Claudia, terrified, had never experienced anything like it. Her breathing had stopped. Her heart was hammering. She had never been more alone in a crowd.
'Sisters.' His voice was mellow once more, almost coaxing. 'If Rome breaches our defences, we will meet the enemy head on and gladly. That's why we have men in the hills, to protect us, to give us advance warning of hostile attacks.' The gold mask shook sadly. 'If you want to leave, brothers, I beg you to leave openly through the gates. These men are mercenaries. Trained fighters. They cannot see in the dark and we do not want to suffer,' there was a catch in his voice, 'any more grievous accidents.'
The silence which followed was almost as frightening as the animal sounds the herd had made before, when it had risen to the mood of its leader.
'Accidents?' Claudia turned to Mercy, who was gazing enraptured at the speaker on the platform.
'Tch. Terrible, it was. Terrible.' Her eyes focussed again. 'One, gored right through by a rutting boar, poor soul. Another tripped and fell and impaled himself on the very stakes designed to keep the enemy out, while the third lad our noble watchmen mistook for an assassin, poor lamb was cut to pieces. Terrible. Such a waste of young lives.'
'But people do leave, right?' Claudia was not sure her voice was as obedient as she had hoped.
'There's been a spate of silly geese,' Mercy admitted, 'who've taken to stealing away in the night as though it's fashionable or something, although for the life of me I cannot see why. This is paradise on earth, is it not? Mind, they were young, the girls, and who knows what goes through empty heads at that age? Not that I'm suggesting they were touched like Berenice, you understand! To be sure, I'm not.'
On the platform, as though nothing unusual had occurred (perhaps it hadn't), the High Priest began to intone his thanks to Ra for the prosperous past month, the bounteous harvest, the plump cattle and ripening fruits. The figure wearing the crocodile mask stepped forward, to be garlanded with flowers by the ten white-robed priestesses and sprinkled with incense by the High Priest.
'Berenice?' Claudia prompted. Her voice was a rasp.
'Let's be charitable and say the heat got to her and she couldn't cope,' Mercy said, lowering her voice. 'He'd been running a temperature and grizzling, poor wee mite, so to shut him up, Berenice poisoned her baby. Aye. Fed him hemlock and left his wee body on the temple steps to stiffen, then — ' she snapped her fingers — 'off she swanned. Not a word, the irresponsible besom. You're beginning to get the drift of this, aren't you?'
For a wild moment, Claudia wondered what the hell she meant, then she realised Mercy was talking, incredibly, about the ceremony taking place under the lights. The tragedy — the breathtaking horror — of Berenice, her poisoned baby, the fate of the boy, Sorrel (Sorrel? who dished out these weird names?), who'd tried to walk out, none of these things had actually touched Mersyankh. This worldly, stoic creature had merely been saddened by what had happened.
'That's the end of the crocodile,' said the woman whose husband used to beat her. 'Tomorrow we greet the new month of Ibis.'
Oh, Mercy! Won't you ever learn? First your husband, now Mentu, they've taken out your spirit and you've just rolled over and allowed them to do it. Like a rag mopping up a spill, they've sucked up all your spunk — and along with it, your ability to question!
'Not difficult once you get the hang,' Mercy continued cheerfully. 'And because it's a special occasion, tonight we get palm wine with our supper.'
Claudia reeled. She pictured the guards. Noble watchmen, my armpits! Those were mercenaries, trained killers, Mentu openly admitted it. She thought of the scimitars. The double perimeter fence. Stakes to repel the enemy. High gates. And she thought, if three well-built young men can't escape this ring of steel, what chance has a girl?
Stranger still, what chance have several girls?
And at night?
Moreover, why would a young mother, even under pressure, kill her own baby? Why wouldn't she simply abandon him? He'd be in good hands, for heaven's sake!
A hymn had broken out, with clapping and much waving of arms, and despite the throbbing heat and torrential warm rain, gooseflesh rose on Claudia's arms.
The sooner she got Flavia out of here the better, but the sky was black as night and only the temple platform was lit. Under this awning, she couldn't see diddly, let alone Flavia. She'd have to wait until supper.
But time was fast running out.
This is Friday night. Junius will die tomorrow afternoon.
And suddenly Claudia knew she'd need something stronger than palm wine to sustain her through the next few hours. She'd need courage, she'd need strength, she'd need all her wits about her, because this wasn't going to be as straightforward as she'd hoped. But more than that, Claudia felt that what she really needed was a scimitar like the guards carried.
Because right now six henchmen stationed on the far side of the hills didn't seem like any protection at all.
Chapter Twenty
An eagle owl, swooping over the seven hills of Rome, had a clear view of the wreckage left behind by the midsummer storm. Flash floods. Clogged and overflowing drains. A tenement struck by lightning, palls of smoke and flames ripping through the night along with the sickly stench of burning flesh from those trapped inside.
The owl did not wish to singe its feathers. It moved on. Soaring above streets whose stinking, rotting refuse had been flushed downhill by the torrential rains, piling the debris against buildings and in the doorways of those not privileged enough to live higher up on the bluffs, the owl's penetrating amber scrutiny picked out some interesting enough titbits in the wreckage — a drowned kitten, several live rats — but the bird was a creature of the open woods and forests and in any case of a size more attracted to fawns and wolf cubs. It was simply passing through.
Northwards it swept, on silent, eerie wings, over the shrine tended by the Vestal Virgins, above the coins twinkling at the bottom of Juturna's healing pool, above dungeons awash under two finger widths of filthy water. The owl could not see, even if it wanted to, the small phalanx of soldiers splashing their blood-stained prisoner through the foetid underground chambers of this former stone quarry. The prisoner was a slave, an Armenian, who'd stabbed his master twenty-seven times in the chest and neck and stomach. His only regret was being captured before he'd been able to stab him another twenty-seven.
'Name?' the Clerk asked wearily.
The prisoner sympathised. It was late. It was hot. Outrageously hot, the storm hadn't cleared the stickiness, if anything it had added to it. The Clerk would be tired, because weather such as this forces a man to breaking point and as long as the jails continued to fill (which they would, while this heatwave continued), the shift would get no reprieve. Standing ankle deep in sludge, the Armenian wondered whether the Clerk might be sickening for marsh fever. He looked ghastly. Haggard. Lined. As though he carried some terrible burden. The prisoner regretted his lack of consideration, not killing the vicious bastard at a more convenient hour so men like the Clerk could go home to their wives and their families.
He did not wish to cause any trouble.
He gave his name.
'It's a sad day,' said the Clerk of the Dungeons, staring past the shackles and the soldiers, 'when decency is repaid with inhumanity.'
The prisoner, smelling his master's blood on his hands and tunic, saw no point in trying to explain to this hollow-eyed Roman the true definition of savagery.
'Yes, sir,' he said meekly, his heels sinking deeper into the sludge.
What use was there in telling them he was glad the cruel bastard was dead and that in killing him, he'd spared others the same ordeal? He really did not wish to be any trouble. Saturday was not far away. He watched the gaunt Clerk lay down his nib. No point in trawling for remorse where it didn't exist, even though a grovelling apology always went down well with the crowds. The Armenian was under no illusions as the guards led him away.