Stone Cold

Eleven

In Rome, the lull between harvest and vintage was filled by sixteen days of Games featuring feasts and processions, horse races and athletics, theatrical productions and gladiatorial combat. Unfortunately for the Gauls, there was no such lull in their farming calendar. The instant the harvest was home, it was time to pick apples, pasture out the swine among the oakwoods and crop this year's yield of horse beans. Stone slabs from the quarries still needed to be brought in by river and piled along the quay, ditto timbers, and, since there was nothing to compare to Gaulish leather when it came to army tents, stock breeders busily prepared their hides for export as well. There was a sense of urgency about the work, too, because in less than a month the seas would be closed until spring. Shipments had to be despatched for fear of storms sweeping in from the ocean and upsetting an already precarious sailing schedule, so for the people of Santonum it was more important than ever that the Hammer God should be appeased.

A vulnerability the wily Emperor seized upon by playing up the Vulcanalia and declaring two days of markets and fairs followed by a public holiday funded entirely by the state!

It didn't matter that Vulcan was nothing like the Gaulish Hammer God. History proved that local customs were quickly absorbed into Roman religion, it was a simple matter of building marble temples in place of wooden shrines then endowing them with glorious statues. A generation on, who remembered that the local deity had been cast in Minerva's image? Or that their sun god bore a striking resemblance to Apollo? Gradually, the differences would blur and in Santonum Vulcan the Olympian Smith had been selected to take over.

The Emperor could easily have chosen Jupiter, who also sent thunderbolts and storms. But from the production of charcoals to the making of wheels, from the rings around barrels to the manufacture of ploughshares and from the forging of gelding knives to the forging of swords, furnaces and fire lay at the heart of Gaulish society. As did trade. Two days of profiteering would soften the buggers up, the Emperor argued. By the time the Vulcanalia dawned, all but the most bigoted would be receptive to compromise. The Druids were losing ground fast.

'Lord, how I loathe drinking companions who remember in the morning what happened the night before,' a rich, fruity voice groaned in Claudia's ear. Despite the bleary eyes and stubbled chin, his purple striped tunic was clean and uncreased, and the feathers in his cloakpin looked positively perky. 'Luckily, madam, your servant was spared such company, though he wishes the pounding in his head would dissipate the merest of fractions. Or I have missed two whole days and the Vulcanalia is starting already?'

'No, Hannibal, that's workmen you hear.'

As the Emperor's expansion plans took shape, so the whole perimeter of Santonum became one huge building site of baths, aqueducts, temples and shops. There was almost as much dust in the air here as in Rome.

'I am heartily relieved to hear you say that, madam.' Hannibal wiped his brow in mock relief. 'For years, these cunning Gauls have been advocating their barley beer as a cure for midriff expansion. But alas! The only thing I have lost in that time is a fortune — oh, and perhaps three or four days in the winter.'

Claudia glanced at his tight waistline, remembered that he'd hardly spent any time here in Gaul, and saw that the eyes were red rimmed, rather than bloodshot. 'You don't drink anywhere near as much as you make you out, you old fake.'

'Absolutely right, madam. I can go for hours without touching a drop.'

Around them, the run up to the Vulcanalia was being celebrated with singing and dancing along the main streets, with jugglers and acrobats capering between the stalls in the Forum. To add to the festive atmosphere, practically every threshold, hall, atrium and altar in Santonum had been decked with garlands of blue borage, as well. Since Vulcan and the Hammer God were both patrons of fire, borage wasn't merely decorative, it emitted sparks and explosions when burned, and, to complete the imperial jigsaw, the Emperor had shipped in fire-eaters, fire-walkers, fire-dancers and fire-throwers. The city was hopping.

'The man whom you seek,' Hannibal murmured, drawing Claudia into the doorway of a man selling harnesses.

Her heart leaped. 'You have news?'

'None whatsoever, madam, much to my regret. However,' he lowered his voice as the harness-maker moved forward, sensing a sale, 'last night I made the acquaintance of a fellow who indicated that he might be prepared to talk for a small fee-'

Here we go! 'How small a fee?'

Hannibal's expression was wry as he waved the harness-maker away. 'Thirty gold pieces.'

'What did you drive him down to?'

'Drive him down?' He seemed horrified by her reaction. 'Madam, I told the scoundrel to crawl back into the woodwork where he belongs.'

Give me strength!

'Come, come, madam. Surely you would not trust the word of a man who is prepared to sell his fellow countrymen for a few coppers?'

'Hardly a few, or even coppers,' she snapped. 'Look, if this man has information-'

'They all have information, dear lady. They are just not imparting it. If we have any chance of finding your father-'

'I never said it was my father!'

'Perhaps not, though you have, I fear, just confirmed it, and, since you are too young to be seeking a missing swain, having been a mere child fifteen years ago, you leave precious few options available.'

Shit.

'This stays strictly between you and me, Hannibal.'

'It pains me that you might think otherwise, but,' he glanced to where Junius stood scowling under the awning of a bookbinder's workshop, 'if you need the reassurance so badly, madam, then you have my word. Returning to the matter of our informant, I will pursue this line if you insist, but I do not trust the fellow. He asked for too much money too quickly.'

'I wasn't aware we had too many choices.'

'Right now options are limited, I grant you. But patience, madam, patience. These are early days. You will recall that I only commenced my enquiries yesterday.'

Claudia's wished the same could be said of Marcus Cornelius. 'Time is not on my side, Hannibal.' Nor on that little snake Burto's, once she got her hands on him! 'Haggle if you can, but whatever your informant asks tell him I'll pay.'

'Madam, I really don't think-'

'Then keep it that way.'

He was taking this cloak-and-dagger stuff far too seriously, she decided, turning down the side of the bath house. You only had to look down any street and prosperity oozed from each marble pore. Why wouldn't one of the locals get greedy? The blood of the legate and his men still stained the soil on which they fell and the hills remained scattered with the bones of brave Santon warriors. But nothing brings the dead to life or turns back the pointer on the sundial, and in the time between Rome's conquest of these wild forests and the founding of Santonum, peace had prevailed. Whatever had happened here fifteen years before had been outside any political arena, and thus if there were no records of any incident it could hardly be serious. Besides, cold hard cash breaks any conspiracy of silence and what, after all, was thirty gold pieces compared to the cost of this visit? Especially since it was thirty gold pieces that Claudia would be fiddling from her taxes, anyway.

Across from the bath house, a surveyor was hunched, hands on knees, mapping out yet another warehouse. As he lined up his plumb bobs, so his assistants adjusted their rods accordingly until the satisfied surveyor finally nodded and the post was hammered in the ground to define the warehouse's limits. Because of this surveying work, traffic had been funnelled into a narrow and often bad-tempered stream, as wheels locked in the restricted accessway or some slow-moving ox cart held up everyone and caused a trailing backlog. Luckily for pedestrians, they could skip up the steps of the adjacent Temple of Hercules and cut across.

This temple was yet another example of the Emperor's cunning. Whether Roman or Gaul, there was no denying Hercules as the ultimate model of courage and integrity, and, also, as patron of commerce (the lifeblood of Santonum), trade deals were traditionally sealed at his altar. This was the first link in the imperial trust chain. The second being that, since Hercules was also leader of the Muses, it proved that men did not have to be bullies to be heroes. The Emperor was well aware that such values struck at the very heart of Gaulish society, just as he knew that by the time it came to military processions culminating at Hercules's intrepid feet few Santons saw further than the Great Feast that followed.

Rather than Rome cocking its leg and marking its territory…

Claudia was halfway across the precinct when she spotted a familiar blond head scrutinizing one of the statues with an intense expression.

'Admiring the competition?' she asked.

Paris turned slowly. 'Show me just one where there is life, a living soul inside rather than marble, and I will give it my admiration, but these?' The contempt in his voice was colder than hoar frost. 'Never.'

Claudia thought of the subtle swing of the knife-edge pleats of his marble nymphs. The carelessly tied girdle on one, a ringlet escaping from its stone hairpin on another, the amused arch of an eyebrow on yet another. Taken in isolation, they were nothing, but together they pulsed out character and individuality. Just as Hor had breathed life into the inside of the tomb, Paris had giving the tomb a personality all of its own.

'Marcia said you were a purist.'

'I am from Mycenae,' he said, as though that explained everything, and, hell, maybe it did. Despite most of its original splendour having been devastated by earthquakes, the palaces, villas and tombs of Mycenae stood testament to the skill of its craftsmen so that, even four and a half centuries on, their civilization remained a byword for excellence.

'Mycenaen sculptors are the best in the world,' he added with the confidence of a young man who was bloody good at his job and knew it.

'According to half the women at last night's banquet, they also make the best lovers.'

One nostril flared dismissively. 'Those fat old trouts imagine I would dissipate my energies on pleasuring them?'

Interestingly, his blue eyes were on Marcia's litter as it swayed back and forth above the heads of the crowd in a shimmer of green and gold drapes. He turned back to Claudia, and the expression in his eyes softened.

'You have no idea what it's like to start with a piece of stone — a virgin, if you like — and, as you slowly caress the marble with your chisels, feel the passion within her awaken.'

Gives a new dimension to the phrase 'married to the job', she supposed.

'Why aren't you at the tomb at the moment, arousing your marble nymphs?'

'I'm looking for Herakles.'

'Your dog?'

The softness vanished. 'The son of Zeus,' he snapped, 'who completed twelve impossible labours and was carried by the gods to Olympus.'

Ah. Hercules. Just like he meant Jupiter and not Zeus.

'Marcia wants the Governor to see how important she is every time he comes to dine, so she's decreed work on her tomb be deferred in favour of a statue of Herakles at the entrance of her estate. I am in Santonum for inspiration.'

'You could just copy the one inside the temple.'

'That monster?' Paris sneered. 'Its neck is too thick, its head is too small, its hands far too big and the expression on its face resembles that of a constipated griffin.'

Jupiter, Juno and Mars. How often had Claudia heard philosophers on the steps of the Rostra debating what stimulating conversation would be inspired, could the cream of intellect and ability be gathered in the same room for just one night? Now she knew. Marcia had collected the finest professionals from around the world — and they bored the spots off a leopard. Talent they might possess by the bucketload, but conversation? Personality? She'd had more fun talking to glow worms.

Santonum's Forum was packed with stalls that had spilled out of the market square and which offered everything from fruit presses to jars of honey, shaggy woollen tablecloths to salt meat. The air was heavy with the smell of ripe fruit and barley beer, of smoked hams that hung from hooks strung over makeshift rails, and the babble of trade and laughter drowned out the sound of cobblers bent over their lasts. At the top end of the Forum, prisoners in leg irons were being paraded on a platform under the watchful eye of an armed guard, while at the southern end of the Forum something similar was happening, except these were not criminals.

Dark-skinned Iberians, big brawny Germans and hooknosed Phoenicians stood, heads bowed, with cards around their neck that displayed everything from their age to their health to their various skills, but failed to mention their name or their family history. To people like Marcia, prodding the muscles of a redhead with frizzy braids, such matters were unimportant. These were not people. They were chattels. Objects, to be bought and sold at auction, like the kitchen boy scared out of his wits, whose fear of the Scarecrow provoked not protection or concern from his mistress, but anger that he'd left a few paltry mushrooms behind, and who cared that he would be torn from his friends and his family? As Marcia moved along the platform to peer inside the mouth of a Greek girl to examine her teeth, Claudia felt something slither under her ribcage. Reeling away, she slammed straight into a wall of leather. The wall smelled of dense, dark, cedary forests, his hair was cropped in a neat Caesar cut and the eyes above it, she decided, were, yes, definitely the colour of chestnuts.

'You have not thanked me for saving your life,' Tarbel said.

'Funny. I wasn't aware that you'd saved it.'

His rough-hewn features almost smiled. 'I didn't. But most people wet themselves in such situations and then, when the crisis is over, fall over themselves to thank me. Especially the ladies.'

If he expected her to ask how these ladies thanked him, he was in for a long wait. 'You make it sound as though such situations are commonplace.'

'I wouldn't say it's a weekly occurrence,' the Basc rumbled, his hand nevertheless covering his dagger, 'but, si. The Mistress has made a lot of enemies, doing what she does.'

'Which is what, exactly?'

Marcia had never said what had earned her so much wealth. Only that there was no embarrassing way to stockpile it.

'You must ask her that,' he said, scanning the crowd. 'Gossiping about the Mistress behind her back is the surest way for a man to get himself fired.'

Claudia glanced round to where Marcia was busy inspecting, prodding and poking her way along the platform, surrounded by the usual bunch of quacks, charlatans and liveried slaves. He might wear a green tunic beneath his cuirass, but whatever faults he might have, she reflected, Tarbel was by no means a toady.

'Posts for mercenaries hard to come by these days?' she breezed.

'I'm a soldier,' he growled.

'You kill for a living. That's a mercenary in my book.'

'I fight,' he said. 'There's a difference.'

'Really'

Dark chestnut eyes locked into hers and held them for a count of perhaps ten. 'Are you looking to fight me?' he asked quietly.

'Isn't it strange how you men always think in terms of waging war.'

'Maybe it's because I spent the last fifteen years serving your army in the auxiliaries.'

'Another ten and you would have received automatic citizenship.'

'Another ten and I'd have been just as broke when I quit, only with rheumatics in my bones and a bad case of haemorrhoids.'

'So you resigned and sold yourself to the highest bidder. Or have we had this conversation before?'

'Then I'm a whore,' he snapped. 'Is that worse than women who marry old men for their money?'

Claudia adjusted the strap on her shoe to cover the sudden rush of colour to her cheeks. He couldn't know. Tarbel couldn't possibly know

… Then she realized that his sharp eyes were no longer scanning the crowd for danger, but were centred on his employer.

'Marcia's finished her bidding,' he said. 'I must go.'

'One question.'

An expression crossed his chiselled face, though it was far too fleeting for her to identify. ' Si?'

'Are you happy in your job?'

There was a momentary pause. 'If you're asking what I think you're asking, you're on the wrong track,' he said slowly. 'Not every bodyguard lusts after his mistress the way your pretty boy does, and what makes you think I wouldn't enjoy what I do? Protection work pays a hell of a lot better than your Roman army, that's for sure.'

Yes, it does. She watched as he slipped into place at Marcia's shoulder. But it was odd that he hadn't actually answered her question. (Plus any idiot with half an eye could see that Junius was the sulky type, not a yearner!) Wrestling her way through hordes of children entranced by the exploits of the Arabian fire-eater, between stalls packed with bargain hunters and past fortune-tellers bent over their charts, Claudia fought her way to the north end of the Forum. They were an ugly bunch of villains on display and no mistake. She scoured the notices that had been nailed to the platform, and saw that tonight they would be paying the price for a suitably ugly list of crimes, too.

Murderer. Double Murderer. Child killer. Rapist. The list just went on and on, though, looking at them now, naked and in chains, vilified and spat on, she wondered how much those few seconds of pleasure were worth. One or two of the cockier prisoners made an attempt at bravado, but the bluster did not extend to their eyes, and the overwhelming impression was of a group of men wracked with self-pity and not a shred of remorse for their victims.

'Will you be staying for the executions, Claudia Seferius?' a voice drawled in her ear. 'Your Emperor has sent a team of gladiators all the way from Rome to despatch them.'

'I have no great desire to watch unarmed criminals being pitched against professional killers, thank you, Vincentrix.'

'Come back in six months, when the amphitheatre's finished,' the Druid replied smoothly. 'Then you'll be able to watch them being pitched against bears and tigers instead.'

'I meant, I prefer engagements where the combatants are equal.'

'Yes, I'd noticed,' he murmured, and she smelled the peppery tang of his skin. 'Did you enjoy the dessert course last night, by the way? Personally, I found the stuffed apples a little on the cold side, but then maybe that was simply because they'd cooled by the time I'd settled into my new seat.'

'Your chivalry was much appreciated.'

Still no priestly robes, then. At the banquet he'd blended in by wearing a white belted tunic over his pantaloons, just as he had merged with the landscape on his private island. Today, wearing a pale blue-grey tunic over flint-coloured breeches tucked into high, soft, black boots, he could be any Gaul. They all wore the same amulets round their wrists for protection against evil spirits, draped the same gold torcs round their necks and restrained their long hair with the same soft kidskin headbands. Was the most powerful Gaul in Aquitania really quite without ego? she wondered. Or was he so powerful that everybody recognized him, whatever he wore? There was, of course, a third alternative…

She looked at the way he'd whitened his hair with lime this morning. At the reddish-brown stubble that darkened his jaw. By disguising himself as Everyman, Vincentrix became invisible among subjects who were so in awe of the Head of the Druid Guild that they would never imagine such an exalted personage would lower himself to mingle among them! She pictured him, able to quote even the tiniest detail of their life back to them. A snippet of conversation overheard in the market. The recollection of a purchase. A meeting. A sale. For a man trained to retain information in his head, it was nothing — but to his people, his reading of minds demonstrated the supernatural powers associated with Druids. Manipulation again, not magic. And this Druid had just met his match.

'Fancy your chances?' she asked, tilting her head towards the one-eyed Syrian who was challenging the crowd to Find the Pea.

'Claudia Seferius, I never play any game I can't win,' Vincentrix said solemnly. 'Find the Pea relies purely on chance.'

'Hand me your torc'

'This?' The Druid fingered the band round his neck. 'It's solid gold!'

'I should bloody well hope so,' she said, pulling it free. 'Otherwise I wouldn't be gambling it.'

'Just a moment.' Vincentrix grabbed it back and placed his lips gently against the central boss before returning it to her outstretched hand.

'One for luck?'

'Actually, I was kissing an old friend goodbye.'

Claudia moved across to where the Syrian was playing his crowd. He made it look easy, as he placed his wizened pea beneath one of three identical walnut shells then shuffled them around. Zip, zip, zip — where's the pea? Several punters thought it was easy, as well. Strangely, they were the same punters who went away penniless.

'Bad luck, sir, oh, jolly bad luck.' The Syrian smacked his forehead with the palm of his hand. 'Anyone else fancy their chances at guessing which shell the pea's under?'

'Me,' Claudia said, and watched his single eye light up at the gold torc she dangled in front of it.

Zip, zip, zip. The walnut shells flew across the flagstone, but under which one lay the wizened legume? Claudia's finger hovered, then pointed. The surprise One-Eye feigned as she won was almost convincing. He snuffled again. Zip, zip, zip went the little dried pea. Oh, well. If wanted to play games… She dithered even longer before pointing this time. The Syrian was protesting. Weeping, almost. So much bad luck. Would she give him just one more chance? He was begging…

'Winner takes all?' she suggested.

The Syrian nodded, licking his lips as the torc see-sawed back and forth in her hands. 'Winner takes all.'

'And how much exactly would that be?'

It was all One-Eye could do not to drool. 'Today?' he said, throwing a cursory glance inside his money belt. 'Forty-three sesterces.'

'Not bad for two hours' work,' she murmured to Vincentrix. To the Syrian, Claudia simply said, 'Then let's play.'

Zip, zip, zip. You could almost hear his greed, it was that damn palpable. In fact, he reminded her of a bullfrog at dawn on the day the first mayflies hatch out.

'Which shell, lady?'

Claudia didn't give him the opportunity to pull a switch. Lithe as a lioness, her hand swept down and lifted the walnut shell before he had time to palm the pea. 'That one, I think.'

The Syrian spluttered in protest, but the crowd was behind her. Reluctantly he unhooked his money belt and tossed it across.

'Good guess.' Vincentrix laughed, re-fixing his torc.

Claudia smiled. 'Wasn't it, though?'

Live long enough amongst swindlers and thieves and you soon get the hang of it. Swiftness of the hand deceives the eye. The trick is to watch carefully, a task made all the easier when the dealer is left-handed, like One-Eye back there. Tossing a couple of coins to a street vendor in exchange for a bag of warm almond cakes, she said, 'Why isn't the Head of the Druid Guild married?'

Vincentrix's teeth hovered above the sweet-scented cake. 'Technically, I suppose he still is.' Piercing green eyes slanted her a wry glance. 'When my wife inherited a ring from her aunt, she decided to use it to fund her aspiration to travel.' He bit into the cake. 'She's been travelling for twenty-two years.'

'Some ring.' Claudia laughed. 'Was that what prompted you to take up the priesthood?'

They zigzagged through the streets until they arrived at the wharf, where several more cakes got themselves polished off and a shoal of small fish took the opportunity to find shelter in the shadow of their dangling feet before Vincentrix finally answered.

'It was never a proper marriage,' he said, staring across at the triple-gate bridge, where mules clip-clopped through, their saddlebags bulging, and carts laden with timber or stone lumbered over, pulled by oxen whose horns had been shorn. 'I was young, then. Seventeen. Impetuous and headstrong in a way that only seventeen-year-old youths can be, but I swear by the sun's holy light that she was the most beautiful creature I have ever seen. She was perfect. Tall, slender, with hair the colour of ripe wheat and skin as soft and white as a dove — and I wanted her. By the stars that turned in the heavens, I wanted that woman and I vowed to have her at any cost.'

'At any cost?' Claudia repeated slowly.

Were any three words more laden with doom?

'Oh, yes.' Vincentrix chewed his lip. 'I courted that girl for six months. Sent her gifts, sang her songs, but she was not interested in me.'

Claudia didn't dare look at him. Couldn't bear to see the pain on his face.

' "Marry me," I said, "and on our wedding day I will give you anything that is within my power to give." "Anything?" my true love replied, and I swear to you, Claudia Seferius, that all these years on I can still feel her soft breath on my face when she whispered that one little word. "Anything," I vowed. "Draw up a contract. I'll sign it without even looking."'

He wouldn't have been the first hothead to have made a rash promise to a girl and lived to regret it. From time immemorial, boys have thrown their lives away on quite the wrong woman, though Claudia was curious to know what this particular paragon of perfection had wrung out of Vincentrix that remained a source of agony so many years on.

'She demanded you went to Britain for twenty years to train as a Druid?'

'Nothing so prosaic,' Vincentrix rasped, and the anger in his voice was barely disguised. 'The bitch demanded to keep her virginity.'

Claudia tossed the last cake down to the ducks on the river, then emptied the crumbs out of the bag for the sparrows.

'I'm sorry to hear that,' she said evenly. 'Now tell me why you sought me out this morning.'

The old woman lay in the bed staring up at the thatch. Time was, those would have been her creels dangling from hooks up on the rafters. Until her hands became claws, she'd been dead quick with the withies, she had. Weaving baskets for eggs, for gathering fruit, firewood, straw for the animals, storing blankets and cloths through the summer. Now she couldn't hardly hold a mug, and the creels that hung from the beams had been woven by the deft hands of her granddaughter.

The old woman's eyes misted. What an angel, that girl! Not only nimble fingered, but a keen eye as well, dying her willows blue, yellow and red to create patterns that sold for a canny price in the market. Always after market day, her angel'd bring home a gift for her old grandma. Sometimes a shawl, sometimes a brooch, sometimes a flagon of fine Roman wine. No, she'd not save her money, that girl, no matter how much she was told! And if it wasn't fine things, it'd be fancy cheeses, ripe peaches, fish that had been caught in the ocean to tempt an appetite that was as shrivelled as the poor body it inhabited, but, bless her, the lass never gave up. Only last week she'd blown her savings on nothing more than a bunch of red roses for her old gran, saying the perfume alone was worth the coin, and at nights she'd sit by the bed, weaving her baskets, while the old woman talked of the old days and told stories told to her by her mother, and her mother before her, until the girl's eyelids closed and the withies dropped from her fingers.

Aye, she were an angel, that child. With both parents dead of the plague three summers back, and her brothers and sisters buried alongside, it were just the two of them now. You ought to be married, the old woman would tell her. While the bloom of your youth is still fresh, lass, and there's still a bounce in your step, because, praise be to the Hammer God, that child was a beauty. Like the old woman in her salad days, she had a tight narrow waist with curves where you want them and not where you don't, and hair as fair and as glossy as a meadow of buttercups.

Only it were not like the lassie not to come home…

It could be she'd found herself a lover at last, and spent the night in his bed. Fifty years might have passed, but the old woman still remembered how it felt, having a man hold you for the very first time. Aye, the right man and it turned any girl's head. Made you forget your own name, if you was lucky!

But that were last night. What about today, the start of the Fire Festival, with two days of market ahead?

A terrible emptiness filled the old woman's chest as she stared at the pile of brightly coloured baskets piled in the corner, and fear crawled like a nest of snakes in her gut as the sun began to disappear behind the trees.

If only she could lift herself out of this damn bed, she'd get the Elders to start making a search!

If only her thin voice would carry a bit further, she'd call for help from her neighbours!

If only, if only, if only…

As darkness crept over the thatch, tears of frustration and terror coursed down the old woman's cheeks.

Down at the boatyard, the nightwatchman finished his rounds, jabbed his torch back in its sconce and then settled down with his back to the boat shed and closed his eyes. No point having a dog if you have to bark your bloody self was his motto. Rome provided soldiers to patrol the streets, let them earn their bloody money, and, besides, if he didn't get a good kip overnight, how would he be fit enough to put in a full shift at the sawmills tomorrow? Dreaming of the luxury that his two jobs kept him in, the nightwatchman began to snore.

At the other end of the yard, behind a pile of seasoned timbers stacked next to the river, Orbilio yawned. Wedged between a splintery masthead and a lumpy anchor stone, he was acutely aware that waiting was the tedious part, and since waiting comprised most of his job his one consolation was unwinding afterwards with a workout at the gymnasium — weights usually, or a game of small ball if there were enough chaps to make up a team. This would be followed by a long, hot soak to relieve the stiffness from being stuck in the same position for hours on end, then a massage with warm, aromatic oils to rid himself of whatever smells he'd been stuck with all day, in this case hemp, pitch and sweat. Such treats, though, were impossible after a night on surveillance. Even assuming the bath houses opened that early, mornings were reserved for the gentler sex, which meant that if Marcus Cornelius wanted a bath, he'd have to go back to Marcia's villa, and, whilst he couldn't put his finger on the exact reason, he just didn't feel comfortable there.

A soft scuffling halted his train. He craned his neck, peered into the blackness, saw a rat scamper over the ramp and relaxed. Take a Spaniard, he thought, or a German, in fact any stranger to imperial ways. Put him in any house anywhere in the Empire and life invariably follows the same pattern. Visitor knocks. Guard dog barks. Janitor opens up. Porter leads guest through the vestibule to the cool airy atrium, its decor differing only in the colour of the marble, the depth of gilt on the stucco and the design on the elaborate mosaics. Visitor waits, inhaling the fragrance of the oils that burn in the braziers. Eventually, a steward leads him through the house, usually to the shade of the portico, where the lady of the house is draped on a couch under a fan. It's never the master who greets him. The men of the house are invariably out — on their estates, in the libraries, with their mistresses. It's the women who receive guests. The women who wait so patiently at home, prisoners of their class, but, even more, prisoners of their own snobbery.

With Marcia, everything was upside down, and it wasn't that Orbilio was a chauvinist. He saw no reason why women should not own property in their own right or run business empires equal to men. As far as he was concerned, it made no sense that men could divorce their wives for infidelity yet their wives were not free to do likewise, and in his view it was downright unfair that women were barred from pleading in court. One-sided justice was no justice at all, and as for the idea that women were so weak and helpless that they needed a man's protection from cradle to grave — absolute bollocks. Admittedly, there were women who fell into that category, but thank god they were few, which surely made the argument all the more convincing that the arrangement should be one of choice? Something agreed, like the terms of her dowry, which was laid down in the marriage contract? Otherwise you ended up with the sorry situation you had now. Needy, greedy women with no conversation beyond fashion and gossip. How could they stand their own company?

So it wasn't that he held Marcia's wealth and status against her. Quite the reverse, truth be told. He admired strong women who fought for their corner and succeeded against all the odds. It was the atmosphere in Marcia's villa that sat uneasily with him. Maybe it was because she was host and hostess rolled into one. Or that her masculine voice combined with her crisp manner was at odds with the fashionable gowns and dripping jewels, the elaborate coiffure and girlie cosmetics. Then there was the way she hectored and flirted at the same time, the way charity came with a price (and he had yet to discover his!), the contradiction between her hard head for business and her predilection for fakes. In all his travels, Orbilio had never seen so many toadies gathered together in one room! What on earth went through Marcia's head, when she hired the likes of Koros and that lisping Indian soothsayer?

Perhaps that was it? Perhaps that's what lay at the root of his unease, the fact that she'd surrounded herself with so many yes-men that she no longer saw the complete picture, only what she wanted to see. They say power corrupts, but people forget it's two-way traffic. Once you divorce yourself from impartiality, objectivity evaporates and the ego magnifies out of all proportion. Ruthless in her business dealings, it was not entirely surprising that Marcia's monstrous ego needed to be satisfied at home. The trouble is, if no one stands up to you, you start to believe yourself invincible…

A creak of timber down by the river's edge made him sit up. He strained his ears in the blackness, but heard only the nightwatchman's snorts. Then two cats began squaring up to each other, setting off the dogs in the distance. With a grunt, the nightwatchman grabbed his torch. Orbilio hunkered down into the shadows. But the search was cursory, and having satisfied himself that the cats weren't thieves in disguise the night-watchman scattered them with a few judiciously thrown stones then quickly fell back into sleep.

Marcus rubbed his hands over his weary eyes. At least he wasn't stuck under a tarpaulin for hours on end, he supposed, with sawdust tickling his throat and the noise of constant hammering ringing in his ears. But he'd had to do it. He'd needed to monitor the comings and goings in this boatyard during the day, because the boatbuilder's accomplices would more than likely turn out to be men whose presence would not arouse suspicion, and whilst he was by no means certain that their peddling of childflesh would take place at this yard, river access lent itself to clandestine dealings.

As an owl hooted on the opposite bank, Orbilio folded his arms and shifted his feet so they rested on a coiled hawser. Working this trip to Santonum had been easy. Given the humidity and heat that made Rome such a perfect breeding ground for the plague, it was no wonder that half the city decamped to the country during the summer (the rich half, that is), and his boss was no exception. This meant that, as senior officer in the Security Police, no one questioned Orbilio's decision to take himself off to Gaul to — what was it he'd written in his report? That's right, how it had come to his attention that there was a plot by a group of hardcore rebels to retake Aquitania by marching on Santonum and assassinating the Governor.

He ought to be another Terence or Euripides, he thought. Penning scripts for the theatre, his fiction was so bloody good. But he'd had to come up with something, because he'd finally wrung out of Claudia's steward that she was headed to Gaul and it was obvious the woman was up to something. And when Claudia was up to something, it was usually illegal and highly dangerous! The age-old combination of wealth and status worked its magic in the form of a fast ship to Massilia, then he cut across land on a sleeping cart, eliminating the delays in inns and posthouses that Claudia would have had, because the only time Orbilio's drivers stopped was to change horses. This meant he'd actually arrived ahead of her, but no sooner had he reported to the barracks (with a different fiction to explain his visit!) than a note was left in his room at the tavern where he was staying.

Like most tip-offs, it was anonymous. But a few discreet enquiries among army colleagues, coupled with gossip picked up at the inn, suggested that there had indeed been instances of beggar children disappearing from the streets of Santonum, and, since the note was quite specific in naming both boatyard and owner, Orbilio's nose told him to follow it. As outlined in the note, he was careful to make no mention to anyone of what he was investigating, and although he could probably use the contacts Marcia offered to provide, far better she, and everyone else, believed he was investigating fraud than have the paedophiles inadvertently alerted to his activities.

Unfortunately, surveillance work didn't allow much free time to follow other trails and he was still none the wiser about what Claudia was up to in Santonum! According to one source, she was tracing a man who had passed through some years before, but Marcus very much doubted that. Claudia Seferius was not the type of woman to look to the past. Only the future.

He listened to the slap of the water against the bank, to bats squeaking on the wing. Clouds had moved in to cover the moon, but the night was still warm and, all around him, crickets rasped out their lonely refrain. Refolding his arms, he wriggled his back against the masthead, because there was no reason to suggest the child peddlers would act tonight. In fact, he was resigned to this being one of many long waits and, behind the clouds, the constellations of Pegasus and Hercules moved round the heavens.

Ah, but suppose she was trying to trace a lost lover? Orbilio jerked up straight. Could that be why she rejected him? Because there was someone in her past who still had her affections? Had she set out to find the one man she'd truly loved? The churning in his stomach subsided. Whatever had happened in Claudia's past, she hadn't just buried, she'd cremated and scattered the ashes. Quite frankly, the idea of Claudia trailing after a man who'd walked out on her was simply risible. All the same… A black demon stirred in the darkness, as his thoughts drifted to her bodyguard. The same bodyguard who always stuck close to his mistress. Just how close, he wondered? And what kind of mistress?

Wouldn't you like to know what goes on between those two when they're alone? the demon asked — not for the first time.

Something wrenched under Orbilio's ribcage as he thought of the blue eyes that never left Claudia, not for a minute. What had those sullen eyes seen? And what did she see when she looked back? Youth, strength, rippling muscles, lean, tanned torso — and you had to remember that she was young, too.

Too young to remain celibate, whispered the demon. Too young to have her womanly needs go unsatisfied.

Marcus pursed his lips until they were white. He pictured those hands, those rough, bodyguard's hands, exploring parts that he could only dream about The creaking of oars pulled him up short. Craning his neck, he heard the dull clunk of wood as the boat nudged the bank, followed by a muffled whimper. Picturing the child, restrained by heavy hands under a stinking blanket, Orbilio's gorge rose. Of all the dirty jobs in the Security Police, living with the knowledge that he was sacrificing this child's innocence was the worst. But the only way to break this abomination once and for all was to follow the chain, because sure he could have had legionaries stationed around the boatyard. The child would be spared, the gang would be captured, but what of the mastermind who would remain free to set up his monstrous traffic elsewhere?

The little mite began to sniffle and Orbilio's gut clenched. He forced himself to blot out the sound, because what was important was to identify the child's abductors. Peering into the blackness, he recognized the carpentry foreman and one of the riveters.

'Oi!' The nightwatchman's sleep had not been as deep as

Orbilio had thought. 'What d'you lot think yer doing? Get outta-'

The gurgling sound make Orbilio's blood run cold. He recognized it instinctively from both the battlefield and his stint with the Security Police. The all too distinctive rattle a throat makes when its windpipe's been severed. That unmistakable mix of blood, air… and sheer terror.

As the poor man fought frantically for a life that was already over, Orbilio thought of the wife, the children, the mother, the brothers whose lives would also be wrecked. A splash testified to the disposal of the nightwatchman's body, and a more callous act he could not imagine. To the Gauls, burial of the corpse meant eternal peace through the soul's reincarnation. Trussed inside the blanket slung over the foreman's shoulder, the child began to sob and anger boiled up inside him. Reaching for his dagger, Orbilio withdrew it silently from its scabbard and crept round the timber pile. Too late he heard a sound behind him. Saw the flash of bright steel as the moon came out behind the cloud. Caught a whiff of a woman's perfume.

Then the heavens exploded in a million white stars.