Stone Cold

Twenty-Eight

'Did you find him?' Claudia asked, as Junius came striding down Marcia's elegant colonnade.

The young Gaul shook his head. 'At the barracks, they said he'd received an urgent tip-off about a forgery ring in Burdigala and gone straight off.'

'Rubbish. His belongings are still here.'

'Apparently not, my lady. It appears he sent someone to pack his things and send them on.'

'Orbilio?' She blinked. 'Are you sure?'

'His room is empty,' Junius confirmed, 'and I checked the apartment opposite the basilica, as you instructed, but there's nothing of his in there, either.'

In retrospect, Claudia wasn't sure there ever had been. 'What about Curvy Thighs?' she asked. 'What did she say?'

'The girl wasn't home. According to a neighbour, she screamed blue bloody murder when she found that he was gone and was last seen charging off like a horse with its tail on fire.'

Claudia wondered why that should leave her with a warm glow of contentment.

'There was one odd thing I noticed, my lady. I saw what looked like blood on the door jamb.'

Visions of Zina trying to kill Orbilio and throwing a tantrum when she found the 'body' gone flashed through Claudia's mind. Unfortunately, there were several things wrong with that theory, not least the fact that if a strong girl like that had wanted to kill him she wouldn't have bungled the job!

'Orbilio's a big boy' Claudia dismissed the stain. 'He's perfectly capable of looking after himself. It's Stella I'm worried about.'

'Luci was the last to see her,' Junius said solemnly. 'She said her mother promised to play butterflies with her.'

A knot tightened in Claudia's stomach. 'Find Hannibal,' she said. If Orbilio wasn't around to track down the killer of these missing girls, Hannibal should help. 'He must have been co-opted into the manhunt,' she added. Why else hadn't he been bowling around with the children?

'I fear not,' Junius said. 'I've just come from his quarters and you wouldn't know they'd ever been used.'

The portico started to spin, but she didn't know why. Hannibal said it himself, he couldn't be tied to one person or place, and it wasn't as though the Security Police didn't chase criminals all round the Empire, either. Not just Aquitania. She'd bumped into Orbilio in Sicily, Umbria, Histria, and even the little island of Cressia in the Liburnian archipelago turned out to have investigators round every corner. So what that Marcus took off without saying goodbye? What did it matter that he left without explanation? She clutched at a spinning pillar. That's what men did, wasn't it? Bugger off when you least expected it.

'Then it's down to you and me to find who's responsible for these women disappearing,' she told Junius. 'And if perfection is their stock in trade, it means they're here. On this estate.'

Colour drained from the young Gaul's face. 'And you think Stella is his latest victim?' He made a gesture she hadn't seen before. 'May the Hammer God strike pity on those poor children,' he whispered.

'We don't know for certain that she's dead.' Who knows what the bastard did to them first? 'There's every chance we can save her, Junius.'

'Where do we start looking? This estate is enormous, she could be anywhere. And who, my lady? Who would be responsible for such a terrible crime?'

Who indeed? Padi and Koros were both perfectionists in the art of bullshit, but neither seemed capable of murder. Their aim was more subtle, their ambition more cunning. Each was intent on turning slave into master by making Marcia reliant on them. Padi achieved this through his soothsaying nonsense, telling her whatever she wanted to hear, while Koros was controlling Marcia's health — and how soon before he added an extra irritant in the purge, a stronger narcotic at bedtime, before she was fully dependent on her physician? Slaves they might be, but each had recognized her vulnerability and were exploiting it for all they were worth. Murder was not in their sphere.

'The tomb!' Claudia clicked her fingers. 'We've got to get to the tomb!'

'Why?' Junius asked, as they pelted through the gates, down the hill.

'Because every able-bodied male has been assigned to tracking the Scarecrow today, and that's the one place privacy can be assured.'

Not in the forest, with teams of hunters criss-crossing backwards and forwards. Not in the house. (Never in the house!) It could only be Marcia's tomb the killer had taken her to.

As they crashed down the path past the herb beds, it seemed to Claudia that it was surely a million years ago that she had hidden herself in the fennel to wait for the misfit who lived in the woods. What is it about lonely people that drives them to destroy the one thing that could have made them happy? A man has everything he could wish for. A loving wife, a thriving business, children who adore him, yet he tosses them aside because he feels stifled.

Marcia was the same. It was loneliness that had driven her to become so ruthless in her business dealings that grown men feared her, so pitiless to her staff that they trembled at the sight of her shadow. Being sold into prostitution at the age of twelve taught her to be manipulative and devious, the need to survive outweighing everything else, until it reached the point where, hardened by her experiences, she was incapable of normal emotions. Control was her substitute for love, and sure she was happy to bleed Claudia dry when it came to finding out whether vines would thrive on Aquitanian hillsides, but that wasn't the reason she'd invited her to stay at the villa.

At the time, Claudia had hoped to pick up a few tips from the richest woman in Santonum, but in practice it was the other way around. Marcia had no idea that Claudia wasn't the wealthy, successful wine merchant she purported to be, and by surrounding herself with people on whom Fortune smiled Marcia hoped that happiness would rub off on her. And that by offering lavish hospitality, they would stay..

How sad that she constantly threw away her real chance of happiness. A succession of young studs lined up to bed her, but, since sex alone wasn't enough for a sophisticated and educated woman, she threw them out because they bored her. Yet, if she'd only been patient (and not looked down her nose because they were Gauls), she might well have ended up with a devoted young husband who worshipped the ground she walked on, eternally grateful for the wealth and education he'd been given.

'It has to be the tomb,' Claudia said, as they reached the stream. 'Because the killer has to be someone who can come and go without arousing the suspicion of the professionals.'

'Whilst taking advantage of the deserted work huts for his grisly task,' Junius added grimly.

Mighty Jupiter, don't let Stella be dead! Let us find her laughing. Shaking that cascade of dark, glossy hair down her back. Let her be calling her children monsters when her tone implied angels, or playing barrels as she rolled the littlest one down the garden path. For pity's sake, please. Just let us find her alive…

The little bridge blurred beneath Claudia's feet. Too late, too late, too late, her sandals rumbled. Too late, too late, too late, the timbers echoed back.

She scrubbed the tears from her eyes. Marcia's vulnerability had left so many cracks for maggots to crawl through that the villa was infested, for the rot ran far deeper than Koros and Padi. Tarbel, too, was living a lie, even if it took someone else to make him see it, and Semir, of course, went without saying. How he'd sold Marcia the idea that he could recreate the famous Hanging Gardens she had no idea. Nebuchadnezzar died, what, five centuries ago? He couldn't possibly have any idea how to replicate the famous gardens, never mind that the conditions for planting in Gaul weren't remotely similar to Babylonia, even allowing that such flowers could survive the climate or the long journey! Yet such was Marcia's ego that she'd swallowed his sales pitch hook, line and sinker, and whatever kind of garden Semir ended up giving her she would have no doubts that it was a genuine replica. To question his authenticity was to question her own, and reality had long since slipped off Marcia's agenda. The estate, the villa, the gardens, the tomb — together these things combined to create a world of their own. A world so isolated from reality that it was almost a fantasy, where a lonely, damaged woman could feel safe, without knowing she had also created a perfect breeding ground for other, more destructive fantasies.

'You search those huts!' Claudia shouted. I'll check these.'

Every man Marcia had hired was a perfectionist, yet each was a worm in the apple of her integrity. Hor might be famous throughout Alexandria, but a man who only painted scenes that showed his patron in a flattering light? Exquisitely executed or not, no artist worth his reputation would lower himself to that level, even for his brother's sake, while Paris sculpted faces on figures carved by others. Talented, undoubtedly, but hardly what Marcia was paying such exorbitantly high prices for.

'Nothing?' She couldn't believe it. 'Are you sure?'

'I've checked and double-checked,' Junius said. 'There's nothing here.'

How could she have been so wrong? Claudia slumped down on a half-chiselled plinth. In the forests, mournful hounds sneered at her stupidity and the lump in her stomach was lead. Silly bitch. If you'd only thought things through — talked it over with someone — with Orbilio — you wouldn't have wasted so much time.

Time Stella didn't have…

Sagged against the ropes that bound him so tightly to the oak, Orbilio felt as though every inch of his skin was on fire. What a ridiculous way to discover the secrets of the Druids, he thought. What a ridiculous time to learn the ways of their torture.

At first, he truly believed he could take it. A candle burns while he is flogged. His blood runs out in Forty Sacred Cuts. His fingers are snapped. By the time he's dragged into the wicker frame, he'd probably be grateful.

How wrong could he be?

It wasn't that he'd underestimated the excruciating pain of the lash. It was the way the cane was designed to inflict maximum pain for minimal damage and, as Vincentrix so calmly pointed out, determine a man's threshold for pain.

The other surprise was that his life — or more accurately his death — was to be measured in a series of candles. He couldn't see how many were left, but they'd used the second to pour refreshing water down their victim's throat and lay soothing compresses on his lash marks. The bastards, goddammit, were reviving him.

The Druids wanted their sacrifice very much screaming and kicking when the flame to the wicker man was finally lit.

'Dammit, Junius, I was certain the killer brought his victims here.'

Claudia wanted to move, but her limbs were as heavy as the marble blocks that surrounded her, and the lead in her stomach had turned cold. Despite the warm autumn sun, she was shivering, but there was no comfort in this haven of eternal tranquillity. Not in the soft, swirling particles of white dust, nor the chip-chip-chip of Paris's chisel, nor the flicker of Hor's oil lamp as he worked on his frescoes, his body almost as white as the linen of his kilt as he stretched on tiptoe to apply the finishing touches to his latest scene.

'My lady?' There was a strange expression on her bodyguard's face as he tugged at her sleeve. 'I think maybe the killer did bring the girls down here.'

His dagger was drawn, she noticed. And the grip round the handle was tight.

'Look over there.'

The lead in her stomach flipped over. 'I-'

'Look at the caryatids, my lady.'

'I've seen them.'

Pretty girls in floaty robes holding up Marcia's tomb for posterity, they were brilliantly sculpted, considering the man was a fraud. He might be Greek, he might well come from Myceanae and, hell, Paris might even be the sculptor's real name — but he wasn't 'the' Paris. That's why he'd avoided meeting prominent people at the banquet. Rome, at least wealthy, influential Rome, was a relatively small world, and word would quickly spread that he was too young/too blond/ too heaven-knows-what to be the genuine article. Which wasn't to deny Paris his talent. That fourth nymph along he'd given deep dimples, another one had been assigned a cute little snub nose, while the caryatid he was working on now, the one with the huge eyes, he'd endowed with arguably the most curvaceous legs any woman could hope to put on show for eternity… Oh, sweet Janus. Claudia turned a bloodless face to her bodyguard's.

'Those aren't imaginary women holding up the roof, are they?'

'No, my lady' His face was ashen as well. 'They're real.'

She hadn't known the root-cutter's flighty young wife or met the young basket-weaver or known the girl who'd churned cheeses. But Brigetia, the tanner's daughter, had deep dimples, had she not? And didn't the sister of the man who made millstones have a snub nose? Of course, they could be coincidence. Features that any brilliant sculptor might add to give his caryatids the individuality that lifted his work above the average.

But the girl Paris was chipping away at now, the girl with the big black eyes and the curvy thighs, was no coincidence. That was Zina. And all Claudia could think of was how Marcus would take the news that the boatbuilder's daughter was dead.

The third candle had burned two-thirds of the way down, and Orbilio had learned something new.

The Forty Sacred Cuts was not a ritual the Druids liked rushed.

He forced his mind to go to another place. Another time. Anywhere, please god, except here…

The blade was gleaming in the sunlight, as the bastards intended, but ignore it. Rise above them. Think about something else. Anything. Herbs. Think of the herbs. In those quantities, the combination of catmint, clover, marsh tea and bay heaped on the smoking fire could conjure the very egg that hatched from Chaos at the dawn of the world. Once you mixed them with hemp and coriander seeds, as was happening here, the effect was hardly surprising, and had they been Roman priests it would be the Olympians the Druids would be talking to in the forest. The Egyptians, of course, would be welcoming Isis and Osiris to their table, the Assyrians would be paying homage to Mylitta and Asshur, and no doubt the

Sabaean Arabs would be bringing down the sun, the moon and the stars. Indeed, such herbs had kept the Delphic Oracle in gold, so for Orbilio to see his own family massed in the clearing was hardly surprising.

His mother, wincing as each slash of the knife burned his body. I love you, son.

His brother, shaking his head with that same degree of told-you-so smugness he'd worn from early childhood. Didn't I warn you about joining the Security Police?

His father. For Croesus' sake, if you couldn't be a lawyer or continue the family name, couldn't you at least have died honourably on the fucking battlefield?

Uncles, cousins, aunts and siblings clustered closer, some of them living, some of them dead, but every one of them censuring him. Marcus shook the runnels of blood from his eyes. He forced his mind away from the pain to concentrate on what little understanding he had of hallucinogenic herbs. How people see not so much what they want to see, but what they have been conditioned to expect. Which probably explained why the one face he longed for wasn't in the crowd.

As the point of the knife danced under his skin, it was Claudia's name that went round in Orbilio's head.

But the word he screamed out was as primeval as the dark, silent forest.

When confronted by absolute perfection, trivia such as the noise of the tracker dogs and the relentless glare of the sun was blocked out. Concentrating on the chisel that was an extension of his own hand, the Watcher transformed straight Gaulish locks into tight Roman curls, which he tied up in a neat Roman ribbon. Just the one. Only married women, like the second caryatid in the line, were permitted to wear the double band.

Chipping away as he decided the ribbon should be painted the same vibrant green as her gown, Paris reflected on the improvement that long, flowing robes made compared to the short Santon skirt. They lent an air of maturity and elegance that had been stifled by the garish colours and deep fringe, yet retained every ounce of her feminine vibrancy.

'You are lovely,' he whispered, glancing along the line. 'You are all lovely, Women of Caryae. You are the most beautiful women in the world and nothing can taint you now.'

'Immortal and immortalized,' a woman's voice said. 'Plucked in the rosebud of life.'

For a moment, Paris was confused. The voice. Had it come from inside his head? Surely his caryatids were not so alive that they could speak? Then he realized there was someone standing beneath his ladder, and his pulse raced at the sight of this specimen of physical perfection.

'You guessed,' he said sadly, descending the ladder. 'What a pity. Such a terrible waste.'

'Why? Aren't I good enough to join the line-up?'

'Not good enough?' Paris laughed. 'With those flashing eyes and wayward curls you are perfect. You have no idea how often I've imagined sculpting your perfect cheekbones and sensual lips.'

'But?'

The chisel turned in his hand.

'But,' the Watcher sighed, 'I could not place you among my Women of Caryae, any more than I could risk the slave girls from the villa being recognized, or Stella, or-'

'Stella's alive?'

Paris shrugged. 'Why wouldn't she be? To have her face smiling proudly from Marcia's tomb would be to undermine a whole lifetime's work-'

'There have been others before this?'

'You sound shocked.'

As his foot touched the ground, he employed the same reassuring smile he'd used on the others when he'd chosen his moment. So easy, too. All it needed was a charcoal and parchment. Would you think it an awful liberty if I sketched you? Everyone knew Paris — the Paris, no less — created statues in human likeness. Who could resist the ultimate in flattery?

'Yes, Claudia, there have been others.'

Without charcoals or paper he would have to rely on the sex appeal he deliberately cultivated. Tossing his head, he waited for the hair to flop back into place. Sun-bleached hair that accentuated his bronzed skin and solid muscles. Muscles that could so easily wrap round a girl's chin, lifting her body clear of the ground…

'Beauty is all around us and, thanks to me, it remains timeless.'

He tossed down the chisel and enjoyed the surprise that flared up in her eyes. What a waste, he had said, and he meant it. Not to have donated such perfection to posterity was nothing short of a crime, and there was no chance of using her in Marcia's garden now, either, where her beauty could have been sustained through the centuries. All the same, he could not bring himself to tarnish perfection. That was the job of rats and maggots. For a man whose life had been dedicated to female excellence, Paris was determined not to keep to his usual methods. Hand round chin to cover her mouth and then, while the body was off the ground, thus powerless to scream or leave traces of struggle, the fingers of his other hand were free to ram up her nostrils. As always, though, death takes its time. Each caryatid fought like a wildcat, but a sculptor's hands are strong, his patience legendary. He ensured they died without blemish or flaw.

'Worry cannot shrivel their unlined faces,' he told her. 'The pains of growing old and enduring hardship has been removed, and in their place I have given them perpetual peace, whilst ensuring their beauty remains eternal.'

'You — excuse me, but I need to make quite sure I've got this right. In killing these girls you've done them a favour?'

'You seem surprised.'

'Actually, Paris, I think you're the one in for a surprise. Ready, boys?'

For a man who spent so much time watching, it astonished him how three men — the Gaul bodyguard, Qeb and Hor — could spring out of nowhere without him even having been aware of their presence.

'You bitch!' he screamed, as rough hands tied him up. 'You dirty, double-dealing, distracting bitch!'

'I will accept that as the perfect compliment,' she replied.

As more herbs were tossed on the Druids' fire, so the hallucinations increased. There was the Governor of Aquitania standing alongside his boss from the Security Police, both bemoaning the lack of stamina in employees these days. Even Orbilio's old nurse had appeared, and, hell, she'd died before he'd turned eight.

I told you to eat your parsley, Marcus. It makes your blood strong.

He wanted to take issue with that. It seemed to him that his blood was strong enough, judging from its copious donation.

'The gods take heart from your courage, Marcus Cornelius Orbilio.'

Vincentrix's sepulchral tones overrode the stridency of the long-dead nurse and Orbilio tasted blood and sweat on his tongue as another exhausted candle was removed from the spike. Once a new one was lit, soft cloths began blotting at his wounds and his brow was sprinkled with water.

'The Horned One is especially pleased with the sacrifice you are making-'

'Go to hell.'

'Defiance is good. It shows spirit and guts, and the gods commend me for the choice of sacrifice.'

'Tell me, Vincentrix, is it art you're making on my body, or are you merely marking me out for a chessboard?'

The Arch Druid's lips pursed as the candle flame guttered and died.

'What a shame I have to deny you reincarnation,' he said, as the priests withdrew their bloodied cloths and bowls of sweet water. 'You have a warrior's soul that deserves more, but rest assured you will not depart without honour, for I intend your skull to become my libation bowl.'

'Unfortunately for you, I've never had a head for drink.'

The Druid laughed as he lit another candle.

'I admire a man who makes jokes through his pain, because I know how much you are hurting, my friend. I know exactly how much you are hurting.'

Did he? Orbilio thought. Did he really? Did he have any idea of the nausea that accompanied it? The burning, the throbbing, the white flashing lights? The noises inside his head? Did he have any concept at all of how it felt, knowing your life was measured by the wick of a set of candles that never seemed to burn fast enough? Of being completely and utterly helpless? Of the shame of not being able to die? Why bother castrating the victim, he wondered dully, when he'd emasculated himself?

'No, you don't,' he sighed. 'You don't know what pain is, Vincentrix, because you don't know love.'

Emotion flickered behind the Druid's green eyes as he applied the twenty-first sacred cut.

'I know love, Marcus Cornelius Orbilio, and because of it — twenty-two — I know pain.'

'Wrong.'

Twenty-three. He gasped for breath.

'You only know the obsession, rejection and humiliation of unrequited love.'

Why was he doing this? Why was he taunting his torturer, the man who could only prolong his death agonies?

Vincentrix frowned as number twenty-four exploded under Marcus's armpit. 'Why do you smile?'

He couldn't answer until twenty-five stopped slicing his inner thigh.

'You wouldn't understand,' Marcus wheezed, as twenty-six brought a torrent of sweat down his face.

The joke was not that he was taunting Vincentrix. That business about obsession, rejection, unrequited love, that was himself he was talking about, and what irony! Bound, whipped, blood pouring from his wounds and with castration and burning to follow… yet he can't resist torturing himself alongside!

'Pain affects people differently,' Vincentrix said kindly, as twenty-seven and twenty-eight went in crosswise. 'For some, humour is their defence mechanism.'

As twenty-nine slid under his fingernail, Orbilio forced himself to focus on his ever-swelling audience. Family and colleagues had been joined by several of the slimeballs he'd tracked down over the years. He noticed a vicious Armenian rapist among the crowd. The baby-faced child killer who'd stalked the city of Rome. The wealthy patrician woman who'd poisoned her family for the simple reason they bored her.

As more herbs were heaped on the fire, the hallucinations changed. Now a unicorn — a white unicorn, to be precise, with a gold horn — came charging into the clearing. With a whinny, it rose up on its hind legs before galloping off in a thunder of hooves. As the cloud of dust settled, a woman was standing where the unicorn had reared up. The woman was dressed from head to foot in white.

Orbilio suddenly became aware of a sense of weightlessness descending over his body. Having conjured up the world and his wife from inhaling the drugs, it was only fair that he conjured up her. Sweet Juno, it was all he had wanted.

To see her face before he died.

'For heaven's sake, Vincentrix, don't pretend you haven't seen me shapeshift before.'

Despite the blood and the pain, Orbilio laughed. Trust Claudia Seferius to induce a better class of hallucination!

The Arch Druid picked up the knife that had slipped from his hand and wiped the blade on his robes. She could read the uncertainty in his piercing green eyes. Unicorns were a myth, he was thinking. They did not exist. Yet he had seen one with his very own eyes, white with a single gold horn, and now the woman who had left him tied and bound to his own chair stood in its place. There was something else glittering in those piercing green eyes, too, she noticed. And that something else was not very pleasant.

'You honour us, Claudia Seferius.'

He bowed.

'Your arrival is impressive by any standards. But to what do we owe this pleasure?'

'Isn't it obvious?'

She forced herself to look at him. Not at the bloodied lump of meat tied to the oak. That only made her legs weaker.

'I've come for a word with Orbilio.'

'A… word?'

'Well, a couple really. It's just that we go back a long way, Marcus and me, and I didn't want us to part on bad terms.'

'You realize you cannot save him, don't you? He is our sacrifice to the gods, and since you are surrounded by Druids and the families of Druids you must understand that there is no escape for this man.'

He didn't wait for her answer.

'I know you are alone here, Claudia Seferius. Your bodyguard is a Gaul and he is terrified of our powers, and your only other ally, Hannibal I think they called him, has gone.'

All the way from the villa she kept telling herself that Vincentrix had been manipulated every bit as much as he manipulated his people today. The minute this lovelorn dupe had stepped ashore in Britain, the Collegiate had seized upon the opportunity of turning a vulnerable youth into an obedient puppet by construing his enforced celibacy as a 'special gift' and twisting his turbulent emotions until he was sucked so thoroughly into the vortex that was Druidism that he couldn't see any other life. Using the same cheap smoke and mirrors tricks he would later employ on his own subjects, they'd taken him on a road he had no desire to travel and brainwashed him so completely that, all these years on, he still didn't realize he'd started the journey. Vincentrix was a victim just as much as his fellow Santons, kept in mental subjugation by his 'superiors' and imprisoned in his religious beliefs. But it did not give him the right to take life for no reason. Especially not in this way.

'Never trust your own eyes, Vincentrix.' She thought of the box left on her bed. 'But that isn't the point.'

Her mind flew back to the short time ago (was it really only a couple of hours?) when Junius, Hor and Qeb were manhandling a struggling Paris up to the villa and the box fell out of the folds of her robe.

'W-where did you get that?' Junius rasped.

'Hannibal left it as a farewell gift,' she laughed, shaking the empty box. 'A pun on the salary I didn't pay him.'

'Go on without me,' Junius instructed the others. 'Lock Paris in the cellar and keep guard.' When he'd turned to face Claudia, his face was grey. 'Hannibal didn't leave this, my lady.' The young Gaul's voice was barely audible in the stillness. 'And the box isn't empty. If you open it — ' his hand was shaking as he lifted the lid — 'You'll find it contains a small pinch of ash.'

'Ash?'

'From the last wicker man sacrifice.'

Her knees had given way. The callous, evil, cold-hearted bastard had left her a message, in the sure and certain knowledge that she'd never find the place where the wicker man burned, in punishment for what she'd done to him in his own house…

'I knew I shouldn't have sheathed that bloody knife. I should have slit his bastard throat there and then.'

There are places in this forest, Hannibal had said, a full day's march from here where the soil is black from scorching and where the stains against the oak are suspiciously sticky.

If only she had demanded proof! If only she'd insisted that he show her, take her to that dreadful place, she could have saved him!

The wicker man is not dead, madam, I assure you. The Collegiate has not given up its ways.

'Hannibal's the only person who knows where the Druids make their vile sacrifice,' she said hollowly, 'and now Hannibal's gone, and even if we could find the place a day's march is too late.'

'And when I said a day's march,' a fruity voice droned in her ear, 'I was referring to the Druids' processional pace. On a fast horse, we can be there in two hours. Oh, and madam — ' he clicked his tongue in castigation — 'I told you before, Hannibal never leaves without saying goodbye.'

A fast horse, he said — plus a bit of fast thinking on her part. All it needed was a change of clothing and a gold trumpet and it was Find the Pea all over again. Oh, Vincentrix, Vincentrix. When will you learn!

'And what is the point, Claudia Seferius?' The Arch Druid's eyes mocked her. 'What exactly is the point of your visit?'

'I want you to spare your prisoner-'

'Impossible.'

'Until that candle butt burns down.'

Sacrifice was one thing. She glanced at the huge wicker frame. But she'd imagined he would be in one piece when they strapped him in. Oh, Marcus, Marcus. What have they done to you? She drew a deep breath. Held it until the shuddering subsided.

'Two fingerfuls,' she said, and if the Druid noticed her too-even tone it didn't show on his face. 'Two fingerfuls of a candle is all that I'm asking.' She forced a bright smile. 'Surely that's not an unreasonable request?'

Green eyes travelled round his fellow priests gathered in the clearing. Eager faces that demanded leadership and most of all direction.

'Very well.' Vincentrix nodded. 'The Roman's life is spared for the rest of that candle butt.'

'You give me your word as a priest and a Druid?'

He bowed. 'You have my word as a priest and a Druid.'

Claudia snipped Orbilio's cords.

'Good,' she said crisply, blowing out the candle and dropping the stub down her cleavage. A pity Vincentix hadn't thought to ask whether she intended to keep it alight. 'Now do hurry up, Marcus. This chanting is really starting to grate on my nerves.'