Jail Bait

by Marilyn Todd

  ‘What did you expect to achieve, coming here?’ Lais asked, arching one thickly painted eyebrow. ‘Me to row back with you and confess everything to—who is it pays you? Tuder’s buttoned-up brother?’

  Claudia nodded. ‘You shouldn’t have cut him out of the will.’ She was taking a chance, but—

  ‘Why not?’ Holy Hades, the ploy worked! ‘I needed the money to finance my operation, and you don’t seriously expect me to give up everything I’ve worked for?’

  Claudia’s heart raced like snowmelts down a mountain. This was the moment she had been building up to. With a studied languidity, she leaned back in the chair and stretched out her hands to examine the half-moons on her fingernails. ‘Hardly.’ She kept her eyes on her hands. ‘You see, it occurred to me that once you knew I was clever enough to trace you and confront you with my findings, you might be inclined to cut me in.’

  Lais chewed her lip. ‘You have guts, I’ll give you that. The fact you came out here alone inclines me towards you, but it’s a firm rule of mine. Never deal with blackmail.’

  Claudia breathed on her thumbnail and buffed it against the lap of her gown. ‘I had you pegged as a smarter businesswoman than that,’ she replied, and without even looking up, knew she had Lais’ attention.

  ‘You don’t want a pay-off?’ Old Stonyface couldn’t hide the intrigue from her voice.

  ‘Oh, no.’ Still Claudia refused to meet her eye. ‘I want you to add my name to the payroll.’

  ‘Hire you?’ Lais nearly fell off the couch.

  ‘My financial situation is somewhat rocky.’ Claudia smiled. ‘My wine business is faltering, I need funds to shore it up—and let’s face it, Kamar and Pul can only do so much without attracting attention. Imagine what another woman can get away with.’

  Was she hooked? Claudia pressed on.

  ‘Don’t you think that, if I meant you harm, I’d have approached the authorities? Had you and Kamar and Cyrus arrested? Pul, too?’

  ‘I’d considered that,’ Lais said slowly. ‘You are either very arrogant or very stupid.’

  ‘Or very skint. So test me. Tell me who’s next on your list and I’ll kill that person for you. Tonight.’

  There was a moment’s hesitation, almost a smile playing on Lais’ lip, and Claudia capitalized on her moment’s good fortune.

  ‘What’s there to lose?’ she asked, shrugging. ‘I go back to Atlantis and shout my head off and what happens? Either Kamar dopes me or your creature Cyrus declares me insane and whoosh, Claudia Seferius disappears for ever. On the other hand, you might just have one very valuable asset on your side. Win-win.’

  Long seconds ticked past on the water clock, then eventually Lais smiled. ‘Very well,’ she said, ‘I’m prepared to take a risk. The woman’s name is Phoebe. Her husband is sick of her philandering, she has become an embarrassment to him. Kill Phoebe and you will never want for funds again, I give you my word.’

  Claudia’s face betrayed none of the emotions which tumbled within. Fear. Satisfaction. Anticipation. Relief. Soon, she thought, very soon, Lais and her cronies will be in irons, on their way to be tried for their crimes, and let’s see the faces of the families involved. Some guilty, standing alongside. Some innocent, horrified at what had befallen their relatives. The townsfolk of Spesium would find the trip to Rome well worth their while, jeering and spitting as they were hauled through the streets.

  Claudia uncrossed her legs and stood up. ‘By morning,’ she assured Lais, ‘Phoebe will be history.’ Not too fast, not too fast. Casually she walked towards the door. ‘Thanks for the wine,’ she said.

  ‘My pleasure.’ Lais held up her goblet. ‘To a successful union.’

  As Claudia turned, Lais’ voice changed to an echo. Shadows closed in. Her ankles could not bear her weight and now she was falling…Falling…And the room was growing dark. Dammit, the wine had been drugged! As though down a long tunnel, she heard a woman’s autocratic instructions weave in and out of her consciousness.

  ‘Dump her in the…(mumble, mumble)…should not pose a problem…(mumble, mumble)…natural causes…’

  Bitch! Claudia flung out an arm. She’d kill her. She’d kill that bitch Lais for this! The room was swimming, but she had time. The wine was just making her dizzy. Disorientated. She could fight it. Win. Old Stonyface would regret doing this—

  But before Claudia’s hand had a chance to close round her knife, a great rush of blackness swallowed her up.

  XXXVI

  She was dead. Lais’ doped wine had killed her. Claudia had crossed the Styx and here were the caves of the Underworld, the ghosts of her long-dead ancestors writhing in some grisly welcome ritual. Drums were throbbing. Claudia prised open her second eyelid and winced from the swelling which surrounded it, a sweet memento from Pul. Once more, she was lying face down, although here was no fancy mosaic, no opulent marble. It was dust, she could smell it. Taste it. Sour at the back of her throat. Great. Charon the Ferryman had dumped her without so much as a guide or a hint to direction.

  Lifting her head was like lifting a hippo. All around, the ghosts—red ghosts, if you please—danced to the pulsating drumbeats with rigid, flickering movements. Wooden puppets jerking on strings. Oddly repellent. Far from comforting. Someone groaned when she tried to sit up. Claudia had a feeling it was her. No one put out a hand to assist.

  The dancers reeled towards her, then receded. Forward and back, jerk and jolt. Forward and back, jerk… Slowly her vision cleared, and Claudia saw they were not phantoms—hell, they were not even real people. These were painted figures, lit by a flickering flame. Red? Yes, they were red. Etruscan red. Their bodies, their faces, their hands. And they danced round a wall to a drum which pounded inside her head.

  Using a stone tabletop for support, Claudia hauled herself to her knees as a wisp of fear tugged at her gut. Why should these painted Etruscans dance around a stone slab? She brushed the wisp away and rose groggily to her feet. A cheetah came into view, its painted spots brilliantly preserved. Preserved where?

  Rats with razor-sharp teeth began to gnaw at her insides. She was cold. Icy cold.

  There was a dark patch on the floor. And something glinting in the flickering, stinking tallow light. An emerald. Don’t look. Block it out, block it out, for as long as you can…

  ‘The dark patch on the floor there, that’s blood,’ she tried to tell the yawning cheetah, except there was a pebble bunging up her voice box. Human blood, stale and dry, and the emerald clinched any doubt. It was set in an earring. The one which was absent from the body fished out of the lake… ‘I suppose you got to know Lais’ double quite well, while she was kept prisoner here.’ But the cheetah was bored, it kept yawning.

  While a giant’s hand crushed her heart in his fist, Claudia forced herself to pick up the candle and hold it up to walls covered with these Etruscan paintings. Tomb paintings. The stone tabletops were sarcophagi. The giant squeezed tighter. All Etruscan burial sites were the same. Gouged underground out of the rock. Leading off from this central chamber would be other, narrower resting places. But one thing was certain.

  There was only one entrance.

  Sealed with a huge block of granite.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she added, trying for a smile. Not that the Etruscans cared whether she was grinning or not, ‘Tarraco said the graves had been robbed generations ago, probably during the time of the Great Battle up on the lakeshore.’

  Hysteria rose in her breast.

  One woman had been imprisoned in this ancient tomb of the kings, then killed on this spot. Was it Lais’ intention to make it a double? Would Pul heave back that granite door any minute, and place his large hands round her own neck? As though in a dream, two words barrelled through this ancient tomb. Natural causes. Lais had it all planned! She’d been humouring Claudia from the start, knowing how long the drug would take to work in the wine. With an aching wrench of self-pity, Claudia realized too late that to keep up the pretence of being a spy was the last thing she
should have done. She should have tried to run, go down fighting. Instead she set herself up as a swooning, love-sick girl coming in search of the man she’d set free from the cells who seeks refuge from the storm, and where better than the old Etruscan tombs? But, oops, there’s an accident, look. Lightning fells a tree, traps her inside… In a couple of months, when Lais makes her miraculous reappearance, she discovers this fallen tree trunk. How tragic!

  Natural bloody causes, all right.

  Claudia was destined to die of thirst and starvation.

  XXXVII

  ‘Sit down, Kamar, you’re making me dizzy.’

  ‘Sit down?’ The physician’s voice was shrill with panic. ‘After what that bitch did to me? This, this, this—’ he pointed to the weals on his legs ‘—and what about this, eh?’ A bony finger indicated his cheek. ‘The fucking bitch has scarred me for life. How am I supposed to explain that to my patients? To Pylades? Croesus, he’ll sack me the second he claps eyes on me.’

  ‘I’m sure you’ll think of something,’ Lais soothed. Inside her hidden room, lamplight shone brighter than a midsummer noon, bouncing off the gilded statues and solid silver figurines, although she had taken care to close the lids of the treasure chests when Kamar was announced. Pul she could trust. But Kamar? Too self-centred for unconditional allegiance.

  To counteract the stench of white mandrake which still clung to the lanky physician, Lais dabbed her musky scent behind her ears, on all her pulse points, wrists and throat and ankles, and trickled a few drops down her cleavage. Ah, there were times when she missed Tarraco. Those expert hands, tender lips… She shivered at the delicious memory. There would be others, of course. Just as young and equally devoted, but she would take care never to marry again. She had been burned by the Spaniard’s betrayal. It would not happen again.

  Shit! She hurled her glass against the wall, watched it shatter into a thousand shimmering pieces. What made him shag that kitchen wench? Wasn’t one woman enough for his overpowering ego? Lais recalled the twinge of remorse when, a few days after staging her dramatic disappearance, she’d sneaked out of this hidden chamber one night and found he’d left honeycombs on her bed. A tender thought, but one which unfortunately came too late. The damage had been done.

  Her toe tapped furiously against the tessellated floor. Bastard. Sneaking off to liaise with some common slave, and expecting to get away with his little indiscretion. Got a bit above your station, didn’t you? Thought you owned this bloody place, strutting round like one of your peacocks, when it was me, me, who put the gold thread in your robes and introduced you to the subtle pleasures of antiques and art. Lais grabbed a mirror. By the gods, she was still a fine-looking woman, what did he need that little scrubber for? Sex? Wasn’t he getting enough here? With his wife? Lais hurled the mirror across the floor, oblivious to Kamar jumping out of its path. Bastard. She had chosen him, for gods’ sake, not the other way around. She had been the one to dispose of that braying donkey Virginia, and how had he repaid her?

  ‘He loved me once, you know.’

  ‘Huh?’ Kamar had been preoccupied with matters of his own.

  ‘Nothing.’ But it was true. She might have made the initial overtures, but from that one spark, Tarraco had fallen for her, courting her, fetching gifts, playing on his magic lyre. She remembered the night he first seduced her, softly, tenderly, arousing every passion, and Lais knew it could not be for her fortune. Virginia had (thanks to her) left everything to him. No, no. Tarraco had loved her for herself, and whilst Lais had not loved him in return, she had felt a certain tenderness for her little bit of Spanish rough.

  Not enough to let him live with her, of course. He was a consort, not a partner. His quarters were on the far wing, over there, far from her hidden chamber and her secrets, but all the same. There were times of late when she missed his whispered words of love, and the way his lips nibbled the back of her neck. The kitchen wench had been disposed of, naturally. A bauble stolen from a guest and planted in her room. Instant dismissal. But that was only half the story.

  The other half was on his way to bloody Spain, when by rights he should be facing down a half-starved tiger in public execution for that monstrous act of betrayal.

  Still. A queen does not necessarily need a consort. Her strength to stand alone would be inspiration to her people, another cause for them to revere her. How long, Lais wondered idly, before Pylades bowed to the pressure…?

  ‘I don’t like it.’ Kamar’s thin lips had all but disappeared. ‘I don’t like it at all. Suppose someone raises the alarm?’

  ‘What are you gabbling on about now?’

  ‘That Seferius bitch,’ Kamar said. ‘Suppose someone goes looking for her?’

  ‘Who?’ Lais sneered. ‘She’s a wild one, that girl. Unpredictable. Some skivvy will quietly pack up her things, people will assume she went back to Rome.’ And if anyone down there asks questions, then they won’t find many answers.

  ‘No,’ Kamar said, wringing his hands. ‘I mean, suppose someone comes looking for her out here?’

  ‘Then they’ll go back empty-handed, won’t they? She’s a hundred yards under the ground, sealed in by a great slab of rock. No one heard that other poor cow screaming her head off, now did they? Well, they won’t hear Claudia yell, either.’

  ‘She’s in cahoots with some Security chap. I don’t think he’ll take no for an answer.’

  ‘Marcus Cornelius?’ Lais licked her finger and ran it lightly over her eyebrow. ‘I shouldn’t worry about him.’

  ‘None of the soldiers other than Cyrus is in on the scam.’ If anything, Kamar seemed even more agitated. ‘Suppose he brings the rest of the legion out to the island and turns this place over?’

  ‘I imagine that highly unlikely.’

  ‘Why not? This is the obvious start point.’

  ‘Too true,’ Lais said, rubbing in wine lees to redden her cheeks. ‘But power is nothing without responsibility, Kamar. I suggest you remember that. You see, I haven’t reached this exalted position without covering every single angle and making plans accordingly. It was to be expected, Orbilio coming here. I simply took counter measures.’

  ‘Which were?’ In spite of his predicament, Kamar was impressed.

  ‘Isn’t it obvious?’ Lais reached for the kohl to highlight her eyes. ‘I disposed of him, too.’ A vision flashed through her mind of the blood, pumping out of his body to soak into his white linen tunic. The same warm blood dripping off the end of her knife. ‘I slit clean through his tanned patrician throat.’

  Dead men can’t cause trouble.

  XXXVIII

  There is no such thing as total silence. Indeed, a hundred paces deep in the rock face, where even the wrath of Jupiter’s storm failed to penetrate, certain sounds still crept in to fill the void.

  The throbbing heat of the night.

  The blood, thundering past Claudia’s ears.

  The frantic flaps of her heart, as it tried to burst free of her breast.

  But they were flimsy, whimsy, personal sounds and, like snowflakes gliding down in midwinter, they did not ruffle the dreams of the dead. Secure in their solid sarcophagi, the Etruscan nobility reposed for eternity, surrounded by their painted friends and relatives, their servants, their pets, their boats, their painted jewels and banquets.

  Claudia was not prepared to wait for eternity.

  Alabaster images of these ancient peoples, which once reclined upon the coffin tops, now lay smashed and scattered far across the tamped earth floor, swept aside in the grave robbers’ impatience, and whilst the sarcophagi had been ransacked—every gold torque, every ring, every last ivory ornament gone, even the bones tossed aside—it was the thieves’ very haste which gave Claudia inspiration as she scratched among the shattered shards for some means of escape.

  In a corner of a chamber where the walls were covered with twirling dancers and musicians blowing on traditional double flutes, underneath the piles of debris, she had found a scrap of azure fabric. Th
e colour was so vivid, so dazzling in the flickering candlelight, that it had given her an idea…

  From the outset, Claudia knew she’d need a lever to dislodge that rock across the entrance, and not only was nothing remotely suitable inside this maze of chambers, with the tunnel heading downhill at such a sharp angle, how would she ever get leverage? That, therefore, was out of the question.

  But suppose she inched the slab up? Just a fraction? And wedged a strip of her tunic in the slot?

  Such was human nature that it would be unnatural for Pul not to be curious. Along he’d come, down this twisting stone path towards the tomb. He’d cast a professional glance at this circular, earth-covered mushroom, would check the granite slab as a matter of course. Then his slanted, almond eye would alight on the scrap of torn cotton. He would recognize the startling shade of yellow. Know it was Claudia’s gown and that it was not there, definitely not there, when he rolled the rock into place. Her? Escape? No way. Not possible. Of course not. But the professional in him would force him to check.

  As the bobbing flame of the tallow moved inexorably south, Claudia swung herself up on to the lintel of the principal chamber. There was a niche here, large enough, if she curled into a ball.

  All she had to do was to wait. To one side of her, wine was poured at a banquet. On the other, painted cheeses, grapes, sardines and pears were being guzzled at this family feast. Her skin was grazed and bleeding from shouldering the massive lump of rock, and it had been the tenth exhausting uphill push before she’d finally succeeded in holding that quarter-inch of space open long enough to push her skirt through the gap with the blade of her knife. Miraculously, the knife hadn’t snapped. Claudia’s lips were dry, her back raw as she contemplated Pul heaving aside the granite slab. So narrow, so low was the passageway in this subterranean world, he would be forced to hunch over as he made his way down, ducking further to avoid this low-hanging lintel.