Stone Cold

Nineteen

Set like crystals in a cupola ofjet, a million stars twinkled in a cloudless sky, cradling the new moon like a baby. Outlined against them, wooded hillsides smudged the night's horizons, giving shelter to bright-eyed stoats and curious fox cubs, while badgers tumbled in the clearings and bush crickets rasped continuously in the brambles and nettle beds.

Inside the room, Claudia waited.

Through the open window, she smelled honeysuckle and wild basil carried on the breeze… but not the scent of the person she was waiting for.

She could see ghost moths swaying backwards and forwards over spikes of yellow mullein, whose white woolly leaves shimmered in the dark… but of her would-be killer there was no sign.

She heard rodents rustling about in the undergrowth… but not the rat she was waiting to trap.

Time strode seamlessly forward and, with each star that moved round the heavens, Claudia considered the cold-blooded tactics of the assassin, the icy planning and callous disregard of human emotions, and felt no discomfort as she crouched in the corner. Only a sense of purpose and satisfaction. She did not bother to keep track of the hours. Time didn't matter. She had a job to do, and she was going to do it. Possibly even enjoy it.

At last, footsteps approached. Door hinges creaked. She had measured the distance earlier between door and oil lamp. Counted the seconds before it would be lit, and her training as a dancer held her in good stead. The timing for the next bit was crucial.

Sssss. As the tinder was struck, she untied a small bag. The wick ignited and, as the first flame flickered to light up the room, she tossed the contents in the killer's direction.

'Ribbit, ribbit,' the outraged frog croaked, as it landed unceremoniously at a pair of feet.

The feet jumped.

'Don't you recognize me?' Claudia whispered.

'Ribbit, ribbit, ribbit,' said the frog, thoughtfully keeping pace with the sidestepping feet.

By now, Claudia had opened her second sack. Naturally, the owl panicked.

'Do you recognize me now?' she called softly, as it flew at the walls and banged into doors.

With flailing arms, Claudia's attacker ducked to avoid the flapping wings — the very moment she'd been waiting for! Grabbing the contents of her third bag, Claudia lunged, only this time there was no incensed amphibian, no terrified bird. Just cold, hard steel in the form of a pair of leg irons, on loan from the prison guards.

'What the bloody fuck-?'

'Tut, tut, such language.' She jerked him backwards by his hair into a chair. 'And from a priest, as well.'

She'd propped the broom handle by the door in readiness and now she shoved it between his outstretched elbows across the back of the seat. Like a winkle on a pin, she thought happily. Like a winkle on a bloody pin. She let him kick and thrash while she opened the front door. The owl flew out straight away, but she had to nudge Froggie with her foot. Claudia closed the door and calmly lit another lamp.

'Good heavens, Vincentrix, I'd credited you with better manners than swearing in front of a lady.'

'What the bloody hell do you think you're playing at?'

'Playing, Vincentrix? Now tell me, honestly, does this knife look like a game? Ooh, did that hurt? And it was just a teensy little nick on the side of your throat, too.'

He stopped thrashing. Blades that close to jugulars weren't worth the gamble.

'What do you want?'

'I thought you and I could have a cosy little chat, one shapeshifter to another and all that.'

'Those creatures weren't you in disguise. You don't have the magic'

'If you say so.' She tested the broom handle wedged so firmly between his elbows. 'But look around your lovely house, Vincentrix. Do you see any frogs hopping around this exquisite tiled flooring? Any owls battering against your magnificent frescoes?'

The only way to turn the tables on a Druid was to use his own beliefs against him, and he'd been so busy fighting leg irons and imprisoned arms that he hadn't noticed the door open and close. Surprise was the key. Surprise, and the play of light-and-dark. She looked at his bloodless face, the dilated pupils, and knew she'd judged him correctly. Ordinary people wouldn't dare play mind games with this elevated caste, least of all tangle with the most powerful Gaul in Aquitania! For a man who accepts shapeshifting as a truth, what other explanation was there?

'But now, Vincentrix, it's time for us to trade.'

'Trade what exactly?'

That was the down side of priests who swallow all that paranormal hocus-pocus. They bounce back straight away.

'Isn't it obvious? I don't stick this serrated blade into your neck, and in return you tell me what happened in Santonum fifteen years ago.'

'I would tell you, if I knew.' His green eyes shone with honesty. 'But I wasn't here. I was in Britain back then. Ask anyone.'

'I have. You were. But you know anyway.'

'I serve the gods on an astral plane; it is not in my remit to become involved in local affairs. Claudia Seferius, I swear on my life that I have no idea what may or may not have taken place fifteen years ago.'

'I hope you're ready for the Horned One, because if you think I won't slit your lying throat you can think again.'

'You won't kill me.'

'Spoken with confidence, but why? Because you think I like you? Because you think I feel sorry for you, after hearing your hard-luck virgin-wife story? How much of that was true, by the way?'

'All of it, as it happens, and, yes, I do think you like me. But the reason you won't use that knife is because it's impossible to kill someone face to face, especially once you've shared food and secrets with them.'

'Really? Then how come you're so adept at it?' Old trick. Win a person's trust and confidence while you probe their Achilles heel. Vincentrix was a past master at it.

He exhaled slowly, and in the lamplight his kestrel hair shone like polished chestnuts. 'Claudia Seferius, I have no idea what tonight's nonsense is about, but you are mistaken. Whoever, whatever, you think I am, you are wrong.'

'I may have my faults, but being wrong isn't one of them. Suppose we say a count of three?'

'Very well.'

Oh, dear. He still thought that business with the torc and Find the Pea had been a lucky guess. Claudia stepped back and examined the bloodied point of the blade. 'Vincentrix, you have no idea what I'm capable of. You kill people in cold blood and I am quite prepared to kill you in the cold light of reason, but the thing you need to remember is that your death won't just be the end of you. It puts paid to all hope of leading your people through the Halls of Change into the Light. That's count number one, incidentally.'

He wriggled in the chair to turn his piercing green eyes up at her.

'Do you think I have not trained up my acolytes? That other Druids have not been taught the Chant of Incarnation?'

'Undoubtedly, but it's you they look to, Vince. It's you the people trust, and this is count number two, by the way. If you're dead and they see your corpse left unburied-'

'You're planning to toss my body into the river?' Scorn rose in his voice. 'It's not far to the water, admittedly, but cadavers are heavy and you're not strong enough to haul mine on your own, and that Gaulish bodyguard won't lift a finger against a Druid, dead or alive.'

'I have no desire to contaminate the river with your poison. My intention is for the authorities to throw your corpse on the middens for the murderous scumbag that you are and now, sadly for you, your time's up.'

She yanked his head back by the hair.

'All right, all right.'

She held on to the hank, but relaxed the tension.

'All right,' Vincentrix repeated slowly, 'we'll trade, but not because I'm afraid of dying.'

Claudia nodded. Whatever else he might be, the Druid was no coward.

'The gods have visited me,' he said quietly. 'They have tasked me with a mission and it is for this reason, and this reason alone, that I agree to your terms.'

Sheathing the knife, Claudia felt a cold shiver run down her spine. She could not explain the feeling, but at the back of her mind was a horrible suspicion that, in doing so, she was making one of the biggest mistakes of her life.

There was still an hour or more before dawn would start to break over the forests of south-western Gaul and yet, on the Druid's island where three arms of the stream converged, the sense of a new beginning was already strong.

It did not come in the form of the sultry night air, nor the rasp of cicadas or the churr of a nightjar. There was no crack of light in the east, no change in the breeze, no leap of the first feeding fish. But it was there. Pulsing, throbbing, pushing through the soil and surging through the currents, to create a newness that only comes with rebirth, and for a split second Claudia understood what Vincentrix experienced when he began the Chant of Incarnation to guide the dead on their voyage through the Halls of Change until they finally emerged in their new bodies.

Then the moment was gone.

The island was simply an outcrop of land where three branches of the river met. Where bats swooped low over the slow-flowing waters. Where reeds whispered to one another on the wind. More than that, it was a solid physical island rooted in a solid physical world where people were people, not butterflies hatching out from some bloody chrysalis!

But that didn't diminish the sense of new beginnings that stirred in Claudia's blood. What she was experiencing had nothing to do with Druid magic or the Gauls' belief in reincarnation, not even any eerie prequel to dawn. It was the knowledge that a gateway had opened and she was taking the first real steps toward tracing her father, and the knowledge was as exhilarating as it was scary.

Listening to her little rowing boat clunk softly against the river bank, and with the light from Vincentrix's house shim mering like a glow worm behind her, she mulled over the Druid's story.

'First of all,' he'd said, 'you need to put this into context.'

Remember the history of this region, he reminded her. Remember how Julius Caesar sent an army to conquer these lands, and what happened to the legate and his men. Remember how Rome despatched more soldiers to avenge the dead legions, and how easily the Santons had them routed, too. Finally, he'd added, remember that although on the surface relations between the two parties were running smoothly fifteen years ago, with Augustus having proclaimed Santonum the capital of Aquitania and the tribes prospering on the back of the increase in trade, rancour and mistrust still tarnished the alliance.

Immediately, an image was conjured up of a twelve-year-old girl being kidnapped and sold into prostitution for no other reason than that she was Santon. Atrocities were committed by both parties, Marcia said, hinting of blood feuds and vendettas that lingered to the present day. What turmoil must have existed fifteen years ago when a Santon village was suddenly attacked by a band of renegades?

'An entire village was razed to the ground,' Vincentrix explained. 'The women were raped, the men killed so their heads could be taken for trophies, livestock were slaughtered, shrines desecrated. Even the smallest children were tortured, and it is said the smoke hung in the air for six days.'

It made no difference that this was an isolated village on the edge of the Empire. An entire community had been destroyed, butchered on an unimaginable scale, and feelings among the tribespeople ran high. Rome was supposed to protect them, they screamed. You siphon off our harvests, you force us to pay taxes, you yoke us to your imperial plough and subject us to your laws, yet, instead of defending us, villages are being wiped out!

'Amid the sense of outrage on the one hand and betrayal on the other, who can blame the Santons for ignoring Rome's pleas to let their cohorts hunt down the renegades? Mustering a group of vigilantes, and bearing in mind our Gallic fondness for horseflesh — ' it was the closest the Druid came to a smile — 'it didn't take the warriors long to track down thirty or so Parisii sitting round a camp fire, laughing and drinking so hard that the first they knew of any assault was when the warriors fell upon them.'

Fine so far. Claudia could easily see why Rome wanted the matter hushed up. The Governor had failed to take adequate precautions for the safety of those in his care, and if a whole village being wiped out didn't destroy his career then a full-scale rebellion by the Santon people certainly would. No wonder so many natural disasters befell the official records! Mice, mould, floods? The Governor probably imported rodents for the very purpose! What she didn't understand was why the locals wanted it swept under the rug.

'Ah, you Romans. Always so impatient,' Vincentrix said, and, now she thought about it, she realized he hadn't struggled against his bonds since the beginning. 'But, as it happens, this brings us to the next page in our storybook.'

As the victorious vigilantes danced in triumph round the corpses in the Forum, hacking off the heads of their enemies so that their souls would be denied rebirth, the army returned with prisoners in tow.

'It would appear our glorious warriors made a mistake,' Vincentrix said grimly.

While the hotheads went charging off on the finest horseflesh in Gaul, the legionaries employed two centuries of tracking skills to run down the real culprits — and how did they know it was them?

'Because they produced the trophies the real bandits had been parading,' he said. 'Namely, the villagers' heads impaled on poles.'

Going through the satchels of the slaughtered Parisii, it quickly became clear that the Santons had succeeded in butchering a trade delegation on its way to Burdigala on the Jirond.

'So a deal was struck?'

'And why not?' the Druid countered. 'It was hardly in Rome's interest to incense allies who had trekked hundreds of miles to talk peace, while, far from being the heroic avengers they believed themselves to be, the Santons find they are killers of innocent men.'

Nothing like embarrassment, contrition and shame to unite opposing factions, she reflected, pulling a stem of long grass from the river bank and chewing on the juicy end. Everyone was agreed: the delegation never arrived. No one saw them. No one heard them. The Parish simply vanished into thin air somewhere along their arduous route…

The landlady's words echoed back to her. You won't find anyone around these parts willing to talk about what happened back then, not a soul, she had said, adding that some things were best left in the past and how it was a waste of time trying to dig deeper. She was wrong. Trying was never a waste of time. Unless you try you cannot succeed, and while Claudia was no closer to finding her father, she had at least broken through the barrier of silence. Even though it nearly cost her her life.

'You didn't have to kill me, you bastard.'

'Not a decision I took lightly.' And she wasn't sure whether the pain in Vincentrix's eyes was because he was truly contrite or whether his arms were starting to strain in their sockets. 'But you have to remember, Claudia Seferius, that if word got out about that tragic day, the Santons involved would be rounded up and made examples of He drew a deep, shuddering breath. 'One life sacrificed to save twenty, not to mention the families whose lives would be ruined by the disclosure? It had to be right.'

'Didn't it occur to you that Rome doesn't want this business aired, either?'

'Of course.' His kestrel head nodded. 'But once it is, there is no going back, and when you bear in mind that most, if not all, of the legionaries involved back then have retired, the consequences for Rome are negligible. For the Santons, however…' He let his voice trail off. 'I am sorry,' he added.

'That you missed me?'

'I didn't miss, I miscalculated, there's a difference, and what I miscalculated wasn't the drop of the block or the accuracy of my mathematical computations, Claudia Seferius, it was you. You were too fast for me.'

Always, Vincentrix. Always…

'What made you suspect me?' he asked.

Oh, come on! Who else could have blended in so seamlessly into a bustling building site than the Arch Shapeshifter himself?

'You gave the game away, Vincentrix, when you were telling me about your tragic marriage. At any cost, you said. You said you wanted that woman to be your wife at any cost, and you actually admitted that you couldn't see what was in front of you because of your obsession. The very same quality you recognized in me and played on,' she told him. 'A desperate need to find my father.'

'Your father, was it?'

'Does it matter?' She wondered whether the prison guard would have to replace the leg irons out of his own personal funds. 'Right from the outset, when I first started making enquiries about events that took place fifteen years ago, you realized it had to be something of vital personal importance that dragged me all the way out to Santonum, and you just couldn't resist showing off when you realized that I couldn't sleep from the anxiety. You played on my insecurities, Vincentrix. Exploitation of the mind is your job and I have to hand it to you, you're pretty damn good at it.'

Anger surged through his captive body. 'I serve my people through communion with the gods. That cannot be construed as exploitation.'

'Manipulation? Magic? Your argument, then, is what does it matter so long as they believe?'

'Yes,' he hissed. 'So long as they believe, their souls are safe. That, Claudia Seferius, is my job and that is what I am good at. My people entrust me not with their lives, but with eternity. I. Will. Not. Let. Them. Down.'

A fanatic with conviction in his beliefs? Or a man addicted to power and authority? Claudia did not know the answer. Leaving Vincentrix pinned to his own high-backed chair, she untied the rowing boat and silently made her way back to the shore.

From the long grass, the tabby cat watched her depart.