by Marilyn Todd
But in time there would be. Yes, indeed. Seth was working on it, and when the table was complete, he could once again reclaim his rightful place as king.
They would not - could not - dare to overlook him any longer. He was Master of the Darkness, the Sorcerer, the Measurer of Time. The powers of the night were his, he had magic in his hands.
He stared at his hands. Strong, tanned, you could almost see the magic rise up from them, like the heat which shimmered in the valley. Seth looked down through the treetops and recognised the woman Berenice, suckling her infant son. The
child had grown fractious in the viscous heat, her breast was soothing to the boy. Seth closed his eyes and imagined himself in the infant's place, and the image sent a fire through his loins. He opened his eyes again. Berenice, her greedy son, all the flowers in this valley, one day (and soon) they would be gone. Dust, the lot of them. Beauty doomed by time.
Not Seth.
Oh, no, not Seth. Father of the jackal, uncle of the falcon, he had mastered the powers of darkness, and yet his fellow gods had spurned him. He, who had once ruled over Egypt with Osiris, had been cast out! Evicted! Allowed no place in society! Worse, he had been vilified because it was Seth who, at the Judgement of the Dead, had gobbled up the hearts of those who failed the Balance. But his fellow gods would soon regret their folly! The outcast would reap revenge in the only certain way.
He would transcend Time as he would transcend her sister, Death. As King of the Darkness, he would show those Ten True Fools real powers and then, for all eternity, they would bend their knee to him.
He watched Berenice move her son to her other breast, leaving both exposed to Seth's hidden stare from his eyrie on the hill. Such breasts. Such beautiful ripe, round breasts. He could almost see them thrusting themselves at the child, heavy with their milk, and he watched until his erection was complete. Turning, hard and primed, he stepped over the heart-shaped stone and pulled back the branches of a scrambling fig to reveal a cave gouged out of the pitted tufa rock.
'Mmmff!'
The girl tied to the high-backed chair squirmed and wriggled, and Seth stood in the cave mouth for several minutes watching the leather bonds bite deeper into the white and naked flesh as she struggled to break free from cords which never would release her. Seth was proud of his knots. They tightened with every twist she made.
'Mmmmf!' Wild eyes rolled above the gag across her mouth. 'Mmmff!'
'Endurance,' Seth whispered, running his hand down her cheek. Donata, wasn't she? Or was that the one sitting next to her? 'Endurance, my child. Through suffering comes everlasting life.'
His hands, his magic hands, moved down to mould her breasts, the blood from her wounds was sticky under his caress as he gazed with pride around his cave. Carved out of the soft rock for an unknown purpose by ancient Etruscans, who had left behind them only painted pictures on the walls, the cave had concealed its secret with trees and greenery through the ensuing centuries. But now, guided by his mystic powers, Seth had discovered it once more and here he had set up his table for the Ten True Fools, over which he would preside for all eternity, his own seat (throne!) at the head.
However, he could not proceed just yet. Not until all the gods had been assembled here.
As he took the hysterical Donata, Seth smiled. 'Hathor,' he crooned. 'Hathor of the Sky, now you are mine. Your womb retains the Sorcerer's holy seed, the seed that has transformed you from human to divine being. You belong to Seth, you have taken your place at his high table, you are Seth's for all eternity.'
Satisfied at last, he finally withdrew, washed himself from head to foot and anointed his body with the unguent of cloves and myrrh that everybody in the holy commune used.
'You see, Hathor? You have become divine, whereas I -' he laughed at the irony - 'I am about to become mortal again. The Dark One has the ability to move among the people without their knowledge or suspicion, and that is where his power lies.'
Donata was weeping openly by now, heedless of the vicious thongs which bound her to the chair, wishing she could turn back time to yesterday, even to this morning. This morning -when she thought the worst of it was being raped by Horus on the heart-shaped stone.
Seth had pulled on his clothes and was holding up a mask which had lain on the table in front of Donata, a mask identical
in every respect to that worn by Hathor at the ceremony: the soft cow's mouth, the big, round ears below the arching horns. He stroked the long black lashes which surrounded the painted glass of the eye and tenderly planted a kiss on the broad snout between the gaping nostrils.
'Oh, Hathor, your time of destiny has come.'
He placed a thong around Donata's throat, similar to the one he'd used to subdue her earlier, and tied his special knot.
'Seth is not a beast, he does not kill,' he whispered. 'The choice of life or death is yours, sweet cow, mother of the falcon. Seth will return, to see which path Hathor has chosen.' He placed the heavy mask over Donata's head and watched her shoulders sag under the colossal weight. 'To continue with this life, knowing your heart will fail the Scales of Truth and sentence you to eternal desolation? Or to accept my gift of everlasting life by passing through the gate of death, like the others here?'
His hand swept around the table, to where the bodies of Thoth and Horus, Bast and Isis sat embalmed in eternal obedience to him. Which path would Hathor take? So far, none of his previous conquests had failed him, and four from ten leaves six. Hathor, should she choose to follow Seth, would bring the total up to five.
'Mmfffff. Mmfffff!'
Carefully he fingered the unfilled replica masks, perfect to the feather, to the whisker, to the scale. Halfway. This was a confirmation of his power, of his domination over the other, lesser, gods. Soon his tableau would be complete and the Dark Destroyer could commence his eternal jurisdiction. But he must move fast. Despite the unguents and the heavy linen bandages, the four corpses seated round Seth's table were already demonstrating certain effects of this wearisome heat.
In the meantime, though, he must continue to move among the weaklings and the cowards of the commune, and this he could achieve, because, in their fools' eyes, they believed him to be one of them. They trusted him. Indeed, because of his
position in the hierarchy, they actively sought out his advice and fulfilled his instructions to the letter.
Soon - oh, very soon - these idiots would see the Sorcerer for what he was. His power and his true identity would shine through. Their knees would knock. Voices would tremble at Seth's omnipotence. And they would see that Mentu was nothing more substantial than the King of Clowns, a Pharaoh ruling over fools.
True mastery and dominion belonged to Seth.
With conscientious thoroughness, he replaced the branches of the scrambling fig to conceal once more the mouth of his secret cavern.
Oblivious to Donata's strangled, helpless sobs.
Chapter Nine
There's something wrong here, Claudia thought, her long legs scissoring across the Forum. Very wrong! Four men don't just disappear into thin air. Junius would never bunk off without leaving word.
'Almond buns? Hot pastries, lady?'
Claudia's glare told the vendor what he could do with his delights, and the huckster melted back into the crowd.
Goddammit, there's a real smell of fish surrounding this affair, but I have an idea, a theory about this abduction, and I need to test it.
Claudia glanced at the angle of the sun, now over the Aventine and sliding fast. With her bodyguard missing and the threat as to what would befall Flavia, were the authorities to become involved, sour in her mouth, Claudia had had little choice other than to station untrained reinforcements in the form of slaves from her own household around the Camensis and to hell if they were spotted, she'd done her best, given the taxing circumstances. Verres the cook had taken two kitchen hands, ostensibly to collect herbs for the table. Leonides, her steward, had settled down beside the spring with a good book. Two beefy lab
ourers chopped back shrubs and trusted to Jupiter that the kidnappers knew sod all about pruning techniques.
Barging through a group of acrobats, Claudia recalled something Julia had said when she'd delivered the first note from the kidnappers. One little clue, which Claudia should have picked up on earlier. Whose ramifications, if her suspicions were on target, would be momentous.
Behind her, the tumblers untangled themselves from the
pavement and called a warning to the tightrope walker up ahead. Too late. With a startled yell, he went pinging off his wire, straight into the bosom of a fat patrician wife.
But where did Junius fit in? she wondered, stepping over a small dog snoozing in the shade of an ivory carver's stall. Around her, hammers from a cobbler's last tap-tap-tapped its repetitious call. Bronze workers chipped out a hollow echo. And over the whole expanse of Rome, hot air from the marshes trapped everything from bread smells to fried fish, from the sulphur of the fuller's to the pungent stench of sweat. If Claudia's burgeoning hypothesis was correct, it would take one hell of a diversion to distract her bodyguard, who was by no means gullible nor stupid, from the task in hand—
'Out of my way, you!'
Claudia's hand flipped up the tray of oysters, raining crinkly grey shells on the travertine flags. She didn't wait to hear what the oyster-seller called her, ducking instead into the cramped premises of a basket weaver's. She tossed him a silver coin and put her finger to her lips as she ran up the wooden ladder to his attic. Here, the garret window gave a clear view across the Forum: the acrobats, the tightrope walker, the oyster man, on his hands and knees as he scrabbled to retrieve his lumpy cargo. Every colour of the rainbow swarmed beneath the basket weaver's window: scarlet shot with gold or silver thread in the rich robes of merchants; the white togas of patricians; the blue pantaloons the Persians wore; yellow shawls favoured by the Syrians; green turbans from the east. There were skins of every hue, mahogany and fair, ebony and olive; bald heads, veiled heads, goatee beards and sweatbands.
However, none of this swirling tide of humanity seemed lost. No one stood scratching his or her head in perplexity, looking this way and that, shielding their eyes or jumping over the heads of the crowd to see which way their quarry had gone. No one stood still. No one frowned.
One question answered, then. The dusty smell of willows prickled Claudia's nostrils. I'm not being followed. Dear me,
a blind man couldn't miss that trail of destruction in the Forum. Her pulse raced that little bit harder. She was sure, now, she was on the right scent.
Outside the shop, she hailed a passing litter. The Field of Mars, she told the bearers, and could they run? Could they hell! Dispatch runners might learn a thing or two from these chaps as, panting heavily, they set her down outside the wooden amphitheatre. Around the makeshift seats, sawdust lay in heaps made soggy in the muggy heat. Bare-backed carpenters sawed and hammered, chipped and planed as the shadows lengthened. The killer breeze kept up its stealthy whisper. Wooden boards were hauled into place with the aid of ropes and ladders and suddenly the swirling waters of the River Tiber became hidden behind a painted backdrop of green rolling hills taken over by a hostile army encampment, while in the orchestra pit, a cacophony of drums and cymbals clashed, and horns blared out in uncoordinated practice.
Ordinarily, since it fell on the second day of Apollo's Games and was therefore eclipsed by the pageants and processions of the opening ceremonies, the Festival of the Serving Women was one on which every expense would be spared. Indeed, of the half-million sesterces which the Treasury poured into the Games as a whole, it was doubtful whether one hundredth made their way to this paltry, low-key celebration, such was the lure of the larger stage productions. Comedies by Terence, tragedies and epics - burglars were spoiled for choice, with every household in the city emptied for the shows.
This year, however, the Prefect organising the Games had a name to make. Young, thin and with a deathly pallor, he kept one eye on the scenery, an ear out for the orchestra, one hand sealed his correspondence with his ring. while his brain kept track of the money he had sunk in sponsoring this venture. In fact, there wasn't one single component of his body which wasn't moving in some direction or another as he supervised the work.
'For gods' sake, find another tuba player!' His exasperated tones rang shrill. 'That idiot's tone deaf, and what cretin
blocked the second exit with that statue? Get it out - no, I don't care where you put it, just move the bloody thing, and who the hell thinks that curtain is up straight? Croesus, you can see knees at that far end, now get it horizontal and make sure it sweeps right down to the stage.'
All the while, his hands made eloquent gestures to the carpenters and painters, the technicians and the dancers, in the way a man's hands would, of course, when he's ploughed a considerable amount of his own money into a dead donkey of a show.
'I need to talk to you,' Claudia said. 'It's urgent.'
'So's this,' the Prefect snapped. 'We're due our first dress rehearsal in the morning, and the bloody scenery's not up. Where the hell is my fig tree? That? Croesus, man, that's a crab apple! The serving women lit their signal from a fig tree in the camp. F-I-G tree, fig. Is this about my wife?'
For a second, Claudia didn't realise he was addressing her. 'Er, no. I wanted to ask you about—'
'Then it's not urgent. Come back at first light.'
Looking at him, growing paler with every inefficiency, Claudia wondered whether she was wasting her time here. His mind was clearly preoccupied with a whole series of disasters, not least his wife it seemed, but now a faint tinge of pink had appeared in the sky. Dammit, this could not wait till morning! Flavia had been kidnapped, it was imperative she tested her theory.
'Sorry,' she said firmly. 'But I need to talk to you about the girl who's playing the lead in Friday's re-enactment.'
'Get that herald out of here, he comes in after the - why do I waste my breath!' The young Prefect paused in his signalling and orders. 'Did you say the girl who spearheads the Serving Women's Assault?'
'Yes,' Claudia said wearily. 'Her name's Flavia.'
The Prefect pushed his fair hair out of his eyes and Claudia glimpsed, for an instant, the attractive young man he would have been, were he not bowed by the weight of ambition. 'You're in the wrong theatre, then.' He flashed her a short,
harassed smile. 'Our actors are exclusively male. I say - are you all right?'
'What? Oh, yes. I'm fine.' Apart from that shaft of pain in the pit of my stomach.
It was just as Claudia had feared. There never was any kidnap. Flavia had set the whole thing up herself! And Flea was her accomplice.
Chapter Ten
Why use a tinderbox to start a fire, when Claudia's temper would do the trick? The little bitch, she stormed. The nasty, spiteful, unprincipled bitch! There had been no satisfaction in finding her conjecture proved correct, only anger, and Claudia was shaking with rage.
Flavia, the devious, self-serving little cow, had invented her role in the Serving Women drama as a smokescreen to fool her snobby foster parents. Deep breaths. Dee-eeep breaths. That's better. Keep calm, keep rational. Conserve your energies for roasting Flavia over a fire and to setting her screaming to music!
Screaming. Strange. Claudia could hear it clearly, as she approached her own front door. Screaming. Wailing. Screeching—
'What the blazes—?'
I've been gone less than two hours, suddenly all hell's broken loose! Moans and sobs seeped from every rafter of her household, wails came from the cellars, from the kitchens, from the gardens.
'It's Junius, madam.' It fell on her lanky Macedonian steward to explain. 'He's—'
Claudia's stomach flipped somersaults. 'He's what?' She wanted time to stop, go backwards, so she wouldn't hear the answer . . . her heart beat like a kettledrum.
'He's—' Leonides swallowed and could not meet his mistress's eye. 'He's in prison.'
'Jail?' Is that all? Mentally she pulled up her slee
ves and prepared for battle. Arrest my bodyguard? I do not think so. 'On what charge?'
'Wearing the toga,' Leonides said. 'He was caught in the act. . .' The sentence trailed off into silence.
Claudia's blood froze in her veins. She became a living statue. 'When?' A frog croaked the question. The same frog which hopped up and down in her innards.
'Shortly after noon.' Leonides' own voice was a rasp. 'Someone apparently recognised him in the Camensis, dressed in a toga and surrounded by "his" slaves—'
'And felt obliged to report him to the authorities?' Around her, the atrium tumbled.
'Yes, madam.' His voice was barely a whisper as they both pictured the scene.
Soldiers clanking through the Camensis, their armour reflecting like gold in the sunshine. The detail would halt, surround the young buck and his happy band of picnickers. Junius would be hauled to his feet and clapped in irons. Shackled together in a neck brace, Junius, the hired whores and the other three members of Claudia's bodyguard would be marched off to the dungeons, pelted along the way with dung and rotten fruit.
Mighty Juno, tell me this isn't true. That this is Leonides' idea of a practical joke. That Junius will come bouncing out of the cellar any second. But Juno remained silent, and the cellar door remained shut.
And Claudia was forced to swallow the bitter pill of truth. That in her haste to save Flavia's life, she'd sent her own bodyguard to his doom.
The penalty for impersonating a Roman citizen is death.
In her mind, Claudia replayed their earlier conversation in this very hall. His protest. Her reply. 'Not what would happen if you're caught, rather what I'll do to you if you don't.'
'The whores were released after several hours' questioning,' Leonides explained. 'That's how the story got out, but the men remain under lock and key.'
He went there, he said. Straight away. But the Dungeon Master was refusing all access to prisoners, the cells were already too full, and all he could glean (and only then with
