Tine for you to laugh,' he tutted. 'You wait till you're reincarnated as a sex slave. It's no fun for a man, I assure you.'
'I have every confidence that you'll keep your end up, Orbilio.'
'That's what worries me,' he retorted. 'If I don't solve these murders before my bruises fade, there's no telling what will become of this poor boy so far from home.'
He was laughing, making light of the matter, but this was a man who took his job seriously and in whose eyes no job was more serious than murder. The taking of life by force and by violence. He would lay his own down before he gave up the cause.
And in her mind, she saw a twelve-year-old girl who'd had her face badly painted, and the bloodied remains of a fairy with an ethereal smile…
'Don't worry your pretty little head about it, Orbilio.' Claudia took care to keep her own voice carefree as she glanced at the sky where the sun ought to be. 'Another hour and you can loose your arrow into the zenith, after which you're free to go back to play in the pigsty.'
'How can I ever thank you for embroiling me in this case?' he replied with a low, sweeping bow.
'You'll cherish your office chair more because of it,' she called after him, and suddenly the valley seemed bigger, emptier, lonelier now that she was alone. Violent death again, she supposed, hugging her arms. In the same way it brought definition to details, making them sharper and more pronounced, it made a person feel unaccountably vulnerable. Why else would she feel empty once he had gone?
As swallows dived low in their search for flies, Claudia slipped off her sandals and dangled her toes in the pool. Deliciously cool from where it had run its course through the rock, the surge of the water acted as a massage and she could see why the Hundred-Handed's reputation had grown. And why their gentle philosophies had taken hold. For people who relied on the forest for survival, nature was something they could put their trust in, for nature was everlasting. They had no need to fear her whims and vagaries, for there was a College of Priestesses to guide them through good times and bad, and three hundred years of observation had not let them down. To the Gauls, the Hundred-Handed had proved themselves honest and steadfast, and at a time when their world was changing almost beyond recognition now that it was under Rome's administration, it made sense that they would be drawn closer to those who provided the most comfort and support.
Yet the very qualities that they looked to from the priestesses were tearing the College apart. Modernizing, Beth had called it, with a large faction pressing for normality through marriage, little realizing, idealists that they were, the great paradox of that. Namely, that marriage was itself a blight on normality. Sitting on the stone and wriggling her toes in the water, Claudia recalled her first encounter with Beth and how relieved the Head of the College had been to see her. Dora had been equally happy and that, she'd concluded, was because from the minute she'd arrived no one here had swallowed that cock-and-bull tale about a pain in the neck, Mavor's professional hands least of all. From the pentagram priestesses downwards, she'd suspected the College had had her pegged as an agent of Rome and for that reason had welcomed her with open arms. That was why Beth's top priority hadn't been concerned with the Druids. These priests might be a threat to the Hundred-Handed's existence, but the Druids needed the backing of Rome and so when Rome sent an agent in the form of Claudia Seferius, this was their chance to convince the administration that they weren't witches.
And yet…
Despite the pressures put upon the College by the Druids, by modernization, by a potential uprising, there was a deeper tension hanging over the place. The Hundred-Handed were hiding something — and Claudia still had no idea what it was. She wished she could confide in Marcus Cornelius, but to unburden her fears about Fearn, about Swarbric, about the poison-pen letters, would mean owning up about Gabali and the Scorpion. She would rather roll naked in nettles.
She cupped water in her hands and drank.
That the Scorpion was slippery went without saying, but even so, the authorities would know all about him. But Claudia knew how the mind of the Security Police worked, and however charming and urbane he might appear on the surface, Marcus Cornelius had his sights on the Senate. It was true, she reflected. You can take a man out of the Security Police, but you can never take the Security Police out of the man…
By confessing that she'd double-crossed the Scorpion, Orbilio would cheerfully overlook fraud if capturing him took him several strides closer towards the donning of the broad purple stripe, and parading the self-styled liberator of Gaul round the streets of Santonum would certainly ensure that. But equally Orbilio would expect Claudia to be the bait in his trap, since it was virtually impossible to trace the Scorpion's crimes back to their source otherwise. She was the only link. So far, so good, she thought. She could cut a deal with him there. The trouble was, Orbilio wasn't remotely concerned with her desire for longevity, and that's where things became a little tricky. Even in chains the Scorpion could still give out orders and for double-crossing him over the wine then ensuring his execution, Claudia would be dead before the first manacle snapped round his wrist.
As always, she thought, she was alone. Had she ever known anything else?
Who abandoned you, I wonder? Your father? Your mother-?
What does Clytie mean to you?
Do you hear that fluttering sound, Claudia? That's the wings of an avenging angel.
Ever since Gabali stepped out of the shadows, she'd been unable to rid herself of her nightmare. Of her father's whiskery cheek pressed against hers, as he marched off to war but never marched home. Of walking in and finding her mother, the blood drained in a lake from her wrists. While neither could be bothered to leave a note of farewell…
Clytie deserved more. Claudia had never seen her, didn't know her and by the sounds of things she wasn't that nice a child, but the little novice had been lonely and lost, a misfit like herself, and she'd bled to death before her life had begun.
'So what if I need to find that poor little cow's killer?' Claudia sobbed to the wind. 'What's it to you, Marcus Cornelius? All you want is accolades and promotion, and you don't give a damn who you tread on to get them.'
And if she hadn't confided in him, then so what? All right, she'd asked him to help, because at the time she'd been concerned with finding the killer in order to get Gabali off her back and knew that Orbilio's sense of justice wouldn't refuse her. (That, and the fact that he never turned down the chance to catch her in the act of fraud, forgery or tax evasion, either!) But that was then, before cold reason set in and she saw the Security Policeman for what he really was. Detached, ruthless, efficient and professional. He was certainly not the friend he purported to be, which left vengeance as something to be sorted out privately. Privately and alone…
As a result, there was nothing to be gained in disclosing the conspiracy that existed inside the College. It had nothing to do with poison-pen letters, Druids or even the mutiny from within.
Devious bitches, she thought. They deliberately set out to manipulate Rome through its agent, and by opening themselves up to discussions about Clytie, they intended to put the matter officially behind them by 'solving' the case with the agent's help. By fielding two opposing theories — Beth's copycat and Dora's experiment — it cleared the College of any charge that they knew what really took place on the spring equinox, which Claudia was convinced was what lay at the heart of their secret. She was sure the Hundred-Handed, or at the very least the pentagram priestesses, knew who killed Clytie and were covering it up, but how did that tie with Sarra's murder?
One possibility came to her colder even than the water round her feet, and something primordial heaved in her stomach.