Scorpion Rising

Twenty

You look sad,' a voice murmured in Claudia's ear.

She recognized it at once. As soft and smooth as his deerskin pants, Manion's tones were the only distinctive aspect about him.

'You don't,' she replied. 'You look like the cat who's found the lid's off the cream dish.' Smug wasn't the word. 'Well, you know how it is.'

He flexed his muscles with a comical gesture before leaping the stream to join her, where she'd been staring at the place where the river gushed out of rock, thinking about Sarra and Pod. Another time and the sun would have alerted her to his presence with a shadow. She wondered how long he'd been standing there. Watching.

'Strength and endurance, it's what this festival is all about, isn't it?' he asked with a wink, and now that he was standing close she could smell perfume on his shirt, and a faint hint of nutmeg beneath.

'Every man must do his duty?'

'Exactly,' he said. 'And this is the only job in the world where the mistress keeps a dog but still can't bark herself 'Woof, woof.'

He settled beside her, facing the waterfall, and ran his hand over his closely cropped hair. 'Why don't you tell me what troubles you, my lady. I find sadness is always best when it's shared.'

'I think everyone's sharing this sorrow, Manion. Or doesn't it touch you that a young girl has been butchered?'

'Dead?' he rumbled. 'Another one?'

And she could almost believe he hadn't heard, if it wasn't for those unfathomable eyes. Neither green nor blue, but somewhere in between. Why did she have a feeling she'd seen them before?

'No wonder you're worried,' he said, breathing on the seal ring that had been noticeable by its absence yesterday. 'It's clearly not safe for a woman to be out alone.'

As he polished the silver against soft yellow deerskin, Claudia caught a glimpse of an engraving. It looked like an animal or perhaps a sideways figure-of-eight, but when he caught her looking, he twizzled it round so only the whorls on the other side of the band were on show. And she thought of the water that rushed out of the rock, and the other river that ran inside the hill. How many other rivers had made torrents through these hillsides? Eroding the soft limestone as they churned, leaving caverns and caves by the score? She thought of the people, long faded from history, whose hands left prints and art on the walls. We are all just memories, she thought dejectedly. And wished she could believe, like the Gauls, that one soul passed to another in time. That life was eternal and good.

'I'm used to being on my own,' she told Manion. It was the truth. 'I actually prefer it that way.'

'Do you?' Either the wind had sprung up or he was leaning so close that her hair moved with his breath. 'Do you really prefer being on your own?' he whispered. 'Or are you just frightened of letting a man in?'

'Frightened?' she laughed. 'My dear Manion, I eat men between slabs of bread with my supper. The male of the species doesn't scare me at all.'

'Men, no, but a man? One man? The right man, perhaps?'

Something flipped over inside.

'I don't need anyone.'

'Your scars run deep, then, my lady.'

His voice was husky with something she did not recognize. It might have been desire. Then again, it might have been laughter. Or pain.

'You fear abandonment, which is why you will not — perhaps cannot — trust a man enough to let him into your heart. Am I right?'

'Does it matter?' she retorted. 'The fact that you think you know me seems enough for your ego. Colossal isn't the word.'

'Now you're getting prickly, because I'm close to the mark. Too close for your comfort, it seems. But I'm right, am I not? My lady,' he added. 'That to win Claudia Seferius, a man must first win her trust?'

'Define trust,' she snapped. 'It's just an empty word meaning all things to all men, and I really have no time for the stuff.'

'Who abandoned you, I wonder? Your father? Your mother-?'

'None of your business!'

'Oh, dear me. Both.'

He leaned forward and dabbled his fingers in the cascade, then held the drips to Claudia's lips. She spat them away.

'Because your parents left you, and I'm guessing through death when you were still very young, you carry within you a morbid fear of being abandoned by someone else that you love.' He licked the water off his own fingers. 'That's dangerous.'

She wanted to respond. She wanted to hit him, kick him, punch him on the nose, but the problem was, he was right.

'It's dangerous, because you end up pushing those people who care for you so very hard that it eventually drives them away-'

'Show me your ring.'

Whatever he was expecting, that wasn't it. His eyebrows arched in surprise. 'Now that's my little secret.' He sprang to his feet and the expression in his aquamarine eyes was serious. 'Tomorrow, perhaps. Tomorrow when we share other confidences, but now I fear I must leave you. Death or not, the revels have to go on.'

'And even a sex slave must play his part.'

'I didn't ask for the job,' he said evenly.

Oh, but you did, Manion, I think you did. He'd adapted too quickly, just like Orbilio had. The question is, why would someone deliberately plant himself in the slave auction for the Hundred-Handed to buy? What was it inside this wretched College that Manion needed so badly?

No birds moved in this hot, sticky morning, only the butterflies over the flower-filled meadows and the soothing rasp of the crickets. And for a man who had work to do, he seemed in no hurry to leave. Once again, she wondered why he'd sought her out.

'But to answer your question,' he murmured, 'trust is when the same man is always behind you, to catch no matter how often you fall.' He grinned. 'Just thought you might like to know.'

And with that he loped off up the hill, leaving Claudia's thoughts churning like a river bed after the storm, and her heart as heavy as lead.

It was only after he'd gone that she realized that the scent on his shirt was white roses. The same type that Sarra liked to collect.

Around the Field of Celebration, revellers rose, stretched and broke their fast. Glancing at the sky, their disappointment at cloud cover on such an important occasion was understandable, yet it was a different emotion entirely that consumed the congregation. Confusion. Try as she might to contain the panic among both priestesses and initiates from this second violent death, she was powerless to prevent the shock and horror registering on their faces.

'Pass the word,' she signalled to the other four on the dais. 'There will be no show of public emotion.'

'Agreed,' Dora signed back. 'We cannot allow the contagion to spread.'

Beth looked round at the tears, the clenched jaws, bloodless cheeks and tightly wrung hands that were the universal symptoms of grief. It would not be easy, Sarra was a delightful and popular girl, but duty was duty. Nature was constant, the Hundred-Handed was constant. They stood firm in calm and in storm.

'Sarra would still be alive if you hadn't insisted on not moving with the times.' Fearn rounded on the Head of the College. 'This is your fault and you know it.'

'And how might that be?' Dora's face darkened with anger.

'If you didn't forbid us to marry, prevent us from leading normal lives, people wouldn't be pushed into abnormal situations and I tell you, Sarra would still be alive.'

'Rubbish!' The Oak Priestess was one step away from slapping her face. 'Her murder has nothing to do with adherence to tradition-'

'Ladies!' Beth fought for control. 'Ladies, we are all distraught, but whatever our personal feelings right now, it is Sarra who should be uppermost in our thoughts.'

'Quite right,' Luisa signed, sniffing back tears. 'Poor girl, no one deserves to die in such a terrible way.'

'Best not to dwell on that side of things, dear.' A plump arm encircled the Rowan Priestess's shoulders. 'I'm sure Sarra would not have suffered.'

Ailm snorted. 'Of course she suffered. Terrified and alone, she died in agony, let's at least be clear on that point.'

'Your bluntness isn't helping,' Beth told Ailm firmly. 'Now once again, ladies, must I remind you that our private emotions are not for public display? This is midsummer, and if there is ever a time when we need to stand shoulder to shoulder and exude the strength, courage, stability and endurance that we preach in its name, then that moment is now.'

For a beat of three, emotions wrestled with duty. As always, duty won.

But as the five pentagram priestesses linked hands to form the circle of life, chanting the Midsummer Paean with a cheerfulness that belied what lay in their hearts, Beth knew it was only a question of time before news of Sarra's murder leaked out.

This time the Druids would not wait.