Scorpion Rising

'Do you know it?' he asked, tilting his head on one side. 'Of course not,' she snapped. 'What do you take me for, a common cook?'

'No, I take you for someone who's trying to distract the long arm of the law from executing its duties, so perhaps I should rephrase the question in a way that brooks no misconstruction. Do you mind telling me what you and Manion were discussing just now?'

'Yes.'

'Claudia-'

'Now what! You asked me a question that brooked no misconstruction. Did I mind, you said, and the answer is yes, and anyway, how come a girl goes to all this trouble to get a bit of peace and quiet, as far removed from humanity as possible, yet within seconds the place is overrun with Security Police?'

'Hm.' For someone who'd just been told he wasn't welcome, Orbilio found a strange way of showing it as he hitched his pantaloons and sat down. 'You know, if I didn't know better, I'd say you were deliberately provoking me in the hope that I'd go away.'

Something lurched under her ribcage. 'Small hope,' she said. Surely he couldn't have heard? 'Isn't the leech your family emblem?'

'No, that's the weasel,' he laughed, stretching his legs out and crossing them at the ankle.

And were his eyes always that dark, she wondered, and had his baritone always been that rich?

It was the shock of finding Sarra that was responsible, of course. Sudden death has this horrible habit of bringing details into sharp relief, making them stronger, more distinctive, more precious- Wait. Did she just say precious? Claudia cupped her hands in the pool and splashed her face with the water. It was cold and clear. Qualities she really must learn to adopt! High overhead, jays chattered across the branches, a dunnock trilled in the willows and from the woods to their left came the sound of female chanting, their voices kept reverently low. Ridiculous, she thought, especially considering that Sarra, of all people, would never hear them. In fact, Sarra would never hear anything again. Not the song of the skylark, the hoot of an owl, nor the soft words of love from her sweetheart…

'Here.'

A spotless white kerchief was thrust under her nose.

'Don't need it,' she said, blowing into the linen. 'Though I'm surprised you had anywhere to keep it in those pants.'

'We men are such braggarts,' he quipped. 'And I've brought us some breakfast. You must eat.' He leaned out to fetch a knotted cloth from behind a boulder and laid it next to the spring.

'Not hungry.'

'Cheese, sausage, bread, ham and fruit.' He rattled off the list as he peeled back the cloth. 'I even squeezed in a couple of quail, but no beef, I'm afraid. I'm sick of the sight of that ox.'

'Not half as much as it's sick of you, I suspect.'

Marcus sank his teeth into a warm herby bun. 'Oh, please. I get so embarrassed when you flatter me. What did Manion want?'

'You don't give up, do you?'

'Persistence is my middle name.'

'Was it shortened to Sissy?'

'All the time, which is why I changed it to Tenacious. You were saying?'

She gave another hard blow and then sighed. 'Very well, if you must know Manion seemed to think I have some ludicrous fear of commitment, which is nonsense, because I was married to Gaius for seven wonderful years-'

'Excuse me?'

'Please don't splutter breadcrumbs, you'll bring the sparrows down, and you can scoff all you like but it was just as I told Manion. I can have any man that I please.'

'True,' he said, with a cluck of apology. 'But the problem is, you don't please any. Ouch!' He rubbed his shin where she'd kicked him. 'So… that was it?' he asked, and suddenly the twinkle in his eyes was extinguished. 'That was all you two discussed?'

All? she thought. The man whose eyes were neither green nor blue but some point in between had somehow managed to crawl inside her skin, rake over the most painful wounds possible then jumble her emotions — and Orbilio says Was that all?

'No,' she said levelly.

They'd talked about love and abandonment, which were clearly not connected, at least not in her case, Manion obviously didn't know his arse from his elbow.

'We talked about other things, too.'

What was love, anyway? I love blue, I love harp music, I love sunshine, I love honey cakes, I love dice. What has that to do with human emotions?

'For instance, we talked about trust-'

Trust is when the same man is always behindyou, to catch no matter how often you fall.

'And do you?' Marcus asked through a mouthful of sausage. 'Do you trust the man who calls himself Manion?'

'As it happens, I don't,' she said, breaking off a piece of cheese. It was yellow and nutty, with a flavour that lingered on the palate. 'For one thing, he told me he didn't know about Sarra being dead, but I don't believe that for a minute.'

'You think he killed her?'

'Process of elimination,' she said, reaching for another chunk. 'It couldn't have been any of the pentagram priestesses, they remained in public view on the dais-'

'Who says?'

The cheese turned to ash in her mouth. 'Weren't they?'

Orbilio leaned back and absorbed his weight on his elbows. 'What is it you ladies like to call it?' he said, looking up at the clouds. 'Comfort breaks? Well, all five took at least one, I assure you.'

Claudia pictured the ox on the spit. Not close to the dais — Dora wouldn't want her celebrations smothered in thick greasy smoke — but close enough for Orbilio to observe their comings and goings.

'I'm guessing our fragrant five weren't tempted by the makeshift latrines rigged up at the back of the field?' she asked slowly.

'Judging by the amount of time they were gone, I'm not sure they didn't use the facilities down in Santonum,' he laughed. 'But surely you can't suspect one of them of butchering Sarra?'

Claudia pulled a chive bun into tiny pieces and floated them downstream on the bob. Blood wouldn't show on Luisa's red dress, while Fearn was already a strong candidate for her own daughter's murder. Revenge on the lover who spurned her. And since Gabali was still hanging around the neighbourhood, it wasn't beyond the realms of possibility that Fearn had seen him and, in her obsession, mistakenly concluded that Sarra was meeting him.

'Clytie's murder was the result of calm and calculated planning,' she said.

Someone took the trouble to lure a twelve-year-old girl out of her dormitory, making sure the visit was kept secret from even her friends. They had also taken the trouble to bring with them a tray of cosmetics 'Whereas Sarra's was angry and vicious, the product of rage and what looks like unspeakable fury.'

And hell hath no fury like a pentagram priestess scorned.

'Yes, but both murders occurred on days central to the College's calendar,' he pointed out. 'First the spring equinox and now midsummer — and surely the oak where Sarra was killed isn't coincidence? By the way, who moved the body?'

His voice hadn't skipped so much as a beat.

'Clytie's?' she asked, and wished there had been a tad more conviction in the question.

'Sarra's.' His sandalwood pulsed through the sticky heat. 'Swarbric said that by the time he reached her, she was slumped about fifty yards from the oak tree where she was killed, with a long trail of blood from where she'd been dragged.'

It wasn't Sarra who'd been dragged, she wanted to say. It was Pod, who'd hung on to the girl 'Maybe the killer was moving the body the way he moved Clytie's and was disturbed in the act?' she suggested. And dammit, the conviction in her voice was even thinner.

'Yes, of course. I'm sure that's the explanation.' Orbilio looked for all the world as though he was suppressing a grin as he sat up and cradled his knees. 'Not that it matters,' he tossed out lightly. 'I get to the bottom of every dirty deed in the end.'

He knows something, the slimy bastard, she thought, watching him spike his fringe out of his eyes. Or if he didn't know, he sensed some kind of cover-up. The question was, was it murder he was referring to, the Hundred-Handed's secret, or her own role in the destruction of evidence? Somehow she had a feeling he meant all three.