Black Salamander

by Marilyn Todd

  ‘Perhaps,’ Orbilio said mildly, ‘it would be a good idea if I interviewed the prisoner myself?’

  Mother of Tarquin, this was the break he was waiting for! The tribes might want a share in the new order—but for the Treveri, historical enemies of the Helvetii, to unite, both sides would have to be bought, and the sum would not be small. (What price this new Republic?)

  ‘As you wish.’ It was no skin off Big Buckle’s nose whether the written confession was sufficient or not. His job was purely to make it available. ‘This way.’

  Following him down the smoky corridor, Orbilio was uncomfortably aware of what his father would have made of a high-born patrician mixing with what he’d undoubtedly call lowlife and scum. The old man had taken as fixed that his sons would follow law as their route to the Senate, and Marcus knew he’d have reacted none too kindly to the news that one of his boys had taken up with the Security Police instead of the judiciary. An emptiness washed over him, the same as it always did when he thought of his father and the broad gulf between them, a chasm which could never be bridged, thanks to his father’s premature death.

  So many issues unresolved. To explain, for instance, that by weeding out fraudsters, killers, assassins and thieves, Marcus was making the world safer, more stable. His mouth twitched at one corner. Never. the old man would have boomed. Prestige is what counts, lad. Prestige! And instead of letting him unburden himself by talking through his cases, he’d have questioned him about…well, the dinner to which Orbilio had been invited to tonight, for instance.

  Oh, his father would have approved of that! Dining with Senator Galba, the chap who’d organized that illustrious delegation to Gaul? Word’s finally got out about your successes, he’d have said approvingly. Play your dice right, lad, and your career will be taking off big time! Galba’s a serious player in the political arena, keep him sweet, because with the senator in your corner…

  Perhaps it was as well the old man had gone early. Another flaming argument would have erupted, Marcus pitting ethics against self-interest, and the galling thing was, both father and son had the same ultimate goal. They both wanted Marcus to take his seat in the Senate—which would only have led to another contentious issue, of course. Marriage. His father citing Orbilio’s failure as a husband by letting his wife abscond with an impecunious sea captain to bring the shame of divorce on the family…instantly forgiven, of course, providing he married so-and-so, and off he’d go, the old man, trying to force his son into a second miserable alliance and riding, as always, roughshod over human emotions.

  The next time he took a wife, Orbilio resolved, it would be no business merger. And there was only one possible candidate.

  Yet no matter how many times their paths crossed, no matter how many adventures they shared, Claudia, goddammit, always pushed him away.

  He spiked his fingers through his hair. For all her abrasive temperament, her confident exterior, one thing that woman was scared of—maybe the only thing—was love. She avoided it like a whale avoids fresh water, and Marcus knew the reason.

  She’d been burned. An army orderly of a father, who walked out one morning and never came home. Death? Desertion? Only the father knew the truth, but the consequence was that the child who’d adored him had been left to care for a reckless, feckless, selfish mother who in turn had deserted her daughter in an alcoholic haze. What transpired between Claudia leaving her southern slums and her arrival in Rome five years later, polished and svelte, Orbilio, through the course of his investigations, had caught only glimpses. What he’d seen though were horrors enough—and as a result of her experiences, Claudia had turned herself into an island.

  But islands, by the gods, can be reached. By boat, by bridge, by swimming underwater, and while it would take time—years in all probability—Orbilio was resigned to waiting. Not necessarily happily, but resigned nevertheless.

  He cracked his knuckles. One thing, though, waiting didn’t mean celibacy. Next time, he’d go for a blonde!

  The tunnels seemed to grow darker as he followed Big Buckle through the tortuous maze, the resinous pitch sour in back of his mouth. Disembodied voices echoed down the hollow corridors and he closed his mind to what tales these catacombs might be able to tell…

  ‘Prisoner’s in here,’ Big Buckle said, throwing open a door to a narrow chamber lit by two oil lamps and a cresset light on the wall.

  Orbilio shielded his eyes against the unexpected brightness, and saw a thickset man wiping his hands on a towel. The towel was a mass of reddish brown stains, and the man wore a leather apron to cover his tunic. Orbilio could see why.

  He’d reached for his dagger and was cutting the prisoner’s bonds before the warder realized what was happening. ‘Oi!’

  ‘Was this really necessary?’ Orbilio growled. Red splashes stood out stark on the grey stone of the wall, and the floor was oily with blood.

  ‘It works,’ the warder snarled back. ‘And the rules is straightforward. If the prisoner ain’t a Roman citizen, we torture the barbarians to get at the truth. This sure ain’t one of us.’

  Us. Orbilio shivered.

  ‘Get out,’ he ordered the warder.

  With fingerbones broken, lash marks to the torso and a face mashed to pulp, the prisoner was not going anywhere.

  V

  In the end, it was not so much the savagery of the beatings which sickened Marcus, man’s inhumanity to man and all that. He’d served in the army for two years, and seen plenty there to stamp out idealism. Rather, on this occasion, it was that such sustained brutality could be inflicted upon a girl of less than nineteen.

  In the corner, appositely positioned beneath the rows of metal rods and pliers, the whips, the chains, the iron bars, sat a barrel of water with drips running down the ladle which hung on the side. Pools on the stone flags where the girl had been bound to the wall bore testimony to the fact that the water had been used not to succour, but to bring her round, and surprisingly the water was fresh. Cool even. Orbilio trickled a few drops over her swollen, battered lips.

  To apologize would have been wholly inadequate.

  Using his wetted handkerchief, he dabbed at her face as she lay slumped on the floor and wiped away the bubble of blood at the side of her mouth.

  ‘Can I go now?’ she mumbled.

  Since no words could pass the lump in his throat, Orbilio smashed the frame of the wax tablet upon which the warder had scratched his notes and made splints for her fingers instead. She was Treveri and he didn’t need any so-called confessions to know that. The fringed plaid tunic, the chain-link belt, the braids in her fiery hair screamed her heritage and he dared not begin to imagine how scared she felt, alone and so far from home.

  ‘Your name’s Remi, I gather.’

  ‘What about it?’

  He was beginning to see why the warder and Big Buckle had had such trouble and a smile tweaked at the side of his mouth.

  ‘I once spent a month in Trier,’ he said, bandaging the splints with his handkerchief, ‘and have very fond memories of the River Mosel and a one-eyed boatbuilder.’ Actually the memories revolved more around the man’s saucy-eyed daughter… ‘Do you know him at all? The old one-eyed boatbuilder?’

  ‘I’m a country girl,’ Remi said sullenly. ‘My people live nearer the Rhine.’

  ‘Ah, barley country.’ Marcus nodded. ‘You brew beer?’ Sneered at by any self-respecting Roman, he actually rather liked the stuff. ‘Good pastureland, too. Treveri horses are the pride of our mounted regiments.’

  ‘I know your game.’ With her good hand, she swiped his handkerchief from him and blotted the eye that was rapidly closing. ‘You’re here to soften me up, but you’ll still ask the same questions.’ Remi hauled herself up to a sitting position and spat on to the flagstones. ‘Well, I’ve told those bastards out there, as I’m telling you now, I don’t know any more, that’s the truth, and they can break the other seven fingers and then start on my toes, they can flail every inch of skin from my body, I was si
mply passing on a message, that’s all. I’m a farm girl. I needed the money. Why won’t you release me?’

  ‘Remi.’ He pushed a hank of red hair out of her eyes, and saw that they were green and rather pretty. He felt ill. ‘Remi, I’m not here to soften you up, as you put it, I just don’t think you appreciate how serious a mess you are in.’

  ‘Don’t I?’ If she could have laughed with her mouth mangled up, she’d have given it her best shot. ‘Think I need a mirror to know what those animals out there have done to me?’ she retorted. ‘They’ve scuppered any chance I might have had to bag myself another decent man, now it’s only the old and the smelly ones who’ll take on a scarred widow with two tiny bairns. And you know what? I’ll do it, too, because it’s bloody hard raising kids with their father barely cold in his grave—’

  ‘Remi.’ Gently Orbilio laid his hand over hers, and she didn’t draw it away. ‘You were caught red-handed passing on battle plans for an assault upon one of our legions. That is treason.’

  ‘No, it’s not,’ she blazed back. ‘That’s trade! With my man dead, how can I possibly get the crops in on my own? My son’s a toddler, the girl’s still in her cradle, the farm needs money to survive, to buy labourers. Listen.’ She shifted position. ‘The chieftain’s son slipped me five gold pieces to deliver a message to Anax the tavern keeper. What would you have done, eh? Can I help it that the fat pig sold me out?’ Her eyes rolled in disgust. ‘I hope he catches leprosy, the bastard.’

  Orbilio hoped so, too.

  ‘It’s a sad fact of life,’ he said, kneeling on the floor alongside her, keeping his gaze on her green and purple plaid, the tasselled fringe, her high laced boots, in fact anywhere except those Treveri eyes, ‘that hundreds, maybe thousands of men from every nation you can think of are willing to sell out their countrymen for the jingle of coins. Anax isn’t alone.’

  And without them, where would the Empire be?

  In Remi’s case, of course, Anax had alerted the local centurion, pocketed his dirty silver and didn’t look back. While the army, knowing this to be a matter of national security, had despatched her to Rome for (Orbilio’s stomach flipped) ‘professional’ interrogation.

  ‘Look, policeman, you’ve been nice long enough,’ she tried for a smile. ‘Why don’t you ask me your questions? Before your pampering makes me start believing I’m in some luxurious lodging house, sipping vintage wine instead of this water.’

  Orbilio found it impossible to draw breath.

  Such beauty. Such pride.

  Such a waste…

  A heavy weight pressed on his chest and he felt lower than the lowliest worm when he said, ‘Tell me about the treasure map, Remi.’ There were times, by the gods there were times, when he wished he had trained as a lawyer.

  ‘Oh? So someone is interested? Every other time I mentioned it, it was five lashes and a clip round the mouth for stalling for time. What do they think? Twenty burly tribesmen are outside, ready to storm this underground hell? Believe me, information’s the only thing that’ll get me out of here. Fire away.’

  She gulped greedily at the cool water, and Marcus pictured this spirited creature back in her Rhenish homeland before her nightmare began. Remi with her baby on her back following the harvester, ensuring every ear of barley went into the wickerwork box, while at the front her strong-backed husband regulated the height of the iron cutting teeth and steered the mule which pulled the machine. Orbilio had picked up enough during his stint in Trier to know that they’d be singing while they worked, a cheerful tune beseeching the Gaulish god Pisintos to make their soil fertile, and maybe at the end of the day they celebrated a good harvest with a jug of strong beer in the company of their old friend, Anax the tavern keeper… Oh, Remi!

  She was twisting a bronze figure-of-eight ring round her middle finger. ‘This is what I overheard from the chieftain’s son, right?’

  Even with the life beaten out of her, bones broken, face pulverized and probably internal tissue damage as well, there was more animation in this lovely redhead than you’d find in half this supposedly sophisticated seat of the Empire.

  ‘The picture is this.’ She tucked one long leg under the other, showing off a very shapely calf ending in a bronze anklet, etched with dots and Celtic whorls. ‘The Treveri and the Helvetii have sworn an alliance and that’s why they’re planning that attack.’

  Orbilio thought of the two legions who’d been despatched to the trouble spots. ‘That much was in your’—he couldn’t bring himself to say the word ‘confession’ so he changed it to—‘statement. They’re banding together to, quote, “fight the oppressors”.’

  ‘Oh, it’s not only you Romans they’re after,’ Remi said sharply. ‘The idea is that once Rome has been taken—or rather toppled—the tribes will use the opportunity that the chaos will bring in its wake in order to break out on their own. We have expansion programmes, too, you know!’ There was almost a sparkle m her eye, and a knife plunged into Orbilio’s heart. He could have crawled under the door. Was any man more of a heel? Jupiter, when people talk about treachery—

  ‘However,’ she said, ‘for old enemies to be conquered, new campaigns to be organized—they’ve set their sights on Britain, Scandinavia, even the Isles of Thule, can you believe that?—well, this requires weaponry and armour, siege engines and so on.’

  As she paused for another ladleful of water to blot the drying wounds on her chest, Orbilio felt a jab of consolation. At least his hunch was on target. Croesus, he fumed, why hadn’t those goons outside listened to Remi?

  ‘Apparently there’s a large cache of treasure in the form of gold and silver, jewels and gems, and I swear on the life of my babies, I don’t know where it is, whose it is, or even how it got there,’ Remi said, ‘but as far as the Treveri and the Helvetii are concerned, it’s got their name on it. According to the chieftain’s son, there’s a map on its way to Vesontio which shows the exact location of this treasure—’

  ‘Wh-what? Did you say…on its way to Vesontio?’

  ‘In a trade delegation, from what I overheard. Only the map is so sensitive, the risk so substantial, that it’s been cut up and distributed among several separate couriers, so no one can double-cross anyone else on a sum of this size. I assume this is worth something to you, policeman?’

  Orbilio’s mind was spinning like a child’s top. Admittedly there were large gaps in this puzzle, but a picture was beginning to form in the mist. First there was the someone in Rome planning a coup by making the northern tribes side with him. Now Marcus saw the bribe was not only a prominent role in the new order, but sufficient funds for them to go off making wars of their own. (Very clever. Keeps them on your side, but out of your hair, because while they’re busy making trouble elsewhere, they’re not bothering you.)

  Moreover, Marcus was also beginning to see why Claudia Seferius might be along on the trip to Vesontio. The word coincidence never applied to that woman.

  That the treasure map was part of the convoy didn’t trouble him unduly. The delegation had been given an armed escort for the entire length of the route, and by now they should have arrived safely. If they hadn’t, he’d have heard. An undercover agent was travelling with them.

  ‘I said, policeman, is this worth anything to you?’ Orbilio was propelled back to the present, to the young woman broken in body, but never in spirit and his conscience slammed into him. He stared at his thumbnail and wished he was somewhere—anywhere—else. Just as he wished he was someone—anyone—else. The weight on his chest threatened to crush him.

  ‘Your information,’ he said thickly, ‘is of vital importance to the Empire.’ Suddenly he was a worm again. The most abject creature on the planet, and dust mites looked tall at the minute. He felt sick. Physically, emotionally, to-his-boots sick.

  ‘I’m free to go, then? I swear that’s the lot. It was the only snatch of conversation I overheard waiting outside the chieftain’s son’s window—’

  ‘Remi,’ he said gently. ‘I
t’s not as simple as that.’

  ‘Now what?’ She turned her agonized face towards his. ‘Look, I really want to get this over with, so I can go home to my bairns.’

  Orbilio felt a tidal wave of nausea blast into him, and some of what he felt must have shown on his face. Her face went as white as birch bark.

  ‘Mother of Dis, I’m not going back, am I?’

  He counted slowly to five. ‘No.’ He barely recognized his own voice. ‘I’m sorry, Remi, but’—Remus, he felt old—‘you’ll never see your chil—homeland—again.’

  The lamplights seemed to flicker, the cresset light blurred.

  ‘Treason is treason,’ he said hoarsely. ‘You were caught passing on plans against Rome—’

  ‘I don’t give a toss who runs the country.’ She was shaking. Her voice was querulous and low. ‘Romans, Treveri—the administration can be made up of donkeys for all the difference it makes to my land. All I care about is my kids and the sowing, the reaping… Can’t you explain to them pigs how it is?’

  Orbilio pinched the bridge of his nose. Oh, he could explain all right. And be laughed right out of the building. The army had acted immediately, swooping on the roundhouses belonging to the chieftain’s son, his confederates and co-conspirators, and well, well, well, guess who’d flown the coop? Without a shadow of a doubt, if they’d been able to get their hands on the plotters and planners, Remi would have escaped with a public flogging.

  Instead, Rome needed a scapegoat…

  ‘For pity’s sake,’ Remi gulped. ‘What about the treasure map?’

  Who’d believe her? Or him, come to that? Desperation, they’d say. One final attempt by a traitor to slur us, and she conned you, Marcus, old man. Good and proper. His career would be washed down the drain, but he’d risk that, and happily—were he given chance to investigate further. The instant the rebellion’s mastermind was alerted (and certainly before the allegations could be made public), Orbilio would feel a knife between his ribs down some dark alley, silencing him for ever, and the girl would somehow die in her cell. No witnesses would remain. There was nothing in her confession about any great cache of gold…