Stone Cold

Twenty-Five

Lying on her bed with a bowl of juicy plums and a plate of crumbly white local cheese, Claudia stroked Drusilla's ears and congratulated herself on how well the word about tomorrow's manhunt was spreading.

'He might have been rounding up gangs of paedophiles while being heaped with crowns of glory, but there's nothing like an ambitious Security Policeman to make sure no stone remains unturned in the fight against corruption and evil, poppet.'

'Mrrrrw.'

'Exactly.' She raked her fingernails down an ecstatic furry spine. 'When it comes to a seat in the Senate, a chap can't have too many credits to his name.' Indeed, at this rate, Orbilio would be clearing up the imperial crime rate single-handed! 'Brrrrup?'

'Of course he'll drop his investigation into those ridiculous fraud allegations!' The man had honour stamped all over him. 'Frrr.'

'I know.' It was a damned shame he had tenacity, truth and intransigence tattooed on him as well. 'There isn't much that a spot of bribery, coercion or blackmail can't fix, but somehow Marcus Cornelius manages to block the bloody lot.'

Professional that he was, he wouldn't even agree to speak to Marcia about postponing the manhunt until he'd struck a deal.

'You succeed with the Scarecrow where others have failed? This I must see,' he'd chuckled.

Leaning back on her rainbow of pillows, Claudia wriggled her toes on the damask coverlet and checked the sun's march by the shadows on the wall. Unlike certain parties she could mention, she was not remotely sceptical about the Scarecrow rising to her bait, but this would not be before nightfall, and in the end she'd agreed that Orbilio could act as an observer. 'Provided you don't interfere,' she'd insisted.

'I can't promise,' he'd murmured. 'If the poor man calls for help, I'm duty bound to pitch in.'

Very funny.

'He can scoff all he likes that it took Marcia months not to track the Scarecrow down,' she told Drusilla, 'but Marcia's been using the wrong methods.' Or, more accurately, the wrong people.

'This business about the Emperor's birthday is bollocks,' Tarbel had growled earlier that morning. He'd been waiting on the landing, looking more than ever like he'd just been hewn out of some ancient oak tree. 'What's going on?'

Claudia had widened her eyes in incredulity. 'I have absolutely no idea.'

'Don't play the innocent,' he retorted, leaning so close she could smell dense, cedary forests through the thick leather breastplate. 'You Romans plan so far ahead you know what you'll be doing the fourth Saturday in August six years from now. Imperial birthday celebrations don't spring up out of the blue.'

'Maybe it's not Rome,' she said sweetly. 'Maybe the postponement is your mistress's idea?'

Chestnut eyes narrowed. 'Bullshit.'

'Do you know what I think, Tarbel? I mean, apart from wishing that I'd taken longer over my bath, so that you'd have had to kick your heels for another hour outside my bedroom.' She swept past him and placed her hand on the latch of the door. 'I think you're sulking.'

There was a rumble from deep in the big Basc's throat, and it wasn't the sort of sound a cat makes when it's purring. 'Why do you do this? Why do you always provoke me?'

'And here's me thinking men liked provocative women.'

'I've never done one bloody thing to offend you. Hell, I even saved your life in the woods-'

'No, you didn't.'

'I bloody well would have.' Colour was flooding his cheeks. 'The only thing you've done since then is insult me.'

'Because I don't like liars,' she said, sweeping into her room and closing the door.

'I am a Base,' he hissed, almost kicking the door down as he followed her in. 'Bases do not lie. We stand by our honour and you will apologize.'

'I'm sorry, but I never apologize. Especially,' she added smugly, 'when I'm right.'

Nibbling on another chunk of crumbly white cheese, she remembered that he'd been standing just there, right between the bed frame and the clothes chest, smelling of leather and cedar and deep indignation, his shoulders so broad they practically blocked out the light from the window.

'Rrrrp,' Drusilla purred.

'You want to know what Tarbel replied to that? Something quite unsuitable for cat's ears, I'm afraid.'

But the big Basc wasn't giving up. 'At what point am I supposed to have lied to you?'

'When you told me you enjoyed your job and, before you say anything else, our conversation's just proved it.'

Tracking the Scarecrow was the first 'real' job he'd been given since hiring himself out as Marcia's minder and already his orders were being countermanded. Men who don't care don't get angry.

'Very well, acting bodyguard to a rich bitch didn’t turn out the way I expected.' Tarbel turned on his heel. 'But I fail to see how my attitude to my work is any of your bloody business, or why it should make you dislike me.'

'Who said I disliked you?'

He stopped in his tracks.

'It works both ways,' Claudia told him. 'If I didn't care, I wouldn't bother about what happened to you, either, but you're no trained bear, Tarbel. That green and gold livery itches your skin.'

'Si. ' The big man nodded slowly. 'But I'd still give my life for her.'

'As you would have for Rome. Yes, I know.' The difference is, the Empire would have been grateful. 'You're a man who needs more out of soldiering than covering the occasional body with your own, tagging along with a crowd of simpering flunkies, searching other people's rooms-'

'Maybe I don't like some of the jobs I am tasked with,' he thundered, 'but, by the gods, I do them well.'

'Perfection isn't the issue here, Tarbel. Marcia wouldn't have hired you if you weren't a stickler for detail. But you're a soldier. A mercenary. Fighting is what you do, remember?'

'And?'

'And nothing.' She slipped into a new pair of sandals and swept past him into the corridor. 'I just thought you should be reminded, that's all.'

Plumping the pillows, Claudia glanced once more at the sun's progress on her bedroom wall. The shadows had barely moved and, biting into a soft yellow plum as Drusilla stretched languorously over the counterpane, her thoughts drifted. She was glad, for the children's sake, that Orbilio had managed to bust the paedophile ring so quickly. Dammit, though, you'd think a man who was that good at his job would give a grieving widow a break. And although she knew he'd keep his word regarding her fraud, she intended to have a quiet word with that little snake Burto once she got home. (And if that quiet word happened to contain the letters that spelled out 'branding iron', 'pincers', 'thumbscrews' and 'knuckle dusters', then so much the better.)

'He suspected Qeb was involved,' she told Drusilla, but the cat's paws were twitching as she caught mice in her sleep.

Claudia yawned and stretched, too. She could well understand what had aroused Orbilio's suspicions. The doll in the bushes. All those crates coming and going to the menagerie. I mean, who would notice one more whimper or cry? She closed her eyes and snuggled down into the cushions. But it was over and Qeb wasn't involved, the gang wasn't operating out of the villa and Marcia hadn't been inflicting her own pain on- Her eyelids sprang apart. Qeb might not be part of the paedophile ring, but we still have a man who refuses to meet people's eyes, whose younger brother has to take responsibility for him and He strokes my hair, Luci had said, as she played with the grey kitten Qeb had given her. It feels really nice.

Nausea lurched in Claudia's stomach as she jumped off the bed. Dammit, he was grooming the child, in every sense of the word! She reached in her jewel chest for the thin, narrow dagger and strapped it to her calf. Right, you bald bastard. Let's see how you play with the big girls. k k k

It felt strange, not wearing her wedding band. Her ring finger seemed naked. Vulnerable, somehow. As though something was missing, and yet not. Stella sighed. She would get used to the sensation, she supposed. It would just take time, that was all.

Glancing over her shoulder, she watched the flame of her prayer candle dance in the breeze. Below it, hyssop spikes purified the offering she had made and sprigs of thyme added strength to her prayers. She sighed again. She had sacrificed all that she had. Her fate was in the hands of the sylph of the spring now. There was nothing left to do, except hope — hope with all of her heart — that the gentle spirit would smile upon her.

The cawing of jackdaws echoed in the canyon. High on the wing a buzzard mewed, and a red admiral came to rest on a fallen crab apple. Brushing the white local limestone from the hem of her skirt, Stella suddenly remembered her promise to Luci about playing butterflies and didn't notice the footsteps at first. Startled, she turned. All these stories about missing women…

'Hannibal!' Her face relaxed into a smile of relief. 'Didn't anyone warn you about creeping up on people?'

Wedged between the slaves' quarters and the guest accommodation, the rooms Marcia's artisans had been allocated were spacious without being grand, comfortable without verging on luxury. It seemed a pity not to take a peek in the others as Claudia passed, but Hor's room was locked, Paris's was so tidy it could pass for army barracks, while Semir's was a clutter of embroidered robes, combs, depilatories, beads, bangles and slippers, with enough oil to light the Capitol for a year. Not only did his bedroom smell like a Persian brothel, she mused, it bloody well looked like one, too.

Qeb's room was at the far end of the corridor, and he couldn't match Paris for neatness, but then he didn't have to. There was so little in it, even a Spartan would have complained. Still, a mere three pieces of furniture made the search simple. Claudia started with the bed, and found nothing of interest in the thin coverlet and flat pillow. She moved to the clothes chest, but it contained just two linen kilts, some spotlessly clean loincloths and a light, waterproof cloak. Which left the table, as sparsely decorated as the rest of the room. One razor, whose handle was shaped like a dung beetle, although quite why Egyptians imagined a replica dung beetle should protect them was beyond her. One alabaster bowl in which incense burned. And one looking glass with lotus flowers carved into the rim. What looked back at Qeb, she wondered? Was he aware of the slouch of his shoulders, the slow, almost clumsy walk? She replaced the mirror and turned to the only other personal item in his room.

He keeps a cheetah in his bedroom, Luci had whispered. It's lovely and smooth and has blue lizards round its neck, but Mummy says I'm not allowed in there, so you won't tell her, will you?

Hor, too, had been astonished when Claudia said she'd seen his brother's cheetah. It was the night of Marcia's banquet, and although the conversation had moved on, Hor deliberately switched back to the topic of the cheetah. She remembered how he'd leaned towards her, his eyes narrow.

You saw it?

And she remembered how he'd relaxed when she explained that she'd heard it, as well.

Heard? Oh. The menagerie, you mean.

At the time, she had merely filed it away in the library of her mind, because two creepy Egyptians was, frankly, one too many. Then Luci mentioned the cheetah, only what she omitted to say was that the cat was completely life-size. Expecting it to be wood, probably holm oak but possibly alder, Claudia was surprised at the echo that sounded when she rapped its side with her knuckles. It was clearly made out of terracotta, then laquered. The lapis lazuli that encircled its neck had been corrupted by a six-year-old's tongue into lizards, but the gems in the collar were authentic, and the cat felt warm to her hand.

'Please don't touch that.'

It was the longest sentence Qeb had probably ever spoken, and, goddammit, she hadn't heard the sneaky bastard approach.

'Why not?' She kneeled down at the cheetah's side. 'It's beautiful.'

'Yes, it is. Perfect. But I'd be obliged if you would respect my privacy, please.'

'This artwork has to be your brother's doing. The dark lines of the muscles. Yellow eyes that follow you round the room.' Claudia began to pick at one of the gems with her fingernail. 'And this gorgeous lapis lazuli collar!'

'I must ask you to be careful. That's a very fragile piece.'

'Really?' She slipped off a sandal and was about to bring it crashing down on the cheetah's ear when, to her astonishment, Qeb dived across the room and threw his arm round its encrusted neck.

'Don't!'

It wasn't his ability to move so fast that astonished her. Not even the way he protected the terracotta cat with his body, in much the same way Tarbel threw himself over his mistress. It was the tears that were coursing down his cheeks.

'Don't hurt my baby,' he sobbed. 'Please don't hurt my baby.'

Gooseflesh rippled down Claudia's arms. Sweet heaven, what had she done? Watching this big Egyptian blubbing his heart out, she suddenly realized she had totally misread this poor wretch. The incense should have alerted her, but now it made sense that the younger brother was looking after the elder one. Why Qeb shaved his head. Why Stella had forbidden the children to enter his room. And it was not because she was afraid for her brood…

The slouch, the refusal to meet other people's eyes, his inability to interact — for heaven's sake, these were the classic symptoms of grief! Add in the Egyptian custom of shaving heads during mourning, the burning of incense, the great dung beetle that rolled the sun across the heavens and everything fell into place. The cheetah was a terracotta sarcophagus.

Replacing her shoe, Claudia had never felt such a bitch — or been so glad she hadn't brought her sandal crashing down. How on earth could she have suspected this poor man of molesting a child?

'Your daughter?' she asked softly.

'She was only three.' He sniffed, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. 'Three years old, can you imagine?'

Little by little the story unfolded, no doubt exactly as he'd confided to Stella, who would have homed in on his pain with the instincts of a magnet to metal. It was to protect Qeb that she'd banned her kids from his room, not the other way round. She'd felt the best way to let his heart heal would be without reminders of healthy, happy children constantly tearing at the open wound — and his story was tragic. Until the birth of their second baby, Qeb and his wife had no problems. They had a daughter, they adored her, she was three years old, her daddy was the keeper of a nobleman's menagerie and her mother was beautiful. But after the second baby arrived, something went horribly wrong. His wife couldn't stop crying. She'd stay in bed all day, wouldn't wash, wouldn't let anybody near her; she wouldn't touch or even feed the new baby. Qeb had been forced to hire a wet nurse.

'I knew she was ill,' Qeb stammered. 'Physicians examined her, but they said she'd get over it…'

How can you ever come to terms with walking in and finding your three-year-old daughter in bed with a pillow over her head? There was no sign of his wife or new baby, he said. It was a neighbour who eventually broke the news that she'd hurled herself under a chariot, the infant clutched to her breast…

'It's easy to talk to animals,' he said dully. 'If I'd only talked to my wife, got her to talk to me, she might have told me what demons were troubling her. Instead, the torment built up until it finally burst, and I did nothing to stop it.'

Angry and betrayed, feeling useless, impotent and raw, Qeb decided to bury his grief on the other side of the world. Feeding his animals in strict sequence, at set times and to a predetermined schedule — in other words, dominating time itself — was his way of coping, and, for once, Claudia thought, Stella was wrong. Happy healthy children around him was just the tonic this lonely, heartbroken man needed.

Orbilio was dreaming. In his dream, he seemed to be in a clearing in the forest. He saw acorns littered on the ground and, across the way, clusters of bright red berries of the mountain ash were being devoured by blackbirds. A sultry breeze ruffled the browning leaves, making them rustle. He appeared to be standing up, but since this was a dream it was just one more anomaly that his limbs weren't supporting him, something else was, and it was strange that a small fire should make such a disproportionate amount of smoke. Through the choking swirls, he heard voices talking in a dream language he couldn't understand, and the smoke smelled of catmint and clover, ivy and marsh tea — and wasn't that coriander seed and hemp as well?

Strangely, for a dream, there was a pounding in his temples that felt all too real, and a throbbing behind his eyes that meant he could hardly focus, while from somewhere strange music was made on unfamiliar instruments. Haunting, yet strangely rousing.

Orbilio didn't like this particular dream. He wanted to wake up and shake himself out of it. But it was not in his power to change things, only endure.

Above the trees the sun started to set.

Esus the Blood God tossed his horns and pawed at the ground with his hoofs.

His name had been called. His powers had been invoked. The oath that bound him to honour the old woman's plea for vengeance had been sealed by the final breath that passed from her body.

He paced the ground. She had called for retribution on the soul of her granddaughter's killer, and this could only come through hanging then skewering, that the victim's organs and blood might be drained from his body and his corpse left for the ravens to scavenge.

But who was to be hanged? Who was to be skewered, that his soul could never rest?

In frustration and rage, Esus the Blood God bellowed and roared.

High in the hills, in the cave from which the Spring of Prophecy bubbled from the rocks, the Arch Druid Vincentrix sat crosslegged on the floor and watched as four tired celestial horses pulled the chariot of the Shining One towards the dusky horizon.

Seated beside him, the Horned One smiled.