Widow's Pique

Eighteen

After the exuberance of Zeltane, the mood on Rovin couldn't have been starker. Children still chanted their Latin alphabet under awnings stretched between the streets and parroted their counting, like children everywhere across the Roman Empire, but children are nothing if not little sponges. Rovin children had picked up on the depression that hung over the island, and their recitation was weak. Fishwives, usually so garrulous and bawdy, now filleted the catch in silence, and the expressions of the traders in the plaza where the Zeltane Fire had burned were grim. None of the islanders had been involved in last night's fracas, but they were Histri, and the perpetrators' shame hung around their necks like grinding stones.

Caught off guard by the presence of soldiers at Salome's farm, the attackers had been quickly rounded up, a task made easier by the vigilance of a man with a swirling moustache and hair that fell to his shoulders in a manner reminiscent of Apollo, who'd noticed fires burning on the mainland and knew Salome well enough to realize that these weren't down to any May Day celebrations. It was also thanks to Mazares that much of her livestock, most of the buildings and quite a lot of the crops had been saved, while the prisoners had only their own bloodlust to blame for being caught. If they'd settled for torching the farm and then fleeing, they'd have probably got clean away. Instead, thirteen now awaited His Majesty's justice, five of whom faced execution for rape, including Claudia's attackers.

Attempted rape normally carried the lesser penalty of scorching, whereby a cart was filled with willow sticks over which the gagged prisoner was bound, then the sticks set to smoulder as the oxen plodded slowly round the perpetrator's village, the prisoner's pain and humiliation plain for all to see. But one of Salome's little Amazons had met this pair before — only the Commander of the King's Bodyguard wasn't around to prevent her ordeal. The cart carrying this pair of charmers would be filled with sticks that burned properly, and the Amazon had permission to light the fire herself.

'Ever since you arrived, I seem to greet you with the words "How are you feeling?"'

Mazares's expression was grave. Exactly what you'd expect after another predator had tried to muscle in on his tethered goat.

'But how are you feeling this morning?'

He'd run her to ground on Rovin's pine-clad tip, where she was looking out across the blue lagoons to the surrounding archipelago, while a white-tailed sea eagle skimmed the water with its talons, eventually flapping off towards an islet, a silver fish writhing in its yellow claws.

The bait shot Mazares her most radiant smile.

'Didn't they warn you that I collect bruises like some men collect art and little boys collect caterpillars?' She didn't miss a beat as she added, 'Have you reconsidered your decision concerning my armed escort?'

Last night, he'd been anxiety personified when Pavan carried her back. But it hadn't stopped him from punishing the escort for dereliction of duty.

His gaze didn't waver. 'No.'

'You don't feel that flogging's too harsh?'

'No.'

'Even though it wasn't their fault?'

She'd tried telling him that it was she who'd insisted they remain at the gate, fearing they'd cast a shadow over Salome's feast. That the men weren't to know she'd fallen into a pigsty and changed her frock. That, when the trouble started, they couldn't possibly have predicted how she'd panic and head for the hills. But Mazares had folded his arms over his broad, stubborn chest, just like he was doing now.

'Their job was to guard you, My Lady. They failed.'

'Only on my instructions.'

'They take their instructions from me.'

'I overruled them.'

'That only makes the men doubly responsible. Once for disobeying orders, and once again for failing to protect you.'

'You won't change your mind?'

'No.'

'Then you leave me no choice. I will petition the King.'

A flash at last behind those impassive catkins.

'On what grounds, exactly?'

'Surely the King's bride is allowed the odd indulgence, Mazares?'

The familiar lazy sparkle returned, and he bowed.

'Consider their slate clean, my lady. As of this moment, your escort is free to return to their duties.'

Gotcha, you bastard, and for a split second she considered exploiting the situation by suggesting they set off for Gora at once, but Mazares was wise to her now. He hadn't swallowed that tale about soldiers casting a spectre over the feast and he'd been particularly sceptical when it came to the idea of Claudia panicking. So she simply thanked him for his change of heart.

'My pleasure, and you must let me know if the King's bride has any other… odd indulgences.'

Smarmy sod.

'No, no, you've spoiled me enough. I wouldn't want to push my luck, now would I?'

'Wouldn't you?' The twinkle was dangerous now. 'Nevertheless, I think it prudent to post a bodyguard at your door.'

The noose was tightening…

'What? And compromise my reputation?'

'I meant outside your bedroom, My Lady, not in,' he said, affecting a mock swoon. 'And besides. If there's any compromising to be done on that score, I feel it my duty to personally volunteer for the task.'

'I can assure you, Mazares, you would certainly have my first refusal.'

He tipped his head back and laughed, and as the puppet-master retreated through the pines, his laughter echoing above the hammering and sawing from the adjacent boatbuilding yards, she watched the aureole of glossy curls bouncing with every confident step, caught the occasional glint when the sun reflected off the gold torque round his neck, watched the spring in his taut and youthful buttocks. She'd long given up trying to decide whether his galley was crewed by policemen or by pirates, whether the King had genuinely summoned her to Histria or whether it was part of the conspiracy, or even whether Pavan and Mazares were on the same side. Worse, she no longer cared how many people had died on this paradise peninsula, be it from natural causes or otherwise, or what secrets Salome might be hiding. Frankly, who gave a damn that she gave refuge to a score of young, single women, including the King's widowed daughter-in-law, or that Lora's presence on the farm undermined tribal law?

Self-preservation was her only worry now.

She thought of Pula, just one day's sail from Rovin.

So near and yet so far…

Kicking off her sandals, she sought out a large, flat, white rock and dangled her feet in the turquoise water. The water was warm, shimmering softly under the Histrian sun as it lapped her ankles, gurgling as it shrank away from the rocks, slapping gently as it hit them again. Terns dived for fish like silent white stones, and the air was scented with the freshness of the oceans and the dense, tangy resins of the pines. She closed her eyes and prayed for a miracle.

'I was under the impression that brides were supposed to be blushing, not washing,' a deep baritone said from behind.

She spun round, and found herself face to face with a pair of soft yellow Histrian boots that cast a tall, broad shadow over the shoreline. The shadow emitted a faint hint of sandalwood unguent, which penetrated even the pitch and sawdust of the boatyards.

'And I was under the impression that the Moon God only came out at night,' she replied sweetly.

'That's the beauty of being a divinity,' he drawled, and his pants were every bit as tight as Mazares's. 'We bend the rules to suit. But then that's something you know all about, isn't it? My Lady.'

She tilted her head, half-expecting to see the silver mask. What she saw in its place was far worse.

'Orbilio?'

'Marcus Cornelius, international moon of mystery, at your service, ma'am,' he said, clicking his heels together.

'You bastard.'

'Didn't you level that same accusation against me at the banquet? We were both wearing pants, I seem to recall, although yours tended to contain some rather more interesting curves. Unfortunately, you spoiled the fun by concealing them under a cloak of green feathers.'

Six feet and six centuries of aristocratic breeding settled themselves on the warm rock beside her.

'Aren't you curious to know when I arrived?' he asked, pulling off his boots and easing his toes into the water. 'This is nice, although, silly me, I was expecting the temperature to be somewhat warmer.'

The cocked eyebrow suggested he wasn't referring to the heat of the ocean.

'The when doesn't interest me, only the why.'

No legionaries, no back-up, just a lone investigator from the Security Police. There was a strong smell of rat in the air, not least from the one sitting beside her.

'The King invited me.'

The world started spinning. 'Why?'

The Security Police grinned. It was the sort of grin leopards make when they're eyeing a kill.

'Who do you think put your name forward as a suitable bride to his old friend?'

Claudia heard a crashing sound, as all her theories fell on the floor and shattered at once.

'Friend,' she repeated flatly.

'More in the sense that he's a good friend of Rome, I suppose, but yes.' Orbilio spiked his thick, wavy hair with his fingers. 'Personal friend all the same.'

She refused to look at him. Wouldn't give him the satisfaction.

'Orbilio, if I had a knife on me, I swear I would face the lions a happy woman. What else have you told him about me?'

'On my mother's eyes, Claudia, your secrets are safe with me.'

'Your mother's dead.'

'A mere technicality.'

That was the problem. You could trust him as far as you could throw an elephant with a rhinoceros tied to its back, yet all the while he charmed you like a snake. And now it seemed the island was infested with the bloody things! Mazares the cobra had gambled, as well. He had gambled on a vivacious young woman being captivated by turquoise seas and sun-drenched sandy beaches, seduced by sheltered coves and the scent of cypress, pine and myrtle. He'd lost the bet, and the irony that the only people she could trust were the louts who'd destroyed Salome's farm wasn't lost on her.

'I suppose you know Mazares?'

'I do.'

'And you'd call him a friend?'

'I would.'

Naturally. Mazares would make damn sure of that.

'What excuse did the King give for inviting you here?' she asked. 'To give the blushing bride away?'

Around her feet, the ocean lapped the hot, bleached rocks and seabirds wheeled overhead.

'Because I have news for you, Marcus Cornelius. You know the job of the Security Police? To root out conspiracies, forgery, fraud and assassins, and all the other nasty hobgoblins that threaten to destabilize the Empire and prevent it from plunging into tyranny, or, worse, into anarchy? Well, while you've been dressing up in silly silver masks, Histria is being brought to its knees, and right beneath your long patrician nose.'

Several seconds passed.

'Honestly?' he asked. 'You thought the mask was silly?'

'Wake up, Orbilio. You've been manipulated every bit as much as I have-'

'Can you hear that?' He pretended to crane his neck. 'The sound of tables turning? Tell me, Claudia, does it hurt very much, being on the receiving end for once?'

'At least you accept that I've been manipulated.'

'Only by me, I'm afraid, and I'm sorry about the moon mask. It was just that I wanted to gauge how happy you were-'

'Well, now you know. I'm absolutely delirious, because in the six short days that I've been on this island I've fallen down a flight of stone steps, witnessed a murder that's been swept under the rug, almost got myself raped and now, thanks entirely to you, I'm also a prisoner on this wretched island.'

'Par for the course, then?'

But his voice was a rasp and the laughter in his eyes had been replaced by something resembling anguish.

'Claudia…'He cleared his throat and started again. 'Claudia, were you really just one step away from being… I mean, Pavan said those men last night-'

'Pavan's exaggerating,' she retorted. She swallowed the guilt of betraying Pavan and fixed her eyes on the horizon.

'He's just making himself more of a hero, by telling everyone how he stepped forward in the nick of time to save the honour of the King's bride.'

'So, those bruises on your arm appeared out of nowhere?'

'A pregnant sow whose sty is on fire can turn pretty nasty, believe me.'

'Well, that's rather the point, isn't it?' He tugged at his earlobe. 'I don't.'

No wonder this man was top of his bloody profession. He had the tenacity of a limpet in a hurricane.

Claudia smiled.

'You forget how protective Histrian men are when it comes to their womenfolk.'

Teeth, teeth, show more teeth.

'They hear a few louts crashing about, then two and two makes five.'

She didn't want him to know.

She didn't want him to know that she'd bawled like a baby for two solid hours. That she'd curled into a ball, shaking with emotions she couldn't identify. That she'd spent the night scrubbing her skin with a sponge until she'd scrubbed herself raw…

'You were the one who said you almost got yourself raped.'

'And you are the one who's not grasped what's going on here.'

She squared her shoulders and threw back her head.

'Orbilio, so many people have been taking premature ferry boats across the River Styx that Hades is nailing up "Full" signs. You don't realize it, but you've walked straight into a cold-blooded and extremely well-planned campaign to eliminate the King and, trust me, your being here is not coincidence.'

'No. My being here is not coincidence.'

'Nor is your attending the trial of the men who tried to raze Salome's farm to the ground, either. Mazares needs a witness who can confirm to the authorities that justice has been done.'

Oh, Mazares, you're even cleverer than I thought. Not only did you arrange to have Claudia Seferius out here as your bait, you lured the Security Police's most ethical member, so that he could testify to Rome that whatever tragedy befell her and the King, it had truly been an accident!

'He staged that raid last night,' she said.

That's why the soldiers got out there in record time. He wasn't watching. He was waiting…

'Mazares planted destruction in those men's minds, stirring up their Histrian prejudices and-'

'Claudia.' The baritone brooked no argument. 'Claudia, I know Mazares. He wouldn't topple a hay cart, much less this government, and, since you ask, I have no intention of being a witness at those men's trial. This is a local issue and Rome would do best to keep its nose out.'

'Bollocks. Salome's a Roman citizen. By attacking her farm, they're effectively attacking Rome.'

'Agreed, but that was not their intent.'

She saw his argument for the dispensing of local justice, but, hell, for the Security Police not to even take notes on the sidelines

…? No, no. Orbilio was too shrewd to have been conned completely. There had to be more to this. Something he wasn't telling.

'What is it, piracy?'

'Sorry to disappoint you, but Mazares keeps these coasts pretty damn safe.'

'Same thing,' she sniffed. 'By policing these waters, it's just another way of following the ancestral vocation.'

'I warned you,' he said, and was that a muscle that twitched at the side of his mouth? 'I warned you the Histri were cunning and sneaky and that they were all double-dealers. They've had to be, to survive. The King walks a fine line with his people, but only because he knows them for what they are.'

'We've had this conversation before. Five generations under the eagle, butchers under the skin.'

'Let's just agree that negotiation isn't their instinctive choice.'

He leaned back on the rock, folded his hands under his head and closed his eyes. High in the pines that were shading the cove, flycatchers trilled, brown butterflies danced and squirrels scurried from branch to branch.

'Also, it's not helped by their ignorance,' he continued. 'Histria is a wealthy kingdom in comparison, but virtually all its communities are isolated either by virtue of the sea or by the mountainous terrain of the interior. The coastal communities have a better grasp of the political situation, but for those living in the landlocked villages, they have no comprehension of what the world's like beyond this peninsula.'

Claudia was beginning to understand.

'Specifically, the size of the Empire?'

'Exactly.' He splashed his feet languorously in the water. All they know is that it's bigger than, say, Illyria, but they can't accept — or perhaps won't — that it's a hundred, a thousand, times more powerful. It's completely beyond the scope of their imagination.'

Explaining why rumblings of sedition were suddenly rearing their head. Pula! While it was still a glorified trading post, nobody minded. No doubt when it was razed to the ground for backing Mark Antony, half of Histria rose up and cheered, but when the city came to be rebuilt, and on such a grand scale, the enormity of the situation sunk in.

'That's why the late King, Dol, moved the seat of justice to Gora,' she said, as much to herself as to Marcus. 'So his people could acclimatize slowly.'

'Histria has never built cities,' he added. 'But the King's seen Rome and he liked what he saw, the running water, paved streets, marble temples, the libraries, bathhouses and gymnasia. You only have to look around Rovin to see his influence, and all of it's good.'

The islanders were approving of these developments, too, but deep in the interior, where villages were merely clusters of single-roomed homesteads, the concept of thousands of people living together in one settlement was incomprehensible. Boiling it down to one basic principle: what you don't understand you either hide from — or you fight it head on.

'Now you tell me what any civilized individual has to gain by inciting his own people to rebel,' Marcus said, 'knowing it will result in Rome crushing this kingdom once and for all.'

Damn.

Claudia chewed her lip as warblers sang, and an adder slithered out from its nest amidst the thick layer of pine needles to bask in the sun. Across the lagoons, fishermen hauled in their nets, emptied their catches into their baskets and cast them again.

'So if it's not piracy or sedition, why did you come here?'

'Me?' He plucked a blade of grass and chewed on it. 'I'm looking for a runaway slave.'

And I'm the Queen of Sheba.'

He closed his eyes again. 'My workload's quiet at the moment.'

'Yes, I can hear it snoring all three hundred miles from Rome.'

He honestly expected her to believe the Security Police were reduced to chasing runaways, the preserve of professional slave catchers, moreover a matter for the civil courts, not the judiciary? It was the equivalent of assigning the architect of a temple to Jupiter to tour the building site picking up litter!

'Orbilio, I don't know whether you've been smoking those hemp seeds again or it's a question of blood being thicker than water and you being thicker than both, but let me spell it out for you. There's a conspiracy here, whether you like it or not, and Mazares is at its heart.'

Ticking the deaths off on her fingers, she started at the beginning.

'Brae, the King's older brother, a young, fit, nineteen-year-old, newly married and with a full life ahead, suddenly dies of a fever.'

'Gosh, you're right. No one's ever died of a fever before.'

'Not when you're the King's son surrounded by physicians and, dare I say it, pretty red-headed herbalists. Did you hear those children at Zeltane the other night? Brac be nimble, Brac be quick, Brac jump over the candlestick. Brac jump long and Brac jump high, or Brac fall into a fever and die.'

'Your point?'

'My point is that his death was so sudden that it was instantly absorbed into folklore. Tell me that's a common occurrence! Then we have the King's father, a man called Dol. Dol the Just.'

'Yes, I met him once, when I was small.' Orbilio reached for another blade of grass to gnaw on. 'He did a lot of good things for this country.'

'Apparently so, but he died, to quote your dear friend Mazares, suitably young.'

'Claudia, it was a lung complaint. Pleurisy, pneumonia, I don't know exactly, but hundreds of people die from lung complaints every year.'

'Not when they're a king and surrounded by physicians and, dare I say it, pretty red-headed herbalists. Is a pattern starting to emerge here?'

'You don't seriously believe Salome poisoned Brac and Dol?'

'With Mazares's help, I bloody know she did. Anyway, things settle down for a while. Delmi, Brac's widow, has been palmed off on the new heir to the throne, a situation that suited neither of them, but they put on a brave face and are now the proud parents of two healthy children, a boy and a girl.'

This was the hard part.

'The girl was twelve when she died.'

Claudia's knuckles turned white as she recalled the story recounted by Broda's mother.

'The girl is a sickly little thing, prone to bouts of illness that confine her to her bed, but this only binds the relationship between mother and daughter. They become closer than ever.'

She swallowed.

'One day, the family set off from Gora to propitiate the spirits of the lake. I don't have all the details, but it's something to do with creatures like the Sirens-'

'Ruskali,' Marcus said. 'Beautiful maidens who inhabit lakes and rivers, but whose loveliness disguises their real purpose, which is to lure victims into the water, where they hold them under until they drown and then feast off their flesh.'

Wherever you turn on this wretched peninsula, there are ghouls, vampires and demons.

'Well, that's what happened to Delmi's daughter,' she said. 'Her body was washed up many weeks later and, superstitious to the end, the Histri still believe the Ros-?'

'Ruskali!

'-Ruskali got them. As far as Delmi was concerned, it was irrelevant, of course. Her beloved daughter was dead and by all accounts, the mother's spirit died alongside.'

A hand covered her own and squeezed gently.

'Weak lungs are inherited, Claudia.'

She snatched her hand away and wondered why the horizon had blurred.

'Anyway,' she said briskly. 'A couple of years pass and Delmi's son marries an elfin creature called Lora, a beautiful child with waves of walnut hair that cascade down to her waist, and whether Lora reminds Delmi of her dead child I have no idea, but Delmi perks up and the feeling, apparently, is mutual. Lora adores her mother-in-law in return.'

As the sun moved round, lifting the shade from the rocky cove, Claudia turned her face towards it.

'Then, surprise surprise, her only surviving child is out hunting when he's disembowelled by one of his own mastiffs and, racked with grief, Delmi takes her own life by swallowing hemlock. Or so the story goes.'

Orbilio sat up and turned her round to face him.

'Claudia, I'm well aware of all this-'

'Oh, and then the King gets bouts of sickness, as well.'

'Listen to me. Just because one family experiences one tragedy after another doesn't mean it isn't just that. Tragedy.'

He swiped his hands through his unruly mop.

'It happens. It happens all the time, and it happens more often than most people can cope with. Claudia, Delmi isn't alone in ending her own life that way. Hundreds of people beaten down by disaster do the same thing every day, because, like it or not, the gods don't dole out life fairly, and they certainly don't distribute joy and catastrophe evenly. Sometimes one just has to accept the obvious: that an accident is an accident is an accident.'

'It makes me sick to my stomach to agree with you, but for once, my dear Marcus, I do. There are times when one has to accept the inevitable…'

She stood up and paddled out to her knees, careless of the salt water saturating her robe.

'… but this is not one of those times. Orbilio, I saw a man die. I saw a funny little man who couldn't stop sneezing have a noose thrown round his neck and I watched helplessly while someone throttled the life out of him.'

Every time she closed her eyes at night, she saw his heels drumming impotently against the rocks. Every time she opened her eyes in the morning, she felt the cold thud of failure, that she had not saved his life.

'Raspor would not have been killed if those accidents were just that. He was silenced to prevent the King hearing his evidence, and even though I suspect that evidence was flimsy in the extreme, his killer wasn't prepared to take that chance.'

'Do you seriously think the King can't put two and two together by himself?'

'Maybe he's too close. Maybe it needs someone from outside, someone with objectivity, as a certain little priest lost his life to point out, to see the absurdity of what's happened. Correction, of what's still happening. The illness that prevented him from coming to Rome. Has anyone questioned that to his face? Or asked how well he knows Salome, and whether there's a connection between the lovely widow's visits and these inherited weak lungs?'

She waded back to the shore, anger blazing from every pore now.

'Ask yourself, Marcus, who might make that connection — and if the answer is, well, maybe a doctor might make that connection, you might find that your next question is, where is the royal physician? Followed by, do I actually believe that ridiculous story about him bunking off for a bit of rumpy pumpy with a burly boat builder? The same boat builder, incidentally, who disappeared the night a small girl called Broda was traumatized by the sight of Nosferatu strangling his victim. Oh, and don't forget while you're asking yourself all these questions, Orbilio, that Broda was woken in the first place by the sounds of whispering in her own house. And if you happen to conclude that one of those whisperers was her uncle, the very same boat builder, who lived with them, then you might also conclude that he, too, was silenced to prevent him speaking out.'

'By Mazares?'

Claudia wrung the drips out of her skirt.

'It was a full moon the night Broda caught Nosferatu in action. Admittedly she only saw a play of shadows on the wall — a fluke of fate which I know damn well saved that child's life — but allowing for the distortions from the moon, there's one aspect that Broda's adamant about. The head. Nosferatu's oversized, lolling head.'

In other words, an aureole of thick and glossy curls that fell down to his shoulders, the kind that would mislead the eye in the dark.

'Actually,' he said, his eyes still closed and his hands making what looked like a very comfortable pillow on the rock, 'there are two things Broda was adamant about. The head was one, but the other was the hands. She insists Nosferatu's hands were giant claws, and I'm afraid you can't pass one off as fact and dismiss the other as the product of an overactive imagination.'

Maybe. Maybe not. That wasn't the point.

'You obviously know that Mazares is a widower,' she said, slipping on a pair of pale grey leather sandals. 'Now, whether you believe he's a cold-blooded murdering bastard or not, my advice is not to stand too close to him, Orbilio.'

She marched off up the springy path towards the town. 'People around him have a habit of dying, and that's not an overactive imagination, my investigative friend. That is fact.'