Widow's Pique

Eight

Through an explosion of fireballs, Claudia was distantly aware of being asked to count fingers. Since the fingers that were being held up were dancing like fireflies, she could not see the point and closed her eyes again.

The next time she awoke, it was to an orchestra of tone-deaf percussionists and she could smell comfrey and catnip, elder and borage, and thought, dear me, some poor soul must have an awful lot of bruises to warrant that lot, but then something warm and scented was sloshed down her throat and she promptly lapsed back into unconsciousness.

She dreamed.

She dreamed the Nymphs of the West were singing lullabies to her in the Gardens of the Hesperides, watched over by Night and the Evening Star. The walls of the garden were made from blocks of pure, white, limestone that kept making her sneeze, but then Atlas came along and laid a cool compress over her forehead and everything in the garden was lovely. Atlas was younger than she'd imagined, with an aureole of glossy dark curls framing his face, but she supposed old men couldn't be expected to hold up the universe, and it was kind of him to use the waters of purity to wash her face, though she hadn't expected purity to smell quite so like hyssop.

Atlas left. Darkness closed over the garden. Juno's golden apples glinted on their tree in the moonlight, and Claudia halfexpected to see Hercules sneak in any moment and steal a few for his penultimate labour. She was not disappointed. In he strode, but he was accompanied by Diana of the Hunt, who plucked an arrow from the quiver on her back and fired it over the wall. But this Diana was no virgin goddess. She straddled her muscular thighs over Hercules as he sat, took his impossibly handsome face in both hands and pressed her lips hard to his.

The lullabies faded. Ladon, the hundred-headed dragon set by Juno to guard her golden apples, slithered in and coiled himself round the trunk, breathing fire over the garden. Claudia could feel the heat of his ferocious breath. Cried out at the burning. But neither Atlas, nor Hercules, nor any of the other heroes, not even one attached to the Security Police, came to rescue her from the monster, and she remained trapped in the garden.

Shadows slunk in.

Wolves with human feet. Giants with thick, scaly tails. Then the shroud-eaters clustered round, empty-eyed and stinking of rotted flesh, with blood dripping from their open mouths, and among these shadows moved another, more menacing shape. It had a large, lolling head and hands ending in giant claws, and it answered to the name Nosferatu…

She woke bathed in sweat, but the sweat was cold and she was shivering. For a moment, she thought she was still trapped in the nightmare, since many objects in this house had a familiar ring, like the polished oak doors, the white marble floors and the fabulous gold candelabra. But then again, many things hadn't! The paintings on the wall had been exquisitely executed without doubt, but who — and what — did those strange swirls represent? Instead of a Roman-style couch, she was lying on a mattress set high on an intricately carved wooden frame, though the mattress had been stuffed sumptuously with swan's down and the linens scented with oils of jasmine and rose.

When she tried to sit up, daggers drove into her brain, so she lay on her back, staring up at the ceiling, cursing a tantrum that had resulted in that stupid, headlong plunge down the steps. Well, all right, not headlong. Once she'd realized what was happening, she'd launched herself sideways, curling herself into a ball. Ignominious wasn't the word as she bumpity-bumped down the stairs one at a time, but learning how to minimize injury was just one of many tricks her army-orderly father had taught her.

For a moment, she swore she felt the brush of his stubble against her cheek as he whispered Good girl, you remembered in her ear. Impossible, of course. She was ten years old when he marched off to war and never came home, and suddenly she longed for Drusilla to be lying alongside her on the bed, her silky, soft fur and reassuring deep rattle a palliative to the throbbing and aches that didn't come from a physical source. But after two weeks' incarceration, Drusilla had sharpened her claws on the elegant bedpost before disappearing into the night to fly the flag for cats everywhere by tormenting the local rodent population.

As ever, Claudia Seferius was alone.

The lamps in the bedroom had been snuffed and no sounds came from the hall, suggesting the hour was late, very late, yet, after her nightmare, Claudia felt far from sleepy. Gradually, she became aware of a white linen compress over her forehead, and as she removed it, she noticed that it had been drenched in an infusion of healing hyssop. So, then. Not everything in that dream was imagined…

From under the open window she heard a sneeze, but for all that she'd got off lightly from her tumble, her head was pounding and her eyes felt like lead weights, and all she wanted to do was slide back into the comforting blackness. She reached for one of the sleep stones in the bowl by her pillow and rolled the oil-drenched pebble around in her hand. Lavender. Lavender, to calm and to soothe. Just like hyssop.

Atchoo!'

The sleep stone fell from Claudia's hand.

'Raspor?'

The very act of sitting up bombarded her with white-hot pokers encased in boiling oil, but when the pain and nausea eventually subsided, she crawled out of bed and staggered across to the window. Slowly — ridiculously slowly — her vision cleared to reveal the light from the waning moon reflecting off the billowing ocean like scales on a fish, silhouetting the islands in the distance. She squinted in concentration, but the only creature abroad at this hour was a night heron swooping silently in to land. She was halfway back to the sanctuary of her bed when the third sneeze floated up from below. There was no mistaking her overgrown cherub now. In the clear blue light of the retreating Moon God, his bald pate shone like a tiny silver platter as he hopped nervously from foot to foot.

'Psst.'

The ring of dark curls spun round at the call from the shadows further out along the shoreline.

'Claudia?' he hissed under his breath. 'Is you, yes?'

'Pssst. Raspor.'

Claudia couldn't see who was calling him, but it sure as hell wasn't her, and a weight inside her flipped over. Something was wrong here. Very wrong. But even before she'd opened her mouth to reply, a dark flash whisked through the air. Raspor jerked sideways as his hands flew to his neck.

'Hey!' she yelled. 'Stop!'

But her voice was a croak, and he clawed frantically at the ring round his throat.

'Help!' she cried. 'Somebody help!'

If anything, her croak was weaker and now Raspor's heels were drumming impotently against the rocks. Help him, she prayed to every god on Olympus. Strike his assailant with a thunderbolt, with blindness, with paralysis, with anything! Save him, she prayed. Please step in and save him — because, forgive me, I can't! Too weak to run, too weak to throw missiles, too weak to raise the alarm, she could only stare helplessly as the horror unfolded. With every wasted second, more of the little man's breath was being squeezed from his body.

But no thunderbolts flashed.

No divine trident intervened.

Not for the first time, Claudia Seferius had to rely on her own wits.

Picking up the bowl of sleep stones, she dashed it to the floor. Instantly, a stampede of slaves crashed into her bedroom, bringing lights that blinded her from every direction as a hundred voices demanded to know what was wrong.

'Help!' she cried. 'There's a man being murdered out there!'

'Where?' 'Who?' Everyone was shouting at once.

'Hurry!' she screamed. 'Hurry, before it's too-'

It was as far as she got. The oblivion that Claudia had so desperately craved a few minutes earlier was no respecter of changers-of-mind. It claimed her at a maidservant's feet.

The next light to be blinding her eyes didn't come from dozens of hastily lit oil lamps. It came from the sun, shining with inexorable brilliance into the room, and more specifically over Claudia's pillow. From a hundred miles away, she heard someone groan, and had a strange feeling that it might have been her.

'How are ye feeling?' a gravelly voice asked.

'Vile.'

But the cold, solid knot in her stomach had nothing to do with her fall.

'Aye.' Pavan nodded impassively. 'Ye would.'

He was sitting with one massive leg crossed over the other in a high-backed armchair upholstered in damask the colour of ripe Persian plums. His fingers were steepled patiently together.

She drew a deep breath. Willed the shuddering inside to subside.

'Is he dead?' she asked quietly.

Grey eyes stared without emotion for what seemed like an hour, but was probably no more than five seconds.

'When Mazares carried ye up here last night, ye were unconscious and bleeding.'

The seat was large and commodious, but the general made it look like a kid's chair.

'I very much regret, ma'am, that the closest we had to a physician last night was a… a mule doctor.'

How comforting.

'Meaning?'

He stroked his ponytail thoughtfully. 'The mule doctor fears his painkilling preparation may have had certain side effects.'

'Name one.'

'Physical weakness.'

'Name two.'

She had a pretty good idea where this was leading, but needed to hear it from Pavan's own lips.

He adjusted his belt. 'We put every available man on that beach-'

'What about Raspor?'

The chair creaked as he rose to his feet. 'D'you feel up to breakfast, ma'am? Would a honeycomb straight from the beehive tempt yer appetite?'

'What — and I'll say this slowly — about Raspor?'

A different voice answered. It was low and velvety, and anyone who didn't know better would have taken his tone to be concerned.

'I'm afraid it's exactly as Pavan says, Claudia. We conducted the most thorough search of the area, but — ' Mazares shrugged his very fine shoulders — 'no body, no blood…'

'Of course there was no blood,' she retorted. 'The poor sod was strangled.'

Mazares and Pavan exchanged glances.

'The mule doctor has no doubt that what ye saw was real in yer mind,' Pavan rumbled.

'How reassuring to have a diagnosis that comes quite literally from the horse's mouth. No doubt his sick asses tell him what they saw, and he then proceeds to explain to them how they imagined those blue oats and flying cabbages.'

Claudia took advantage of the uncomfortable silence to press on.

'For your information, gentlemen, Raspor was no hallucination.'

Hallucinations don't sneeze.

'He was standing underneath that very window, wringing his little fat hands, and he was wearing the same singleshoulder tunic that he-'

'My Lady.' Mazares's tone was placating. 'Those who serve the gods also honour them. For a priest not to be wearing his official robes at any time is sacrilege.'

Of course, it could mean the little man had escaped his attacker..

'But you do have a priest named Raspor, who serves the Thunder God in Gora?'

'Ye-es,' Mazares said slowly. 'He's Guardian of the Sacrifice and his job is to select and then care for the animals whose lives are forfeit to Perun.'

… leaving him too weak and too frightened to seek help on the island…

'And would this Raspor be a small, round fellow with a ring of dark curls like a halo, perhaps?'

'Aye,' Pavan said. 'But Raspor is also a dedicated servant of his temple and tomorrow a white ram is due to be sacrificed for the Zeltane.'

Zeltane. Arguably the most important festival in the Histrian calendar…

'With all due respect, ma'am,' the general continued, 'it's highly unlikely that, faced with such a solemn obligation, he'd trek out here to Rovin.'

Except when concern for his King's welfare was more compelling than his priestly duties…

'Pula,' she corrected. 'He trekked out to Pula — well, you know that.' She turned to Mazares. 'I was talking to him when you arrived.'

'I hate to remind you, My Lady-' even through her fuzzy vision, there was no mistaking that twitching moustache — but when I first saw you, you were sprawled backwards over a crate of peacocks and squawking louder than they were.'

Slimy bastard.

'So, a man's been murdered, yet neither of you intend to take the matter further, because you think I made the story up?'

'It was a nasty fall,' Pavan pointed out.

Claudia snorted. She had not, repeat not, imagined Raspor being strangled, and her stomach lurched when she remembered his sandalled heels drumming impotently against the rocks.

Mazares read her expression. 'Let me ask around,' he said gently. 'Find out whether this was someone's idea of a practical joke.'

Baiting Rome had long been a source of amusement, he added, and if a group of embittered locals thought they could exploit the situation while she was befuddled by drugs…?

'Why only a mule doctor?' she demanded.

Pavan came as close as he would ever come to squirming.

'The royal physician should have been on Rovin a week ago,' he growled. 'There's been no word. No official explanation. But…'

His voice trailed off as he found a sudden desire to examine his fingernails.

'Come, come, Pavan. Claudia's a woman of the world.'

That lazy sparkle had returned to Mazares's eyes.

'What the general is too shy to spit out, My Lady, is that the doctor's inclinations differ from the average red-blooded Histrian's, and although he isn't on the island as he was supposed to be, neither is a boat builder of the same persuasion. Now, since we Histri tend to take a, shall we say, more traditional view of family relationships, the general consensus hereabouts is that His Majesty's physician and the boat builder have taken a short vacation.'

He stroked his goatee beard.

'Nevertheless, I think I'll ask Salome to come across and check you over.'

'Tell you what. Why don't I visit her?'

'If… if that's what the Lady Claudia wishes.'

'It is.' Anything to get out of here. Anything. But the mention of Salome had jolted a memory. 'Wasn't she on her way to tend the boat builder's niece yesterday evening? The child who was traumatized after seeing Nosferatu about his grisly business?'

Mazares turned an amused glance on Pavan.

'Good heavens, Claudia's cracked it,' he chuckled. 'Nosferatu! The beast that dares not speak its name!'

'It would explain why the legend's so widespread,' Pavan rumbled back. 'And why he only comes out at night.'

'Yes, but we can console ourselves, General, that our reviled monster remains a creature of superstition.'

'How so?'

'Oh, Pavan, don't tell me you, of all people, actually believe in fairies?' Mazares forced his expression to become serious. 'I'll arrange transport to Amazonia, My Lady.'

Together the two men strode out of the room, hardly waiting until the door was shut before resurrecting the fairy joke.

Alone once again, Claudia could not control the shakes that gripped her. Raspor had come to her for help and she had dismissed him, an act of disdain that had cost him his life.

Too many, how you say — innocents? — have died, and the King, he is too trusting. He thinks only good of people, but there are bad people around him. Very bad.

She saw again his terrified eyes scanning the crowd.

Just say you 'll meet me. Then I give you names of people who was killed and dates when these so-called accidents happen, but not here, not now. Is too open, too dangerous. I am dead man, if I am seen talking to you.

Paranoia, she'd thought at the time. Like Pavan and Mazares, she'd put it down to 'all in the mind'.

Please. You have King's ear. He will listen. When you give him detail of murders, he have no choice but to listen, because Mazares, he will stop at nothing to -

Those were Raspor's last words. Mazares will stop at nothing…

Claudia pulled on a gown of soft apricot cotton, fixed her girdle in place. She didn't know why she'd been lured to Histria, only that if Mazares wished her dead, he could have finished the job off last night and no one would have been any the wiser. From that point of view, at least, she was safe. But who else might not be? And how long would her life be protected, once Mazares realized that she was on to him…?

Nosferatu laughed.