Stone Cold

Three

The air throbbed with late-summer heat and cicadas rasped in the long grass as Claudia returned to the villa. Set north and east of the town in a landscape of soft rolling hills, gentle rivers and wooded valleys dappled with light, it was an imposing edifice two storeys high set round a central courtyard that had been designed to capture every last drop of winter sunshine. As Junius helped her down from the cart and grooms bustled over to unharness the horses, Claudia was at least able to console herself that one of the few saving graces about this frustrating investigation was that she'd landed on her feet in terms of accommodation.

Dwarfed by the soaring marble columns that flanked its portico and soothed by the fountains that rippled, danced and sang in every corner of its peristyle, she reflected that she had not, in truth, been unhappy in Santonum. Just off the Forum but nevertheless right at the heart of the basilicas, the Public Assembly and all the other institutions crucial to her enquiries, she'd found the Lyre Street Inn comfortable, clean and able to serve up good honest wholesome food. But then, two mornings ago and quite without warning, her chamber door was flung open and a woman marched in, dismissing Claudia's maidservant with one wave of her manicured hand.

'I gather you are also a widow in trade,' she said, helping herself to a stuffed date.

Pointed, painted, and with her beauty long faded, only a faint trace of accent remained in her deep, almost masculine voice, and, frankly, if you didn't know, you would have taken her to be Roman through to her marrow. But Claudia had both seen and heard about the legendary Marcia. Many times during her treks around town, she'd caught glimpses of the distinctive gold and green drapes of her litter as liveried bearers carried it shoulder high through the streets, and on one occasion she'd even been close enough to catch a whiff of the balm of Gilead in which Marcia's cushions had been drenched. Rumour had it Marcia was the richest woman in Aquitania. That was probably stretching it a bit, but her wealth was renowned and, in the male-dominated, dog-eat-dog world of commerce, this was no mean feat. Especially for a Gaul.

'Wine,' Claudia had told her. 'I'm in the wine trade.' Then, noting the cut of her visitor's gown and the twinkling gems that adorned it, added, 'Vintage, of course.'

'Plonk, vintage, who cares?' Marcia retorted. 'There's no embarrassing way to get rich.'

Claudia thought about the tax she had fiddled in order to fund this expedition and smoothed the pleats of her robe. Praise be to Juno, Santonum was the one place where the Security Police wouldn't be able to ferret her out and, with luck, by the time she returned home that dear little goddess Discord would have cooked up enough assassination plots, murder and heaven-knows-what to put her petty fraud in the shade. Because if there was one thing you could guarantee about Rome, it was its obsession with conspiracies and revolt.

'Well, you know my motto,' she'd quipped airily. 'Make money first, then make it last!'

'Hm.' Marcia rolled her tongue over her teeth in a manner that suggested humour was on a par with rotting fish in her book. 'I'll send my people up to pack your belongings. This is no place for a woman like you.'

And with that she swept out again, leaving Claudia dashing down to the Temple of Fortune to donate a bracelet for her good luck.

Actually, that wasn't strictly true. Originally she'd draped a gold pendant round the goddess's neck, the one shaped like an owl and inlaid with lapis lazuli and mother-of-pearl. Then she remembered that that particular pendant matched a pair of earrings that went perfectly with that new midnight robe with the embroidered hem, so she went back and swapped it for an old silver bracelet engraved with two swans that was sadly starting to tarnish.

Actually, that wasn't strictly true, either. She'd had to pin the priest against the wall by his throat before he handed the bloody pendant back, but the main thing was, Fortune had been placated, and Claudia was damned sure that a successful businesswoman like Marcia had much to teach her.

Such as holding on to her money, for one thing!

Good grief, you wouldn't think it could be so difficult, inheriting a swathe of vineyards that covered half of Tuscany plus an assortment of properties and businesses in Rome. Yet no matter how much money Claudia made, there seemed to be twice as much going out as came in, and, dear me, it wasn't as though she hadn't made sweeping economies. For instance, she could easily have bought another pair of sandals from that cobbler's shop up on the Esquiline, a green pair to match her new emerald robe, but she'd deliberately restricted herself to six pairs on that visit and was proud of her resolve. Which, incidentally, had held equally firm at the goldsmith's, ditto the dressmaker's, the perfumer's, the hairdresser's and the beautician's, although she could hardly be expected to make a trip to Gaul in last year's fashions, now could she, and it stood to reason that she'd need matching accessories and a decent supply of cosmetics and creams.

'You're back.'

Not a woman to use three words when none would do, Marcia came marching down the portico, hotly pursued by a flurry of slaves and liveried lackies. Heading this retinue was a man who looked like he'd been hewn out of an ancient oak. Broad at the shoulder, narrow at the hip and with his dark hair cropped in a neat Caesar cut, it was the same man Claudia had seen stationed outside the Lyre Street Inn during Marcia's visit. His name was Tarbel, he wore the same highly polished leather armour, and his eyes were every bit as alert to danger today as they had been two days ago.

'Come,' Marcia said, linking her arm firmly with Claudia's. 'I'll show you my tomb.'

Since it wasn't an invitation, there was no point in declining. Guest or servant, friend or relative, purchaser or vendor, every single person in Marcia's orbit was expected to jump when she clicked her fingers and thus, swept up in the avalanche of attendants and flunkies, Claudia could only marvel at the overheads wasted in running such an overstaffed household. And feel her skin tinge with green…

'I make no bones about it,' Marcia announced, leading her human snake past topiaried laurels and the giant white trumpets of lilies. 'This tomb will outshine every other civil monument in Aquitania.'

(Not so much a question of adapting to life under the eagle, then. More ego, in Marcia's case.)

'Surrounded by its own park, it- I say, you! Yes, you over there!'

The slave upending a bucket over an arching rose bush jumped as though he'd been scalded. His pail clattered into a bed of heliotrope, knocking them flat.

'How many times do I have to tell you people?' Marcia barked. 'You pour wine over those roots, not water!'

The slave reddened to the base of his neck. 'I–I — '

'Ah, but thees iss wine, your Graciousness.'

The creature whose immaculately oiled black curls emerged from the hedge bowed deeply. Clad in only a loincloth, and a tight one at that, his olive skin glistened almost as brightly as the bangles round his ankles and wrists and the plethora of beads braided into his hair.

'White wine, all the way from the island of Lesbos.' He flashed Marcia a broad, white smile. 'It iss better for rosses than red, being sweeter and not so harsh.'

Marcia's long, pointed nose twitched in what Claudia took to be pleasure. Thank you, Semir.' She turned back to the slave. 'Well, don't just stand there, boy! Get on with it.'

The slave looked like he'd just been spared execution, and his hands were shaking like aspens in a gale as he reached for his empty leather bucket. Claudia gulped.

'You… water your gardens with wine?' she asked, as the entourage swept onwards through the gate.

Still. Marcia said it herself, there was no embarrassing way to get rich, and who cared whether Seferius wine went down throats or down thistles? A sale is a sale is a sale.

'Semir is from Babylon,' Marcia said, ignoring the obvious. 'Next year, once my tomb is complete, he will recreate the famous hanging gardens, though right now he is busy landscaping the park, part of which is to house a menagerie the likes of which has never been seen in these parts. I tell you, my collection will be the envy of western Gaul.'

'Don't tell me, you have your own trapper.'

'Four,' Marcia said without irony. 'One hunting lions in Syria, another fetching me something called an elephant and two more are touring the Orient, seeking out exotic beasts for me to exhibit in crates.'

Claudia wasn't sure that a collection of half-starved, ill-treated creatures would be the envy of anywhere, much less western Gaul, and plucked an apple from the tree as she passed. Beyond the garden, vast herb beds buzzing with bees stretched away into vegetable plots, and, beyond them, lush meadows of grazing cattle, but it was down the hill to the valley that Marcia led her human snake, where the sound of babbling water competed with birdsong in the mellowing sunlight. So. The old bat had a soft centre, after all.

'This is a beautiful place to spend eternity,' Claudia breathed.

Bathed in warm sunshine and brushed by soft breezes redolent with the scent of willow and alder, tall heads of hollyhocks nodded gently on the river bank and the leaves of the poplars rustled like parchment. As a lizard scuttled over the path, a pair of blue butterflies danced down the glade and a frog croaked in the reeds.

'Obviously, the trees have to go,' Marcia said. 'You can't see my tomb for the damned things, but I'll wait a month before chopping them down. Then I can sell the wood on.'

Oh, yes. All heart, this girl.

'You don't think that might spoil the effect?' Claudia ventured.

'Exactly what the Gauls said when I started clearing the site.' Marcia snorted. 'Told me this was a holy site, a sacred place, and that I shouldn't touch it or I would be cursed. Absolute bollocks. It's my land, I can do what I like with it, and if I choose to divert this stream to feed my fountains, they will have to bloody well lump it. Also, my soothsayer tells me that this river is blessed. Padi?'

A plump Indian, who had been hidden by his taller counterparts in the crowd, stepped out of the squeeze, placed his little fat palms together and bowed. Arguably it was the most obsequious bow Claudia had ever seen.

'Mistress Marcia?'

His voice was soft and lisping, reminding Claudia of a snake slithering through the long grass.

'This stream is blessed, is it not?'

'Exceedingly blessed, Mistress. The rods speak of the long-lasting happiness it brings to all those who drink it and the stones-that-talk assure me good fortune runs through it.'

'See?' With a dismissive wave, Padi was relegated back to the ranks of liveried lackies.

Claudia looked into this babbling bringer of luck and contentment, gurgling blessedly over the rocks, and said, 'Doesn't this stream supply that hamlet over there with water?'

'So?' One finely plucked eyebrow twitched in disdain.

'Well, I thought it might bother you that the villagers will be forced to abandon their homes, now that their water supply's been cut off.'

'Bother me? My dear girl, it's time these people realized they have to take responsibility for their own lives. Complacency is not a virtue, not by a long chalk, so instead of grousing about what they haven't got, they ought to be looking at this as an opportunity to make a new start.'

Charity might begin at home, but only in Marcia's home, it would seem.

'Anyway, there are hundreds of these little streams for them to live by. They all feed the Carent, that's what makes it so wide and so navigable; who knows what prospects are in store for them?'

Claudia considered the prospects of poverty and family upheaval.

'When you talk about "these people",' she said, 'aren't you a Santon yourself?'

'One must move with the times or risk getting left behind with the dross,' Marcia snapped in her deep, masculine voice. 'In marrying a Roman, I acquired full Roman citizenship. Even gave myself a new Roman name.'

Her thin mouth twisted sideways.

'In fact, I make it a rule never to look back.'

Not entirely true, Claudia mused. This powerful woman was constantly looking over her shoulder. Witness Tarbel. For heaven's sake, Marcia was only taking a walk through her own grounds, yet she was shadowed by the big, Basc bodyguard, whose hand permanently hovered over his dagger. But then you don't grow this rich without making enemies and, gossip had it, she'd made more than most.

'There!'

Marcia pulled up abruptly and Claudia realized they had reached the edge of the clearing.

'My tomb! Built entirely of Numidian marble. I intend to have a gilded chariot winched on to the apex, with a statue of myself at the reins.'

She didn't ask what Claudia thought.

She knew exactly what her reaction would be, long before they approached the clearing.

That was the point of the exercise.

That was the reason she'd spent a million sesterces — and what a way to spend them! For a start, the word tomb was misleading. Far from being a larger version of the stone slabs that lined the main roads into Rome (or any other city for that matter), this was a temple by any other name. Rectangular in shape and sited on a platform approached by a flight of steep marble steps, the columns were for decoration rather than support, and the interesting thing about them was that they ran all round the building in a Greek-style portico, instead of just at the front, in the way Roman architects favoured.

'It's incredible,' Claudia said. 'Truly incredible.'

'Wait till you see the front,' Marcia replied.

Here, fluted columns gave way to an exquisite line of sculpted nymphs that supported the entablature with their heads and, although only half of them had been carved into likenesses to date, the sculptor's skill stood out a mile.

'Paris! Paris, come here, will you.'

A blond head bleached almost white by the sun nodded acknowledgement from the top of his ladder, but made no effort to lay down his chisel.

'Not the Paris?' Claudia whispered.

'Yes, of course the Paris,' Marcia retorted, as he continued to chip away. 'My dear girl, if this monument is to outshine every other, then one has no choice but to commission the best. It's the same with the interior.'

She led her inside, where frescoes of the most astonishing colours had already covered two-thirds of the walls in scenes of breathtaking authenticity, though it came as little surprise to note that Marcia featured in every one… or that the artist had knocked twenty years off! There was Marcia greeting — not meeting — the Governor. Merchants lining up to do business with her. Marcia on her own boat. (Did that make her barque worse than her bite?) And Marcia throwing banquets at which the most exotic delicacies were being served.

'As you can see, I've combined the very best of international styles in this tomb,' she said. 'Doubtless you've heard of Hor?'

An airy hand indicated the young man dressed in a linen kilt mixing paint on a palette, but, before Claudia could come up with an answer that belied the fact that she hadn't a clue, Marcia was sweeping on, intent on showing her visitor every last detail of his work.

'Hor's famous throughout the whole of Alexandria and, frankly, I consider myself lucky to have him. Mind you, I did have to compromise.'

From his kneeling position, the young Egyptian shot his visitors a wholesome, if rather toothy, smile. Not bad looking in a sanctimonious sort of way and, although his skin was pale from working indoors, his muscles were manly enough.

'Not on the artistry, you understand.' Marcia was quick to make that clear, as the two women returned to the sunshine. 'But Hor was adamant. He would only accept this commission on the strict understanding that his older brother came too, and whilst Qeb wouldn't be my first choice for equipping a menagerie, he does come from a long line of Royal Keepers. The job's handed down father to son, you know. It's not as though he has no experience. Paris! Paris, can you please spare us a moment!'

Again the blond head nodded diligently, and again he made no move to descend from his ladder, but continued to chip at the nymph's pretty snub nose, pausing only to blow the dust away.

'Oh, that boy! Still, I wanted a perfectionist.' Marcia sighed, running her hand down the stylus-sharp pleats of the latest Roman fashions immortalized in stone. 'Can't complain now I've got one! Tomorrow, if I have time, I'll take you to the menagerie, and then I'll show you how Semir's landscaping is coming along, but right now I have correspondence to see to. Come.'

She clapped her hands and the slaves sprang into line as she set a cracking pace back along the riverside path.

'See here,' she told Claudia, coming to an abrupt halt. 'This is the spot where I intend to build a bridge over the river. There'll be arches on both banks, marble of course, and a marble path leading up to my tomb-'

The arrow came out of nowhere.

A soft hiss. A strangely musical twang. Then a dull thwack as it embedded.

'Get down!' Fast as quicksilver, the chiselled bodyguard threw himself over his mistress. 'You too,' he growled, pulling Claudia on to the path beside him and somehow contriving to cover her body with his, as well.

The leather of his breastplate was warm on her back, and he smelled of dense, cedary forests while his eyes, she noticed, were the colour of chestnuts.

'And stay down,' he rasped. 'Both of you.'

His sword was drawn before he'd even stood up, while, behind him, screaming slaves were scattering in every direction, though no one, thank Hades, was hit. Twisting her head, Claudia could see the arrow protruding harmlessly from the trunk of a silver birch, its feathers quivering with menacing grace.

'Padi predicted today would be a day for vigilance,' Marcia said, as though it was commonplace to be lying with her nose pressed against the forest floor. 'But don't worry. If the bastard's still out there, Tarbel will get him. He's from the Pyrenees, and Bascs have a reputation for not giving up.' A deep, almost feral growl came from the base of her throat. 'How I despise cowards who take potshots from a distance, instead of fighting in the open like men!'

'Who's trying to kill you?'

'How the hell should I know?'

Marcia seemed surprised by the question, and the rumours about the number of enemies she'd made through business replayed in Claudia's head. She thought about the villagers forced out of their homes after their water supply had been diverted. The sacred site that had been desecrated for the sake of vanity. And decided that Tarbel was one member of Marcia's staff who wasn't an extravagance!

'It might even be that creep who makes his home in these woods,' Marcia sneered. 'Who can tell what goes on in such minds? My slaves call him the Scarecrow, because the only way they know he's around is when the birds fly out of the trees.'

If that was meant to reassure her guest, it didn't work. Every time a jay squawked or a woodpecker drummed, Claudia's stomach clenched and her palms turned clammy, and it didn't help that the passage of time was marked by the arrow shaft, acting as a macabre sundial on the forest floor. Finally, there was a rustle in the undergrowth. A yelp, followed by a louder yelp, and suddenly Tarbel was propelling a youth through the bushes by an arm pushed up his back.

'You!' The contempt in Marcia's voice was colder than ice as she brushed the debris from her robe.

Hardly the Scarecrow. This boy could not have been more than seventeen, well kempt and clean in his plaid shirt and breeches, and he'd probably have been quite handsome, were his face not twisted in pain.

'Why not me?' he yelled. 'Zink you can treat me like dirt, just because you 'ave money? I am a man! I have feelings! I have — aargh!'

'And I'd have you by the balls, if only I could find them.' Marcia's voice was barely a rasp as she squeezed his testicles. 'You're not a man, Garro. You were never a man-'

'Zat's not what you said when I was in your bed!'

'Why do you think I turned you out? You weren't up to it then and you're not up to it now. You need to hide behind trees before you can kill and even then you miss! Take him away, Tarbel. Take this contemptible worm out of my sight!'

'You will be sorry,' Garro screamed, as Tarbel hauled him up the hill at knifepoint. 'You will be sorry for zis, you beetch!'

'I doubt that,' Marcia murmured under her breath as she linked her arm with Claudia's once again. 'It's down to Druid Law now, and that's no picnic, believe me. Oh, don't look so surprised, darling! I can revert to my roots when it suits me, and since he comes from the village it's best these things remain local. Now where were we? Yes, of course. I was telling you about the bridge I intend to span the river down there. As I said, there'll be an arch on each bank-'

Claudia ceased to listen. Instead, she was thinking that, all things considered, a year might be too long a wait for that tomb's completion.

Marcia had been wise to plan in advance.

High in the hills, inside the cave from which the Spring of Prophecy bubbled from the rocks, the Arch Druid Vincentrix sat cross-legged on the floor and watched the moon climb ever higher in the sky.

Far in the distance, foxes barked to one another, while outside the entrance to the cave voles and mice scuttled through the bracken, safe from the deadly hooks of sharp-eyed owls, and bats caught moths on silent wing.

With his hands laced together and his steepled forefingers pressed against his lips, the Head of the Collegiate remained motionless as the stars tramped round the heavens, moving only from time to time to lean across and throw more magic herbs on to his crackling fire.

In the valley below, his fellow priests would also be sitting, communicating in the secret language of the Druids as they convened on thrones of sacred oak round a table hewn from yew on which the Keys of Wisdom had been laid out. But the issues they would be thrashing out tonight were local ones. A boundary dispute, perhaps. The setting of a dowry, when the two parties involved could not agree the terms themselves. Passing judgement on other petty issues.

The Arch Druid was above these things. It always was, and must be thus, that he is feared and revered in equal measures by his people for the powers that he alone holds in his hands, the knowledge of the future that he alone can tell, and the wisdom of the ancients that only he alone is able to impart.

Vincentrix tossed another handful of herbs on to the flames and leaned over the smoke. One by one, his gods began to appear.

First, the Horned One, who guides the souls of the newly departed from the Abode of the Dead into the Halls of Change in preparation for a rebirth in which the Arch Druid is their only conduit back to Earth. Then the Shining One, who sees everything from the golden chariot that he steers across the sky, followed by his silver consort, who assumes the mantle of responsibility once darkness falls. Slowly, others joined the group. The Ancient One, bent and wrinkled, from whose tongue hang fine gold chains from which the Knowledge of the Universe falls in tiny drips. The Thunderer. The Flower Queen. Until, finally, the Gentle One, who heals the sick and brings comfort to the dying, took her seat to complete the synod.

You know why we are here.

No words were spoken. None were needed. Vincentrix nodded silently.

Our people no longer bend their knee to us, Vincentrix. They turn to other gods and foreign forces.

Vincentrix knew this to be true and made no reply.

Only you have the power to reverse this situation, Druid. With the wisdom you have learned and the power that lies within you, you must bring the people back.

One by one, they rose and left, until it was just the Horned One who remained silhouetted in the mouth of the cave.

Unless you stop the slide, Vincentrix, your people cannot be reborn.

Cannot be reborn…

Vincentrix kicked over the traces of the fire and sluiced his face in the icy spring water. When reincarnation ceases, the soul has no outlet. It dies. The people knew this, yet they continued to be seduced by soaring marble temples, by games, by circuses…

The Arch Druid drank deeply of the sweet Waters of Prophecy that gurgled from the rock, but for once no pictures formed. He drank again, and then again, and then again. Beyond the cave mouth, dawn began to tinge the eastern sky with pink.