Dark Horse

by Marilyn Todd

  When Jason said bury, of course, he meant it in the broadest sense of the word. As in 'disposal of body'. He did not mean inter, neither did he mean cremate. Fire, he explained, stripping the helmsman of his clothes, was Targitaos the sun god's holy gift. To defile this gift with human flesh would be an abomination and an outrage, so Scythian custom decreed that corpses be exposed.

  'Exposed?' Different cultures, different customs, fair enough. The Egyptians embalmed. Britons interred. The Gallic and Nordic tribes favoured cremation. In parts of the land of Kush they were even rumoured to bury their dead upright in pits. But no civilized society, repeat none, left their loved ones to be picked clean by carrion!

  'Has to be a willow,' he said, hacking away at the canopy with his battleaxe. He had stripped off his white shirt, revealing not only the bull, but tattoos of wryneck birds and cranes. As he chopped, the lynx on his back bared its fangs in a snarl as his muscles expanded. 'Willow is our sacred tree.'

  Claudia thought of the leaf pattern engraved on the gold torque which glittered round his neck. Everything was symbolism with this race. The ritual every bit as important as the act. A point to bear in mind when Jason felt the bloodlust come upon him.

  'The body has to be wrapped in an untanned skin.' His mouth twisted at one corner as he held up the velvety hide of the deer they had just eaten. 'Although I'd like to think there is a certain flexibility in the definition of "wrap".'

  Either that or slaughter half the herd. Geta was a big man.

  'According to legend,' Jason said, binding the hide tight, 'Geta's homeland was settled when two brothers followed a white stag to a beautiful and bountiful land. Hence the sacred deer skin.'

  'You've gone to a lot of trouble,' Claudia said. 'You must have been fond of him.'

  'Geta?' Jason gave the red mop one last affectionate pat. 'Not particularly, but he served me well and we are, after all,

  brothers in blood and Scythians take care of their own. It our code, and since Geta came from the Danube delta, it is to freshwater that he must return.'

  'What about you?' Claudia asked quietly. 'Where will you return to?'

  Jason stopped what he was doing and looked at her. For the first time, she saw a flicker of raw emotion behind those grey eyes. 'Without sons to carry the bull on their chests, my spirit will have nowhere to go.' Then he brightened. 'But if the bull is stamped on the chests of my sons? Then so long as my corpse lies where the sun and the moon can shine down on it, I'll be happy. Now then.' He hefted Geta over his shoulder and began to heave it up through the branches. 'Let's get this ugly lug settled once and for all.'

  With Jason, of course, mere exposure wasn't enough. Having wrestled his compatriot up to his leafy bier, he insisted on adorning it with sacred insignia. Preferably, it would have been a crane, like the ones which migrate from the Danube delta in autumn to overwinter in Egypt, returning again in the spring to breed. Geta had to make do with a widgeon laid in his lap. But Jason's deadly arrow did manage to find a water serpent, the helmsman's clan totem, to place on his chest. And finally, in lieu of a reaping hook, he left the axe.

  'Since we have no more use for it,' he added with a natty smile.

  Clambering up the rocks between one of the hundreds of waterfalls, Claudia paused to look back down the valley. As the lakes fell away, to become pools of liquid emerald dwarfed by vertical walls of white rock, she had a bird's eye view of Geta's final resting place. A bizarre eagle's eyrie, flat on the tree tops, where his bones would eventually fall through the branches, back to the earth, the battleaxe along with them. Macabre, but then we all have rituals, she thought, remembering the sacrificial haunch of venison she had left under the willow, covered with spikes of lilac-blue vervain, when Jason hadn't been looking.

  Geta might have kidnapped her twice - once on the night of the fire, and once again as she was leaving Nanai’ - and he might have been a pirate without conscience who had willingly

  crashed his own ship and let the crew drown rather than share the treasure he believed hidden by his captain in the cave, but the great flat-faced, slant-eyed ox had died saving her life.

  Vervain was sacred to Venus, and although Venus could not possibly be the same goddess of love that the red-headed barbarian claimed as his clan protectress, maybe - just maybe - this Argimpasa of his, whose symbol was the serpent, might recognize the sanctity of the offering. For good measure, Claudia had strewn marigold petals, as well. Flowering all year round, they symbolized everlasting life and Geta would appreciate that, because, she suspected, he would already be at the helm of some celestial warship raiding the dark shores of Hades!

  But a few flowers are one thing. Jason's determination was quite another.

  He had carried the corpse for twenty-four hours simply to reach a place where willows and water combined. Altruistic? To give a fellow countryman the send-off he felt he owed him? Or a determination to follow the ritual, no matter what obstacles stood in his path? She considered the way he had worked. Not just with Geta's funeral rites, but in every detail from the low, insolent bow on the prow of his warship to the slow, mimed handclap. From the casual way he took out the eye of his opponents with the slingshot to the planning well in advance of the wolf howls. He would undoubtedly argue his was a methodical nature, others might call it controlling.

  To a killer, control is everything. Control empowers him. Lifts him above the material plane to a metaphysical level.

  The key to her survival was to deny him that chance.

  At the top of the last cascade, Jason pointed. 'Smoke,' he said. He was carrying his own quiver and bow now, and without encumbrances they were able to travel much faster. 'Too much for a single house, it looks like there's a settlement over the ridge. With luck, we can buy horses from them.'

  'To strangle or ride?'

  He flashed her his wolfish grin. 'I'll let you know when we get there.'

  Terrific. An adventuring psychopath who knows that I'm wise to him and doesn't care. He's played on my fear of

  his headhunting tendencies, not just with the wolf heads but by deliberately keeping me in the dark about Geta, and he's keeping the pressure up still. Same old game he'd played with Leo when he delivered the war spears. First in the boat shed, then in the stables, then in the bath-house door: creeping that little bit closer each time, making Leo aware of what he was doing, taunting him, even. But still Leo fell into the trap. And why? Because Jason had taken care to coat it with his special honey.

  'But I don't have a sweet tooth,' she whispered to the forest.

  For now, though, she was safe. Jason the pirate moved under cover of darkness, sneaking in, sneaking out, leaving no trace. Jason the butcher liked to take risks. He preferred to operate when people were buzzing around, because the fear of discovery was every bit as thrilling as the agony of his helpless victim. It underscored his superiority over the rest of the human race. Highlighted his supremacy over mere mortals. Allowed him to rise above them.

  Claudia's instincts had been right on target when, with Azan's thugs crowding in, she had believed that was the moment Jason had chosen to kill her. Her error lay not in the timing . . . but in the location.

  'You're going back to the Villa Arcadia, aren't you?'

  'What makes you think that, lieutenant?'

  'Because you have unfinished business there,' she replied. Me.

  The demon laughed.

  Far from subsiding, Clio's anger had bloated into a great balloon of outrage. Like a cripple's hunch, it sat on her back, throbbing with fury, ugly and violent, and screaming for justice.

  This wasn't fair.

  This was not how it was supposed to be.

  She should have been rich by now. Returning home to her hilltop village in fine clothes and foolish shoes, riding in a litter, her litter, carried shoulder high through the

  streets by slaves, her slaves, tossing alms to street beggars like petals.

  Instead, she was stuck in this hell-hole with no food and no means t
o earn food and she had certainly left it too late to start socializing with the townspeople now! Tolerating a vampire on the outskirts of their community was one thing. The bastards probably even bragged about it to their neighbours. But that wasn't to say they'd countenance one in their midst.

  'This isn't my fault!' she yelled at the sky. 'I've done nothing wrong!'

  Her fists tore up tussocks of grass, pummelled chunks out of the drystone walls, hurled rocks at the carrion birds pecking at the piles of rotting intestines.

  'Bastards!' she screamed. 'Bastards, the lot of you!'

  Jason. Leo. Every man, woman and child in the town, including that runt of a priest. Especially that runt of a priest.

  'I hope your soul burns in the Lake of Fire for eternity!'

  Llagos could have spared her this, the dirty, sneaking, peeking bastard pervert. As the most respected priest on the island, his voice carried influence. They would have listened to him. Now they shunned her. As a result, Clio was destined to starve slowly to death, unable to get off the island because even if she could pay, no one would take her.

  'Damn you all,' she shouted. 'Damn you and your ludicrous superstitions!'

  That little Persian creep didn't help. Muttering to himself in his own unintelligible language as he pored over livers and entrails, finding portents in everything from clouds to wave formations to lizard prints in the dust. And the silly sods drank in every one of Shamshi's dire warnings!

  'When the moon wears a halo and little lambs bleat, so Cressian cradles will rock.'

  That, apparently had been his first pronouncement upon arrival at the Villa Arcadia two years ago, a prediction any fool could have made. After the midsummer revelries, there was always a rash of new-born babies in spring. But Shamshi had banked on the islanders' innate apprehension of foreigners. His ways could not possibly be their ways, they reasoned, so his predictions must truly be a gift from the gods. And

  when he said that before the sun rises thrice more over their heads, a woman shall die, they knew it to be true. At first they had tried to make Clio herself the victim. Nudge the prophecy along a bit. Help the cause. But they hadn't needed to. From her hilltop eyrie, Clio had watched another solemn funeral procession wind its way out of town, where a woman in traditional dress was buried with her hands folded over her breast. An old woman, by the size of her. Probably the cobbler's ancient mother, which meant Shamshi had seen the old crone and recognized that she'd been near to death.

  Yet the islanders still believed that every word which dripped off that miserable fraud's tongue was a result of his divinations!

  'It's not fair!' she screamed. 'It's not bloody fair, I've done nothing wrong!'

  She hadn't harmed these people. Why did they hate her so much that they would let her starve to death rather than help her?

  'May your souls shrivel in the Lake of Ice,' she cried. 'May your children and your children's children be cursed!'

  Bastards.

  She could not turn to Silvia, because Silvia knew why she was here, and Silvia would be looking after Number One. In any case, Leo's cousin from the Security Police was ensconced at the Villa Arcadia now, and that would make things doubly difficult. Stealing food would be well nigh impossible, there were just too many people around, sooner or later Clio would be caught, which would be worse than throwing herself on Silvia's mercy in the first place.

  But she had to do something. She couldn't just sit up here and waste quietly away. Leo owed her. Clio smashed a stone against the side of her cottage. Croesus, how Leo owed her.

  Which meant someone, somewhere had to pay.

  Fast.

  Forty-Five

  You're not seriously inviting him to stay here?'

  Was Silvia out of her mind? Offering those same seafaring hands which had squeezed her windpipe like a grape the luxury of a guest bedroom?

  'What were we supposed to do?' Silvia retorted. Two high spots of colour stood out on her perfect cheeks. 'He returns you safe and sound, we can hardly throw him out, can we? Anyway.' She tossed her head in a haze of golden ringlets. 'He has nowhere to go.'

  Only to hell, Claudia reflected, and there was no great rush to send Jason there. With a contented sigh, she sank below the warm, scented waters of her sunken, tiled bath and recalled how easy it would have been to slip her stiletto into the heart of the blue bull as he slept last night. Too easy! She exhaled in a series of satisfied bubbles. If the murdering bastard expected to escape that lightly, he had another think coming. It was a parade through the streets of Rome in chains for him. Followed by a slow, painful and humiliating death in the arena. She surfaced among the heliotrope and hibiscus petals bobbing on the bathwater and felt better already.

  She would have felt a whole lot better, of course, had the Security Police been around to do the job they were trained for. Namely, clapping psychopaths in irons. But, as Silvia was particularly quick to point out, Orbilio wasn't here.

  'So conscientious in his official duties,' she'd gushed, perching daintily on a footstool as Claudia was enveloped in coils of fragrant steam. 'He'll make a splendid Senator, don't you think? So handsome, too, in full insignia.'

  The big blue eyes took on a misty glaze.

  'I can see us now - feted by the cream of society, invited

  to the very best dinner parties. And if his career in law shines like his military career in the past, maybe we shall even attend imperial banquets one day!'

  'Remind me again how long I've been gone?' Claudia murmured. 'Only when I left, I could have sworn he was an investigator in the Security Police.'

  Silvia dismissed Orbilio's position with a wrinkling of her pretty nose. 'Sordid, sordid, can't have that. Best to play up his stint as a young tribune, concentrate on that, because really, Claudia, and apart from the ignominy of it all, a family man can't afford to risk his neck on the mean streets at night. Advocacy is Marcus's future, trust me.'

  Claudia thought about the chestnut gelding which Jason had procured from that village in the wilds of Illyria and which had been her transport home, and saw the same gelding knife glistening in Silvia's hand.

  'Does Marcus know he's about to become a lawyer any minute?' she asked sweetly.

  'All in good time.' Immaculate lips parted in a slight smile, which widened and became more catlike, as her gaze fixed on a point in the middle distance. 'With a husband serving in the Senate, society won't dare to cut me. It will,' she sighed, 'be just like the old days.'

  Then, as fast as a tallow being snuffed, Silvia's expression returned to glacial normality.

  'You will come and visit us one afternoon, won't you, dear? I'm sure my husband wouldn't want us to abandon his old friend's quirky widow, simply because she's not patrician.'

  But when those big blue eyes refocused on the warm, fragrant waters, all that remained of Claudia Seferius was a trail of wet footprints fading their way out of the bath house.

  'Claudia.' The whisper echoed like a kiss along the gallery which enclosed the gymnasium yard and she wondered how long the Persian had been waiting. How much naked flesh he had been hoping to see. 'I am glad to see you returned safely.'

  'I'd have expected your entrails and livers to have seen that, Shamshi. Not your eyes.'

  The only object to emerge from the shadow was one shoe, tied in a bow and partially covered by the hem of his kaftan. 'Dear child, I am but the guardian of the prophecies, not their originator.'

  'Well, considering the sun rose above our heads far more than thrice and no woman died, I suggest you stick your prophecies where it doesn't rise and fall, and guard that.'

  'Ah, but a woman did die. On the very morning I predicted, the cobbler's mother commenced her long and arduous journey across the River Styx.' Enough oil came from his smile to drain a whole olive tree. 'The gods never lie to me, Claudia.'

  'I could ask you nicely to get out of my way, Shamshi. Then again, I could just kick you in the balls.'

  The Persian twisted his thin hands together and
stood his ground. 'I fetched a clay beaker as commanded last night in my dream. I filled it with milk mixed with honey, then added the blood of a jet-black ram and drank it down as the gods instructed.'

  'You might try prunes for breakfast next time.'

  'The warning that came through was as clear as the crystal Qus keeps in his room,' Shamshi persisted, and she didn't like the way he pushed his hooked nose into her face as he lowered his voice to a whisper. 'Beware, Claudia.' His breath was still as sweet as an overripe melon. 'Beware the Trojan horse.'

  Which just goes to prove, she supposed, the dangers of mixing your drinks. Milk, blood and honey in the same bowl can seriously damage a man's mental health.

  The boat carrying Orbilio back to Cressia needed no pilot to guide her into the harbour. Her captain was a local skipper from the Istrian mainland, who knew the rocks and the currents like the back of his hand, navigating his way through the channels with confidence. As terns wheeled and dived into the limpid sea and the plunging cliffs loomed closer, Orbilio could see brown and naked children splashing on the white rocks and squealing with pleasure. As the boat approached the shelter of the harbour, his gaze fixed on the quayside, quiet this time of day. Only a handful of fishermen braved the scorch of the midday sun, and they were engaged in a game of knucklebones

  with a young woman in a flame-coloured gown. Something inside constricted as he took in the dark, tumbling curls, the curve of her breasts as she pocketed her winnings and slipped the loaded dice back into the folds of her gown. As mooring ropes were thrown over the side, Orbilio rubbed a slow hand over his jaw, still swollen from where her bodyguard's fist had connected, and the vice tightened.

  'Straightforward quid pro quo,' she announced, marching up the gangplank. 'I deliver you a pirate on a silver platter. In return, you drop the doping charge. What's so funny? Orbilio, would you please explain why you're laughing? I mean, for a start you might have been just a tad relieved to know I'm safe.'

  Mother of Tarquin, she had no idea what he had experienced when he discovered she'd escaped the shipwreck. 'Once reports came in of your survival,' he said, 'I stopped worrying about you and began to worry for Jason.'