As fists collided with flesh, Orbilio heard the clatter of hobnailed boots up the stairs and the reassuring jangle of breastplates and greaves. All they had to do was hold out for another few seconds, and as one iron hand tried to snap his collarbone in half and another squeezed his testicles to a pulp, he took comfort that one of the scribes was swinging a stool by a leg and was aiming straight for Orbilio's attacker.
Unfortunately, his attacker chose that moment to slip in a pool of his own blood.
And as the stool crashed down on Orbilio's skull, his last thought before unconsciousness claimed him was, There has to be a better way of making a living.
Six
My dear, we are so very pleased to welcome you,' Beth said, taking both of Claudia's hands in hers, and to be fair, her delight did not appear to be feigned. In fact, now Claudia looked closely, it seemed to be mingled with a certain amount of relief.
Which was mutual.
'Not as pleased as I am to hear you speak a language I understand,' she replied.
Accustomed to precincts adorned with glistening marble, gleaming bronzes and braziers twice the height of a man belching out thick clouds of incense, the simplicity of the College would take some getting used to, she supposed, but the effect was neither rustic nor dull. There were no temples, of course, and no shrines. But in place of soaring columns and gaily painted stone, half-timbered longhouses with thatched roofs cast welcome shade. And where statues and altars would normally be surrounded by officials scurrying back and forth as they petitioned the gods on behalf of the pious, made sacrifices here, read omens there and generally oversaw the swearing of oaths, trees rustled in the breeze, grass softened the crunch of leather soles and birdsong replaced the flutes that piped away evil spirits. There was no need to purify their enclosure, of course. That had been done three centuries before, when the Hundred-Handed founded this College. Since then, nothing unwelcome could get past their portals.
'Swarbric implied yours was a silent order,' she added. 'Oh, if only!' Beth's laugh was as warm as her chestnut brown hair and as light as her soft, silver robe. 'But he's right up to a point. We often let our fingers do the talking.' She flicked her finger joints in a series of rapid movements.
'It's this ciphering that gave rise to the name "HundredHanded".'
Fifty priestesses pointing and jabbing with both hands simultaneously? Claudia could see how that would fire the imagination, and she had to admit the system was faultless when it came to conveying information from one side of the precinct to the other, for example. No running back and forth, no wasting of time, no fear of messages getting muddled through a third party. Whisk-whisk-whisk, message sent.
'With sign language, there can be no mistaking the intention,' Beth said. 'Though that is not the reason we use it. Once words are written down, they become frozen, and as you know, my dear, once something freezes it dies.'
'So this way your language never dies?'
'The meaning never dies,' she corrected, leading her guest to the tip of the arrowhead, where a stone bench offered uninterrupted views over the valley. Spellbound by the rolling hills and the meadows ablaze with wild flowers, Claudia could have been staring into infinity. Far below in the distance, sheep bleated.
'Thoughts, stories, experiences, ideas, they never lose their dynamism, don't you see?' Beth's enthusiasm was contagious. 'They remain fresh. Never withering. Never wavering. As constant as nature herself.'
'But never changing, either.' The theory was sound, but in real life ideas needed to evolve, or stagnation stifled them. 'Without innovation,' Claudia said slowly, 'the world they live in dies instead.'
'Nature gives us stability through its perpetuity, my dear, but I never suggested it doesn't change. No one year is ever like the next.'
Each priestess monitored her own aspect of nature, she explained, and thus it was together, as a body, that the Hundred-Handed assessed what impact any changes they observed might have for the future.
'Fearn, for example, sits at the Growth point on the pentagram and she is the Alder Priestess. As the month under my protection begins at the winter solstice, so hers begins at the spring equinox, but nothing in nature is isolated. Alders grow close to water and if there's a drought, they suffer. So in turn do the crops, the fruits of the forest and those creatures who are sustained by the life in the forests. By working in concord and correlating the information, we effectively become weather forecasters, farmers, prophets and healers rolled into one.'
Claudia stood corrected. 'Are all the Hundred-Handed named after trees?'
Beth laughed. 'Heavens, no! Our duty is to every living being on the earth. It's only the twelve months of the year that have priestesses named after the trees that protect them. Mavor, for instance, watches over birds. Others are responsible for the heaths, the meadows, the wetlands, wild beasts and fishes, even the wind and the moon.'
Across the bowl of the valley, lizards basked on stones, chicks huddled in their nests, dappled fawns hid motionless in the bracken. But while June might be a time for calm and leisure for them, for others it was a month of frantic activity. Watching bumblebees buzz, grasshoppers rasp and swallowtail butterflies take to the wing, Claudia wondered what effect Drusilla's tax on the rodent population would have on the College's painstakingly correlated data.
'Talking of the spring equinox,' she said mildly, 'I gather you suffered a tragedy?'
'Ah, little Clytie.' Beth shook her head sadly. 'On the day when dark and light become equals and the world can rejoice in balance and harmony, something wicked like that happens. Poor Pod.' She sighed. 'Imagine the shock of finding her body laid out like that.'
Claudia didn't imagine Clytie got a lot out of being butchered, either.
'Her killer's still at large, though?'
'Unsatisfactory though the situation is, I'm afraid that is true, but two years ago a monster stalked the town of Santonum, strangling women then ritually arranging their bodies and painting them. This crime bears too many of those hallmarks to be a coincidence, and I have every confidence that between Rome and the Tribal Chieftains this copycat will be unmasked.'
But at what cost? Claudia wondered. At what cost?
'Assuming it is a copycat,' a voice behind them boomed.
Of the three priestesses walking towards the tip of the arrowhead rock, the eldest wore a robe the colour of ripe acorns. Her stout arm was linked with a woman clothed in linen the colour of gorse that contrasted prettily with her raven-black hair. The third, dressed top to toe in black, tagged behind taking small tight steps.
'Dora,' the woman in brown boomed by way of introduction. 'The Maturity point on the pentagram and bloody pleased to see you, I must say!'
Another one who was openly relieved, Claudia noticed. Although the light in Dora's eyes seemed to encompass satisfaction as well.
'This is Fearn,' she said, introducing the Alder Priestess Beth had mentioned just now, the Growth point on the star. Interestingly, there was no mention of the third member of the group. 'I'm sorry, Beth,' Dora swept on, 'and as much as I hate to disagree with you once again, darling, your argument about the copycat doesn't add up.'
Even though it was as if the third priestess didn't exist, there was no doubting which point of the pentagram Ailm represented, or which was her sacred tree. And if it was true that dog owners grew to resemble their pets, then the same must be said of the Hundred-Handed. As dark and inscrutable as the transition the Death Priestess watched over, the berries of the yew tree were as beautiful as they were deadly. Dora, on the other hand, stood for the tree that dominated the impending summer solstice, a symbol everywhere of courage, endurance and strength. As Beth had grown as stately as the birch she represented, so Dora had become the sturdy, dependable oak, and looking at her matronly stance and welcoming bosom it was easy to picture the other women flocking to her with their problems, just as she could see Dora dropping whatever it was she was doing to listen. Conversely, though. Claudia pursed her lips. The heartwood of oak can also grow so hard that it becomes impossible to drive a nail into it…