by Marilyn Todd
He peeled off his own woollen tunic and stuffed it over her head. It was warm and heavy and smelled of gentian liqueur and ceps, and was soft and came to her knees. ‘I—I don’t think I can make it through the roof.’ Her legs had turned to aspic, she was quivering, nauseous and weak.
‘No?’ Suddenly she was swept up in his arms and, with a low-crouching run to avoid being seen through the open windows, Arcas carried her to the back of the house. Claudia could feel the thickness of his roped gold torque, the softness of the silver mane tied in a queue at the back. He set her down by the back door and, biting into his lower lip, he tried lifting the bar. It was huge. Oak and a ton weight. Grunting, he tried a second, a third time. On the fourth attempt the oak lever lifted, and the sweat poured down his muscular chest. ‘While they’re enjoying the show out the front,’ he growled, glancing round, ‘we should escape under this blanket of smoke.’
‘How?’ The valley’s sides were precipitous, its wooded flanks prohibitive.
‘The river,’ he said. ‘My canoe’s a half mile downstream, the water was too shallow to paddle further.’ Up close, she could see how startlingly blue his eyes were. Like forget-me-nots. ‘But I can’t carry you that far,’ he warned. ‘To have any chance of escape, you’ll have to run.’
Claudia swallowed hard. ‘I can run.’
‘Sure?’
No. ‘Absolutely.’
‘Then let’s hightail it out of this place!’ Arcas slipped round the door, his dagger drawn. ‘Shit.’
Like an eel, he was back inside the house, panting as he leaned against the frame. The heavy tread of a guard marched slowly past. Claudia felt a trickle of sweat run down the inside of her borrowed shirt. Through a crack in the open doorway, she saw the guard pause, then saunter down to the stream where he proceeded to pee into the water.
‘How did you know where to find me?’ she whispered.
‘Junius,’ he hissed back. ‘He was barely alive when he crawled back to the Forum, but he raised the alarm. Your patrician friend put two and two together and sent for me. He thought,’ Arcas shot her a keen glance, ‘that I might know where to find our friend the Spider.’
Junius? Alive? At least the Spider had been denied that notch on his scabbard.
The guard must have been bursting. ‘How did you know?’
‘I’m Sequani for one thing, a hunter for another.’ He gave a tight, lopsided grin. ‘Because I’ve been shunned doesn’t make me an imbecile.’
‘Druid law?’
‘Druid law.’
Her breathing was shallow and fast. ‘It was Theo, you know. The traitor in our camp.’
‘I saw his head—’ Arcas’s lips flashed into a pout.
‘But you’re not surprised?’
‘How many times must I tell you, Claudia? Trust nobody and you cannot go wrong.’ He squinted at the guard, at last fastening his pantaloons.
‘Didn’t it bother you,’ she asked, ‘that one among us was a killer?’
‘If you Romans want to pick each other off, that’s fine by me, although you forget I didn’t know you were harbouring a murderer until I saw the couple underneath the waterfall. That was when I realized. I saw bruising to both bodies which should not have been there and as for the soldier boy, no. I never trusted his baby face, not for a moment.’
So that’s why he’d taunted him? Pricked the lad? To see what he was dealing with? The Spider’s guard turned the corner of the building.
‘From the outset, I wanted Theo up front with me.’ Arcas’s mouth hardened into a thin line. ‘Where I could see him. Now,’ he said, ‘whatever happens, stay close. You might be rid of a killer, but we’re still very much in the Spider’s sticky web.’
*
Prophetic words. No sooner had they dashed twenty paces than the guard retraced his steps. Up went the alarm. Bloodcurdling yells filled the valley, high-pitched and ululating, and any doubts Claudia might have regarding her physical capability were dispelled the instant she saw the war band thundering behind, long hair flapping on their shoulders, moustaches whirling, brandishing their weapons as they ran. Great, heavy killing machines. Like rhinoceroses. Deadly, but without sophistication. And suddenly she was running for her life—
The set of Arcas’s face told her that he would not let them take her alive. ‘Faster,’ he panted, the distance between them growing larger.
His path through the river was swift and neat. Hers was lumbering. More splash than pace. Croesus, she couldn’t keep up.
‘You can do it,’ puffed the trapper. ‘You can do it.’ Hampered initially by the pall of grey smoke, the war band was now gaining ground, crashing through the shallow waters, their swords raised high. An arrow zinged through the air, twanging into the dark bark of an alder.
‘Careful,’ bawled the rebel chieftain. ‘I want that bitch alive!’
‘Not far,’ Arcas wheezed. ‘Nearly there.’
On the bend, high on the bank, she could see his canoe and in it—merciful Juno be praised—in it was a certain wooden crate. ‘Drusilla?’ she cried, and suddenly there was strength in her legs. ‘Drusilla!’
As though her ankles had wings just like Mercury, Claudia raced down the trickling stream. No boulder was capable of putting her off balance in this mood. No arrow could travel faster than she at the moment.
Arcas was pushing the canoe down to the water. Claudia flung herself in and laid low. Wily as ever, the Silver Fox paddled furiously, zigzagging down the river. Claudia heard the twang of an arrow, it thudded into the woodwork.
‘Are you all right?’ Wildly she looked round over her shoulder.
‘Keep your head down,’ he snapped.
‘Arcas, I don’t know how to thank you—’
‘Don’t.’ If anything, his voice was sharper. ‘We’re not out of the woods yet.’
‘Maybe not, but you thought to bring my cat.’
‘Your patrician friend said to see you safely to Bern. It was Junius who said you’d not leave without the wretched beast.’ Arcas grimaced at Drusilla who was howling like a banshee, her protest registering several decibels above the battle cries and the hail of arrows.
For a spy in the employ of the Parisii, Junius was not doing a bad job on the whole. ‘How is he?’
‘Junius?’ Arcas shrugged. ‘I reckon he’ll live.’
Claudia remembered old Hanno. Like an animal, he’d said of Arcas. Won’t find a trace of self-pity, but then, he had cackled, you won’t find compassion there, either. He was a hard man, Arcas, toughened by life as much as his surroundings, who wouldn’t thank being told he was kind with it. There’d be other ways to repay him, she thought.
With slower moving waters, the valley had opened out. Sunshine bounced off the maples and the birches, there was a vivid flash of kingfisher’s wings.
‘Ach.’ He spat. ‘Bastards!’
Claudia peered over the parapet, her blood turning to ice. Two dozen horsemen were dismounting, racing for boats moored along the bank. Large, fast craft, which could easily outrun a loaded canoe—
‘They’ve cut us off,’ Arcas said, making for the bank. ‘We’ll have to travel overground. Can you make it?’
‘Damn right!’
Grabbing Drusilla’s cage, Claudia jumped out of the canoe and scrambled up the wooded slope after him.
‘I know a place we can hide,’ he puffed. ‘If we can lose them for just two precious minutes, I know where to head for. Quick.’
Grabbing her wrist, he jerked her sideways, crashing through the undergrowth. ‘We’re leaving a trail a blind hippo could follow,’ she said.
‘That’s the idea,’ he pointed out. ‘They come this way, then,’ he snapped his fingers, ‘no more trail. They’ll waste time looking, by then we’ll be home and dry. Right. Let’s play hide-and-seek with these bastards.’
They twisted left, hooked to the right, backtracked so many times that Claudia was breathless and dizzy.
‘See that?’ Arcas pushed her hard in the back
. ‘That little overhang? You hide under there, flat on your belly, and for gods’ sake, keep that bloody cat quiet. I’ll rejoin you within a count of five hundred.’
Actually it was closer to eight hundred by the time he returned. Claudia had dragged Drusilla out of her crate, cradling her tight to Arcas’s shirt, where the cat sensed what to do and remained unaccustomedly still. By the time the Silver Fox returned to his lair, she was sitting upright in her cage, calmly washing her whiskers.
‘This way,’ he hissed, ‘and quietly. I’ve laid a false trail, there’s no reason for them not to fall for it, but we must lie low until nightfall, maybe even tomorrow night. This Spider,’ he shook his silver mane, ‘is not a forgiving man. His men are on the lookout for you.’
‘And for you now,’ Claudia said.
His pace barely faltered. ‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘Now me.’
The Spider would clear a nice niche for Arcas’s head.
XXXII
To all those who believed the city was a confusing place, Claudia blew a large and resounding raspberry. Never again did she want to clap eyes on hornbeams, oaks or aspens, and if she never saw another set of white, foaming rapids in her life, it would be too soon. You can stick your limestone schist where the sun doesn’t shine, she told the Sequani gods, your coniferous woodlands, your rushing rivers and your savage gorges. Praise be to Juno, we’re spared this at home. Ours are gentle rounded hills, whose lush valleys flow with wide, inviting rivers lined with proper things. Like vines! Our horses are not sulky red buggers, neither are our cows and sheep and goats pathetic little runts.
We don’t burn human beings alive either.
Or keep embalmed heads on our walls.
Reincarnation. She stopped to unhook her (Arcas’s!) shirt from where it had snagged on a thorn. Did they honestly believe that crap? That by taking the heads of ‘worthy’ enemies, they’d be reborn with their power? Can’t they see the flaw? That by now, the Sequani ought to be a race of super-beings?
‘We’re here,’ Arcas said.
Claudia looked around. ‘Where?’ There was nothing. Woods, woods and, excuse me, more woods.
The Silver Fox chuckled, and she thought it was the first time she’d ever heard him laugh. ‘That’s the beauty of it,’ he said. ‘Follow me, only be careful. The going gets treacherous at times.’
Down they slithered, down and down and down, maybe another hundred feet, to the foot of yet another bloody valley. Except, wait. This was no valley, this was simply a bowl in the rock. A natural hollow, maybe eighty paces across. The air was thick and damp. Instead of the ground becoming lush and fertile, though, the soil grew thinner as they scrambled down, until soon there was only bare stone left in which to make a slippery foothold. Ferns draped the crevices. On the south side, a few hardy creepers put out tentative fingers, a straggly bush or two clung for dear life. Other than that, the hollow was given to ferns. And bare, unforgiving rock.
But the steam… Why so much white steam? There was no river down here. No water. Why this thick, humid air?
‘What is that?’ Her eyes, she felt sure, were on stalks.
A giant chasm loomed out of the mist. A gaping hole, which went backwards and down into the mountain. It was glistening white on the inside.
She slithered down the slippery rock face, dislodging ferns as she went.
‘I don’t believe it.’ Claudia rubbed at her eyes. She was seeing things. The strain had made her hallucinate. ‘That’s ice.’
‘It is,’ he said cheerfully, ‘and providing you don’t mind the cold, we can hide here in safety.’
Trotting after him, Drusilla’s crate joggling in her hand, Claudia muttered something about beggars and choosers and sent a silent prayer to the god of weavers for this handy woollen tunic.
The arch, so perfect many a Roman architect would wish to emulate its beauty, was at least twenty paces across and the same high. As far back as she could see, blue-white ice twinkled in the darkness of the cave.
‘How can it stay like this without melting?’ she gasped. For gods’ sake, this is July. ‘Is it a glacier?’
‘Freak rock formation,’ he said. ‘Look at the angle of the cavern. At some stage, ice formed in here and being, I don’t know, a hundred, two hundred feet thick, only a very thin surface layer melts.’ Picking his footing carefully, Arcas led her to the right-hand side of the cave. ‘Walkways have been cut out of the rock,’ he cautioned. ‘Rings hammered into the wall, ropes looped through, but it’s still very dangerous. The slope is steep and the rock face juts out in places. You have to be careful.’
‘You know a lot about this cave.’
‘I’ve spent three winters here,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘The fluky nature of this place means that very often the temperature is warmer inside than out.’ About fifty paces into the cave he paused and picked a torch from its hook on the wall. ‘Soon it will be too dark for our eyes.’
Claudia glanced upwards over her shoulder. Thanks to the twisting nature of this freaky cave, very little of the massive arch was visible. She could see a gibbous moon in an otherwise starless sky. Turn another bend and natural light would be extinguished altogether.
In her cage, Drusilla yowled like a banshee whose bunion gave her gip.
Arcas’s torch hissed into life. ‘Many rented the accommodation before me.’
His flickering brand brought to life bison galloping over the walls, deer in mid-leap, and Claudia wondered why she wasn’t reassured by their painted vitality, their glowing beauty. She glanced upwards, to where black stalactites hung from the roof of the cave, pointing not as she’d expected, straight down, but angled towards the entrance by freak whirlwinds. Did the cave dwellers find peace here? Happiness in their icy refuge? Or did they, like Claudia, endure it as a gruesome necessity, this place with no soul?
Strangely the narrow walkway, while treacherous going, was neither damp nor slippery and by taking it slowly, one pace at a time, Claudia followed Arcas down the spiralling ramp, the wall of ice rising higher and higher above her. ‘How far does it go?’ There were stalagmites growing upwards. Thick, chunky brutes.
‘To where we’re going,’ his voice echoed eerily in the stillness that was either black or it was white. ‘Not far. There’s a curve to the left, can you see it? A small cave leads off to the right. We’ll be safe there.’
The path levelled out, became a natural ledge where quartz twinkled like fireflies in the light of Arcas’s torch. It was a different world down here. Eerie, echoing and silent. Claudia set down Drusilla’s cage. More elaborate stalactite art—a cow with udders and long arching horns, a jellyfish, many of the formations had creepy mushroom-like gills. More sinister still was the constant drip-drip-drip of water from the roof. Claudia found her teeth were chattering and not necessarily from the chill in the air. This was a godless place, cold and unforgiving.
‘We’re not at the bottom?’
In answer, Arcas guided her by the elbow to the edge of the rope handrail and held his torch out as far as he could. Claudia sucked in her breath. The path went on and on for ever, disappearing into the icy depths of the cave as though this was the entrance to Hades… Above them, the tower of ice loomed silent and menacing and white. She shivered.
‘My winter quarters are behind us,’ he said. ‘Make yourself comfortable—I have hams smoked last winter to see me through the next—I’ll make sure no one can follow.’
By the light of the single spluttering torch, Claudia studied her surroundings. Couldn’t the Spider track them? If Arcas camped out here, surely the rebels would know of its existence? High-pitched ululating battle cries rang in her ears, and she didn’t know whether they were real or imaginary.
‘Off you go, poppet.’ She lifted the latch and out sprang a cat whose fury would only be appeased with a sliver of ham blackened for months over a fire of fir, the ash white and fragrant in the hearth he had built.
‘Come on, Arcas,’ she whispered. Come on. What was taking him
so long? She pulled some of his blankets around her. They were damp and smelled of must, but at least they blocked out the cold, and inside her wigwam of wool she could pretend she wasn’t trapped in a tunnel with solid rock on one side and a great wall of ice on the other.
‘That should do the trick,’ he said, and she jumped. With a dull thud, a thick coil of rope landed on the stone floor. ‘I’ve concealed the entrance with branches, removed the handrail and laid one or two rather neat traps. No Spider can reach us in here.’
‘Then what’s that whining noise?’
‘Sequani war trick, designed to flush out the enemy. By pitching their voices high, the sound carries further, appearing closer than it actually is. Rather like birdsong in that respect.’
‘Give me a chaffinch any day.’
‘Hrrrow,’ said Drusilla. ‘Meeee tooooo.’
‘Right then.’ Arcas rubbed his hands briskly together. ‘We can’t light a fire, for obvious reasons—’
‘How long are we stuck here?’ Claudia asked. ‘You said yourself the Spider won’t give up on me, he’ll have men posted everywhere.’
‘Yes,’ Arcas nodded, chafing the circulation back into his naked chest and arms. ‘But after a couple of days, they’ll be less vigilant. We can easily slip through the net when their guard is down.’ From a pile of woollens, he selected two tunics and pulled both of them over his head.
‘Like we did from the Spider’s own house?’ She grinned.
‘We escaped, didn’t we?’ He cut a long sausage down from the beam which he’d fixed over the hearth. ‘Better this than what he had in mind.’
True.
From the back of the cave he brought out a large stoppered wineskin. ‘Pine liqueur,’ he said. ‘Helps pass time in the winter.’ He took a swig then passed it over to her. ‘So then,’ he said, slicing her a large chunk of smoked sausage, ‘what do you think of my cosy little nest?’
‘What intrigues me,’ she said, ‘is why you live here.’
His lips pursed, then pouted, then pursed once again. ‘Reasons.’ He shrugged. ‘Have another drink.’
