Scorpion Rising

Four

Snuggled in a broad bend of the River Carent amid a backdrop of soft rolling hills, Santonum was the obvious choice for the province's capital. Spanning the crossroads of the major north-south and east-west arteries, the river here was deep enough, and wide enough, to allow single-masted, shallow-draught ships to sail the thirty-odd miles to the coast without trouble. Dense forests supported a creditable boatbuilding industry, hill quarries yielded limestone for construction and the game in the woods was enough to satisfy even the most ardent huntsman's demands.

It was a town Claudia had hoped and prayed never to return to.

'Great Jupiter on Olympus, what's that?'

She indicated an animal that looked like a donkey, brayed like a donkey, was hitched to a cart like a donkey, only this beast was enormous, black and shaggier than the average yak.

'It's a donkey, madam.'

'No, no, Junius, I know a donkey when I see one and you aren't making an ass of me with this.'

'I would never dishonour you with sarcasm,' her bodyguard replied solemnly, but then again, when was he anything else? 'It is a local breed, much prized hereabouts for its strength and-'

'Please don't say beauty.'

Its ears were the length of a fully grown fox. You could use those teeth to mark graves.

'I was about to say hair.' Junius prodded the padded seat of the gig as it bounced over the solid stone bridge that led to Santonum. 'It makes for warm and comfortable stuffing.'

'I thought you Gauls opted for the austere life?'

'That's Spartans, madam, and besides, would a nation who embraced austerity choose to wear red and yellow check pantaloons?'

With anyone else Claudia would have thought he was cracking a joke. Bless him, Junius couldn't crack his own funny bone.

'I don't trust that Gabali,' he added under his breath.

'Although one can't help noticing that you waited until he'd dismounted before making that observation,' she quipped, except teasing Junius was like kicking a kitten. No matter how tempting, in the end you just couldn't bring yourself to do it. 'Don't worry about the Spaniard,' she told him. 'You invest your energies in doing what you're paid to do, namely guarding my body, and I'll handle the trust side of things.'

'That's the problem,' he said. 'How can I protect you, when men aren't allowed anywhere near the College? Worse, you forbade the rest of your bodyguard from leaving Rome-'

'We've been through the reasons why I didn't bring a large entourage with me.'

None of which were valid, of course, but it wasn't for Junius to know that Gabali had insisted Claudia travelled lightly. Less risk of your coming to the Scorpion's attention if you slip in quietly, he'd said, and on balance that seemed a damn good incentive.

'The fact remains that you're exposed and vulnerable, madam, and I don't like it.'

He didn't like it!

'There are rumours,' he said, geeing up the mule with a flick of the whip. 'At every inn we stopped at in Aquitania, the kitchens have been full of rumblings about how the young men of the tribes are growing restless under the peace.'

'That's what kitchens are designed for, Junius. Gossip.'

'This goes a lot deeper than that,' he said. 'Old tales are being dredged up. Past glories, in which a united Gaul sacked Rome then went on to destroy much of Greece.'

'Including Delphi, if my memory serves me correctly.'

'It does,' he said, with a tight-lipped nod. 'And the feeling among the young warriors is that there's no reason why history should not repeat itself. Under the right leader, they're convinced Gaul will rise again and be more powerful than ever before.'

' And this hero wouldn't happen to have a nickname, would he?'

Do not underestimate this man, Merchant Seferius. The Scorpion, he is dangerous. As cunning as he is ruthless, no one betrays him and lives.

She pulled her veil low over her face as the gig passed under the soaring stone archway and forced herself not to even glance towards the wharf where the Scorpion had his warehouse.

'His tribe sentenced him to be shunned because they believed his behaviour was unpatriotic and therefore detrimental to the welfare of the people,' Junius said. 'But instead of making him humble and contrite, his zeal found favour and support among the disenchanted, and if I may be so bold, madam, this is not a good time to be a Roman.'

'How?'

From beneath the veil, Claudia surveyed the stacks of sawn timbers piled up on the dockside, the constant flurry of activity between rope-makers, sail-makers and blacksmiths, the sacks and barrels stacked alongside great blocks of limestone awaiting embarkation as porters, clerks and chandlers cupped their hands to their mouths and yelled to make themselves heard above the hammers from the boatyards and the beating out of lead.

'How can they possibly be disenchanted in this thriving economy?'

One, moreover, that was set to grow further.

'Pride,' he said simply. 'Their fathers were warriors, who have scars to prove it. The sons have nothing to testify to their courage.'

Didn't pride in not leaving widows to raise their children alone count? she thought. What about pride in having a good trade at their fingertips? Of being instrumental in creating a healthier, safer, more prosperous environment?

'You're both a slave and a Gaul, Junius, how do you feel?'

Colour flooded his neck right up to the roots of his thick sandy mop. 'I apologize if I ever have given you cause to question my loyalty,' he said stiffly.

'You haven't, not for a moment, and that's why I ask.'

Because that was odd in itself. Shadows couldn't glue themselves tighter than this boy to his mistress. Every time he accompanied her, his eyes were twin beams of piercing blue vigilance and his hand hovered constantly over his dagger. Had it not been Junius, she'd have thought the lad was besotted, but what twenty-three-year-old with those strapping good looks wastes his life mooning over a woman who's not only five years his senior, but his owner to boot? All the same, it was strange that he hadn't bought his own freedom, even though he'd earned the chance several times over, and stranger still that Claudia had never seen him flirting with girls, much less asking one out. Yet household gossip insisted his inclinations didn't veer towards his own sex and, as she observed him from the corner of her eye, corded muscles bulging out of his Roman-style tunic, she decided it was just as well every Gaul wasn't like her young bodyguard or the race would be facing extinction.

'If you're asking me whether I sympathize with men who have become wheelwrights instead of warriors, then the answer is no,' Junius said. 'It's a man's duty to provide for his family and keep them safe, and sometimes, regrettably, it becomes necessary to go to war to do that. But, in my view, madam, wealth is the best security a man can bestow on his family. It buys physicians when they fall sick, education for the children, servants to fetch water from the well and gives them a roof over all their heads for life.'

'I'll drink to that.'

A girl doesn't drag herself up from the gutter not to appreciate the rewards, and she was just about to compliment him on his passionate defence when she realized he hadn't finished.

'But if you're asking me whether I condemn young men for wanting to be warriors, the answer again is no.' He gaze fixed on a point in the distance. 'It is man's nature to fight,' he said. 'To prove himself the best in the pack.'

Except not all the hounds can be top dog. What happens to those who don't make the grade? All in all, she decided, as the cart clopped through the artisan quarter, teeming with potters, coppersmiths and caulkers, being a woman was by far the best deal. Because what on earth was the point in having eyelashes if you couldn't flutter them in an emergency?

'So working for me gives you the best of both worlds. You get to fight-'

'When you're not tethering me like a billy goat.'

'- and as head of my bodyguard,' she ignored the sulking, 'you're top of your own little pack, too.'

An explanation for his odd behaviour at last!

Slowly, the city opened out to lush water meadows that nourished sheep, crops and long-horned cattle, and as Junius steered the gig off the main road and through the Santon countryside, memories of last year flooded in. When Claudia was ten, her father marched off to war and never came home. That campaign had been here, in Aquitanian Gaul, and, determined to discover whether he was dead or whether he'd simply abandoned her, she'd come in search of the truth. The truth hurt. The only discovery was that the answers are rarely those which we'd choose. Keep the memories, she thought bitterly, keep them by all means, but keep them where they belong. Precious, blurred, but most importantly in a place where they cannot be sullied. Firmly locked in the past…

But Gabali had left her no option. Thanks to him, she was plunged back into the nightmare, deeper even than before.

Santonum was where he'd been brought as a captive, bought as a slave, it was here that his daughter had died. Gabali and Santonum were one. He was linked to the town through tragedy twice over — and who could imagine his emotions, disembarking in chains (younger even than Junius was now) knowing his family were dispersed across Gaul, maybe even the Empire, and that he'd never see them again. What hopes had still blazed in Gabali's heart? Dreams of a future with a wife, children, grandchildren would have shattered like glass when he'd been bought up by the College. How had he felt once he'd escaped the harpies' clutches, only to end up in servitude to a misguided fanatic?

At what point, she wondered, had the assassin in Gabali been born …?

As Junius coaxed a reluctant mule round a steep hairpin bend, her thoughts drifted to the task the Spaniard had forced upon her. To listen to him talk about the Hundred-Handed — which he'd done at length during the journey here from Rome — their ideals sounded noble enough. Fifty priestesses, each responsible for a different aspect of nature, preaching peace and spiritual harmony since according to their beliefs nature was a living personification of the universe. Birth, he added, was the most important aspect of the pentagram and for that reason Beth — the Birch Priestess — topped the College hierarchy, the silver birch being the first tree to cover new ground in the forest and thus symbolic of all new beginnings.

'The very word beth means silver birch,' he'd explained.

As the stately birch stood guard over the first month of the year, so her job was to ensure a propitious birth to that new year, commencing at the winter solstice.

'Then the roles are hereditary?'

'More a rota basis.' Gabali had fixed Claudia with his penetrating brown gaze. 'When a priestess dies, the oldest Initiate steps forward, adopting her predecessor's name as well as her responsibilities.'

Not necessarily the gentle, soulful creatures people might imagine, then.

Once the children are born, they 're placed into communal custody. His soft Andalusian accent echoed round the Santon woods. They're raised by those women who, for one reason or another, didn't qualify for the fifty elite, so you see, even the mothers don't spend time with their own children, much less the poor fathers.

And yet, though isolated, the Hundred-Handed were hardly an insular and archaic society. They used men for sex, moved with the times when it came to the purchase of foreign slaves, and held considerable sway over much of Aquitania. So how, she wondered, as the gig made its descent down a steep, winding hill, could so powerful and so feminine an influence have stood back and let a child-killer go unpunished? Especially when that child was one of their own?

'Sorry, driver.'

A young man with a shock of prematurely grey hair, tight-fitting pantaloons and thoroughly disarming grin stepped from behind the barrier that blocked the road.

'This is as far as non-College men are allowed.'

In his right hand he clutched a short sword in a loose but professional grip, while his left thumb hooked itself in his belt in a manner far too casual to be coincidental that his dagger just happened to hang adjacent.

'The name's Swarbric, my lady — ' he stepped neatly in front of her bodyguard to help her dismount — 'and it's a pleasure, believe me, to escort you the rest of the way.'

'The lady Claudia will need a translator,' Junius said through gritted teeth.

'The lady Claudia will lack for nothing here.' Swarbric didn't take his twinkling eyes off her. 'Especially a translator.' And just when she thought his grin couldn't widen further, more strong white teeth were revealed. 'The HundredHanded communicate in silence.'

'Are you serious?' she asked.

'Am I ever anything else?' He performed a broad and sweeping gesture that put his pants seams in serious jeopardy. 'This way, if you will.'

Claudia hefted a crate out of the gig, from which a blueeyed, cross-eyed demon vented its fury in a series of hissing snarls. 'Do all the sentries flirt as wildly as you?'

'Since I'm the only sentry, I suppose the answer's yes,' Swarbric replied, taking the wooden crate as though it was a pell of parchment. His voice, she noticed, held a slight Teutonic accent.

'You… you're the only guard?'

'Quality outweighs quantity every time,' he said cheerfully. 'And this is one nasty temper your cat has on him, if you don't mind my saying so.'

'Her,' she corrected, following him down the steep incline. She really didn't want Drusilla disbarred from entry as well. 'And this seems as good a time as any to let her out. As I recall from our previous visit, there's something about Gaulish mice that makes her mouth especially water — Jupiter, Juno and Mars!'

So busy flipping the lock as her mind tried to wrap itself round Swarbric's revelations about the Hundred-Handed's code of silence that Claudia hadn't taken stock of her surroundings. Until now.

'This is..

'Incredible, yes.'

Swarbric nodded in a way that suggested everyone who came here needed their sentences finished for them.

'That's the beauty of the place.' He waved his short sword airily. 'You can't see it for the trees as you come down the hill. The gorge always catches visitors off guard.'

Her eyes transfixed on the arrow-shaped cliff that rose out of nowhere, a hundred almost vertical feet. This isn't a gorge, she wanted to say, a gorge rises on both sides, but before she could form the words, her attention was diverted to the rush of water that, like Minerva springing fully-armed from Jupiter's thigh, gushed directly from the foot of the cliff. She watched it bounce into a pool, white and foaming, before dancing its way through flower-filled meadows lined with willows until it disappeared round a bend and was swallowed up by the woods.

'The Hundred-Handed call it paradise,' the sentry said, following the direction of her gaze.

'I can see why,' she acknowledged, though a miss was as good as a mile. The valley radiated beauty, tranquillity and calm in bucketloads. But a child was killed here. Rebellion was swelling. Paradise this was certainly not. To the left of the spring she noticed two caves in the rock face. One had been decked with garlands of honeysuckle and wild roses, the other with garlands of yew.

'There you go, my lady Claudia,' Swarbric said, performing a dashing, some might say theatrical, bow at the edge of the small wooden footbridge. 'Ifyou need anything while you're here, anything at all, that hut's where you'll find me.'

He pointed to a small, round building whose thatched roof was barely visible through the trees.

'Night and day, I'm at your ladyship's service — and if you lot don't come down this instant,' he added in a loud voice, shooting a broad wink at Claudia, 'you're going to be in seriously big trouble.'

There was a scuffle from the branches in the oak tree behind, then three girls aged between ten and fourteen dropped to the floor, their skirts tucked into their knicker cloth to reveal muddy knees and badly scuffed sandals. Same flaxen hair, same pale complexions, same graceful deportment, the girls could have been sisters.

'I swear you have eyes in the top of your head, Swarbric.' The oldest shook her skirts loose before brushing the dust off the little one's shoulders.

'You won't tell on us, will you?' pleaded the middle one, whose face seemed comprised of nothing but blue eyes and dimples.

'There's nothing to tell,' the third member of the flaxenhaired trio sniffed, with a toss of her plaits. 'We were only climbing the branches to learn about squirrels.'

'Nuts,' Swarbric laughed. 'Now run along, all of you, before I chop off your thick bushy tails.'

At the swish of his sword, the girls raced down the path, squealing at the tops of their voices. He turned to Claudia.

'Don't forget, now.' With sparkling eyes, he tugged an imaginary forelock. 'If you need anything… '

'The hut. Yes.'

Claudia glanced back over her shoulder at the thatch peeping out through the woods and wondered if this dashing German was really offering what she thought he was offering, but by the time she'd turned, he was gone. Not a sign, not a sound, not even a girlish squeal cut through the stillness, and now even the gig had disappeared back up the hill, taking her bodyguard with it. It was just her, alone, in the valley…

She stared at the footbridge. It wasn't too late. She could turn round, right now, march back up the hill and hitch a lift on a cart to Santonum…

Slowly, her eyes followed the perpendicular precipice. Had this arrowhead of rock not been commandeered by the Hundred-Handed, it would have made an excellent fortress, and perhaps it was the military connection, or maybe it was the liveliness of that beautiful flaxen-haired trio, but as she walked slowly across the footbridge, Claudia imagined she was in very much the same frame of mind as Julius Caesar when he'd crossed the Rubicon a decade before she was born.

She hadn't known Clytie, those priestesses disturbed her, Gabali only said he'd protect her from the Scorpion's sting

— and where the hell in the Empire was any time a good time to be Roman?

But there was no turning back.

Clytie's lifeblood had been drained out of her like water from a jug, her body daubed with paint and arranged as though she was some outlandish exhibit to be analysed and studied at leisure. Uh-uh. Death demands respect, and to put a little girl on display was callous and demeaning. Dammit, no one deserves to be gawped at in death. Not you, not me, not even the son-of-a-bitch who killed without conscience, and most definitely not a twelve-year-old child who'd had her life and her future snatched from her.

Dignity was the only thing Clytie had left.

Now the bastard had stolen that too.

No town in the Roman Empire reflected progress quite like the capital of Aquitania. Here, timber roundhouses gave way to limestone where shops offered every luxury from parchment to onyx to rare aromatics. Instead of having to quench their thirst with a swill of cheap beer, shoppers were invited to cool off in the shade of elegant colonnades and appreciate the artwork of the frescoes while they refreshed themselves with fine wines and nibbled on delicacies such as fatted dormice and garlic-stuffed quail. In wide cobbled streets, richly caparisoned horses displaced the huge shaggy beasts that tried to pass themselves off as donkeys, and chariots rattled by on thin iron tyres, rather than heavy carts lumbering along on creaking timber wheels. Legionaries tramped, dispatch runners jogged and over it all, the incense from a dozen marble shrines mingled with barbers' exotic unguents and the scents of oils wafting out from the bathhouse.

In effect, Santonum was Rome's shop front. It advertised opulence and sophistication with the slogan This could be yours, if you work with us and backed up its claims with a rash of theatres, public sewers and hippodromes. Support us and aqueducts could be pumping sweet water to your door was the message, and the message was getting home. Through the twin transport links of road and river, the populace was growing richer by the day, and thus nobody noticed one more young merchant leaning against the wall of the basilica. Not handsome, not ugly, not short and not tall, his clothes neither flashy nor dull, the young man watched the bustle of lawyers and clerks, lackeys and scribes with a predator's eye, pausing from time to time to nod the occasional greeting as he stroked his neatly clipped beard. As he did so, the sun glanced off his seal ring, making it appear as though its scorpion engraving was scuttling.

As the herald called the third hour after noon, the crowd was too busy going about its own private business to notice that a second man had joined him. Slightly older with penetrating brown eyes, a thin pointed face and hair which could only be described as longer than a Roman's but shorter than a Gaul's, and with a shine you could kohl your eyes in.

'It is done.' The newcomer spoke with a faint Andalus accent.

'Any problems?'

'No, sir.'

'No — how shall we say? — complications that I need to be made aware of?'

'None whatsoever.'

The young merchant nodded. 'Excellent work, Gabali.' He untied the drawstring purse from his belt and it chinked as he tossed it across. 'I knew I could rely on you.'

'Appreciation is always appreciated.'

'Good, because there's one more thing.'

'Sir?'

'Now that you've lured Claudia Seferius to the College, I need you to smuggle me in as a slave. Is that possible?'

'There's a slave auction scheduled for tomorrow and the Hundred-Handed desperately need to augment their workforce.' He spread his hands. 'If you can furnish a set of forged transfer papers, I can have you in that line-up first thing in the morning.'

'Gabali, your sense of enterprise never ceases to amaze me.'

The young merchant blew on his scorpion ring then buffed the shine on his tunic.

'Now let's get the hell out of here, because I tell you, my friend,' he slanted the Spaniard an affectionate smile, 'the gum holding this beard on is really making my face itch.'