Widow's Pique

Twenty-Eight

The treatment room looked exactly as Claudia had left it.

Neat piles of petals and roots stood lined up on the table, seeds of celery, mustard and dill had been set aside in mortars to be pulverized later, while infusions of dewcup, soapwort and chamomile bubbled gently in cauldrons that dangled over red, glowing charcoals. On the workbench, in between a dish of grated horseradish and a jar marked agrimony tea, sat a heap of dried myrtle berries and, on the shelves, papyrus labels proclaimed decoctions of everything from rosemary to oak bark. Cloves and nutmeg fragranced the warm, healing air, enhanced by oils of juniper, peppermint, jasmine and ginger, and the instruments that hung from the wall gleamed. 'I had a feeling you'd come,' Salome said without turning. Even the black tomcat was snoozing on the same wooden stool.

'Has the balm helped?'

She was referring to the white alabaster pot that had appeared in Claudia's bedroom yesterday evening. The pot had been tied round the middle with straw, into which a small posy of chive flowers and forget-me-nots had been artfully arranged. 'Enormously,' Claudia assured her. She hadn't touched it. 'Good, because it contains basil, cypress and marjoram, and if you rub it in twice a day, morning and night, as I instructed, the stiffness in your muscles will be gone in no time and it will help the bruises to fade.'

Deft hands continued to mould the macerated remains of horehound, aniseed and cardamom into a paste.

Salome paused in her task and looked round. The glint in her eyes was too bright, Claudia thought. As though she'd been laughing or crying, or something else she wanted to hide, and the smile on her face wasn't right.

'I didn't thank you for saving my pig the other night,' Salome said. 'It was a brave thing you did, my dear, and, great Marduk, you had a lucky escape. Pavan told me what nearly happened.'

Did he indeed?

'Are you all right?'

'After tumbling down a flight of stone steps, I barely noticed the extra bruises,' Claudia said.

'I meant mentally.' Salome returned to her paste, rolling it into a long sausage. 'Psychological bruises take longer to heal and they are much harder to cure,' she said quietly, cutting the sausage into tiny pastilles to counteract the coughs that would unquestionably result from the change from dry to wet weather. 'It's the emotional scarring I'm worried about.'

Claudia didn't doubt it, and she pictured an eight-year-old girl with raven-black hair, traumatized by what she had seen. Who better to keep an eye on the witness than the owner of the shadow whose murderous hands had throttled the life out of her uncle? Who better to pop in with healing herbs, to check that Broda didn't know more than she was letting on?

'Your emotional scarring or mine?' she asked, and something jolted inside.

This wasn't right.

Dammit, this wasn't right.

She pushed the tomcat off the stool and sank on to the warm wooden seat. Sure, the evidence pointed to Salome — but her gut said the evidence was wrong. It was, she thought, as the cat jumped back up and began to knead dough on her lap, a question of exactly what evidence they were talking about…

Salome stopped slicing the cough-mixture paste, wiped her hands on her apron and pushed her long, red hair out of her face.

'I was fond of him, you know. My husband, I mean.'

She drew up a stool next to Claudia and the cat immediately transferred itself to her knees.

'In fact, I thought I loved him until…' her voice trailed off.

The pieces fell into place with a click so loud Claudia wondered the whole world couldn't hear it.

'Until you met Mazares.'

Pain clouded Salome's eyes. 'How did you know?'

Mazares, Mazares, it was always Mazares. Every question centred round him, and she remembered the Zeltane Feast. With more work on the farm than they could possibly cope with, Salome still made the time to watch him when he wasn't looking. She watched over him, as well. She disguised herself in blue robes to strew healing herbs as he jumped the Fire of Life and, although Salome tended Broda, it was not out of self-preservation. She did it in the same way she tended the tanner's wife and all Mazares's people, because she cared for him most of all. If his people were healthy, his heart was content. His happiness was all that she wanted.

Shit.

'Does it matter?' Claudia replied.

Suddenly she understood why Salome hadn't married again. Such were her feelings, she couldn't face sleeping with any man other than Mazares. It's why she was so reckless with the numbers of slaves she helped to escape. With no heirs to this land, she had nothing to lose. Claudia swore softly again.

'We need to destroy the evidence, Salome, and there's no time to lose.'

'What evidence?'

'Oh, for heaven's sake, you know damn well that Rome's on to you,' she snapped. 'What on earth are you hoping to achieve? The chance to smuggle another couple of slaves out before the troops close your operation down?'

'Claudia, I won't turn away a single soul who asks for refuge, and when it comes to numbers, my dear, you can't begin to imagine how many poor wretches have been brutalized by their owners. Whipped, beaten, raped, it's horrendous, but thanks to our Freedom Trail, these people can have new papers and start a new life.'

It explains why there are so many women, Claudia thought dully. It's always the women who end up as victims, and only those young enough and brave enough can run off, because the older ones would have babies, and no one can hope to flee 300 miles with children in tow and the slave catchers not hunt them down.

'I'm not questioning the morality of your actions, Salome.'

Although frankly she doubted that even a quarter of the hard-luck tales were true. Once word got out that there was a rabbit run open, it's surprising how slick a lie can become when you have 300 miles to practise it.

'It's the legality that concerns me, and the consequences, which will ruin far more lives than you've repaired.'

She had no idea. Dammit, the silly bitch had no idea what would happen once Rome got wind of her racket.

'You think I care if this goes to trial?'

Salome tossed her red mane with defiance.

'Great Marduk, the evidence I'll lay before the court will open people's eyes to the realities of enslavement. My Freedom Trail will become an inspiration for others. Next year, there'll be twenty such organizations, the year after that fifty…'

Sweet Janus, she honestly believed it would reach trial.

'Salome, we don't have time to argue,' Claudia told her.

Orbilio had already sent off his dispatches. The rider left at first light. The damage was already done.

'Start a bonfire in the yard, burn all the forgeries, destroy every testimony you've kept and anything that connects this place with runaways, because once word reaches Augustus, you can forget about justice and martyrdom. The army will have you put down like a dog, and it's not just a case of Bonni, Mo, Silas and Tobias being sacrificed to the cause. Not even Lora's exalted status will save her. The Emperor will have everyone on this farm executed whether they were participating or not.'

'They can't!'

'They can and they will, and you might be able to carry that on your conscience, but I certainly can't, now get going.'

There wasn't even a pause. Salome might have shoved reality to the back of her mind in the name of righteousness, but she knew enough about Roman reprisals to remember that examples were always made. She knew enough about slavery, too. The rules were straightforward. If a slave killed his master and didn't confess, then the whole household was deemed guilty and put to death. Ashen and shaking, she piled logs on the cobbles as Claudia used the coals from the treatment room to get the bonfire burning. How long before the rider reached Pula? How long before the soldiers marched north? They would be here tomorrow, she calculated, turning this farm upside down… but another fire on top of the damage already done would not be questioned. She was fanning the flames with her skirt when a hand clamped over her wrist.

'What the hell's going on?' Tobias snarled.

Claudia told him.

'Oh.'

She wrenched her hand away, but his scowling eyes pierced her for several long seconds.

'I thought you were a spy,' he said at length. 'I thought Rome had sent you, masquerading as the King's bride, because it was obvious you'd never marry Mazares.'

Oh, was it! She was tempted to take him to task over this, but her mind had already flashed back to the night of the attack, when she'd overheard him and the others at the feast. Silas had suggested it was too far-fetched for Claudia to be a spy, arguing that if Rome wanted to send one, surely they'd have sent one undercover. With icy clarity, Claudia recalled Naim's reply.

They've already tried that once, me lovely, she'd said. Remember that little Cretan girl, the one with the squint?

Silas had buried his head in his hands. We shouldn't have let our guards down, he'd said. We should have sent her back.

He knew. The old man was wise to the ways of the authorities.

He knew what would happen to the farm and the workers, if word of the Freedom Trail got back. And Tobias knew, too. Claudia recalled how the hairs on her neck had started to prickle when he gave his chilling response.

Well, we didn't, and that's one spy they won't be seeing again.

At the time, and in light of Orbilio's account, she'd feared the worst. But look at the man! Look at them all! These people weren't slogging their guts out day in and day out for money, or glory, or power. The farm just about ticked over, because all the profits of their hard labour were being ploughed back to give runaways a new life and a new identity. The masters were working harder than any slave and they were doing it out of love, not for greed. Idealists the lot of them, and Claudia shook her head in despair at their naivety and ignorance. Love, she thought, as Salome came running back with pells of parchment stuffed under her arms, has much to answer for.

'Where is she?' she asked. 'Where's the little Cretan girl, the one with a squint?'

Salome slanted a glance at Tobias. 'Athens, isn't it?'

His springy curls nodded as he tossed the statements into the flames. 'Running a brothel the last we heard.'

'And making more than us, that's for sure,' Salome laughed, pushing her hair out of her eyes with the back of her hand. 'But Lora — dear me, Lora was furious, wasn't she, Tobi? "Another example of the exploitation of women!'" she mimicked.

Tobias, of course, didn't smile.

'I don't know why she was so insistent that I shouldn't go with her this morning,' he muttered. 'It's bound to turn ugly, a bunch of women rising up against the establishment and disrupting the marriage auction. I should have been there for her, Salome. Stepped in and helped her escape.'

'Well, my dear, there are two things,' Salome said. 'Firstly, Lora doesn't want to escape. She intends to meet Mazares head on in this matter, and the other, of course, is that she doesn't want you rotting in jail.'

Her nose was black from smuts.

'Don't you see, Tobi? Don't you understand why Lora refuses to return to Histrian society?'

'She was worried she'd be palmed off with Mazares, just like her mother-in-law. She's said so many times.'

Salome rolled her cat-like green eyes. 'Yes, but why do you think she's so passionate about women marrying who they want, not who they're told to? It's because of you, you bone-head!'

'Me? Salome, I swear I've never given that girl any encouragement.'

'Then it's about time you bloody well did, because Lora's no fool. She's seen how you look at her — which reminds me.'

She turned to Claudia.

'How did Mazares take the news when you declined his proposal?'

Mazares, Mazares, always Mazares. Claudia felt the world spin. How on earth was she going to tell this poor woman, who had already seen one ideal crushed, that it was Mazares all along…?

But tell her she would have to. How it was Mazares who was looking to create new out of old and eliminate the stale bloodline. No one was better placed to be more Roman than Mazares and no one, as Claudia had said many times, had greater opportunity and motive. Killers like Nosferatu don't have the same thought processes as everyone else, she would have to explain. He'd have viewed the murder of his own wife and kids as nothing more than eliminating obstacles in his path, and how easy — oh how easy — to make these things appear accidents.

The trouble was, Salome was so in love with Mazares that although she could grapple with the imperial stance on her Freedom Trail, hearing monstrous accusations levelled against the man who, in her mind, was purer than pure, meant that Claudia would have to tread carefully. So, as the next batch of incriminating documents were piled on the flames, she outlined the plot that was poised to tip Histria over its finely balanced edge, and thanked Jupiter that Orbilio was by the King's side, making certain that no more innocent lives could be taken.

When she finished, the silence was almost interminable and, surprisingly, it was Tobias who broke it.

'Funnily enough, Lora suspected as much,' he said. 'She told me that she believed her husband had been murdered, and she never accepted that her mother-in-law committed suicide. That's why she sought refuge here in the first place. She feared she was next.'

'Delmi not take her own life?' Salome tutted, her lovely brows drawn in a frown. 'Lora loved her dearly, I know, so I can see how she might want to believe that, but, dear me, her husband murdered by dog? Anyway, our Lora's never been a girl for not speaking her mind. If she feared there was a killer on the loose, she would have broadcast the fact.'

'Not necessarily,' Claudia said. 'She already believed that her presence here was the cause of the farm's rape and pillage, yet she stayed on. Now, Lora doesn't strike me as a coward. If she thought she could stop the destruction, she would have left. There had to be another, more compelling reason to keep her here.'

'Yes. Tobias was one, and her commitment to the Freedom Trail was another.'

'Actually, Salome, there might be a third.' Tobias looked troubled. 'She did say-' he gulped and looked from one woman to the other and back — 'Lora did say that she wondered, well, if Mazares himself wasn't behind it.'

Claudia could have kissed him.

Not so Salome.

'I have never heard such nonsense in my entire life! The King is a good man, Tobias. He is honest and fair and does right by his people, the notion is utterly ridiculous.'

She bundled her loose hair into a bun to calm herself down.

'Now then, Claudia, you never did tell me how he took the news of your refusal.' Green eyes glared daggers at Tobias's betrayal. 'How is he, poor man?'

This was going to be tougher than Claudia thought.

'Don't you worry about Mazares,' she said, forcing a smile. 'If you must know, he got horribly drunk and I left him trying to nail his eyeballs back into focus and stop the tingling in his mouth from spreading any further over his face. Tobias, did Lora voice her suspicions to anyone else?'

'Yes, I think she told Pavan-'

'Tingling?' Salome grabbed hold of both Claudia's wrists and the grip was stronger than steel. 'Did you say he had tingling in his mouth that had spread to his face?'

'Yes,' she winced. 'But he-'

She tried to shake free, but Salome was like a woman possessed.

'It's monkshood, you ninny! The King's being poisoned, and if the symptoms have reached this stage…'

She was racing to the treatment room before she'd even finished the sentence.

For the first time, Nosferatu experienced a ripple of unease.

Nothing definite.

Nothing that one could put one's finger on and say, That's the thing, that's the cause of this unrest, let's get rid of it.

Only a vague fear that something was starting to unravel.