Dark Horse Page 17

  the fair-haired creature was not his? Claudia put herself in the distraught mother's shoes and knew that, in her place, the husband would have to go before the child.

  'With hair that blonde, it's unlikely the baby's eyes will change colour,' she said. 'How about calling her Flax?'

  'Flax!' Nanai's green eyes closed in rapture. 'Yes, of course. Flax-' She began to croon softly to the bundle, a lullaby about sweet dreams and candied cherries, no doubt the same song she sang when she sat at her loom inside the tumbledown cottage.

  'What will happen to you all now Leo's dead?' Claudia asked.

  Even if the eviction order still stood, she didn't see Qus thundering up here with his band of henchmen, razing the old forge to the ground and ploughing up the soil while the children remained in residence. This had been another bone of contention between him and his master, but why? Because Qus found the prospect of making children homeless distasteful? Or because one of those ebony-skinned children was his?

  Nanai's malt-brown hair shone with red and copper streaks in the sunset. 'Don't worry about our future, my dear. The gods have blessed us and I know we shall be provided for. Already they have punished Leo for his wickedness, as I told him they would.'

  The earth quaked, but no buildings fell. The temperature plummeted, but no icebergs appeared. Claudia swallowed the lump in her throat. 'Aren't you the tiniest bit sorry your benefactor is dead?'

  'Nemesis is the goddess of retribution, dear. Once her powers have been invoked, they cannot be stopped.'

  Claudia stood up. The sun had disappeared behind the hills to the west. But that was not why she had to leave. Whether Nanai believed that crap about Nemesis she neither knew nor cared. All she knew was that Leo had indulged this woman for seven years - yet the minute she can't get her own way, she turns and woe betide anyone who stands in her way. 'I make a dangerous enemy,' she had said.

  Now Claudia understood Nanai had meant every word. As she felt her way along the track in the dark, stubbing her toes

  on the boulders, snagging her robe on the prickles, she wished she could find something to like about the woman who cared for her orphans so deeply. Thank Jupiter for rowing boats No royal barge was ever more sumptuous, no imperial chariot ever more splendid!

  Not that everyone would be keen to leave paradise. Drusilla for one, would be howling her head off down there in the cove' calling Junius all sorts of names that no cat of her aristocratic pedigree should know, much less use, and his arms would be scratched to ribbons. But then Drusilla had no qualms about reminding people that being crammed in a crate wasn't top of her list of pleasures. Tough. In the eight years they'd been together, Claudia and the cat, bitter pills had become part of their joint daily diet. This was simply one more in a long line that she'd have to swallow where the end results outweighed discomfort.

  With a pang of affection, Claudia's mind cast back to the days when they were both skinny bags of bones starving in the gutter of a rough northern dockyard. Young and alone, robbed and raped, Claudia would not have cared if she died. Then a small mewing sound pricked at her awareness, and from then on, neither she nor the cat had looked back. Now look at her. From the days of dancing for sailors in boisterous taverns, she was mistress of a town house in Rome, a sprawl of Etruscan vineyards, had slaves at her beck and call, food in her belly. She was answerable to no one and nothing.

  Squinting as she picked her way along the stony path in the dark, Claudia smiled. Of the three problems hanging over her head, one at least was secure. Thanks to Leo's revolutionary techniques, Seferius vineyards were set to make their first decent profit since her husband had died. (Listen, she never said she was good at the business. Only that she was not prepared to let it go cheap.)

  Which only left Hylas the Greek to contend with, and the Security Police who had compiled such a persuasive case for the prosecution. Goddammit, if she couldn't kill these two birds with one stone, then her name wasn't Claudia Seferius! There had to be some way she could win Hylas over that didn't entail two broken legs, and once she'd found it - bribes,

  blackmail, she wasn't proud - Orbilio would have no case to present. Now then. Let's start with the bribes. What kind of present would appeal to a successful Greek horse breeder?

  The hand that clamped round her waist came out of nowhere.

  Before the sun stands thrice more over our heads, a woman shall die.

  As she opened her mouth to scream for her bodyguard, a gag was stuffed into her mouth.

  'Mmmf! Mm-mm-mmf.' (LET ME GO, YOU BASTARD.)

  She kicked backwards, wriggled, squirmed in a bear hug that was terrifyingly familiar.

  Before the sun stands thrice more over our heads, a woman shall die - and the sun had risen two times already.

  'Mm-mmf! Mm-mm-mmf.' (LET ME GO, YOU FAT BASTARD.) 'Mm-mm-mmf!'

  The bear hug relaxed. Strong arms released her. Claudia started to run. But her attacker hadn't intended to let his victim go free. Just long enough to throw a cloak over her head. A cloak which smelled of cinnamon.

  Thirty-Five

  Control.

  Power lay in control, and power was absolute.

  To have a creature helpless and at your mercy, to toy wit it, play with it, hold its life in your hands, the knowledge that you have its destiny in your dominion - this was the ultimate validation of power.

  Human souls.

  Not blood. Not death. Not destruction. Not even authority over life.

  The ability to manipulate a person's soul. Subdue it. Tame it. Force it to bow before the almighty presence. The more souls it could vanquish, the more it could subjugate and make quiescent, the faster omnipotence was attained.

  The demon licked its lips and relished the slow hours ahead of it.

  Thirty-Six

  Marcus!' Even through her badly bruised tonsils, Silvia's censorious tones echoed across the library. 'Marcus, good heavens, man, you're drunk!'

  'Thassa coincidence.' He grinned up at all three of her. 'So am I.'

  He lifted the jug to his lips and drank deeply. Under a footstool upholstered in scarlet, a long-stemmed glass lay on its side where he'd rolled it away long ago. Too small. Too bloody small. Needed to do the job faster.

  'Absholutely bloody steaming.'

  All this time. All this time, he and Claudia . . .

  He upended the jug and finished off even the dregs. That easy familiarity. The jokes. The looks. The passion . . .

  'Poor darling.' The triple haze that was Silvia glided across the floor towards him, her rigidity softening with each dainty step. 'We had no idea you were so deeply attached to your cousin.'

  'Snot Leo.' When he shook his head there were six of her. 'Snot why I'm drunk.' He tried to stand up, but his foot kept slipping on the polished mosaic. 'Class, Silvia. Issa problem, see, being patrician. Can't just run away. Patricians have - whassa word? Obligations. That's what patricians have. Obli-sodding-gations.'

  'Marcus, please.' Tragic blue eyes turned downwards. 'I've been totally honest with you about my past mistakes and it's terribly unfair of you to drag them up in this way.'

  'Wasn't,' he said, belching softly. 'Never crossed his mind, frankly.'

  'Then what on earth has driven you to drink your brains out, you poor love?'

  'Marriage.'

  'Ah.' She crouched down beside him and, as she wiped his fringe out of his eyes, a drift of honey-coloured hair floated gently in and out of focus in front of him. The drift smelled of white lavender. 'I do understand, you know, darling. It's an awfully big step—'

  'Can't take steps,' he said sadly. 'Can't even stand up.'

  She smiled. 'With me by your side, you can do anything.' Silvia drew a deep breath and ran a crisp pleat slowly up and down between her fingers. 'You were badly burned last time, but you won't regret marrying me—'

  'Birthright,' he pronounced grandly. 'Denying children their birthright issanother big problem.'

  'Don't let's go into that now. It's late. Let's get you
to bed instead.'

  'You, Silvia, are a very beautiful woman.' In fact, all three of them were exquisite. Wasp waist, pert breasts, a carnality that belied her glacial exterior. 'But sex is outta the question.' He held the wine jug to his left eye, closed the right and stared into the blackness. 'Seferius,' he announced.

  'Sadly, dear, it's only that cheap stuff from over the water in Istria that you've been knocking back. Not Seferius vintage.'

  'Want her.'

  'I really don't think you should drink any more tonight.' Silvia prised his fingers away from the jug's handles.

  'Can't have her.'

  'Absolutely not, darling. More wine will only make you throw up, and then you'll be in no condition to conduct Leo's funeral tomorrow.'

  'Funeral. Hell. I forgot.' Orbilio rolled on to all fours. 'How's Lydia coping?'

  Silvia sniffed. 'We would prefer it if you didn't mention that bitch, if you don't mind. Now let's call for a slave to help you to bed.'

  'Claudia.'

  'Common she might be, but Claudia isn't a slave, you silly goose. Can you manage there?' she asked, as his hands closed over a cypress-wood chest filled with the works of Homer and Plato.

  'Need to talk to her,' he said, testing the grip before hauling himself upright. 'Have to explain.'

  'Well, it will have to wait, I'm afraid.'

  He lurched from chest to chest round the library until he reached the door. 'Morning will do, I susuppose.'

  'It'll have to wait a lot longer than that,' Silvia said. 'She's gone. Cat, luggage, the lot, just like that,' she added, snapping her fingers. 'Didn't even have the courtesy to kiss us goodbye.'

  'Uh-uh.' The room started spinning. 'She wouldn't leave without the Gaul.'

  'The rumours are true, then? It's what we suspected, of course, her and the boy, and who can blame her. Attractive young widow, all that sexual energy has to go somewhere.'

  Orbilio tasted regurgitated wine in the back of his throat. Claudia and the Gaul? Entwined between the sheets, naked, buffered in sweat, groaning in mutual pleasure ... He put his hand on the door jamb to stop himself falling.

  'But to put your mind at rest, Marcus, the boy has gone, too.' Silvia ruffled his hair like a child's. 'So whatever it was you needed to explain to the lovely young widow, you're either going to have to keep it until we return to Rome or else put it down in a letter.'

  'You don't understand.' A vice clamped round his ribcage.

  'Letter, definitely, seeing how it worries you that much. Now it's two hours past midnight and you need your sleep, you poor darling. Come along.'

  'No.' He couldn't breathe. 'I knew she'd try something, so I - Silvia, you don't understand.'

  'Understand what, dear?'

  'I locked the Gaul in the woodshed.' Justified on the grounds that he'd caught the bastard sneaking round his papers. 'Shut the cat in there, too.' Serves him right if she scratches his lecherous eyes out.

  'Marcus, darling, two men have been brutally murdered and the Medea's on the stocks. That makes Cressia an extremely hazardous place to be at the moment, and whatever else one might say about the woman, Claudia Seferius doesn't strike

  one as the type who'd wait for her toyboy when pirate ships are on the rampage.'

  'Agreed.' Suddenly he was sober again. 'But there's one thing she'd never go without.'

  Claudia would never leave her beloved Drusilla behind.

  'Meaning?' Silvia asked, linking her arm through Orbilio's.

  'Meaning,' he growled, shaking the arm off, 'the silly bitch is in danger.'

  Thirty-Seven

  The silly bitch certainly was. With all that had happened, she had completely forgotten that incident outside the grain store. Now, bundled under the cloak, everything came flooding back. The same grip. The same bear hug. The same sweet smell of cinnamon. Only tonight there was no question of him carrying her back to her bed.

  Time passed, or then again, maybe it didn't.

  Trussed and helpless, all Claudia could do was to wait. Wait and remember . . .

  If only she'd thought to pull out the gag once he'd released her! At least she'd have been able to breathe, call for help. But her instinct had been to run. To pitch headlong away from her attacker. She hadn't banked on him netting her like a hare. Cinnamon.

  If she never smelled it again, it would be too soon.

  Once the cloak was thrown over her, a rope had been looped round her waist to pinion her arms, but there were still two cards hidden up Claudia's sleeve: the knife she carried in the folds of her gown; and the thin stiletto strapped to her calf.

  While she fumbled for the knife on the clifftop, she'd lashed out at her attacker with her feet to distract him. But before she could get a firm grip round the handle, she was tossed over his shoulder like a sack of old turnips. Surefooted as any mountain goat, he trotted down the hillside, dumped his squirming bundle into a boat then quietly relieved it of the knife hidden in the folds of her gown and the stiletto strapped to her calf. Obviously the moon had started to rise; its light had betrayed her steel defences. Acca must be laughing her bloody socks off.

  An eternity later, dizzy and dazed, Claudia felt the boat grate to a halt. Heard the scrape of wood against sand, the

  slap of water against rocks. Defenceless as a kitten, she was once more bundled over his shoulder and then it was another climb, up another cliff, and she had no idea whether this was still Cressia or whether he'd brought his victim to a different island completely.

  They'd reached the top and dammit he was barely panting with the effort. Throwing her over his other shoulder, hardly a minute had passed before her abductor slowed to a halt. She heard him kick open a door. Inside, his footsteps echoed, but the echo was not stone or marble. Solid. Dull. More like tamped earth. He lowered her down. Not softly, but not roughly either. Claudia didn't move. She would not give him the satisfaction of struggling again. Whatever he did, she would not flinch. She'd deprive him of the pleasure of watching her suffer.

  But the bastard was biding his time.

  Whistling softly under his breath, the footsteps retreated across the room. She heard the squeak of rusty hinges. The graunch of the bar as it was rammed home to lock the door from the outside.

  With the sound, all hope died in her breast.

  Bound and gagged, blindfolded and trapped, Claudia could only wait for her attacker to return. She had no weapons with which to fight. No one knew where she was. She couldn't break free, much less break out of this prison.

  Whoever it was had planned it well.

  In her soft, cinnamon tomb Claudia waited.

  Darkness had barely covered the hills before Clio heard the first of the rustlings. Her heart was pounding, her mouth dry. Straining, she heard further shuffles. A rock dislodged here, a scrape of foot there. Through a crack in the shutters she saw torchlights, which were quickly extinguished. How many of them had gathered? Were they armed? Did they intend to kill her now? Or take her alive and do it slowly?

  She imagined Llagos the priest denouncing the whore who had tried to seduce him, faithful husband and father of four that he was. No mention of the silver he left, or who approached who.

  Then the cobbler would probably tell how Clio cast the evil eye over him as she passed his stall. His valiant fight to resist the

  lethal pull. How the effort made him sick. Forget that the bastard was a habitual drunk.

  The widower fisherman would be one of the group. Grief finding an outlet in vengeance, his own inadequacies drowned in her innocent blood. With the witch out of the way, he could bury his conscience along with his wife. Never having to question whether he should have noticed how ill she was, and that maybe he shouldn't have worked her so hard to the end.

  And the father of the boy who had died. The carpenter. He had seemed a reasonable enough man, even though Clio had never actually exchanged more than a nod or two with him. Did he know she had never even clapped eyes on his son? Did he care as he swelled the mob's numbers? />
  Bigotry plus helplessness equals explosive combination.

  All it needs is one little spark . . .

  Leo, Leo, what a price we are paying. All because we wanted riches! She put a hand over her lips to stop them from trembling. Her hand was colder than ice.

  If the men rushed the cottage, they would probably kill her. Clubs, knives, something quick. But if the women were outside, huddled in groups further down the hillside, she was facing a very different scenario. Witch. Vampire. Flesh-eater. It didn't matter what names they called her. The bitches would want her alive.

  Once more, Clio dropped to her knees. She hadn't known where to start, who to call on, when she began praying earlier. In the end she had chosen the great falcon god of her Liburnian ancestors, whose vision was sharp and whose flight was swift. The god whose vengeance was deadly.

  'Come to me now,' she murmured. 'Bestow upon me your wisdom and courage, oh lord.'

  The heat in the cottage threatened to engulf her, crushing her chest like a millstone, and the blackness was the blackness of hell.

  'Make my ears deaf to the footfalls which shuffle closer each minute.'

  And the soft whispers which called for her blood . . .

  In the blackness of her cottage, Clio felt something brush her cheek. It could have been a moth, of course. Then again, who was to say it wasn't the wings of the falcon god? The one whose vengeance was deadly.

  Thirty-Eight

  The whistling was light. Jaunty even. The whistling of a man looking forward to what he was about to do.

  At first, Claudia thought the whistling was part of the birdsong. The dawn chorus had just started up, led by a blackbird solo before the rest of the choir joined in. This whistling was different. It had a tune. A rush of weakness enveloped her. Was that the last sound she'd hear? Not even the liquid trill of a warbler, the harsh chatter of a magpie, but the tune of her killer? Or would the last sound she heard be her own scream?