Black Salamander

by Marilyn Todd

  ‘My dear Arcas, are you trying to get this girl tiddly?’

  ‘Possibly,’ he admitted, stretching out and crossing his legs at the ankles. ‘Do you mind?’

  Claudia thought of a man with dark, wavy hair. A man who had sent someone else to rescue her.

  ‘Not at all,’ she said, taking a second long swig. ‘Getting drunk is one thing I excel at.’

  By the gods, though, this stuff fair makes one’s eyes water.

  ‘Tell me.’ Arcas grinned, propping himself up on one elbow. ‘Where did you hide that map?’

  Beneath her blankets, Claudia suddenly shivered. It was as though her very marrow was ice. Tell me, she prayed. Tell me it’s just this wretched ice cave…

  ‘Why, Arcas?’ she said slowly. ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘Just curious,’ he said, flipping the stopper back in the liqueur skin. ‘Only you couldn’t have hidden it on your person—’

  Was it the gentian liqueur which made her head spin? Tell me it is. Tell me it’s drink which is making me queasy.

  ‘Why did you bring my belongings with you, Arcas?’ She was shivering inside. This isn’t happening. It can’t be.

  ‘To escort you over the border.’

  ‘Earlier, you said Bern.’

  ‘Yes. Well. Your fancy patrician wanted me to take you to Bern, I told him I don’t know the place, but I’d see you as far as the border.’

  Her heart was beating so loud, she thought it would deafen her. Arcas. She rolled the name around in her head.

  The Silver Fox. Tears welled in her eyes. Not of anger, at being taken in by this man. But of sadness. Goddammit, she had liked this rugged woodsman—

  ‘You’re one of them, aren’t you?’ she said quietly. ‘The Spider’s men.’

  She dared not look at him.

  Across the cave, she heard him inhale deeply. ‘I’m a huntsman, not a warrior. I told you.’

  ‘But first and foremost, you’re a trapper.’ You baited this trap. And removing the rope rail was not to impede the Spider’s men. It’s to hinder my progress, should I try to escape. A thousand emotions thundered in her head. ‘Dammit, Arcas, this whole bloody thing is a set up.’ Choreographed from the start…

  Faster than she could have imagined, he sprang across the floor. ‘No!’ she screamed, making a bolt for the cave entrance, but already he was upon her, thrusting her on to her face as deft hands tied her wrists with strips of leather. ‘Let me go, you duplicitous bastard!’

  ‘You know I can’t do that,’ he panted, hauling her upright to a sitting position. ‘Although if it’s any consolation, this doesn’t make me feel good.’

  You arrogant sod! It’s me tied like a sacrificial hog, yet all you’re concerned about are your own bloody feelings! She squirmed, and the bindings bit into her flesh.

  ‘One million Celts died defending their homelands, did you know that?’ he said sadly. ‘A million more taken to be sold into slavery. That’s half the population, Claudia. Half! No one held it against the old king when he pleaded submission, we’d been brought to our knees, many tribes wiped out completely. But times change. We are strong again. We will fight back.’

  All right. He’s not like the Spider, a raving, sick psychopath. Let’s debate this in a civilized fashion.

  If you call being kidnapped and hog-tied civilized. ‘Under Roman occupation,’ she said quietly, ‘civil war is a thing of the past, surely that’s worth celebrating. Or have you forgotten how you Gau—Celts used to be at one another’s throats? You and the good folks of the Auvergne, for instance. It’s not so long ago you sought to annihilate the whole bloody tribe.’

  With an irritated flick, he sent the stopper winging over the floor and gulped greedily at the liqueur.

  Wrong, Claudia thought. Don’t rub him up the wrong way. We’re being civilized, remember? ‘I can’t condone the loss of two million,’ she said with commendable calm, ‘but after two generations of peace the population is not only back to its original level, numbers are actually swelling. With men at home, instead of off fighting, lands have become fertile and prosperous—’

  His fists clenched, and he rammed a punch into a pile of blankets. ‘Goddammit, we’re a vassal state! Don’t you have any conception of what that might mean?’ He shook his silver mane and his anger seemed to fall with it. ‘Well, that’s of no consequence. We need the last piece of the map, Claudia, and I know what you think of me, but I swear, you have my word as a Sequani nobleman, that once it’s in my possession, I shall personally see you to safety. My word.’

  A vision flashed through her head. Of him giving his word to Marcus, of their gripping forearm to forearm, staring deep into each other’s eyes as they weighed one another up.

  ‘Is Junius dead?’ she asked woodenly. And knew the answer.

  ‘It was part of the plan.’ He shrugged.

  Ah, yes. The plan. I was forgetting. Right from the very beginning, Sequani spies must have informed the Spider that Theo was acting for Galba. The Treveri and the Helvetii might not know the senator was about to double-cross them, but by the gods, the Spider did. The rock fall was his signal to swing into action. After that, it was watch-and-wait time. Someone—probably Arcas—would have kept an eye on the convoy, doubtless laying a trail for the hapless travellers to follow which would lead them to the plateau where they’d see a plume of smoke, and in their frazzled state they wouldn’t think to ask themselves, who lights a fire in midsummer?

  Guided to the village, it’s plain sailing. From then on, they’re in the Silver Fox’s hands, dancing to whichever tune he pipes. He would be well aware of Theo’s role, and it wasn’t that he mistrusted him. He wanted the lad close to keep tabs on him. For similar reasons, he recognized in Orbilio a man who was not what he claimed to be, and wanted him at the back, separated as far as possible from the man who was collecting the maps.

  ‘That day the Spider’s war party descended on us,’ she said sombrely. ‘We weren’t in any danger.’

  ‘None at all.’

  ‘You signalled the charge by leaning on your sword, letting the sun send out a message.’ Then it was playtime. Lead them a dance. Sow seeds about headhunting Gauls. Sow panic. Pandemonium. Make them trust you.

  ‘I tried to warn you, Claudia,’ he said thickly. ‘How often did I say to you, trust nobody?’ Almost to himself, he added, ‘But you wouldn’t listen.’

  No self-pity, Hanno had said. And no compassion, either…

  Claudia thought of the ewe with her lambs, her cut throat pumping blood. She thought of the horse breeder, whose stock Arcas had so heartlessly stolen. Never mind that family might starve, be forced to leave the lands they had worked for, spend the rest of their lives in poverty. This was in the name of ‘the cause’. Try as she might, Claudia could not contain her rage. "What bloody cause? Did Arcas and his brutal leader imagine they could take on the might of Rome? With or without the chaos of the new Republic, did he not know how great the army numbered? How far the Empire stretched? No, of course not! To the Sequani, a few hundred miles was big territory. Oh, you stupid, stupid, ignorant sods! Sending good men into battle when any soldier could tell them, the whole bloody lot would be slaughtered!

  Doubtless Theo had tried, but the Spider, in his arrogance, wouldn’t listen.

  Double-cross upon double-cross.

  Where would it end?

  Now, though, one other thing, finally, made sense. Dammit, you silly bitch, you only have yourself to blame for this predicament. You should have been suspicious from the start when it was Arcas acting alone who came to rescue you. Not, she thought, because Orbilio holds a torch for you. No. He’d have tagged along for the simple reason he always had, to play the bloody hero!

  She wondered what he was doing. The sun would be shining in Vesontio. The parade would be long over, the banquet underway. Wine would be flowing like nobody’s business, business contacts set up, orders placed as sucking pig and roast boar were wheeled in. There’d be dancing and mus
ic, jugglers between courses, acrobats, poets and mime. He’d have gone to the barracks, established Theo hadn’t turned up, and then what? Unable to proceed further on his own, would Marcus have gone to the party? He’d notice her absence. Maybe check up on her lodgings, but she’d checked out, he would find. He’d be cross, call her names, and when he calmed down he would see that she’d simply slunk back to Rome and since he was only concerned with his precious map, he’d be happy knowing it was not in rebel hands. Right now, she thought, he’d be feasting on lobsters and quail, taking his pick of a score of young women—

  He would never know that the Spider, having searched her room, had then arranged her kidnap (no doubt a rebel fed false information to a gullible Junius that the Neptune Gate was perfectly safe). He would never know how, in order to retrieve the final portion of the map, the rebel leader had tested her resolve by trying to unnerve her with Theo’s head—with a whole cavalcade of heads—culminating in that harrowing human sacrifice which was the wicker man.

  Marcus Cornelius would never know the Spider’s tactics. How, under torture, some people talk, others never will. How the Spider could tell (from heaven knows how much experience) which type he was dealing with, and having assured himself that tough measures would fail with Claudia Seferius, arranged for Arcas to effect a rescue.

  The hue and cry that followed was another piece of theatrical romp. Designed to make her place her trust in her saviour…

  With weighted eyelids, Claudia looked around the cave.

  At the hams hanging from the beam above. The slimy walls. The Silver Fox whose lair she had been lured to. Where would, could they go from here? The friendship ploy had failed, she had seen through Arcas. Admittedly a tad late, but nevertheless, she knew who he was, as he knew she would not yield to torture. They had reached an impasse, and from here there was no way out.

  This grotto was Claudia’s grave.

  XXXIII

  How long did they sit there, Claudia and Arcas—one hour? two?—without speaking? At one point he lit the fire, since the need for pretence was over, but far from comforting, the flames made the cave steamy and because the damp wood smoked badly, he kicked over the logs. Now only a few wayward coils of grey rose from the fragrant fir ash. No sound intruded into this subterranean grotto, only the constant drip-drip-drip of water from the roof and the blood pounding in Claudia’s temple.

  Her teeth chattered from the fear and the cold, and she tried not to think where this would lead. The rebels would not give up on her, so how would Arcas proceed from here? He had given himself thirty-six hours to win her confidence and ultimately the map. Then what? She shuddered as she saw the Spider’s thugs storm the grotto, cart her off to that torture-house in the valley where they burned men in front of their families—

  That wouldn’t happen, she vowed. Somehow she must break free of these bonds. Kill Arcas. Kill herself. A silent tear trickled down her cheek. Big words from a big mouth, she thought. I’m trussed up like a game bird, and what of Drusilla? The single raindrop became a thunderstorm as Claudia realized she would have to kill Drusilla, too. Think, girl, think. There is a way out of this. There has to be.

  ‘He’s my brother,’ Arcas said out of nowhere. ‘Sualinos. He’s older than me by three years.’

  ‘What?’ Claudia’s spinning brain tried to focus. ‘You’re related to that psychotic piece of shit??’ Dammit, she hadn’t meant to say that. Caught on the hop, it slipped out. Still. The damage was done now the damage was done. ‘And because he’s your brother, you back his campaign to the hilt without questioning his motives or his methods?’

  ‘His methods are not my methods,’ the huntsman said, staring at the ash in the hearth. ‘But he acts within Druid law and he has a just claim to the throne. For my part, I’m happy living in the wild.’ With his toe, he flicked over a smouldering log. ‘Fresh air, open skies, that’s all I want, but I am Sequani. Above all, I want my people set free.’

  Claudia stared at this man who had, in the past couple of hours, become a stranger to her. The face was still familiar, of course. The muscled torso, the torque, the long white hair, the headband. But the guide she believed she understood no longer existed.

  Thirty-six years old, she thought, and while he knows the backwoods inside out, he has seen nothing of life, of what lies beyond these vast tracts of forest. In the villagers’ eyes, he would be cultured—gentry, who’d been to Vesontio!—and as such they’d have viewed him in awe. Shunned or not, he was a man of the world, a sophisticate, while his brother would be venerated somewhere between demon and god. A man who wielded terror on the one hand and on the other, a true romantic hero preparing to shake off the yoke of Roman oppression.

  Did they not see that, even in the unlikely event the Sequani gained independence, together the Spider and the Druids would conspire to keep them under the cosh? Even Arcas was blind to the fact that men like his brother and Galba sought power for its own sake and cared not a fig for the responsibility that went with it. She thought again of the stockbreeder, robbed of his horses. That was responsibility. Ensuring they were cared for, not thrown to the wolves. No wonder the incident stuck in her throat. The theft was as cruel as it was unnecessary, and she wished now she’d listened to what her heart had told her at the time.

  Without self-pity. Without compassion, either.

  So much old Hanno had known, and yet Claudia had suspected the muleteer as their traitor. Purely on the grounds of monetary rewards. She swallowed the lump in her throat. Because that’s how your mind works, you mercenary bitch, you tar them all with the same brush.

  Snap out of that, a little voice barked. Maudlin self-pity won’t get you out of this mess. You can indulge as much as you like once you’re free, in the meantime think of the Spider’s house. The patrol.

  ‘I need to pee,’ she said firmly.

  There. That jarred him. ‘Oh.’ It was too dingy in the cave to be sure, but she thought Arcas blushed. For the first time, his voice lacked confidence.

  ‘Urgently.’ That’s it. Up the pressure.

  ‘Well, I…’ He rubbed a nervous hand over his mouth. Good. This situation hadn’t occurred to him. ‘I, um, usually go down there. Near the foot of the cave.’

  ‘Then I’ll go down there,’ she said. ‘But I can’t hang on much longer.’

  Blue eyes scoured her face for tricks, and saw only lips twisted in female anxiety.

  ‘This way, then.’ With one hand, he gripped her upper arm and hauled her to her feet. The other grasped the torch.

  Outside, the narrow walkway was slippery, the air damp. Drip-drip-drip. Didn’t the continuous ooze grate on his nerves? The path became steeper, more sinister. Lit only by the flickering brand, the wall of ice seemed to move in. Whenever I want, it cried out, I can crush you. Claudia fought to control the shakes which had gripped her. Deep breaths. One, two, three. Keep pushing down on your stomach. One, two, that’s better. Remember. Only by remaining in control can you hope to escape.

  ‘There.’ He pointed in the Stygian gloom. ‘The ice levels off. You can…’ His voice trailed miserably off. ‘I—I’ll hold the light for you.’

  For thousands of years, the people who had dwelt in these caves must have used this for perhaps ceremonial purposes. Weddings. Funeral services, even, for it was not a natural plate, but man made. Hollowed out of the ice, many hands must have laboured to create this flat space.

  ‘I’m not having a man stand over me while I am…indisposed,’ she snapped, and relief flooded his face. ‘Cut me free, will you, Arcas.’

  ‘You’ll have to manage the best you can.’

  Damn. Damn, damn and double damn. Nice try, but now what?

  ‘Spoken like a true gentleman,’ she said, heaping on the discomposure, because it’s funny how a simple female bodily function can set even the most hardened member of the opposite sex squirming with embarrassment. And how a different female function—wile—can exploit it.

  Down here, conditions were arcti
c. This was almost the floor of the cavern, ice would have lain here for centuries. Maybe hundreds of centuries. What she was looking at was creation itself.

  ‘I can’t see you,’ Arcas called.

  ‘That’s the idea,’ she yelled back.

  Her eyes quickly grew used to the gloom. What she needed was a stalactite—mite—whatever it was. A sharp splinter of ice to hack through her bonds. There’s one! Under a flickering halo of gold, she could see the misty silhouette of the hunter, stamping his feet to keep out the cold. Her teeth were chattering as she chafed leather against ice. Come on, come on.

  ‘What’s keeping you?’ he asked.

  ‘How do you expect me to manage?’ she retorted. ‘With my hands behind my back?’

  It was no use. The ice was simply melting against the heat of her arms, wetting the leather. Shit! Angry tears prickled her eyes. There had to be a way, surely?

  In the dark, eerie silence of the cavern, two hundred feet below ground, Claudia let out a scream.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he called. ‘What’s the matter.’

  She waited several seconds. ‘I slipped,’ she called back, and there was a catch in her voice. ‘Hit my head when I toppled backwards.’ She limped towards the huntsman, who was holding the torch out as far as he could. ‘I…’ Tears of shame welled up. ‘I can’t manage alone. I…need your help.’

  Contrition swept over his face. ‘Look, I’ll cut your hands loose, just while you, er—’

  ‘Thank you.’ She sniffed. With the back of her hand, she scrubbed away the tears. ‘Only I couldn’t get my underclothes off…’

  ‘Yes, yes.’ Arcas didn’t want to know the details. ‘Well you, um—I’ll wait here.’ He watched the pitiful figure dissolve into the blackness.

  Free of her bonds, Claudia’s mind span like a mill race. Backtracking to make a break for the entrance was out of the question, since that entailed leaving Drusilla behind, the best she could hope for was to creep up and try to surprise him.

  A betting man would have laughed and walked away.