Black Salamander

by Marilyn Todd

  There was one other point, too. Equally valid. Namely, that Theo had risked life and limb to rescue Claudia when that loose saddle strap had sent her flying through space. On the slippery edge by the animal’s lair, it would have been simplicity itself for him to nudge her over the side and pretend she’d slipped before he could hook up the rope.

  Indeed, Claudia would have outlined her objections, had Supersnoop not jumped up as though stung by a bee. ‘Stay close to the group,’ he warned. ‘Just this once, Claudia, do what I ask.’

  ‘Don’t I always?’

  He let out a less than genteel snort of laughter through his nose then, with a wink, he worked his way to the end of the aisle. If I’m right, he’d said, and Theo’s the killer, he’ll have skipped town and not shown up at the barracks. I need to check, and so he was off, darting between the horn players and the pipers, on another wild goose chase, which would at least set his mind at rest, she supposed. And maybe throw light on the eight missing soldiers, for that was really quite odd.

  You don’t lose eight men very easily. Not on a main road.

  ‘Pssst.’

  Assuming they’d stuck to the road? Perhaps they’d reached Vulture Valley, seen that it was blocked, taken note of the abandoned wagons and taken it upon themselves to follow the trail over the hills.

  ‘Pssst!’

  In which case, they could be tripping over their own beards before they reached civilization again!

  ‘Pssst!’ Is there a snake on the loose? ‘Madam!’

  Junius? Told you so! Knew he wouldn’t sneak off without a word. ‘Where the hell have you been?’ Nevertheless, Claudia felt her shoulders slump with relief as she followed his urgent beckoning.

  ‘This town is dangerous,’ he said in a voice like gravel. ‘Like raw naptha beside a lighted candle, it could blow any time. You need to leave. Fast.’

  ‘Don’t believe every rumour.’ She laughed. ‘Sometimes the good guys win.’

  ‘I’m not talking about the plot to overthrow Augustus,’ he said irritably. ‘Those make-believe intertribal skirmishes, or the cut-and-run attacks on the legions. No, the Spider is involved in a dynastic war of his own, a challenge to both Rome and his king, which depends sod-all on the outcome with the Treveri and the Helvetii. He’s using this as a smokescreen for his own civil war. You daren’t stay here.’

  Across the Forum, the elephant was trumpeting its head off.

  ‘Have you been taking medication from Titus?’

  ‘Did you know the Spider’s men butchered the soldiers sent out to meet us?’ He drew the flat of his hand across his throat. ‘All eight of them.’

  Claudia pulled him under the wooden supports of the grandstand, out of the sun, out of main view. ‘How come you know so goddamn much?’ Her heart was pounding like a blacksmith’s hammer.

  ‘I’m a Celt.’

  ‘You’re a spy.’

  For several minutes his blue eyes held hers, and it was hard to imagine the boy was barely twenty-one. Then his drop-dead sexy mouth twisted into a lopsided grin.

  ‘For the Parisii, though, not the Sequani.’ There was another long pause. ‘I’ve packed,’ he said. ‘Drusilla’s caged up, there’s a fast trap harnessed and waiting outside the Neptune Gate.’

  Claudia glanced over her shoulder in the direction of the barracks. ‘I’ll take my chances here,’ she said. Junius meant well, but…!

  ‘Madam, your room was turned over, it looked like a hurricane had blown through,’ he said. ‘And you must have heard about Ecba? The Spider’s responsible for that, he knows about the map, that’s why the slave dealer was killed. For the pieces he was holding in safekeeping.’

  Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

  Claudia drew a deep breath and tried to steady her nerves. ‘Drusilla’s all right? The cage, I mean.’

  ‘Would anyone dare tangle with her? She has a hump the size of Mount Atlas, but her cage wasn’t damaged, you picked a good carpenter there.’

  Claudia’s breath came out in great shudders. How far to the Neptune Gate? Half a mile? And then what? Five hundred miles of open, hostile territory between Vesontio and Rome.

  ‘I ought to warn the other couriers,’ she said.

  No use feigning ignorance with Junius. He seemed to know just about everything there was to know about this wretched mess, which meant he must have been spying on her and Orbilio, too. Goddammit, she didn’t know whether she should give him a raise or sell him at the very next auction block!

  ‘Madam, it’s a flat choice,’ he said grimly. ‘Your life or theirs.’ He scoured the heel of his hand against his forehead. ‘Believe me, I’ve grown every bit as fond of them as you have,’ he said wearily. ‘If I could save Clemens, Volso, Theo—in the name of Father Dis, don’t you think I would? But in warning them, panic will set in, which in turn puts the Spider on the alert.’

  Claudia’s head was spinning like a child’s top. ‘Who is this Spider? Does anyone know?’

  She could inform the governor, he could crush this rebellion with the snap of his fingers. True, the rebel army would be scattered throughout the Sequani province, Rome could never hope to unearth them. But take out the ringleader and you’re laughing.

  ‘A man called Sualinos, built like an oak tree, apparently, with about as much charm. Reckons he has a genuine claim to the throne. Says the king’s father diddled his father, there’s lots of talk of bastard sons with only half-royal blood in their veins, but mainly he’s whipping up his storm by insinuating that the king is in bed with Rome in a ploy to keep his people in oppression—slaves, if you like—to cream off the profits for themselves.’

  ‘Bullshit.’

  The one thing Augustus sought above all was prosperity. Only through wealth could peace be achieved.

  And then Claudia remembered the Spider’s insignia. Red and gold. Riches through blood.

  Two powerful men, Augustus and the Spider. Both after prosperity, but whereas one saw peace as a goal, the other schemed to keep his people down, spilling their blood for his own grubby ambition. Bastard.

  ‘Come with me,’ she instructed her bodyguard. ‘We need to tell this to the governor.’

  ‘The Spider’s nest is hidden deep in the countryside,’ Junius said. ‘But its tentacles reach everywhere and the spread is wider than you can begin to imagine. Look around this city, madam. Surrounded by water, there’s barely six hundred paces between the two loops of the Doubs, Vesontio could be under his siege within hours.’ With only a skeleton guard remaining, the governor had no troops capable of holding off an army of fleas, much less a band of trained warriors. His only choice would be to close up the gates, sealing in heaven knows how many traitors.

  ‘Not for long, though,’ she reminded him. ‘The Spider could hold it for no longer than it takes the nearest legion to march on him.’

  ‘By which time,’ he said savagely, ‘you’d be dead. Sualinos operates a policy of terror, it’s how he maintains his fierce grip. He has agents swarming all over the capital, there’s no mercy for anyone who sells him out. You could never be sure that what you were eating wasn’t poisoned, or what you were drinking, whether that apple-cheeked maid was an assassin, the attendant in the latrines, maybe the landlord in your lodgings.’

  Claudia’s vision was blurred. She was familiar with men like the Spider. Psychopaths who fed on power and terrorized their victims into submission. His first target would be Drusilla. Somehow he’d get to the cat and Claudia would find her proud, Egyptian corpse served on a platter. Then it would be her bodyguard’s turn. They would torture Junius and send him back in pieces, one by one.

  A lot could happen in the shortest of sieges, and Junius was right. On the other hand. She swayed and fell against the nearest wooden pillar. She couldn’t just leave the others to be picked off, one by one, either, as the Spider sought to piece the treasure map together.

  ‘Put your head between your legs,’ Junius urged. ‘You won’t pass out then.’

  Elegant, no.
Practical, yes.

  ‘If only I knew which one of the party’s our murderer,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t you have any clues?’

  ‘Supersnoop thinks it was you.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘He and I went through the list until we were blue in the face and since none seems a likely candidate, he went for the option which made him happiest.’

  And yet, as sure as the moon will rise in the sky, one of that group is a killer. Somewhere along the line, she and Marcus had missed something. A vital clue, pinpointing the identity of Galba’s agent.

  ‘Maria. Dexter. Titus. Iliona. Hanno. Theo. Volso. Clemens. Take your pick,’ she said. ‘Because one of them’s a cold-blooded assassin.’

  What the hell was it they’d missed?

  Claudia stood up, shook the pleats of her aquamarine robe and adjusted the lie of her brooch. ‘Junius, I have reached a decision.’

  Hadn’t she drummed it into Orbilio’s thick skull often enough? One man cannot fight a war. ‘We’ll leave Vesontio immediately,’ she said crisply. ‘Although I shall leave a note forewarning Orbilio.’ Knowing him, he’ll confiscate every courier’s papers and burn the leather maps in public, sending a blatant message to this wretched Spider character that he could take on Rome if he wished, but he’d have to do so without the benefit of the State Treasury.

  ‘Then I beg you, madam, write it outside the Neptune Gate.’

  Junius turned to leave, but Claudia grabbed hold of his tunic. ‘Wait.’ How could she phrase this. ‘Can I trust you?’

  For ten solid seconds, pained eyes stared into hers, his Adam’s apple working overtime, his jaw clenched.

  ‘Madam,’ he rasped, ‘I would stop an arrow for you.’ Then he smiled. ‘But given a choice, I’d rather not, so can we please get the hell out of here before neither of us is left with the option?’

  XXX

  The back streets were as silent as they were deserted. The good folk of Vesontio had packed themselves into the Forum, secretly delighted that part of the delegation got lost. Now their children had a second opportunity to goggle at rope walkers and perhaps pluck up the courage this time to pat the elephant and feed it a bun. Mothers could once again openly covet the racy, elegant costumes of their Roman counterparts, wondering how they themselves might look in rainbow-coloured tunics shot with silver and gold, their hair pinned up with ribbons and ivory pins. They could sigh in envy, aware their menfolk would never think to buy them alabaster pots filled with exotic Eastern perfumes. They spent too much time swilling free liquor and passing snide remarks about ‘men wearing skirts’.

  Later, of course, the shops would buzz like honeypots. Trade would double—no, treble—now the sun was out, because when people were in a good mood, filled with the holiday spirit, they liked to spend money, and by the time night fell, everything from baskets to bangles would be stripped off the shelves and more than one girl would go to her bed tonight wearing a token of amber, silver or jet from a chap too buoyed up by drink to have properly considered the consequences of that rash impulse buy.

  Except that would only happen once the procession was over. Right now, dogs draped themselves over doorsteps, barely lifting an eyelid as Junius and Claudia sped past. Once or twice a goat bleated, a hen clucked. On they ran. Hooking left, spinning right, careful to avoid the treacherous ruts in the roads. The tantalizing aroma of hams smoking high in the rafters filtered out of the houses, along with less appetising smells of animal straw, unripe cheeses and boiled lard. Wrinkling her nose, Claudia considered the olive-oil merchant in the delegation would have his work cut out, converting the Sequani from their attachment to solid animal fats.

  Unlike Rome, where soaring tenements and lofty basilicas blocked out the light, the preponderance of low buildings allowed the rutted alleyways to fill with sunshine, which sparkled off the metal chains of the goats, the collars of the dogs.

  ‘This way.’

  Claudia frowned. ‘Surely the Neptune Gate is ahead.’

  ‘It is,’ Junius said, flashing a glance over her shoulder. ‘But I have the strangest feeling we’re being followed. Just like the other night, you can’t see him, but goddammit, I know he’s there.’

  A shiver ran through her body. It had never occurred to her, until now, that the Spider’s man might be after her for her piece of the map.

  ‘I’m hoping that by doubling back, we can give him the slip,’ Junius said. ‘Since only you and I know which way we’re headed, he won’t be lying in wait.’

  ‘Can I sell you folks a cup of hydromel?’ a cracked voice asked, and they spun round. One filthy, bare foot on the threshold, an old crone with her left eye socket sewn down held out a flagon in a palsied hand. ‘Made from honey.’ Her accent was thick. ‘Mead?’

  By the time Junius had shaken his head, Claudia had already whipped round. ‘Love some,’ she gushed. ‘It smells divine.’ Sweet and fragrant, you could almost hear the bees buzzing round the wicker hives, although after the brilliant sunshine, this building without windows was as dark as the Styx. Stank like it, too.

  ‘Five quadrans a cup,’ the old woman wheezed, thrusting a rough wooden bowl into Claudia’s hand.

  ‘Cheap at half the pri— What’s that?’ From deep inside the hut came a scuffle. She could see two burly figures. ‘Junius?’

  ‘Get out,’ he hissed. ‘Get out! It’s a trap.’

  Claudia ran to the door, but less than halfway across, a wrinkled, dirty and callused foot flew out. She went sprawling. She heard a grating sound—steel coming loose from its scabbard. Scrambling to her feet, Claudia saw her bodyguard’s dagger flash in his hand, but before he could strike, a figure filled the doorway and another, larger blade rose through the air. She screamed. The blade fell.

  Junius groaned as he crashed to his knees. ‘Run—’ he rasped, sagging forward. ‘Run—’

  ‘Junius!’ She sprang to his aid, but before she was halfway across, a sack was flung over her head, her hands pinioned tight to her back with a rope as she was crushed to the floor.

  ‘Help?’ she screamed. ‘Somebody help us!’

  Muffled by sacking, her voice didn’t carry, and in any case, who in Vesontio cared? Even knew? The streets were deserted.

  ‘Junius?’ Her voice was hysterical, but she had to know. Was he still alive? She tried to reach where she thought he might be, but the thugs were like oxen, their grip harder than steel. Words were snapped out, in Sequani, which she could not understand.

  ‘Let go of me, you bastards.’

  Squirming, kicking, lashing out with her legs, Claudia shouted and screamed. No one came. Somewhere behind her, the old hag cackled and there was a clink, of coins changing hands.

  ‘I hope you die before you can spend it, you treacherous bitch,’ Claudia yelled, the ropes biting into her wrists as she pulled and twisted in a bid to get free. ‘Where’s Junius? What have you done with him?’

  Was he dead? Her mind’s eye saw again the glint on the blade coming down, and the contents of her stomach flipped over. Please, I beg you, mighty Jupiter. Don’t let the young Gaul be dead. Don’t let them take his head as a trophy.

  Great arms hauled her on to her feet and dragged her, screaming and fighting, into the street then, like a sack of turnips, she was tossed over one massive shoulder and carried at a trot until she heard the whinny of horses. With an ungainly thud, she was thrown in the back of a wagon, a giant boot in the stomach holding her down.

  ‘Help! HELP ME! Someone, please!’

  With a crack of the whip, the horses sprang into life, and for what seemed like eternity, the wagon bounced and joggled along at top speed, throwing her about so badly her shins and elbows bled. Her nose became crushed against the woodwork as the wagon made its descent down a precipitous valley, until mercifully the wheels started to slow. Finally, from rough, distinctly un-Roman roads, hooves clip-clopped gently over proper cobbles. As they ground to a juddering halt, the sack was jerked off Claudia’s face and she was dragg
ed, blinking in the unaccustomed sunshine, across the cobbled yard by a thug in a plaid tunic and grey pantaloons, his drooping moustache as thick as a squirrel and about the same size and colour. Bright red.

  Wildly, she took stock of her surroundings, hemmed in by wooded cliffs which were such a feature of this hated landscape, fresh water burst free from its limestone captivity in a spluttering waterfall. Here, though, was no triple cascade, merely a shallow pool which drained into a bubbling brook. Any other time, Claudia would have suggested a picnic. Today her eyes searched for a means of escape.

  And found none.

  To the left of the courtyard, a blacksmith the size of Hercules clanged his hammer against white-hot iron as he fashioned a spearhead. Samples of his work were laid out on a trestle, some long and narrow, the type Claudia was familiar with, others were shaped with barbs and hollows, designed to inflict the most terrible internal wounds. A lump formed in her throat.

  To her right stood a smelting works, its acid metal odour permeating the air and masking the freshness of the waterfall, the scent of the lush woodland ferns, of thorny dog roses and clumps of sweet-smelling water mint.

  On a slow-moving part of the stream, a heron stood, hunched, intent on its prey and unconcerned about the human drama unfolding on the opposite bank.

  The house in the centre was large, built of stone, with terracotta tiles on the roof and proper windows with shutters, though any resemblance to a Roman villa ended there. Planks and barrels littered the doorway, antlers hung on the exterior walls, the majority of the shutters were closed. A banner hung between two wooden poles—a golden globe in the centre of a blood red circle.