Scorpion Rising

Fifteen

Anything?'

The figure that stepped out from the alder grove startled her, and her first thought was, It's Orbilio playing the fool. But since when had the Security Police taken to practical jokes? Since when had his baritone carried an Andalusian accent, no matter how faint? Since when had he ever deliberately set out to scare her?

'G-Gabali.'

Claudia's nerves were still jangling, her voice still ragged as she took in this lean, unadorned, unassuming assassin. For a man who earned his living killing people, she thought, he seemed exceptionally composed and she realized that the only thing that separated him from a bookbinder, say, or a banker were those penetrating brown eyes. Despite the oppressive heat, goose pimples rose on her arm.

'What are you doing out here? Checking up on your investment?'

The Spaniard bowed. 'It would be foolish not to, don't you agree?'

She didn't imagine she and Gabali would agree on anything, frankly, but this wasn't the time, much less the place, to say so.

'It's foolish to trespass on College soil,' she replied instead. 'The penalty if you're caught is the Pit of Reflection — although, silly me, you're already familiar with that sweet little hidey-hole.'

A muscle contracted in his cheek. She wasn't convinced its cause was humour.

'Si. I am acquainted with the Pit, but as repugnant as you obviously believe the practice to be, Merchant Seferius, I assure you I would have no qualms about despatching my daughter's killer to its protracted embrace.'

Once again, she was struck by his thin pointed face and hair which, dammit, she could still only describe as longer than a Roman's but shorter than a Gaul's, and with a shine you could kohl your eyes in. Claudia glanced at the rock she was still standing on. The place where Clytie had died.

'Since I'm a wine merchant,' she said, 'a trade in which the solving of murders is not normally part of the remit, I'm sure you'll sympathize' — wrong word, but too late — 'when I tell you that I have absolutely no idea whether I'm making progress in this investigation or not, and that I'm still no closer to giving you her killer's name.'

Spaniard cracked his knuckles. 'It's early days yet.'

'Suppose I never discover the culprit's identity?'

It was a distinct possibility.

'Let's not involve ourselves in negatives or start playing the "what if game,' he murmured, and the goose pimples crept up to her shoulders. 'Why don't you tell me what you have discovered instead.'

'Very well, but I should warn you, it's precious little.' Claudia's gaze fixed on the ominous stains in the rock. 'Although it appears the killer knew where Clytie used to come with her friends, suggesting' — she held back from using the word 'she' — 'it's somebody local.'

He steepled his fingers against his lip and studied her through hooded eyelids the same way he had in her garden. 'It is as I thought,' he said, nodding. 'What else?'

She debated whether to tell him or not, then decided she owed this cold-hearted son-of-a-bitch nothing.

'Your daughter was a conscientious and well-meaning young lady,' she said, drawing a deep breath. 'But equally she was a lonely child, which made her extremely garrulous, suggesting her killer might have wanted to ensure she didn't repeat something she had overheard, and, if you're interested, she died on this very rock.'

For several minutes Gabali said nothing, and his face said even less. With anyone else she'd have wondered whether he'd even heard her, because he certainly didn't dip his gaze to the stone, which was the reaction she'd have expected from a bereaved father.

'Anything else?' he asked eventually.

'The Hundred-Handed are hiding something. Do you know what it is?'

His mouth twisted sideways. 'They're a secretive society, guarding their mysteries in the way all cults and sects do.'

Wrong. There was something else, something deeper, that the College was desperate to keep a lid on.

'They're frightened,' she said. 'No one has admitted it and there's no solid evidence, but stop, look and listen. Fear floats around this place like a cloud.'

He ran his tongue round the inside of his lip. 'That'll be the threat of the Druids,' he said. 'Rumours have been circulating to the effect that they're witches. That the HundredHanded — what was it? — "suck clean the minds of men" and various other nonsense.'

'If it's nonsense, why should they be scared?'

'Just because a mirror is a two-dimensional surface doesn't mean the reflection is make-believe as well. What else have you found out during your stay?'

His expectations were high, but then in fairness, so were results.

'There's a spate of poison-pen letters going around which might or might not be connected,' she said. 'But the very fact that they're prolific indicates that there's one member of this College who makes a point of knowing everyone else's business and is endangering their own life in the process.'

Gabali shrugged it off. 'Who cares?'

'I rather thought you might, given that that person could well be the only one who knows the truth about Clytie.'

The Spaniard's eyes narrowed into slits of hostility. 'Or silenced my daughter because she'd stumbled upon their little perversion.'

That fitted too, Claudia thought. With her friends merrily swinging off ropes and poking in caves, and with Clytie blacklisted because of what she kept letting slip — providing they don't catch us in the act — and no one reports us — and as long as we still learn our lessons — then nobody minds — she had ample time on her hands to wander from long-house to longhouse in search of someone to talk to. And finding instead one of the College dipping her quill in neat poison.

'You think the anonymous letter writer killed her, then covered it up by making it look like the previous murders?'

'Why not?' Gabali said. 'If it's true, then their method is certainly proving effective.'

'In which case, it might take months before I crack this particular nut.'

A flicker of amusement kindled in his eyes. 'That is a possibility, si". But as Mavor will tell you, necks can take a long time to heal. The Hundred-Handed will have no suspicions.'

'My dear Gabali, you cannot imagine what a comfort it is, knowing I'm stuck in a hen house without an end in sight, especially when my bodyguard tells me there's an uprising looming and it's a bad time to be a Roman.'

'There we go again. Rumours.' Olive hands were held up with their palms facing outwards in a gesture of reassurance. 'You must not allow empty words to alarm you.'

'Then perhaps I ought to be alarmed by the prospect of the Scorpion, now that he is not plotting imminent rebellion, having time to notice wine merchants double-crossing him right under his nose.'

The Spaniard clucked his tongue. 'You worry too much,' he said dismissively. 'I have reported your death to my master and the Scorpion is satisfied. Trust me, he's forgotten all about you.'

'Are you sure?'

'I may be many things, Merchant Seferius, but I am not a liar.'

Claudia felt something lift from under her ribcage. She thought it might have been a burden. Either way, she felt a hundred times better.

'Talking of being many things, Gabali, it appears that you forgot to mention that you were the Hundred-Handed's executioner.'

His jaw clenched. 'It is not a factor in this investigation.'

'You also failed to tell me that Fearn was Clytie's mother.'

The jaw tightened further. 'You've seen how this place works,' he rasped. 'That is not a factor either.'

'Really?' Claudia rubbed her temple. 'Not a factor, either of them? Well, let's take those two one at a time, shall we, starting with the Pit of Reflection. Now we both know how slow and nasty that death sentence is, so what if someone decided to take their revenge on you, Gabali, Guardian of the Sacred Trust, for tossing their loved one into that hell-hole? Can you imagine how sweet it would be, killing your daughter then arranging her body in a way that would ensure it would be gawped at and talked about for months without end?'

For the first time, something flickered in those unfathomable brown eyes. It could, she thought, have been pain.

'No, you didn't, did you. Any more than you thought about the consequence of your relationship with the girl's mother.'

That something disappeared as quickly as it had come.

'There was no relationship.' He practically spat the denial at her. 'Fearn sent for me whenever she wanted… I don't know… companionship? Release? I have no idea what went on in that woman's head, but I do know there was no laughter, no conversation, no exchange of confidences that might make what you call a "relationship".'

Claudia pictured the Growth Priestess, her raven-black hair shining with health against a backdrop of bright yellow cotton. Strong, intelligent, dedicated — but also objective to the point of dispassionate.

'You're saying it was sex pure and simple?'

'It wasn't pure and it certainly wasn't simple,' Gabali rasped. 'She was stiff, cold, it was as difficult as hell, and I honestly don't know what she got out of it.'

'Apart from a baby?'

'She didn't want that, either,' he snapped. 'The HundredHanded have potions for unwanted pregnancies, but unfortunately for Fearn none of them worked. Once it was born, she couldn't hand what she referred to as "the brat" over fast enough.'

The painting was amateurish in the extreme, Fearn had said in a voice that she might have used to discuss a barn wall rather than her own murdered daughter. And on the very day of the spring equinox, in the same month protected by her sacred gorse, there was no clue that this sacrilege affected her personally.

Just because we deliver a baby, it doesn'tfollow that we bond differently with that child than we do with any other, Sarra had said, which was probably true — except bond was the operative word.

Claudia hadn't realized she'd been bunching her robe until she let go of the linen. 'Did she continue to send for you afterwards?'

A soft snort escaped from his nostrils. 'It was as though nothing had happened,' he said. 'Business as bloody usual.'

Business for him. But for Fearn 'You might have lived among five hundred of them, but you know sod all about women, Gabali.'

'I have never pretended to.'

'Maybe that was your mistake, because that was indeed a relationship Fearn had with you, my friend. The problem was, you didn't know it.'

Was he blind, blinkered, callous or simply conditioned? she wondered. Dammit, Fearn was one of the decision-makers in the College, surely he must have realized that powerful women aren't normally stiff and tongue-tied round their male slaves, particularly not in a society which is uninhibited on the issue of sex. There was only one explanation for her awkwardness around Gabali.

'I hate to be the one who breaks the bad news, but I think you'll find Fearn was in love with you.'

'What?'

'The trouble is the Hundred-Handed are such egalitarian creatures, they will believe in this concept of sharing, so let me ask you another question, Gabali. Did you form any other, shall we say more tender attachments while you here?'

A tight expression came over his face. He pushed his long hair back from his face. 'I — may have done.'

'May have done isn't good enough,' she told him. 'Because the thought that's running through my head right now is that old chestnut about hell having no fury quite like a woman scorned.'

'If you must know, then si. I… I fell in love with one of the Hundred-Handed, and it is not immodest to say that she cared something for me in return- Oh, no!' He bunched one fist and slammed it into the palm of his other hand. 'No woman in her right mind butchers her own child!'

'Medea didn't just kill hers, the nice lady boiled them up in a cauldron and served the stew to their father.'

'Yes, but — Fearn killing Clytie to get back at me, just because I fell in love with somebody else?'

'I sincerely hope not, but like you said yourself, it's early days yet, though it's a point you'll need to bear in mind.' Claudia paused. 'Because at some stage, Gabali, if she is guilty, you'll have to decide whether you're actually prepared to execute the mother of your beloved daughter, even though she may have killed her own child.'

And if he was, then that three-headed dragon that stalked the Underworld would have his soul for sure.