Scorpion Rising

Seven

Immersed up to his chin in hot scented water, Marcus Cornelius groaned. Most people go to sleep counting sheep, but due to a distinct lack of woolly ruminants, he'd tried counting bruises instead. Eventually he gave up, partly because there were too many and partly because he was never going to nod off with that thumping great hammer pounding his brains out. So he'd lain awake through the wee small hours, which ought to have been dark but were punishingly bright, wondering which gods he'd offended this time. He made a mental note to placate them all.

Stretched out in the bath, fragrant with myrtle and hyssop, he felt the first twinge of divine forgiveness. Sod's law stated that it would be him, one of the good guys, who was rewarded for saving the Governor's life by being clonked on the head with a footstool and he supposed he should be thankful that the scribe hadn't been armed with a knife. These pen-pushers were more dangerous than they looked.

Attendants materialized in and out of the steam, topping up the bath with hot water and adding extra phials of healing oils. Orbilio thanked them and closed his eyes again. In fairness, yesterday's sorry interlude hadn't been all bad. Between the Governor, his scribes and himself, the would-be assassins had been prevented from escaping and if he was feeling somewhat the worse for wear after that encounter, imagine what it would be like for them. Gauls who worked with Rome to make life safer and more prosperous for their own people were honoured with citizenship, should they choose to accept it. The three men who'd been lugged off to the dungeons hadn't been given that option, and, since they weren't citizens, torture tended to be Rome's preferred method of interrogation. It wasn't necessarily the most effec tive way of obtaining information. But in some cases (the attempted assassination of the Governor, for instance) it proved the most satisfying.

Holding a sponge somewhat gingerly to the goose egg on his skull, he reckoned the Governor would probably make political capital out of the attempt on his life. Personally, Orbilio hadn't been convinced that creating a new branch of the Security Police here in Aquitania would serve any real useful purpose, knowing the Governor only set it up in order to make it seem the province was in safe hands from within as well as without.

Orbilio had seen himself as nothing more than a pawn in those politics, which wasn't a problem in the short term, but the squad's success took them both by surprise.

Without the army's bureaucracy getting in the way, crimefighting was free to take a much broader approach, and since prevention was every bit as important as solving, the Governor had also given Orbilio a liberal budget for rewarding informers. One of the more pleasant adjustments, since in Rome he'd tended to pay them from his own pocket! But it was like he'd always said, pay informants well and you get good results in return, and one only had to look at the present situation to see the benefits. Without financial incentives, it was doubtful that news of this latest uprising would have come to his ears, much less intelligence regarding the sheer number of disenchanted warriors that there were among the various tribes that made up the Aquitani Nation. Instead, thanks to a few overpaid informants, he was well abreast of the Scorpion's activities and 'Mother of Tarquin!' He jumped, as a woman's figure loomed through the swirls of hot steam. 'This is the men's bath!'

'Constantly nit-picking, Orbilio, that's your trouble.'

'Claudia?"

'Yes, and I know what you're thinking.'

'I doubt that.'

'You thought I was in Rome and behaving myself, but as you can see, I'm here — good grief.' Suddenly a mass of unruly curls were peering over the rim of the bath. 'How many of them jumped you?'

'Forty-two.' Marcus belatedly covered his embarrassment with the sponge he'd been holding to the bump on his head. 'Claudia, do you mind? I'm naked.'

'People in baths usually are, but don't worry. I've seen your wife-pleaser before and, impressive though it is, Marcus, I promise to keep a close rein on my self-control.'

'I could make it a widow-pleaser,' he offered.

'Don't flatter yourself, Orbilio, it's not that impressive.'

'Did you come three hundred miles just to insult me,' he laughed, as she settled herself on the tiles, 'or do you simply enjoy startling me out of my wits?'

'In an ideal world, both, but since time is not on my side, I need your help — and quite frankly, Marcus, that spluttering is not remotely amusing.'

'I rather think that depends whose perspective we're dealing with here.' Claudia? Asking for — remind me again — help? 'Could you pass me a towel, please?'

'Typical. That's all you ever think about, me, me, me.'

When she threw her hands in the air, he caught a whiff of her intense Judaean perfume. Dear god, how he'd missed that smell 'Now for heaven's sake, Orbilio, will you stop playing games and tell me, are you coming or not?'

Conscious of the reckless jolt in his loins, he thought she had no idea.

'Slow down, will you.' His head was hurting enough. 'Claudia, what exactly is it you want?'

'The Governor said you saved his life.'

'I may have played a small part in-' Wait a moment. 'Why would the Governor be telling you?' The average petitioner waited weeks for an appointment, and even then they were palmed off with a minion.

'Because I introduced myself as your ex-wife, of course.'

Orbilio wondered whether it was too late to change places with the assassins down in the torture chamber.

'And be honest, Marcus, who better to take care of a man who's been battered to a pulp and give him the rest and convalescence that he needs than his deeply repentant ex-wife?'

If only that scribe had hit him harder.

'Why is it I have a feeling that "rest and convalescence" is the one thing I won't be getting?'

'There you go again. Negative, negative, negative, when all I'm asking is a tinksy little favour.'

He drew as deep a breath as his ribs would allow. 'I'm scared to ask, but go on.'

She made herself comfortable on the edge of the bath and traced the dolphin mosaic with her finger. 'You know the Hundred-Handed?'

'The priestesses who communicate silently through signs?' That twinge earlier wasn't divine absolution. It was the gods warning of impending retribution. 'Yes, I know them.'

'Good,' she said, 'because I won't bore you with the details. Suffice to say I'm staying there to investigate the murder of a twelve-year-old novice called Clytie, a case I'm sure will have come to your attention, being identical to a series of murders that took place in Santonum two years previously, even though you weren't in the hot seat back then.'

Similar, he thought. Not identical.

'Have you been sniffing hemp seeds?' he asked, and under the circumstances that wasn't an unreasonable question.

'Orbilio, which part of the phrase "time is not on my side" don't you understand? Do you seriously think I'd risk limp curls and runs in my make-up if this wasn't urgent?'

For the first time, something close to alarm rippled through him.

'Has another girl been killed?'

Claudia shifted position. 'To say the Hundred-Handed lead an unnatural existence is an understatement. They breed their own servants, and I mean that quite literally. They keep men as slaves in a stud up on the hill, they don't let the fathers anywhere near their own children-'

'All societies keep slaves,' he reminded her gently. 'Including our own.'

'Who at least receive an allowance, which is theirs to spend as they see fit, even to the extent of owning their own slaves if they want, or saving up to purchase their freedom!'

'Am I imagining this, or is there more steam rising from you than there is from this water?'

'Marcus, these women take babies away from their mothers to be raised in a commune, brainwashing them from the earliest possible age, and although they're charming, friendly and well intentioned on the surface, I tell you, that College breeds poison.'

'What has this to do with Clytie?' he asked, steering the conversation back on track.

'For one thing, she was killed three months ago on the spring equinox, yet the priestesses don't seem remotely bothered that the killer's still free. In fact, the head of the College dismisses the death as a copycat killing and is perfectly happy to sit back and wait for another victim to die before someone else does her job for her and puts paid to the butchery. While the alternative viewpoint seems to be that this murder was nothing more than an experiment by a young warrior curious to know what it felt like to take a human life and then trusting to providence that the sick bastard's worked it out of his system. Don't pretend to me that that's normal behaviour.'

'Unusual,' he agreed, 'and to our way of thinking it might seem a tad callous, but in their minds, remember, the killing of beasts in the arena is mindless and barbarous, and the sect don't understand it at all.'

'Actually, I don't really understand that bit.'

'Me neither, but we've drifted away from the point. Claudia, the Hundred-Handed live very separate lives from the rest of society. Their philosophies are bound to have mutated over the course of time.'

'Morals. You mean morals, Orbilio, and they haven't mutated, they've bloody well disintegrated.' She wagged her finger at him. 'Something is going on up there, I can smell it. We need to find out what that something is and put a stop to it before anyone else dies.'

'Have you considered the possibility that the priestesses are simply idealists?' he asked. 'That they've become so wrapped up in their hierarchies and titles and worship of trees that they've lost sight of- What do you mean, we?'

'What everyone else means by the word. You and me. Us. Look, do you want a grammar lesson or are you going to put some clothes on and come with me?'

'Where to?' he asked warily.

'There's a slave auction starting on the quay any second. We — that is, you and I, us, both together — have just a few minutes to get down there, and actually you'll be perfect, covered in those lovely fresh bruises.'

'Perfect for what?'

'Isn't it obvious?' she tutted, tossing him a towel. 'To undertake any kind of investigation, you need access, and really, what better excuse for a late addition to the auction block? A strong, handsome young slave who tried to escape, was beaten for his pains but whose master wants rid of the troublemaker? And for heaven's sake, shut your mouth, man. You're reminding me of a goldfish.'

On the small writing tablet beside Claudia's bed, a metal stylus carefully engraved two words in the soft yellow wax.

I know.

Tempting as it was to rifle through the clothes chests and belongings, the author of the note resisted the urge. There was plenty of time yet, and the cross-eyed, blue-eyed dark Egyptian fiend that protected them with its bared fangs and arched back tended to give weight to the argument.

The door closed with barely a whisper.