Stone Cold

Twenty-Nine

The autumn equinox dawned soft and golden, the air heavy with the drowsy calls of wood pigeons and pungent with the scent of ripe mushrooms. Deep in the forests, the sharp tusks of boar turned up beechmast under leaves that rustled in the warm breeze and hawfinches cracked open the stones of fallen damsons. A sense of change was everywhere. In the massing of swallows. In the shrivelling of brackens and ferns. In the dulling of the roe deer's coat to a darker greyish-brown.

Nowhere was the sense of change more prevalent than at the villa.

Claudia watched from the gallery as cases and trunks piled up in the atrium below. For the people of Santonum, as with Gauls everywhere, the equinox was sacred. A time of reflection and prayer as the Demon Star rose bluish-white in the east and the battle for winter commenced at last. But here at the villa the observances were Roman, and thus it was business as usual as slaves lugged crates and chests into the courtyard.

'If you expect me to pay you for walking out on your contracts, think again!' Marcia barked. 'I have every intention to sue you.'

'Your lawyer will find us in Alexandria,' Hor said, wrapping the lacquered cheetah in blankets. 'My regret is not that we haven't been paid, Marcia, only that we ever left.'

The brothers had explained to Claudia yesterday, as they hauled Paris away from the tomb, that the only reason Hor had accepted this commission was to help Qeb overcome his grief. It didn't matter one iota, Hor added, that the paintings were twisted exaggerations of the truth. As far as he was concerned, Gaul was the back of beyond and he didn't expect anyone to see the damn things, anyway. Qeb's well-being was all that concerned him. Pride and money were never an issue.

'And who's supposed to look after the menagerie?'

'I am taking the king cobra back to Egypt,' Qeb replied politely, and Claudia noticed the first hint of dark hair growing back on his skull. 'She is too dangerous to leave, but you should have no trouble finding a competent keeper for the rest.'

'Where the hell do you think you're going?' This time Marcia rounded on Tarbel. 'Did I give you permission to leave?'

'I gave myself permission.'

'If this is because the manhunt ended in failure, don't blame yourself. The Scarecrow obviously uses some kind of substance to put the hounds off the track, we just need to identify what, and in any case it was Paris killing those poor girls, not the woodsman.'

'My resignation has nothing to do with the manhunt,' Tarbel rumbled. 'The reasons…' Chestnut eyes flashed up to the woman leaning with her elbows on the rail overhead. 'The reasons are personal.'

Marcia snorted as they trooped out one by one. 'Rats deserting the sinking ship,' she said dismissively. 'Who needs scum like that, anyway?'

Claudia smiled to herself as she descended the stairs. Marcia's ship wasn't in any danger of sinking. Another rocky sea to cross, maybe. But this woman — painted and pointed, and with her beauty fading — was too much of a survivor for the boat to capsize.

'They're not rats,' she said, 'but they have no choice. To work on a site where mass murder took place is to have their reputations tarnished for ever.'

She'd misjudged Hor. He obviously was famous throughout the whole of Alexandria, so there was no question of his not finding another commission. Qeb's role as menagerie-keeper came through inheritance, so he wouldn't have trouble either, and such was Semir's love of horticulture that this would only be a small setback in his fragrantly oiled, braided career.

'Provided you water the rosses twice a week with white wine, they'll be fine,' he'd told Marcia, slipping Claudia a sly wink as he kissed his patron's hand in farewell. 'And don't forget to give your fruit trees a gallon of red every month.'

Alone once more, Marcia was as close to tears as she would ever be as a dozen legionaries wielding sledgehammers tramped past in metallic precision.

'You realize those bastards are about to dismantle my tomb?'

Claudia goggled. 'You can't seriously want the caryatids to stay?'

'Why not? To smash the statues is to have the girls die for nothing.'

Strangely, she had a point. 'Have they found where Paris buried the bodies?'

'Not yet, but no doubt it'll be Semir's landscaping they ruin next.'

Definitely, Claudia decided. That ship is definitely unsink-able!

'I'm sorry you're leaving as well, Claudia, but with the seas closing in a couple of weeks, I quite understand.' Marcia paused. 'One thing before you go, though.'

She glanced at her soothsayer, whose cheek looked suspiciously red and puffy. As though it might have been slapped.

'Those soil tests of yours. You… might want to rethink some of the advice.'

Claudia smiled. It was the closest Marcia would ever get to emotional generosity. 'You might, too,' she replied.

Out in the garden, the heat warmed the shrubs, wafting aromas of bay and citrons around the peristyle, and the fountains gurgled and sang. Who would clip the topiaried cockerel now Semir was gone? How quickly would his 'rosses' die, with wine poisoning their roots, and what would become of the flamingoes, the lovebirds, the chattering monkeys? Without Tarbel, who would take Marcia's arrows for her? Surely it was the slant of the sun, but already the villa seemed to have an air of decay about it.

Down in the herb garden, a man in a freshly laundered blue tunic was digging a hole with a trowel.

'Let me guess, it's a grave for a mole.'

'Close, madam, very close. This is indeed a grave, but one to hold a dead canary, not a rodent.' Hannibal laid his cluster of feathers in the hole with reverence. 'I found this to be a grand talking point in inns and taverns on my travels, and I cannot deny that it helped me strike many a robust relationship with the ladies. But there comes a point when all noble creatures reach the end of their allotted span.'

Claudia watched as he covered the feathers with earth.

'The gesture is purely symbolic, of course, but it is my opinion that it's not always enough to say goodbye to the past. Sometimes burial is the only answer.'

She nodded in understanding. 'No more roving.'

'My travels, like my purple-striped tunic and this good-luck charm, have reached the end of their lifespan.'

She owed him an apology. When he had sloped off from the Forum, leaving Junius alone while Claudia went to meet with his so-called informant (and how could Hannibal possibly have known it was Vincentrix?), the reason she couldn't find him at the villa was because he'd been in bed with Stella. Waiting behind the shrubbery, she'd despised him for the sorrow she'd believed he was sowing, fully expecting him to move on, when Stella clearly deserved so much better.

'What about your aversion to orange blossom? You said it made your nose run something wicked?'

'Ah, but there's the rub, madam, there's the rub. My bright little star has a husband she can neither divorce nor declare dead, but even were she free such are the scars he bequeathed that she is in no hurry to replace him.' He straightened up and ran a leathery hand over his face. 'No fetters, dear lady, are often stronger than those that bind.'

Pollen in the air, Claudia presumed. What else would make her eyes water? And suddenly Stella's absence became less of a mystery, too. 'You know who the Scarecrow is, don't you?'

'It seemed a strange coincidence that birds mostly fluttered from the trees when Stella or the children were in the vicinity, so I put my theory to the test, using a meadow in a bend by the river as bait. When I was certain, I confronted her with the knowledge, and, frankly, until I took that walk in the canyon I had not considered myself a coward. I would rather walk barefoot over hot spikes while being beaten with clubs than repeat that experience. However,' Hannibal patted the soil over the grave, 'my little star is adamant that she does not want the scoundrel back and, call me biased, I believe she is right.'

So did Claudia. It just took her all bloody night to convince the Scarecrow that the best thing he could do for his family was keep right on walking…

'I'm assuming you whisked her away to talk things through on neutral territory?'

Something approaching pain tightened his jaw. 'I whisked her away, certainly. To an inn you are yourself familiar with, close to the river in Santonum, though before you ask, you saucebox, it was nothing like that. You see, it wasn't until I saw the relief that swept over her when she recognized me that I began to comprehend the terror that women in these parts experienced. And, since Stella is at her peak of physical perfection, I felt it my duty not only to protect her, but hunt down the killer.'

'The children were worried sick.'

'An exaggeration, madam, an exaggeration. The children were curious, as all children are. Their routine had been disrupted. But they were safe with their aunt.' He slanted her a wry glance. 'Miserable, I grant you. But safe.'

'You couldn't possibly have known it was Paris!'

'Yesterday morning before dawn, I took a walk round Marcia's tomb and saw that a new caryatid had been carved. One so young and so perfect and with such an air of authenticity that her perfection made me weep with fear. I hadn't heard of another girl reported missing, but this statue was so real that I set out to make enquiries.' He cracked his knuckles. 'You know, between us, madam, we are not a bad team.'

No, Hannibal, we are not, and Stella was wise to seize her chance to escape, though the sad part was Marcia was so busy haranguing deserting rats that she hadn't actually noticed the trunks stacking up outside her own cousin's quarters.

'Where will you go?' Claudia asked. 'How will you manage?'

'Any place where eight free spirits can breathe freely and, as I told you before, hard work doesn't scare me. Though if the day dawns when it does, I plan to sell the children off one at a time. There are so many, their mother won't notice.'

Yes, and he'd cut off his own leg before he'd harm them.

'May you find equal happiness,' he said, embracing her. 'But what's this?'

'Back pay.'

He scratched a puzzled head. 'There must be something to those Druids' herbs. I thought I was in your employ for a fortnight, not a couple of centuries, and, besides. I am not your father.'

'Of course you're not! For a start, you're too old-'

'Thank you.' The sarcasm in his voice was heavy. 'But that, madam, is not what I meant. Do you imagine I don't know why you engaged my services at one measly sestertius a day? You hoped such dismal pay would drive me away-'

'Bollocks! I employed you specifically to find my damned father. Now take it,' she said, thrusting the purse back. 'If not for yourself, take the money for Stella. With that many free spirits, you'll need something to start off with.'

'You hoped such dismal pay would drive me away, proving the inconstancy of men everywhere,' Hannibal persisted. 'Your father abandoned you and since it is your belief that we're all cast from the same mould, you set out to prove it. But some day, young lady, you will have to place your trust in a man.' He glanced at the cripple limping down the path on crutches. 'I'm sure there are a few half-decent ones left.'

As he ambled back to the house, she watched as he stopped to shake hands with Orbilio and then, to her surprise, salute him, and something bucked inside her ribcage. What if she hadn't stuffed that wicker box into her robe yesterday? What if Hannibal hadn't appeared on the scene? What if she hadn't been able to save him?

'Aren't you supposed to be in bed?' she remarked, as he approached.

'Doctor threw me out,' Marcus replied. 'Told me I was scaring the werewolves.'

She studied the patchwork of bruises and swellings. 'More likely you set off on a speedy recovery then took a turn for the nurse.'

But there were hollows round his eyes whose origins did not arise from any physical ordeal at the hands of the Druids…

'I'm sorry about Zina.'

'It seems so unfair,' he said quietly. 'She was willing to forfeit her family, her culture, everything, to bring her stepfather to justice, yet at the very moment she's branded a national heroine, some sick bastard comes along and — ' he clicked his fingers — 'she's gone. Just like that.'

There was nothing Claudia could say.

'I'm going to miss her ridiculous misinterpretations, you know that?' A sad smile twisted the scabs in his cheeks. 'Those big black eyes and bossy ways. Heaven help the Empire if all Gaulish women are like her!'

'From the few that I've met' — Marcia, Stella, Zina, the landlady — 'they're not the sort who turn their faces to the wall. What will happen to Vincentrix?'

A muscle twitched in his jaw. 'We have two options,' he said evenly. 'One, let the full retribution of Rome descend upon the Druids.'

By that he meant drag them through Gaul in chains, that everyone might see what happens to those who practise human sacrifice, before executing them in the arena.

'The danger there is that we unleash a backlash as the Gauls side with their spiritual guides. After all,' he shrugged, 'to make martyrs of the Druids is to raise them up to become judges, philosophers and gods rolled into one again.'

'I'm guessing you favour option two?'

'As much as I'd like to see Vincentrix toppled from his pedestal, the sword of Vengeance is still capable of striking a fatal blow.'

Far better, he argued, that Rome clamp down quietly on the Druids' practices to ensure that no more wicker men were sacrificed, then let human nature take its course.

'Their power is already reduced to little more than the settlement of boundary disputes and the odd inheritance issue,' he explained. 'Let's keep it that way.'

'And have the beast die slowly?'

He smiled. 'Delicious, isn't it?'

Above the smell of mouldy bread poultices and vinegar antiseptic wash, she caught a whiff of sandalwood unguent, overlaid with a hint of the rosemary in which his long patrician tunic had been rinsed. She watched as he swiped his fringe out of his eyes. Followed the line of crisp, dark hairs on the back of his hand as they disappeared up his forearm.

Let it go, the landlady had said. Let it go.

As bees searched the last flowers of the oregano and butterflies explored the massive thistleheads of purple cardoons, Claudia thought back to that day in the tavern.

I'm sorry for you, honest I am, because you wouldn't have come all this way if it wasn't important.

At the time, though, it was…

It's never just one man, she had said. It's always somebody's father and somebody's son, a brother, a lover, a friend.

Yes, but whilst a woman might have several brothers or sons, lovers or friends, she will only have one father…

The way I see it, love, if the man you're looking for's dead, then he's dead, and if he's alive — well, I reckon he don't want to be found.

The Merry Widow was right. Of course the wretched woman was right. And, in her heart, Claudia had known all along that it was stupid to waste time and effort on a man who hadn't thought his daughter worth so much as a note. It was the future that mattered, not the past — but what was the future? It was so easy to manage the past. The past was a known entity, something you could deal with because it was familiar, where the future was no more than a gamble that relied on the toss of dice by an unknown hand.

Or was it?

Was it really coincidence that the Security Police had turned up in Sicily, Umbria, Gaul? Was it really coincidence that Marcus Cornelius could crack paedophile rings and thwart assassination attempts on the Emperor's life, yet was incapable of clapping widows in irons for paltry misdemeanours? It wasn't until she had cut him down from the tree yesterday that she had realized. As he slumped on to her shoulder, he didn't thank her or let out a sigh of relief. He'd said I love you before he collapsed.

'That four letter word you muttered in the forest.'

'Yes, I apologize about that. It was just that Vincentrix-'

'Not that one.'

'Oh? You have to remember I'd inhaled a lot of drugs by the time you arrived. I was seeing people who'd been dead twenty years. Can you be a little more specific?'

Dammit, he wasn't making this easy. 'Like it or not, Orbilio, you're worse than a rash-'

'I hate it when you flatter me.'

'But since there's no cure for this rash, I… ' She cleared her throat. 'Orbilio, there's something I have to tell you.'

'Now there's a coincidence.' He moved closer and his voice was little more than a rasp. 'I came down here with something to tell you, too.'

He might not have remembered that moment in the clearing, but there was a dark, intense glint in his eye that she didn't recognize. With a skittering inside, the likes of which she'd never known, Claudia resisted the urge to wrap her arms round his battered, bruised body and heal his cut, swollen lips with her kisses.

'You first.' She wasn't sure she could get it out in one breath anyway. Treacherous lungs had stopped pumping air. 'There's ample time for me to say my bit on the journey home.'

'Well, that's the thing,' Marcus rasped. 'I need to move on with my life, Claudia.' He paused. Shifted his crutches. 'I won't be returning to Rome this time round. I've made other plans for my future.'