder Elusa was terrified.

So are any women who try to escape, she had said. They 're thrown into the Pit of Reflection, too.

'I've seen enough,' she said, turning away.

This land was beautiful, the women ditto, they were graceful, elegant, rotten to the core.

'Maybe I can show you some other less unpleasant but equally clandestine sites?' As he offered his arm, his shirt contrived to fall open even further. 'There's a little waterfall not far from here that is mossy and shady, as pretty as you are, or I could take you to a glade in the forest where-'

'You enjoy your job, don't you?'

The young German had 'choose me, choose me' written all over him. Like willow, he, too, was one of nature's survivors.

'Let's say I've become skilled at it,' he said, throwing in a winning, lopsided grin for good measure.

'What about the other side of the work?' she asked, as they retraced their steps back to the College. 'Doesn't it bother you, playing policemen to your fellow slaves?'

'My task is to stop people from getting into the grounds, not getting out.'

This time they followed the track below the arrowhead of rock, lined by sweet chestnuts and where peacock butterflies flitted and a dove cooed out its sleepy call.

'That's a job for the local Gauls,' Swarbric said. 'They volunteer to take turns to guard the men in the village.'

That explained why was it so hard for them to escape. Dedicated followers of College philosophy would prove more effective than the fiercest mastiff.

'How come you can take time off to show me the sights?' Claudia asked.

'Because there's only one road down to the gorge and therefore only one way in. Guards posted at points on the hills warn us of impending visitors by blowing a horn.'

She'd heard the blasts. Simply taken no notice.

'Do all the men get the same amount of free time as you?'

Swarbric leaned close and grinned. 'Teacher's pet,' he confided in a whisper. 'I get special dispensation.'

Special duties. Independent living. Teacher's pet indeed. But which teacher? she wondered. Surely only the pentagram priestesses had the authority to give that kind of permission.

'The job carries an awful lot of trust,' she pointed out. 'What did you do to earn it? Throw people screaming into pits?'

'Not me.' He leapt up to pluck an early apple from an overhead bough and tossed it to her. 'Sharp, but surprisingly tasty.'

After seeing the pit, Claudia had no appetite. She tossed it back. 'So if you don't throw them in, then who does?'

'Down here, I have very little contact with the men in the village,' he said, crunching, 'so I can't say who has the dubious honour these days.'

'Not the locals, though?'

'The Pit of Reflection is the Hundred-Handed's last resort, but it is also their ultimate deterrent.' He tossed the core into the undergrowth. 'As I've been singled out as Guardian of the Sacred Gate, so others are selected as Guardians of the Sacred Trust.'

'A noble title for an ignoble task, but if you expect me to believe that you don't know the name of the man who's been elected as the College executioner, you must think I'm stupid.'

Swarbric spun round on his heel and stepped in front of her. 'I find persistence a heady quality in a woman,' he said huskily, 'and as much as I'd like to be pressed further' — his grin was pure wolf — 'I honestly don't know who's taken over from the Spaniard, and maybe that's because I'm much happier not knowing whose killer eyes I look into.'

Claudia looked up so quickly that she tripped. 'Did you say Spaniard?'

'Odd character.' He caught her, even though she was in no danger of falling, and seemed in no great hurry to let her go. 'Didn't much mix with the rest of the men and didn't much enjoy his work with the ladies.'

She wriggled free, yet could still feel where the German's hands had held her firm at the shoulders.

'I suppose that's the reason they sold him,' he added, with a rueful cluck of the tongue. 'A man needs to be content in his work, even a slave.'

Happiness wasn't her concern. 'This Spaniard. I don't suppose you can remember his name?'

'Ribolo, why?'

'Ribolo!'

Mistaking her sigh for something other than relief, Swarbric hooked a ringlet that had come astray and tucked it back under its ivory hairpin.

'Ri — ' he let his fingertip slide on down her cheek — 'bo — ' under her chin 'lo.'

As it began to trace a line down her throat, Claudia moved away. 'Good heavens, is that the time? If I don't hurry, I'll be late for Mavor.'

Swarbric glanced up at the sky, where clouds obscured the sun that kept track of the hours. 'Mavor is good,' he said, and his eyes were dancing. 'In fact, our Bird Priestess is better than good.'

Now that was where she'd seen the redhead coming home from last night. From the direction of Swarbric's hut.

'Though a man's hands are stronger and can massage far better than a woman's, but don't take my word for it. Ask Mavor.'

'I'm sure she'll give you a glowing report.' In fact, she was sure they all would.

'If you need me at any time, Lady Claudia, you know where to find me.' He performed a theatrical bow in farewell. 'And I was wrong about it being Ribolo, you know. He was the Guardian of the Trust before last, and anyway, he came from Rhodes, now I think about it.'

The first spot of rain started to fall. Claudia did not feel it.

'And the last Guardian?' she asked. But why bother, when she already knew?

'Oh, he was a Spaniard, I got that part right,' Swarbric said, as he strode back up the path. 'But that executioner went by the name of Gabali.'

In the Governor's Palace, intelligence was coming in thick and fast — and from every direction.

The Aquitani were going to attack! They were going to attack tomorrow, at midsummer, Rome had better be ready!

The Druids were dissenting! They were angry, because witchcraft was rife among the Hundred-Handed, Rome had better do something!

Those three assassins were mercenaries! They'd been hired by one of the Governor's own generals, Rome was under attack from within!

Orbilio's staff processed the informants' claims with weary formality and paid the rumours no heed. Every two weeks, it seemed, stories would surface about the Aquitani's latest plans for insurrection, invariably giving dates, locations, numbers of rebels, their methods of attack — and every time it amounted to nothing. This was all part of the Scorpion's plan, of course. Spreading rumours then watching Rome dance to his jig, knowing they'd be wasting their time, money and most importantly precious manpower while they chased after shadows, but, equally, knowing that they could not afford to dismiss any of this out of hand.

Convinced that this latest intelligence was the same bullshit, and seriously doubting that that pathetic raggle-taggle band of self-styled warriors could inflict more than a pinprick, much less free Gaul in the three short months that remained of the campaigning season, the Security Police were still taking no chances. There was no room for complacency within the Roman administration. Wild-goose chases went with the territory. So with painstaking patience, Orbilio's staff logged the details of this impending midsummer attack and passed them on to the army.

As for the Druids, that was a political issue. Claims of witchery would certainly need close investigation, and if found to be true the sentence was punishable by death. But the Druids were crafty old buggers, not above spreading lies if it suited their purpose, and since Rome backed the peace-loving priestesses over their sectarian bigotry, large pinches of salt were required when it came to information purporting to come from them. But if the Druids resented the loss of political, religious and secular control over their fellow Gauls, they only had themselves to blame. Rome was quite happy for them to continue acting as judges and philosophers, inter mediaries and priests providing they stopped incinerating their own people inside wicker effigies while the poor sods were still alive. Except the Druids refused, claiming human sacrifice was their right and their gods needed the blood, leaving Rome no choice other than to impose its own laws outlawing such practices. Was it any surprise the Gauls then flocked to the side of those who protected them?

And where those rumours sprang from that the three men who'd tried to kill the Governor were part of a coup, the Security Police had no idea! Very little by way of torture had been required before the would-be assassins were singing like thrushes. The Scorpion put them up to it, they said even before the second iron was drawn from the fire. None other than his second-in-command, a man called Ptian, had given them their orders in person, and they'd been proud to sacrifice their lives for the greater good of Gaul, etc., etc., etc. No one bothered to point out how fast their enthusiasm had waned at the first sight of the bone screws and pincers. The point was, their testimony wasn't in doubt.

So whilst Orbilio's staff went through the motions of chronicling this sudden upsurge in intelligence and cursing the long hours spent over their desks, their real interest lay in their boss.

Where was he? Why leave so suddenly? Why only the briefest of explanations? Had Orbilio really taken a furlough to reconcile with his ex-wife? They'd like to know more, because that Claudia was an absolute stunner, though what a dark horse he'd turned out to be! Why, only this morning, a second wife had appeared on the scene, eager to speak with her ex, and what a shame. One had trekked all the way from Rome to be with him, the other had travelled from Lusitania, and the bastard didn't deserve either.

Ambition goes hand in hand with ruthlessness, they concluded, agreeing that they'd bloody well need to watch their step when he was around, and promising to look out for one another, because patricians were renowned for their back-stabbing qualities. Only twenty-eight years old, yet already Orbilio was head of the Security Police in Aquitania having left two broken hearts (at least) in his wake.

God knew, that was exactly the sort of bastard that would hang his staff out to dry if he cocked up himself.

They made sure their notations were meticulous in every degree.

Satisfied that he'd left the running of his office to a team whose judgement he could trust unreservedly, Marcus Cornelius Orbilio emerged from the wash house with a different worry on his mind. Tugging at his pants, he vaguely remembered that Cappadocian tribesmen sheathed their swords in leather belts that were held in place by a strap that passed under their crotch. But then the Cappadocians divided their time between arid salt deserts and volcanic mountains, where the wind whistled with unrelenting chill. Up there, discomfort was probably a basic criterion for tribal acceptance. Thus preoccupied with the twin issues of nipping stitches and biting seams, he descended the steps and found himself tripping over one of the slaves who'd also been sold on the auction block yesterday. The chap's name, he recalled, was listed as Manion.

'Sorry.' Manion pulled an apologetic face as Orbilio grabbed the stair rail to steady himself. 'Having trouble adjusting?' he asked, with a wry arch of his eyebrow.

Orbilio gave another tug at his crotch. 'I don't know how the Hundred-Handed expect a man to walk, much less father a bloody child.'

Manion laughed. 'You'll get used to it.'

'Which? Walking bow-legged or a lack of circulation to the essentials?'

'Don't worry. By the time the bruises on your face have faded, you'll be walking normally again, and until then, Pretty Boy, no priestess in her right mind is going to pick you over the others. Not unless she wants to wake up with nightmares.'

'Thanks, but speaking of right minds, do you have a rational explanation for scrabbling around in the grass on your hands and knees in the rain?'

'I dropped my ring while we were being herded in for — what did they have the cheek to call it?' He grinned. 'The Purification Bath? Besides, this is only light drizzle.'

Pitching into the search, Orbilio found nothing remarkable to note about Manion's appearance. Average height, average build, eyes neither green nor blue. The sort of looks no one remembers, he thought absently. From the distance there came a rumble of thunder.

'Ah,' he said, fumbling beneath the wooden steps. 'Think I might've found something. Here.'

He rubbed the silver band on his shirt then tossed it across. But not before he'd noticed the engraving of an exquisitely worked scorpion. Complete with stinger, ready to strike.

'Thanks, Pretty Boy.' Manion slipped the ring on his finger and clapped Marcus on the back. 'I owe you one.'

He was laughing to himself as he sauntered off.

Orbilio forgot about the problems of tight pants.