Stone Cold

Fourteen

Shadows were lengthening and the setting sun had cloaked the landscape in a dusky heather pink as Claudia followed the path beside the stream, but work on Marcia's tomb continued unabated. She could hear the chip-chip-chip of chisels and the clip-clip-clip of shears as she approached, along with the unmistakable thwack that an axe makes when it's engaged in felling trees.

'I thought you were supposed to be working on Hercules,' she said to Paris, kneeling on the scaffolding where fifteen marble columns were slowly being sculpted into nymphs.

One tanned and muscled shoulder shrugged, but his concentration didn't waver.

'Marcia wants me back on the caryatids,' he said, blowing away the marble dust that had accumulated in the nymph's left ear. 'She insists the tomb take priority again, so I've delegated the statuary to her hired workforce, given them sketches, dimensions and so on, and then it's just a question of adding the personal touches myself. Some of them,' he added grudgingly, 'aren't too bad.'

Praise indeed from a man who could turn a lump of stone into the youthful personification of spring.

'That doesn't bother you?' she asked. 'Delegating to a team you didn't pick?'

Right from the outset, it struck her as odd that men such as Paris, Hor and Semir were working alone. Most experts, especially those in the artistic field, were accompanied by a whole squad of apprentices and labourers. Men who understood every inch of the business their maestro was engaged in, down to the last nuance and wrinkle, and who were thus easily entrusted with the more mundane tasks and repetitive jobs. When Claudia raised the subject with Marcia, though, the woman had been adamant.

'My dear girl, I provide the staff,' she'd sniffed, 'not the hired help!'

This way, she insisted, she always knew exactly where each stage was at, whilst at the same time ensuring there could not possibly be any pilfering going on under her roof, much less any lingering about on time that she was bloody well paying for.

'In other words, if bread's the staff of life, this way you're sure the life of your staff isn't one long loaf?'

'Hm.' Marcia had looked at her in much the same way Claudia imagined she might inspect a cockroach in her bed, before turning on her fashionable heel to harangue the fan wallah for not flapping hard enough, while clipping her maidservant round the ear for eavesdropping.

And whilst Claudia could see exactly why Marcia, who needed to be in control of every waking moment, would ship in scores of slaves to work on her precious project, she couldn't understand why the likes of Paris, Hor and Semir would agree to such terms. Surely artists of that calibre also had a need to be in control of their work? If only out of personal pride, rather than ego?

'What bothers me,' Paris snorted, polishing the nymph's earlobe with a soft cloth, 'is being made to employ imbeciles who can't tell the difference between a right foot and a left.'

He cast a scornful eye over the statues that were scattered round the precinct in varying stages of completion. For all her talk about purists, it would appear that Marcia was more than happy to compromise on quality in favour of early completion of her undertaking. This was nothing short of a production line.

'Thanks to one incompetent fool, I'm faced with the choice of mounting a discus thrower with two left feet on the podium,' the Greek snapped, 'or I end up with a satyr surplus to requirements, because I've had to shear his feet into hooves.' His voice softened. 'Isn't she beautiful?'

'Marcia? Um, yes. Absolutely'

'No, no, the caryatid.' He ran a lover's hand over her stone shoulders. 'Do you know what the word means?'

'A clothed female figure used in place of a column.'

'Caryatid means "woman of Caryae",' he corrected.

'A Spartan?' Claudia had had no idea.

'Spartan women were reputed to be the most beautiful in the whole of the Greek world.'

'As well as the most intelligent, the most spirited and the most independent.'

'Exactly, and can't you see the way this one is thrusting herself out of the marble? The more I work on this woman of Caryae, the more aware I become of her turning into flesh and blood. I feel her character form in my hands and then I start to sense the pride she feels, holding up this roof not just for a few years, but for centuries.' He leaned back on his knees and admired his handiwork. 'Centuries,' he whispered. 'Can you imagine that?'

And suddenly there was the clicking of internal cogs as it became clear why Paris had agreed to waive his usual practices. Marcia needed a tomb to outshine all other civil monuments in Aquitania not simply to impress people during her own lifetime, but to secure for herself the nearest thing to immortality.

Paris, too, was looking far beyond the immediate future.

Paris was looking towards a time when people would be able to look back and marvel on his works, in much the same way they used to marvel at the achievements of his Mycenean ancestors. Except that whilst Greek statues in those days were finely executed, they were also stiff and unyielding. Paris had contrived to combine his stoneworking skills with modern art that embraced the human psyche every bit as much as it revered the human body. His statues reflected real people doing real things, rather than elevated ideals. In capturing the soul, Paris had also ensured his own immortality!

Locked in his obsession with his marble, he didn't even notice her slip away. But the concept of immortality lingered, as Claudia reflected that Hor was Egyptian… and a race more obsessed with the afterlife she had yet to meet.

She wasn't sure whether he'd even noticed her, absorbed as he was with his brushwork. But he had.

'Good evening, my lady.'

He flashed her his wholesome smile before returning to his work, and Claudia thought Hor would be much better looking if he only went outside once in a while. His skin was so pale it was unhealthy, his hair was flecked with dandruff from too much time spent indoors, and it couldn't possibly be good for his eyes, working by lamplight from morning till night.

Picking up one of the hand-lamps, she toured the tomb, again dumbstruck by how expertly Hor had managed to cram everything in. The banquets, the trade deals, the villa, the boat, and more scribes, accountants and secretaries than Augustus employed to run the whole Empire. Of course, on the walls all these people were perfect. No warts, no squints, no birthmarks, no ugliness was permitted inside or out of this tomb. In each scene, a timeless Marcia was surrounded by beautiful girls, although, so as not to distract from the point of the exercise, they were either shorter or depicted seated so that each had to look up to her, physically, not just figuratively, and in every setting she was adored by bronzed, handsome hunks. No detail had been spared. Hor had painted the rich harvests from the fields and the abundant game from the forests with draughtsman-sharp accuracy, and if he couldn't reproduce the animals intended for the menagerie with anatomical precision he left a space and rough outline for later completion.

'The artwork is exquisite,' Claudia told him truthfully.

'Thank you.' He responded with all the grace of a man used to receiving compliments, but for whom they had little meaning.

'I recognize that outfit,' she said, peering over his shoulder to the scene he was painting. 'Marcia wore that robe to the banquet.'

'Did she?' He continued to define the features of the face. 'I don't remember.'

Not just the scarlet gown, either. He'd captured every detail from the silver tiara to her cerise slippers, even down to the engravings and whorls on her bracelets. It was just unfortunate that the face, though undoubtedly well executed and undeniably stunning, happened to be two decades younger than the woman who'd worn that eye-catching outfit. What was wrong with growing old?

'I lose track of time,' Hor added wistfully.

And he wasn't the only one, she thought, leaving him to it. Without doubt, Marcia would accept that lovely unlined face as hers. In fact, Claudia saw a time — not far off, either — when mirrors would be phased out of Marcia's life. Once she was no longer capable of luring young men (like the unfortunate Garro) into her bed and was forced to hire gigolos, she would have no need of mirrors. Instead, she would surround herself with people offering constant reassurance of her loveliness, and just a short stroll round this tomb would corroborate their lies.

Here, Marcia never grew old.

Here, she remained young and beautiful, for ever rich, for ever cherished, and only those around her would know differently.

But! Claudia set off in the direction of the menagerie. She'd come down here to find Hannibal, and Hannibal wasn't here. Frankly, she hadn't been a bit surprised when she had returned to the Forum shortly after midday and found Junius waiting alone outside the basilica.

'Hannibal's gone back to the villa,' he'd said.

'Now why doesn't that surprise me,' she'd muttered under her breath.

But how strange. Having searched high and low, he was nowhere to be found. Dammit, Hannibal, you're here somewhere, I bloody know it! Across the far side of the pond, now every bit as pink as the flamingoes that were giving their wing feathers a last fluff before bed, gazelles flicked off flies with their stunted, wagging tails as they grazed with quiet elegance, blissfully unaware of the cheetah's ever-vigilant gaze. But still no Hannibal.

'There, there, my pretty-pretty,' a monotone cooed behind one of the walls. 'There, there, my pretty girl.'

Claudia peered over, expecting to see Qeb with something small and furry in his hands, and recoiled instantly.

'It's a king cobra,' he said.

Sitting cross-legged on the floor of the enclosure, the setting sun reflecting cherry-red off his gleaming, shaven skull, he held the snake behind its head with one hand and stroked the loose skin that flared into a hood when threatened with the other. Interestingly, he didn't lift his eyes to meet hers once, although, to be fair, that might have had something to do with the creature in his hands.

'Venomous, although primarily it eats other snakes.'

'How reassuring.'

The damned thing had to be at least twice as long as Qeb was high, and he wasn't a small man. Six foot if he was an inch!

'Cobra venom paralyses the nerve centres that control the heart and lungs, did you know that?'

Claudia looked into the cold, bronze eyes of the cobra and thought, hell, the bloody thing wouldn't even need to bite.

'The spitting cobra is even more fascinating.' Qeb continued to stroke the snake's hood as though it was a kitten he held in his hands. 'That's capable of spraying venom from a distance of up to eight feet — '

Claudia took a step backwards.

'- and aims for the eyes, causing immense pain and temporary blindness.'

Lovely. Paris makes love to his statues, Qeb makes love to his snakes. Who said this wasn't a progressive society? Claudia wound her way up the path back to the villa. She knew who had made the attempt on her life this morning, and she knew why, but more importantly she was well aware that the killer wouldn't give up just because she'd had a lucky escape. What had gone through that murderous mind, she wondered, when it was obvious the plan had failed? Killers can't afford to hang around, for fear of being identified, because no matter who or what your status Rome doesn't take very kindly to its citizens being picked off in broad daylight. The killer would have bolted like the rat that they were, but she had no doubts her would-be executioner would try again. Only this time she would be waiting. Waiting, and ready to turn the tables on this person who valued human life so very lightly…

'Ah, there you are, Hannibal.'

To his credit, he actually jumped.

'Madam!' By the light of the torch flickering in the sconce on the wall, she could see the colour that flushed his cheeks darken to the hue of cut peat then spread all the way down to his neck. 'I–I didn't expect to see you there.'

No, I'll bet you bloody didn't.

'Sorry to startle you,' she said sweetly.

Although quite how else he could have been expected to react, she couldn't imagine, since she'd been standing behind that laurel for half an hour, until he eventually emerged from a certain door at the far end of the east wing.

'Only I have a favour to ask.'

Hannibal smoothed back his hair with his hand and adjusted his buckle. 'Ask away, madam, ask away. I am yours to command,' he added, with a theatrical bow. 'Even at one lonely sestertius a day'

Claudia drew a deep breath and forced herself to respond to his clowning with a smile. Since it made her cheeks ache, she stopped. 'I want you to forget about finding my father-'

Frown lines furrowed Hannibal's weathered brow. 'Don't tell me that scoundrel had reliable information after all?'

'Oh, my, you'll never believe what happened there!' Claudia rolled her eyes and wondered whether any of her ancestors had been actors. 'For a start, that idiot guide led me to the opposite end of the temple from where your informant was waiting, but the worst part, Hannibal, this HUUUGE lump of masonry fell off the platform, and, of course, this brought people running — ' he'd never know that was a lie — 'which scared your informant away. Anyway, the thing is… Hannibal, are you listening to me?'

'What? Oh, yes. Yes, of course, dear lady, of course. You want me to forget about tracing your father.'

'I do. You see, Vincentrix went to a lot of trouble to seek me out in Santonum yesterday morning.' She paused, picturing Everyman with his lime-whitened hair and pantaloons tucked into his boots, confiding the heartache of his tragic marriage as they munched sweetmeats by the river. 'He wanted to know what I could tell him about the Scarecrow, but all I could pass on was what Marcia told me. Namely, that this character lives in the forest and, whilst creepy, seems perfectly harmless.'

'Though not without cunning,' Hannibal muttered. 'Stella informs me that her elegant cousin regularly despatches trackers to hunt down this fellow and drive him out of her woods, but as fast as the dogs pick up his spoor they lose it again. There is only one possible conclusion to be drawn. Our friend the Scarecrow employs a substance to put the hounds off the scent. But I am curious, madam. Why should the Collegiate of Druids be interested in the wild man of the woods?'

The very question Claudia had put to Vincentrix, because clearly the Scarecrow wasn't Santon or the locals would know all about him — and if the locals knew, so, of course, would the Druids — and it was unlikely the most powerful Gaul in Aquitania had nothing better to do than satisfy an idle curiosity about a person who didn't remotely concern him.

'It would appear that a number of young women have gone missing lately,' she told Hannibal. 'Late last spring, the sister of a man who makes millstones disappeared, but it seems she'd always had a wanderlust and everyone assumed she'd just taken the first boat out of here, and, who knows, maybe they were right. Then the wife of a root-cutter left without a word, but, again, she was a flighty piece, often running off with different men, so no one gave her leaving a second thought.'

Except the root-cutter, presumably.

'There was a girl who churned cheeses.' Claudia ticked the victims off on her fingers. 'Then Brigetia, the tanner's daughter, and now a young basket-weaver has failed to come home.'

'To wit, Vincentrix believes our friend, the Scarecrow, is responsible for their mysterious disappearances?' Hannibal stroked his jaw thoughtfully. 'I will certainly ask around. See what the slaves here have to say, what the local people think. But meanwhile, madam, I urge you to have caution when dealing with the Druids. They are not what they appear.'

'Who is?' she replied, locking her gaze firmly with his.

He held her gaze, but only just. 'They pass themselves off as preachers and philosophers, wise men who have learned their wisdom from the ancients, and when they make worship they speak in riddles to confuse their subjects, because the more secret their knowledge, the greater their power. But what you have to remember here, madam, is that the Druids practise human sacrifice.'

'Used to,' she corrected. 'Rome has put paid to all that.'

'So the Druids would have us believe, dear lady, so the Druids would have us believe.'

There was no joking in his manner now. The low tone was deadly serious.

'But there are places in this forest a full day's march from here where the soil is black from scorching and where the stains against the oak are suspiciously sticky. The wicker man is not dead, madam, that I assure you. The Collegiate has not forsaken its ways.'

With a mighty groan, Esus the Blood God woke from his long sleep. Through the blackness, he had heard his name being invoked. An old woman calling for vengeance.

Half man, half bull, Esus lumbered to his feet, shook the dust off his stout horns and bellowed.

The death rictus on the old woman's face slowly relaxed into a smile.